I can't even remember back to the week before last to highlight anything, so I expect I was just working away. Friday night, I flew out to Los Angeles. I was taking advantage of my conference during the week to go out early and attend the Southern California Story Swapping Festival on Saturday. A few folks knew I was coming, but I'd kept it quiet and enjoyed the shock and surprise from several others. I won't mention names of all the people I was happy to see, since I will inevitably leave someone out inadvertently. I will say that it was tremendous fun. The highlights included Drea's version of an Aesop fable during the concert, the annual "got-a-minute" swap (where it is always fun to see how much people can do with one minute stories), and just the general socializing. It was definitely worth going out to L.A. for. Afterwards, I had dinner with Penny, Katy, Audrey, and Kate at a Thai restaurant.
I didn't have anything I really had to do on Sunday, so started out the morning with a Volksmarch in Redondo Beach. The walk led all the way up the Strand from south of King Harbor to the Manhattan Beach pier. The return walk was along the chipped wood exercise trail next to Ardmore Street. It was nice, but I think it would actually be nicer to do the walk in the opposite direction since the ocean is definitely the better part of the scenery. After that, I drove up to the Museum of Jurassic Technology, which has expanded quite a bit in the several years since I'd last been there. Of the new exhibits, I particularly liked the mosaics made from insect wings and the whole section on string figures.
I'd set up several meetings for Monday, so that ended up being quite a full day. The conference also involved long hours, especially as I was leading a working group. I'd worried that nobody would come to my session, but I actually tied for the highest attendance. More importantly, there was lively discussion, which is always better than people sitting around nodding at one another.
I flew back to Washington on Friday morning. The flight was delayed a bit and I ended up getting out to Harrisonburg a bit late, missing more than half of the Friday evening concert at the Virginia Storytelling Alliance (VASA) gathering. I did get to hear Gary tell a personal story and a very cute twist on the Midas story (involving chocolate, not gold). After some socializing, there was an evening swap and I told "Border Crossings." I left out a major piece of it, but it still went over quite well.
The daytime events on Saturday included an interesting keynote speech by David Novak, a workshop on lies and a humorous story swap (at which I told a Chelm story). David's concert in the evening was a delightful mix of old and new material. I should also mention the silent auction, at which I bought a pecking chickens folk toy. As usual, Jane and I were competing for a few items, but she actually helped me get this one by pointing out Lynn's last minute bid on it.
I went to one of the morning swaps (musical stories) today, then hit the road a bit early. I stopped to do Passover shopping on the way home. Having a business trip sandwiched by storytelling events may have been fun, but it was pretty exhausting.I'm now firmly in the midst of the final bits of house cleaning. I have tons of other stuff to catch up on (e.g. household paperwork) but that can get done during Passover.
Copyright 2007 Miriam H. Nadel