A People Packed Weekend

This weekend was a great combination of down time and a lot of socializing. I continue to be amazed at how busy with folks when I am in a new town. Of course I owe a lot of this to my fabulous neighborhood, Historic South Park, and especially SPLWE (South Park Ladies Who Eat) - a fun, loud, supportive group of women.

TGF came home at a reasonable hour on Friday and we took Puppyman (aka Wyatt) for a stroll on the Green. We don't walk him together as much as we did in California given the change in schedules so it felt like a treat to walk in the late afternoon sun with green grass underneath a vibrant, shimmering sky. A simple dinner was in the oven (premade pizzas) when my cell rang. Lisa, the neighborhood Social Director, was on the line. "I saw you walking the dog on the Green so I know you are feeling better. Get your butts over to the tavern!" Just about every Friday is social hour at the South Park Tavern (read the comments to really get a flavor of this place I call home!). After eating our fare we headed over, though I am a bit ashamed to say we drove (it is only about 3 blocks from our place) because TGF was wimpy about the weather saying it was cold.

There was a huge crowd but no room so we moved a table over to the end and proceeded to play musical chairs as people came and went. The conversation ranged all over the place: bra fittings (check out zafu.com, I wrote about them here), who was selling, crazy absentee landloards, and of course a lot of animal tales. Almost everyone here has a cat or a dog or both and usually more than one of whatever. I met Amy who has 15 cats! Crazy I tell you, she clearly adores them. She moved here nine years ago with just one. I don't think I could ever have that many without living on some acreage with a barn for 'em. Also got to chat quite a bit with Pam, with whom we share the most excellent landlady, Karin. It was lovely to see Ginger again but every time I see her I think about how I cannot carry a tune and she is a voice teacher with golden tones, so I get a bit wistful. Somehow I did not get enough time to catch up with Holly and Michael - two of the big movers and shakers of Rehabarama.

Saturday night many of us met up at the event Raks Mystique:


This event was amazing and so varied! TGF had convinced her mom, Ellie, to attend with us, which was a fabulous idea. There was a lot of art on display: wood turning, paintings, multi-media pieces, sculpture. The music was really varied but I was absolutely blown away by Puzzle of Light - amazing performance. While Sandstorm Middle Eastern Dance company did some good stuff I am spoiled by other dancers I have seen at DNE and at Pennsic, among other places. I did learn that Cheryl dances as well and we are cooking up a plan to go to Kira's Oasis for a hafla with the SPLWE group. Ellie and Ginger talked about their home state of Kentucky and there is a chance they are related! That sort of thing never happens in my world but it delighted me no end. Oh, and I met another new to me neighbor, Jeanne, who is also a New Yorker by birth. We had a great time cracking jokes about how "nice" people are around here in contrast to our east coast "tell it like it is" manner. The food we got from Cedarland was wonderful and I really want to go to the restaurant soon! We stayed so late that Raw Passion gave our group a bunch of cookies on the house - yum! The event was very well attended by a fairly wide and diverse group. There were a lot of folks who looked familiar in that they weren't suburban looking but carried a lot of piercings, body art, and funky styles of dress. I felt at home, needless to say. The next morning there was an email from Lisa saying that Ellie had been made an honorary member of SPLWE and sheconsiders her neighbor who hasn't packed yet. So true.

Sunday was a quiet day again. For dinner we headed over to the 'rents for a great meal and time with our niece T'Mane (The Most Adorable Niece Ever!). T'Mane truly is a cutie, very much in the repeating everything said that catches her attention so one has to be a bit cautious in their speech. She is also showing signs of classic toddler behavior of testing some limits, refusing to do things when first asked, that sort of thing. Since we are not in charge it is easy to be amused by this behavior.

Later Andi came by to hang out. She spun, I knit, TGF played on the computer and we chatted, watched Dexter, and it was a really easy time. Such a nice thing. Oh she brought a little gift. She is a ceramic artist and she made me these cute little card holders for labeling dishes at parties. They have slots for index cards so ingredients can be listed but the tags themselves say "peanuts", "gluten free" and "vegan". Isn't that the sweetest thing she did? It was a very pleasant Sunday, especially since my Stitchcraft group that used to meet Sunday nights has disbanded. I am thinking of starting a twice monthly Sunday night meetup over at Night & Day Cafe on Brown Street. Let me know if any of you out there are interested. You don't have to knit, you could crochet, cross stitch, spin, anything crafty.