First October Weekend Survived

Today was the first day off that I've had in two weeks. Oddly enough, now that our Fall fundraisers are in full swing, things are easier for me than they were in the runup to the events... we have a small army of employees and contractors onsite on nights when I am ordinarily pulling a solo act, so I have some breathing space.

The weekend involved a lot of running around, but I am not complaining- I've actually been having fun. One of our events is new this year, so there is a bit of a learning curve, but we have navigated it well. I have instantly taken to the new contractors who are providing entertainment for the fundraiser- they are interesting people with values similar to mine, and we are working well together. One of our vice presidents, who is relatively new to the position (formerly, she was on our board of directors) has been running the event on several nights, and we work well together... she has solid nerd credentials, and she has rapidly become a favorite of our rank-and-file employees because of her willingness to listen to us. As an example, I had a minor freakout over the use of candles in a sensitive area, and the next day she provided two fire extinguishers within ten feet of the site. Again, we have shared values, and I found out this weekend that she, like myself, enjoys a pint of Guinness. The event requires a lot of coordinated timing, with the head honcho being occupied with a very specific, sensitive task for a total of about forty minutes, and I am the one who needs to bounce between locations in order to pretty much cover everything while she (or whoever is working as Manager on Duty) is occupied with that specific task. Basically, I have to cover a lot of ground during the event, and coordination of movements is crucial. I'm going to need to buy a new pair of sneakers before the month is over.

On Saturday, my volunteer gig went well, the hardest part being getting up at 7AM. The kids are great, for the most part, though I did have to discipline two boys for calling each other 'idiot'. There's no place for that sort of language in our dojo.... just because we beat each other up doesn't mean that we can't be nice- in fact we demand that people be nice because it's a prerequisite to beating each other up and having nobody get hurt. Most of the kids, though, got right back into the flow of classes, having retained most of what we taught them last semester. I was able to sleep in on Sunday morning.

I spent today catching up on sleep and ended up going out to eat an actual sit-down meal with metal utensils at a local Indian restaurant (I made sure to eat plenty of vegetables to 'scour the pipes'). It was a change of pace from grabbing a couple of slices before work, or a sandwich after work, or a granola bar during work. My feet were a bit achy, so I took a couple of aspirin. I took it easy on the caffeine, hoping that my tolerance doesn't get too high by month's end. It was a 'recovery day' and, unfortunately for me, a day to catch up on the news, which is terrible.

One weekend down... lessons learned, working relationships forged and/or strengthened. I'm gonna make it after all.