Hi Mom and family,
It was a little less chilly this morning and I almost did not build a fire.
I had three meetups scheduled this weekend, and two of them were a success. (Again, no one rsvp'd for the gardening one, though some people have finally joined the Facebook group page I created to go with it. I still haven't given up on it, maybe when I finish the little "ad" I'm working on, and if they let me post it at Shady Way Gardens nursery, it will make a difference.)
I expected that "beading, embroidery and handwork" on Saturday morning would go well. It's been going strong for the last two monthly meetings.
About ten women showed up, and we sat at four Starbuck's tables pushed together, all chatting away, some knitting, some embroidering, etc. It seems, so far, that people who like to do that sort of thing are surprisingly interesting to talk to.
(I'm well aware that in any group which is open to the public, at any time, I now realize, there is a danger of one or two disruptive people causing the pleasant dynamic to flounder. It's the flip side of "putting it out there" which lets you "find your people" as Meetup.com's slogan says so well.)
The beading group meets at 10:00 AM and mostly it breaks up around 1:00. I was still talking a mile a minute with a couple of them at 2:00! They want to meet more often, every two weeks. I suggested to the one who seemed most interested that I make her co-organizer, so that she could go on the website page and schedule the meeting on the 30th, which, obvious I won't be going to, as that is the Berkeley High School reunion weekend.
A co-organizer can make changes such as scheduling a get-together for the group, or even changes on a get-together which I, the main organizer, has scheduled. (For instance, if my car broke down on the way there, or I got the flu, I could call her and ask her to either host it or cancel it.) For this reason I like having a co-organizer.
What the "co-organizer" cannot do is to cancel the entire group or make changes to the "group settings". (The "group settings" include the rsvp limit, the general goals of the group, etc.) And if a co-organizer does not work out, at any time I, as the main organizer, can go onto the on-line page and take away their title, and thus their ability to make any changes at all.
This woman mentioned the idea of reserving one of the meeting rooms at the library if our group continued to get bigger. I kind of like having it at Starbuck's, and there are a lot of other groups who meet there and take up as much room as we did. But if the group continues to grow bigger, she's right, we will have to find somewhere else, especially when the weather prevents us using the nice large deck which our Starbuck's has.
As the main "organizer" I'm also the one who pays the meetup organization $15 a month, for the privilege of having the page visible to the public. Some "organizers" ask for dues each meeting to cover this (in fact, I've heard of some who ask for enough dues that they make a profit!) but I made the decision at the beginning to just pay it myself, though with five meetups it's not a negligible amount, as an investment in my "quality of life."
After she left, I drove up to check the post office box, and then stopped by Shady Way Gardens nursery, to get a couple of bags of cactus potting mix. I also got a new kind of agave. The plant I was planning to put in one of the new blue pots I got for the front yard turns out to be too big for that pot. This new agave has really long spikes on it, but I'll be planting it in front of the house, not in the back where kids will occasionally be running around.
I came home from Shady Way and watched a movie. When I came out of the bedroom the Phoenix Cardinals vs. Green Bay Packers football game was on. I'm not usually interested, but we knew Dale Jr. was there in the stadium for that Saturday game, dressed warmly I hope; he and his friend and brother-in-law Shannon went (Dale Jr. has season tickets). So while I was making some inroads into the clutter on the dining room table, by putting together some of the stack of pictures and frames, and hanging them, I kept looking up to see how the Cardinals were doing.
First Arizona was ahead 13-7, then the Packers led 20-13. Then it switched again at the very end and Arizona won. The television announcers were interviewing the fans as they came out of the stadium, all beside themselves at what an exciting game it was and how amazing the last play by Larry Fitzgerald was.
It made me feel good that Dale Jr. got to attend such a very exciting game, an "epic game" as the broadcasters were calling it. With the new baby this year and buying and moving to a larger house, has not been able to make much use of his season tickets.
When the football-player Larry Fitzgerald, the hero of the day, was interviewed, he was very humble and polite. He did not "crow" at all, just talked about teamwork and how hard the whole team had practiced all year. I commented on this to Dale Sr., who said that the young athlete is always well-spoken and polite, and is involved with different charities. Very different than the usual stereotype of an NFL football player.
I got this photo of him off of Google Images.
Sunday morning I rushed around cleaning, tidying, buying groceries and cooking for the music jam. (Nobody usually eats, but I like to have something sitting on the stove just in case.)
I always meet new people who rsvp for the music jam at Starbuck's, and have them follow me home, because I don't ever put my address or phone number on-line. Going up there to meet the new people, I always get intensely nervous, though so far they have been really nice. This time, three vehicles, two SUVs and an old red jeep, followed me home from Starbuck's! I kept giggling to myself, at the parade.
With eight people and eight guitars, it was a little crowded around the dining room table. I had to squeeze past people to get to the kitchen or the bathroom. We went "around the table" taking turns as to who would pick songs we would do. Some of them were quite able musicians, and some were on the beginning side of intermediate. I liked the way the ones who were more proficient were helpful to the ones who were less so. It lasted around two and a half hours.
It was really fun. I had a good time and I hope they come back next month. The "regulars" (my friend Laure and a singer-songwriter named Les, both could not come) but in addition to the new people, a guy showed up who hadn't come for quite a while, who seemed really glad to be there.
Most of the new people were Canadians, "snowbirds" who come down here during the winter. One of the women, in fact, lives quite near Lyssa "as the crow flies" but up in those mountains, so that there is no direct road from her town to the coast.
I woke yesterday morning (Monday) very tired, but feeling rather "flush with success" because both of my meetups went so well.
Beautiful sunrise yesterday morning, Monday:
Yesterday Dale Sr. and John Ducette completely whacked the big cement smoker and took it apart. They worked really hard, around five hours, you could hear them breathing hard as they talked to eachother.
They loaded all of the cement chunks onto Dale Sr.'s flat-bed trailer.
So strange not to have that smoker there any more; it has been the centerpiece for so many good times! The plan is to replace it with a brick structure which is a smoker plus a wood-burning pizza oven!
They found around seventy live scorpions in the structure, as they took it apart, but managed not to get stung by any of them.
All of us have been bitten occasionally (myself twice in the last year) but John Ducette told of the time he actually got sick for several days. A scorpion who was carrying many tiny scorpions on her back crawled up his arm, once, when he was working on a job, and the tiny scorpions crawled off of her so fast and all of them started stinging his arm and his shoulder under his t-shirt. He said he was in bed several days, after the initial pain subsided, it was like he had the flu.
Dale Sr. started falling asleep in his recliner around 7PM, he was so tired.
I myself didn't get much done during the day. I did put back into the "dance room" closet all of the costumes and boxes which I had taken out of it when I was looking for my costume for the
costume check" a week ago.
I also transposed "Wildwood Flower" for Oscar. His mandolin book had it in the Key of D, which was either too high or too low for me to sing. I couldn't remember if he wanted it transposed into G or into A, so I did both. Then I realized as I'd transposed it "up" perhaps it was maybe way too high for the mandolin, so I did both the G and the A version also in the octave below. So, four "Wildwood Flower" versions to send to him!
It's nice to have the dining room table cleared off, maybe this time I'll keep it that way...
Love, Lennie
No comments:
Post a Comment