Adventures at Eagle's Aerie: Bits and Pieces

As any of you who routinely read anything i write here may be able to tell, i'm not getting very detailed in some of this as compared to what i've written in the two past years at S-Fest.

That's partly because i'm having too much fun being with everyone to get much computer time, and partly because i'm fearfully sleepy. Staying up until 11pm or midnight and getting up at zero ack emma every morning tends to wear me down, and i feel like i'm wasting time sleeping. There is so much more to do.

Like the child who doesn't want to go to bed because she might miss the fun the grown ups are having, i'm not inclined to go to bed any earlier. How could i sleep knowing there's laughing and talking and singing and dancing -- yes, i know i don't sing, and i only sway when i dance because i have two left feet, but it's fun being a part of it.

Thus i'm getting to where my brain, which at the best of times runs like a car with two squirrels in a cage for an engine anyway, is becoming slow and thick and as sludged as old cooking grease left on the stove overnight to harden so it can be thrown away. The thoughts are as tough to cook as a "two-bit steak," as the old saying goes.

So today perhaps my slow brain can fill in a few gaps of back story, if i can remember what happened on which day.

On Friday, Westie pulled out the computer she had brought, and noted that she did not have a wireless card. So Mr. Eagle, ever helpful, got her an ethernet cable and hooked her to the back of their modem. Dummy, i told myself after i went to bed that night, if he can hook her up that way, you can use that cable, too. So Saturday morning, i plugged in, and haven't had to trouble the McDonald's up the street. This is especially helpful since there is only one plug that customers can use, and it's right next to the drink machine, a popular spot. My battery has a 30-second life, and so a plug is essential.

With all the comings and goings at different hotels, it's been the usual fun trying to meet up with everyone, this time with a twist. The hotel in Smalltown proved woefully inadequate for the needs of some people. There were rooms not clean, or rooms with non-functioning plumbing, and a couple of other difficulties. So a bit of shuffling around to Bigtown was needed, done on the fly as we drove hither and yon to other destinations.

Ninja brought fun with her in the form of colored braids of fake hair on bobby pins for us to wear, and blow up microphones to sing into, blow up musical instruments to pretend to play along, and an extensive playlist for the Karaoke machine. We've danced, and sung (well, i sway and hum, no need to let them watch me trip and deafen them with my lack of tone), told jokes and stories, and been serenaded by our lovely Script with her recorder.

Script is a real musician. She plays the recorder beautifully, works written for that instrument that has so been degraded by the dreadful cheap reproductions crammed into the hands of schoolchildren everywhere, with which they are forced to attempt to learn nothing but the ABC song and Greensleeves. Her wooden recorders, very expensive, are too nice to travel on a plane, so she brought the plastic one. Thank goodness, because her luggage was searched, and it was broken at the end. She managed to put a piece of tape on it and play it anyway. If i could, i would have listened for hours. She cannot play that long, of course, but i would have listened. She played as i cooked etouffee, each of us contributing what we could to the fun.

SG and Mickey (her very nice SO who speaks very little English, he has a beautiful smile, though) drove in and got lost on the interstate, so by the time they came Friday night things were winding down. So i didn't get to meet them until Saturday, when we met up at the same small restaurant for brunch as on Friday.

The place is nice, but they just don't know what to do with vegetarians, and especially with those like me, so i stuck to salad and picked out the bits of bacon that had accidentally made their way in despite my request to the contrary. The cheese i ignored -- sometimes you just have to.

It just occurred to me that at no one time have all of us been together in one place. The comings and goings and coordinatings have been a bit complicated, but we've all had fun, if the smiles and laughing are any indication. It's been refreshing, and Eagle doesn't mind if i putter in her kitchen a bit.

These are some of the best people anywhere, and i'm glad i know them and get to visit.


Today is:

Bureflux -- Discordian Calendar

Cobweb Pie Making Day -- Fairy Calendar

Day of the National Flag -- Ecuador

Dominion Day -- New Zealand

European Day of Languages -- European Union

Family Day -- sponsored by The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, urging families to have dinner together tonight

Festival of Venus Genetrix -- Ancient Roman Calendar

International Tool Day -- internet generated, now gladly embraced by toolmakers

Johnny Appleseed Day

Metropolitan Opera in NYC Opening Night

National Pancake Day

Metropolitan Opera in NYC -- Opening Night

Pchum Ben -- Cambodia (Ceremony of the Dead; through the 28th)

Revolution Day -- Yemen

St. Cosmas and Damian' Day (patron of physicians, barbers, druggists, chemical workers; against bladder diseases)

St. John Cyprian of Carthage's Day -- Eastern Christian Churches


Birthdays Today:

Lawrence Leritz, 1962
Linda Hamilton, 1956
Olivia Newton-John, 1948
Anne Robinson, 1944
Kent McCord, 1942
Julie London, 1926
Jack LaLanne, 1914
George Gershwin, 1898
T.S. Eliot, 1888
Edmund Gwenn, 1877
John "Johnny Appleseed" Chapman, 1774
St. Francis of Assisi, 1181


Today in History:

In keeping a vow he made at the Battle of Pharsalus, Julius Caesar dedicates a temple to his mythical ancestor Venus Genetrix, BC 46
Sir Francis Drake returns to England with Spanish treasure, 1580
In a battle between Venetians and Turks in Athens, the Parthenon and Acropolis are seriously damaged, 1687
New Jersey passes a bill requiring a license to practice medicine, 1772
Thomas Jefferson is appointed the first Secretary of State of the US, 1789
Colonel Robert Gibbon Johnson proved tomatoes weren't poisonous by eating several on the steps of the courthouse in Salem, New Jersey, 1820
The Diamond Match Company patents book matches, 1892
New Zealand and Newfoundland each become dominions within the British Empire, 1907
Indonesia is admitted to the United Nations, 1950
Concorde makes its first non-stop crossing of the Atlantic in record-breaking time, 1973
The United Kingdom agrees to the handover of Hong Kong, 1984
An earthquake strikes the Italian regions of Umbria and the Marche, causing part of the Basilica of St. Francis at Assisi to collapse, 1997
Swiss pilot and inventor Yves Rossy becomes first person to fly a jet engine-powered wing across the English Channel, 2008