This week had a lot of miscellaneous errand-running. I got my car serviced, my teeth cleaned, my household paperwork filed away and so on. Nothing traumatic, but all time consuming and completely boring.
Work was rather a mixed bag, as we spent a lot of time frantically responding to one aspect of a rather nasty meeting with the bigwigs. One of the people we deal with has an interim position, essentially filling an appointment until the person who has actually been nominated is approved. My immediate question was, "so when is the confirmation hearing?" Normally, I tend towards the "better the devil you know" school of thinking, but when the devil you know is holding piano wire to your throat and just looking for an excuse to pull the garotte, I'll go with the devil you don't know.
Fortunately, I had fun weekend plans to look forward to. Yesterday was the Southern Maryland Celtic Festival. My storytelling slot was first thing in the morning. I knew that would mean a small audience, but they were enthusiastic and responsive, so it was still fun. I don't have enough authentic Celtic material to fill up 45 minutes, so told a couple of my own stories, too. I hadn't told "The Baker Woman and the Miller's Daughter" in a long time, so I was especially pleased with the response it got. I really ought to do something about publishing that story, though it's a sort of odd one to try to market. It's something of a children's story and a picture book is obviously the right format, but much of the humor really goes over the heads of young children. I also did "The Neglected Princess," but I tell that a lot, so it's easy. As for the folktales, I could tweak "Lunsmore" a bit, just from the performance standpoint. "Goldtree and Silvertree" and "The Pickpocket's Son" are fine as they are and setting the latter in Edinburgh worked out just fine. "Duffy and the Devil," which I learned so I could have a Cornish story in my repertoire, also worked, even if I was scrambling a bit to make the ending work because I don't like the endings in any of the written versions I have.
After performing, I meandered the festival for a couple of hours. I listened to a bit more storytelling and a lot of music (including some of the pipe and drum bands), watched some of the highland dance competion, and browsed the crafts on sale. The one thing I was seriously tempted by were some dragons. These were a step up from the ordinary stuffed animal and quite clever, but I couldn't quite make up my mind which one I would buy. I did take the artist's card for future reference.
I should also note that the weather was a bit of an issue. It was raining off and on, mostly on. It had let up a bit by the time I left, so the drive back through Calvert County was fairly pleasant. I really like that area and I can certainly understand the temptation of having a vacation property in, say, Solomons. I think that should properly be "Solomon's Island" but that isn't what the highway signs say. Not that I can afford to buy anything there, sigh.
Copyright 2005 Miriam H. Nadel