Saturday, June 09, 2007

Friday night book club meeting with the Buddha.. not

Ekazati, our cell group for Book Club, was supposed to meet Rinpoche tonight. We had all been looking forward to it. JJ, Susan and I left the Mines around 4.30pm and went to Czip Lee, the stationery shop in Bangsar to pick up some stuff to make a tiara for Sean. On the way home, Susan dropped JJ and I off at BSC to pick up some flowers for Rinpoche. I smsed Jamie and Jan to see if they wanted to carpool to the meeting. Jamie said she was going directly, but Jan said she'd come over by 7.30pm so we'd get to Rinpoche's by 8pm.

Anyway, everything was going to plan. I went home and dealt with some issues for Oxbridge while Susan caught a nap. At 7, we had a bite to eat and I was expecting Jan to turn up soon. She called at about 7.20pm to say she was running late and would take an LRT to Bangsar, so I said we'd fetch her from the station. She said she'd call when she's at Sentral so we'd leave the house then and everything should run like clockwork. Keyword: should.

Around 7.30pm, Tashi called to ask if we were coming yet. Meng Kiat was already there so they were concerned where the rest of the gang was. The line was really quite bad so I couldn't hear what she was saying much. Anyway, I assured her that we'd be there by 8pm.

Hah.

After I hung up with Tashi, I called Jan again and she said she was almost at Sentral, so we all hopped in the car and headed for Bangsar LRT. Everything was still on schedule. Good thing I buffered a bit of time in.

We arrived at Bangsar LRT at 7.45pm and .. no sign of Ms Drew. So I called and found the she'd taken the wrong train! So she said she'd grab a cab. I said ok and headed back. As we turned round the corner, I pulled over and discussed with Susan and JJ whether Rinpoche would wait til Jan arrived before starting. We decided that he would, so perhaps it was better that we wait for Jan and drive her over, in case she couldn't get a cab or the cab didn't know where KMP was.

So we waited for about 5 minutes. Jan finally called around 8 and we picked her up and scrammed through Friday evening traffic to BU. To top it all off, the petrol light in my car started flashing, showing that it was running on almost empty! I was like... ok.. if the car dies, we'll just get out and run! Anyway, by the time we arrived, it was about 8.30 pm.

Then the proverbial sh*t hit the fan. Rinpoche suggested that we reschedule because we were late. I was quite upset but not surprised. I think it was a culmination of circumstances - that Rinpoche had specially rushed back to be on time for us and we were late. That several cell groups had been late before us. That we did not inform him that we were running late. Perhaps our collective karma was the reason. Whatever it was, we just had to accept that we weren't going to see the Buddha tonight.

Susan and I trooped off home, after visiting the petrol station safely along the way. I spent the rest of the evening making a tiara. Why? Watch this space!

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