The biggest event of the work week was the changing of the guard. One expects that and sort of gets used to it when working with the military, of course. There have been times when I've been glad to see someone leave, but this was far from one of them. Brady has been incredible to work with. I hope we can come near that level of teamwork with his replacement, Andy.
I should also mention the major annoyance of the work week. I work in a 17 story building. They had done something last weekend which involved turning off the power. Somehow or other, they hadn't figured out that they should turn off anything which might be affected by a power outage and they managed to fry the elevator controllers. On Monday, only one elevator was working. By the end of the week, they got it up to all of two elevators working. Since we're on the 13th floor, this slowed things down a lot.
The big event of the weekend was LAUGHS, which stands for Loudoun's Annual Unforgettable Hilarious Storyfest. This is pretty much the major storytelling event in the area. They bring in big name, nationally-known tellers. Then there are winners of a nationwide audition. It would be nice if they actually did things so you could see all of the audition winners, instead of just half of them. The set-up for the two showcases by local guilds was even worse. On Saturday, people couldn't even get in and out of the showcase tent easily. I have to question whether it's worth my doing an event where I have to compete for audience with the big names. I was pleased to even have the seven people (down to four for much of the time) I did get.
I don't want to make it sound like I didn't have a good time. Willy Claflin remains one of the funniest people in the known universe. His rendition of Pegamoose (think of a moosely version of Pegasus) was a particular highlight, for example. Bill Lepp was also notably funny, though his funniest story had a rather weak ending.
I took advantage of being in Loudoun County to stop by Wegman's on Sunday afternoon. This is a huge supermarket and has gotten a lot of attention for the number of things they sell. I was not all that impressed. Yes, it is huge, but what is really huge is the prepared food section. The produce section did not provide anything particularly exotic and, as far as I could tell, the store does not actually sell anything that I can't currently buy in my neighborhood. And, in fact, they didn't have several things I can buy at, say, Shopper's Food Warehouse. What's the point of a megastore if the only tropical fruits they have are bananas, pineapple, and tamarind? Am I the last person in North America who shops primarily for ingredients, rather than prepared meals?
Copyright 2004 Miriam H. Nadel