UMTravels

Funny how the people you found annoying ten years ago – are still annoying ten years later. Time, apparently doesn’t heal all wounds – maybe time wounds all heals.

Today’s activities have included a seitan making workshop – that’s a gluten-based meat substitute which is often used for things like mock duck. Next up was the making of “flapjack” – which is butter, brown sugar and oats, baked up into a “sweet”, what the Brits call a dessert – and then some sort of Caribbean meal… I’m just the dish witch. I just clean up the mess afterwards.

I missed the business circle – missed the heart circle – spent my time hanging out in the smoking tent listening to the rain on the plastic, reading a silly John Grisham novel, waiting for a whiskey delivery, wondering the meaning of life, and not really worrying about what that meaning is.

At the moment (late afternoon blog time in my schedule) Miss Michael is doing his warm-up exercises – he is a professional dancer (modern/interpretive) from New Orleans who is leaving tomorrow to rejoin his company for a performance in Estonia. The dining room where I’m plugged in has this wonderful feeling of a group house from my youth where folks are just doing the things they need to do, like practicing, writing, cooking, or just hanging out smoking cigarettes and drinking beer.

It’s a strange and wonderfully calm atmosphere. Maybe it’s the music Miss Michael is dancing to, maybe it’s that it’s not a performance, just the exercise that he needs to get ready for tomorrow. Maybe it’s just people wondering in from bicycle rides in the rain. Maybe it’s just much ado about nothing.

Watching Miss Michael dance, I wish my mother and Helene were here. They are both dance fanatics and would enjoy the behind the scenes rehearsal, somehow made acceptable by the fact that we are both working at our trade at the moment. To hear him panting between numbers gives me a new appreciation for the physicality of what dancers go through. It is rare that I pant at the keyboard.

Tonight is the talent show… and there are several faeries making noise about me doing something for the show… but what. Not really my strong suit. I haven’t looked to see if Miss M is on the schedule. I do know that one of my roommates (I’m in a four bed bedroom) has been working on his makeup for two hours (at least). I’m sure that it will yield some amusing photos – but those will have to wait until the weekend.

So, it’s just a drizzly but not gloomy day around the house. I’ve only taken two calls so far since arriving… one from H²0 Blanco, about the thermostat replacement for the Wolf ranges, and to return a call from Curtis who butt-dialed. An interesting calm when you “internet time” is the 30 seconds it takes to upload the blog.

I am realizing that I’ve missed the EuroFaeries… ten years was too long a break, but until you take that break, you never know. Maybe there is hope for my reconnection with the US faeries as well.

Or maybe it’s time to sell the house and hit the road.

[? ? ?]