Not Another Knitwit

Last night was great! My parents had a big party at their house for cinco de mayo and also to have a party! (we really don't need that much of an excuse). I got a chance to catch up with a lot of my friends from back home and see how things were going. My dad's friend brought his karoke setup (note to self - sing before you start drinking, it always sounds better) and since many of the people there are/were music majors it was the hit of the night. And to top things off it was kind of a crappy week at work so I was all set to let my hair down and go wild.. ok, so I may have overdone the wild a wee bit, but since the last time I did anything like that was a year ago I figure that I'm not exactly on the road to ruin. There are chicken fajita leftovers that are just begging to be made into an omlett or scrambled eggs so I'm going to go respond to the siren call of food and leave you all to your sunday mornings.

ps- no pictures this week, cameras were not really on the agenda this weekend, I'm not in the business of outing people's bad habits on the web.

I was helping out at the bridging ceremony for the district youth organization for the Unitarian Universalist Church this weekend. This is the ceremony that marks the end of their time as a youth (most youth decide to bridge out at the end of high school, when they get ready to leave for college and move away from home) and the beginning of their time as an adult member of the larger community. The ceremony and all went very well, we had three bridgers and a good time was had by all. Well.... almost. When I was bringing in a box of water bottles that we were using as the gift for the bridgers I managed to miss the last stair and fall flat on my face. In addition to falling flat on my face I twisted my ankle pretty badly. I'm pretty sure that I haven't broken it but I can't really put any weight on it at the moment. I did finish the purple and blue socks for myself but I can't find my camera at the moment to take a picture of them so you just have to wait with bated breath. I'm gonna go take some more drugs and put my ankle up and watch some mindless TV.

This weekend was the Circle of Art auction. Its a charity benefit for the Food Gatherers of Washtenaw County, hosted by the Saline Picture Frame Co. My anut and uncle, who own the frame shop, did a really great job with the set up this year. They ended up with a total of 474 pieces of art this year which totally filled the entire shop. They rented a tent and put it up in the parking lot and served refreshments and hor dourves outdoors. It was a wonderfully run event and at 5pm bidding closed and then guests were invited to go outside for a champagne toast and chocolate-covered strawberries. Luckily the day was georgeous and so there was no argument about going outside. When all of the bids were tallied and all was said and done the event raised over $18,000 and collected a whole bunch of canned goods that were part of the raffle. It was a great afternoon and a wonderful time was had by all. If you are in the Ann Arbor area next year you should totally consider donating a piece. The auction tends to be heavy on the print/painting art pieces but the fiber/dimensional art pieces have made themselves proud the last 2 years. Go check it out!

This weekend was the Alma Highland Games in Alma, MI (aka Scotland USA). The weather forecast was calling for rain and storms all weekend, but fortunately the forecasters were pretty much totally wrong! It rained a bit on Saturday morning and then was mostly clear the rest of the day. And Sunday rained for about an hour in the morning and then cleared up completely and was 80, sunny, and windy the rest of the day. The wind did really interesting things for the caber toss. That's what the picture above is from. The goal of the caber toss is to flip the caber (wooden pole) end over end so that the end that you were originally holding on to falls away from you.

Alma Highland Games are also a competition site for the MidWest Pipe Band Association. So there were a number of bands from around the Michigan and Midwest region that came to compete, including http://the Ann Arbor Pipes and Drums which is the band that DW helped to found and played with for many years. Flint Scottish Pipe Band was also there (had to give some text space to my hometown pipers) and they were one of the biggest bands there and looked and sounded great. Rounding out the bands that I know people in was the Grand Traverse Pipes & Drums. My friend Traci plays swing tenor (it's one of the supporting tenor drums that involves a lot of flashy stick flourishes more then actual playing, but besides the bagpipes themselves it's one of the harder positions to do well because you have to time the flourishes with the music and still beat your notes in time with the rest of the section). She actually technically plays with Superior Pipes & Drums, who are based out of Marquette, MI but they were competing with Grand Traverse this year as they were less than a year old and are still a very small group. GTP&D had some problems the first day of competition but sounded much better the second day. Each day of competition ends with Massed Bands where awards for the day are given out and all of the bands combine to play a number (usually Amazing Grace) and if you have never heard 100 pipers and 75 drummers play all at once it is defiantly something to witness at least once in your lifetime.

In addition to all of the music and athletic competitions there are any number of vendors and displays about Scottish heritage and life. This includes the awe inspiring Highland Cattle farm that brings some of their beautiful animals to show at the Highland Festival. They are pretty resilient animals and they produce a lean, well-marbled beef because they can rely on the thick hair to keep them warm instead of excess fat. (Plus, they're really fun to pet!)

So that was my fun filled Memorial Day weekend! I have to be up and at work at 8am tomorrow (so not fair, having to work on Memorial Day) so I'm going to go and try to get some sleep. Hope that everyone has a safe and happy Memorial Day celebration!!