It's around 5 AM, and Dale Sr. has left to go fishing at Roosevelt Lake for a couple of days with Jerry Gargalione. It's still dark, but lying in bed with my laptop on my knees, I can see a faint glow of grey dawn, encircled by dark silhouettes of leafy plant fronds, either growing up above the top of the fence and hanging down from the tree.
Saturday morning I had my beading meetup. It seems to be the one of my meetups which reliably draws a comfortable number of people, and people who are come ready to chat and enjoy eachothers' company. It was warm enough that we could have it outside on the large Starbuck's deck.
Here's a photo of the group:
In another couple of months, some of these women will go back to the midwest. They and their husbands pull their Gold Wing motorcycles in trailers behind their motorhomes. Active seniors!
The lady who is coorganizer (and is a year-round resident) will host one (a beading/handwork meetup) in two weeks, which I will not attend. She's going to see about reserving one of the meeting rooms at the library.
She hosted one of the beading meetups on the 5th of February, which was as well-attended as the two which I have hosted. This time, she went around and took full-face photos of all of us, and is going to make name tags with photos on them!
She also put out a plastic cup and encouraged all the women to put a dollar in it, to reimburse me for the $15/month I pay meetup.com for the privilege of the on-line page. (I protested; I have never asked for dues, hosting the meetup is just something I decided I was going to do as a "personal growth sort of thing". But they all said how much they enjoyed it, and they were grateful to me for starting it..)
I'm hoping that I will find someone to be a co-organizer of my music jam meetup also. Having Ann as co-organizer of the travel meetup has been helpful, when I could not be there.
After the meetup, and a short nap at home, I had to go up to the library to adapt and print out a scene for the drama club. I've had two new boys join. I'm excited about having them because they are second generation drama club members! Their mom was in my club when she was in middle school so many years ago! Also, both of the boys have very fun personalities.
For them, I took a short monologue and adapted it for two actors:
On-line at Starbuck's, I applied to join the other guitar meetup, held in Mesa. This group is much larger than mine; the guy charges dues (pretty hefty dues, $5 per person per meeting) and rents a room for the meetup. He posts copies of the songs they will play on the Meetup page. I could learn something from all this organization, though actually I enjoy a smaller group myself.
I was a little nervous that he would not accept me as a member. A lady who came to my group a couple of times told me that she once mentioned my group to his members, and he became angry and told her that if she ever did that again, she could not return to his group. (Since then, I've learned that the other group has changed leaders.)
Actually, in the summer I may go regularly to this other group. I don't usually have meetups in my home during the months that Dale Sr. is gone, anyway. Besides it's too hot for a lot of people, the ones who are used to air-conditioning (I just have evaporative cooling.)
In the evening I was doing some yard work. I unchained the cast metal table and chairs, moved them to an area which I'd mowed, pulled the long grass which had grown up under where they'd been, and ran the hand mower over it.
While I was doing this, Dale Sr. was lighting a small fire in the pizza oven/smoker fireplace, in order to start drying it out. If this is not done, the first large fire will make it develop cracks.
In the actual pizza oven, he lit four tall votive candles that he had bought, to help dry it out in there.
John Ducette was down here in the Valley today, doing a small remodeling job for the wealthy people whom he does a lot of work for. These people own some large luxury cabins in the mountains which they rent out by the weekend or week, and also have large homes of their own down here. John D. spent the afternoon with Dale Sr. and came and judged that the pizza oven/smoker is dry enough to start building the small fires.
Dale Sr. asked when Lyssa and Mike were coming down, because he and friends are talking about a March fishing trip. I wasn't exactly sure, so we called her. They are doing fine. The wedding they are going to in LA is on March 15th, and plan to drive out here on the following Monday, and only will stay until Wednesday or Thursday.
This means that we will have the party for them on that Tuesday or on Wednesday. On the one hand, fewer of our friends will be able to attend because it's mid-week. On the other hand, the fact that it is mid-week means that Chris and Peter (the glassblowers from the Renaissance) can come. They knew Lyssa well during the years that we had had the dance troupe out there.
I asked her if they were able to buy that piece of land which they were looking at. She said that they were still working on incorporating Mike's business (you may remember that they decided that this should be done before they bought the land, as a liability protection). She said that Tammy, Mike's ex-wife, is having to go through all of the years of paperwork.
I said that I was sorry that Tammy had to do extra work for something which was caused by Mike and Lyssa's buying the land. Lyssa said that Tammy regards the incorporation as something which they should have done long ago, anyway, and has a good attitude about it.
(You may remember that Lyssa's reason for incorporating the business is that in a small town, everyone will know that she and Mike are buying property. If someone sued the pizza restaurant and it is incorporated, that person could only sue for the restaurant and not for the rest of their property, if I remember correctly. I am glad that they are taking this precaution.)
After calling her, I came inside and saute'ed chicken breasts which had been coated in seasoned flour. This was the first part of the chicken parmesana recipe which I was making to serve at the music jam the next day. I was up late washing all of the dishes, and I was a little grumpy because I still didn't have my normal amount of energy back. I realized that I'd forgotten to stop by Safeway on the way from the library/Starbuck's errand, and that I still needed to get beer, and bread to go with the recipe.
Yesterday, I set my alarm for 4:30 AM, as I still had to sweep and tidy the house as well as get ready to go out to the Renaissance Festival.
Once out at the festival site I found that after about an hour of activity, I broke into a sweat and wanted to rest. I was able to do my usual amount of morning singing, but the whole time I was hing to "pushing myself" and didn't enjoy it the way I usually do. I left at noon because I still had to do some things to get ready for the late-afternoon music jam.
It seemed to take all my resolve to make the Safeway run, and sweep the floor, and tidy the patio to get ready for the music jam. I had the feeling of apprehension that because I was so wiped-out and grumpy, it was unlikely that the music jam would go very well.
On the contrary, it was lovely. Two women returned from last time, Laure was able to come in spite of her punishing schedule, another guy showed who had come several times before. We all have about the same taste in songs and the same level of ability. I was especially pleased to see a young man return who only came once before, who plays very beautiful solos. He is nervous around people, actually seemed to let loose a little and enjoy himself. (When I first had met him, he told me that "this is difficult for me because I have social anxiety".)
The other man, an old union guy/Democrat, surprised me when he told us that he was LDS (Mormon). He sang us a song that he "and the guys in the dorm" used to sing in college in Laramie, Wyoming, "Don't send your son to Utah, I'd rather he'd be dead," or something like that. Probably some sort of rivalry song between Laramie and BYU, but it just seemed so funny to me that Mormon college students would sing something like that.
Sorry, I was having too much fun to remember to take any photos!
Have to admit that part of the reason for my verbosity in these blogs is....pure laziness. As long as I'm typing away, I have an excuse not to get up and start getting ready for the day!
Love,
Lennie
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