A&S: The blur

The House of Cheerful Monkeys got lakefront property at not-quite-the-ass-end-of-the-event-site, which is why I'm currently sore from tear-down: everything has to be carried out to the parking area. I need some retainers. Or one of these. (Pity they're so pricy!) 'Cause the Little Red Wagon just doesn't cut it. I itched for a rake and a broom, because there was goose crap pretty much everywhere. Kind of a shame, because the grass there is definitely nice enough for a bit of bare-footin'. However, the view was quite lovely and I am kicking myself for having left the camera home, thinking I would be too busy to use it, because there were herons around, in addition to a serious Canada Goose and mallard population.

syele  lured me over to Villa Luna for some sake. Things got silly pretty quickly, which should not be too surprising.

Got two takers for the shibori class. Nobody took the tanka class, but that gave me time to get lunch plated and arranged on the table. lady_anna  contributed some delicious tangerine jellies, a dish of soba with sauce and some quail eggs, which turned out to be pretty popular. We had WAY too much food, but people came and ate and relaxed and had a lovely time. (The hami melon is a winner and I will definitely look for that again. It was very refreshing. The dried squid got mixed reactions. The onigiri has been pronounced "crack" by several people, but I didn't like this batch as much as previous ones. I need to find the teryaki marinade with the sesame seeds that I used the last time, because it was even better.

Taiko went well. I had three people turn up at the beginning of the class, lady_anna, Elias and Catherine, who kept insisting she had no sense of rhythm but didn't do badly at all for someone who has never drummed before. By the time she begged off, tired, Crimson came in for a bit, then Jared, then lady_anna  had to leave to help with the Tavern and another young man whose name I never got took her place. Despite the constant cast change, I was able to keep things moving along. The last several minutes of class devolved into a bit of a jam session. I started by doing some "call and response" playing with the guys for a bit, which is a great exercise for getting people to listen to each other. Then I laid down a beat in 4/4 and  had them try improvising things over it, which occasionally derailed into complete cacophony, but wasn't bad. Then I started playing the basic "Matsuri" rhythm and got them to follow that. Everyone did very well and I got a lot of positive reaction from people who were simply coming over to watch or passing by, or even hearing us from a distance when they ran into me later. I'll teach it again, event-and-venue to be determined at a later date.

Ended up having Saturday dinner with momstable and friends, which was nice, laid back and didn't involve my having to sit through musical offerings* or be in a loud, crowded tavern where I would be reduced quickly to lip-reading and nodding stupidly to much of the conversation. Conrad brought some chuhai to share and hung out with us a bit. Heck of a nice guy and I'm sorry his time here has been so short because he's moving up to An Tir soon.

Nobody took me up on the persona-play roundtable on Sunday morning either. Did get some face time with bedouinchick  and may have convinced her to come to GWW and meet sasha_khan  and C, Allah willing and the camel don't die. I'm sure they'd have a lot to talk about.

Tore down, had a very late lunch with layla_lilah  at Flames and came home.

*Still not singing.
Still not wanting to. 
Still knowing better than trying to force the issue.