Omorka's Lair

So this weekend was CMA's annual Beltane festival. Our plan was that the Spouse was going to pack the car Thursday during the day, and then he would pick me up at 4:15 after work, we'd swing by the house for me to drop off my work stuff and pick up my electronics bag, and we would drive out there in time to get on site just before sunset. We would put up the screen house, unload the car into it, and then spend Thursday night in the car, putting up the tent on Friday morning & finishing setting up camp over breakfast.

( The best-laid plans o' mice and men )

I was originally going to write this post to complain that the Council of Magickal Arts's Beltane gathering this weekend is likely to be at least partially rained out for the second year in a row, and blame this fact on El Nino, because damn.

Then I realized that this is the 20th anniversary of my first CMA Beltane. I'd been a member of the organization since sometime in 1995, but Beltane 1996 was the first one I actually got to attend for a number of reasons.

I have been doing this for twenty godsdamn years. It's been two decades and We're Still Here. The community looks a lot different, and we've lost some dearly beloved folks in that time, but there is still a Pagan-owned and Pagan-operated festival in the heart of Texas, and I've been a part of it for more than half my life.

Still sucks about this weekend possibly getting rained out, but - wow.

Home. Safe. Well, except for assorted blisters/ant bites.

Stuff: wet, but mostly salvageable.

Shower. NOW.

Brief notes on the gathering:

Had a good time, despite having only incidental amounts of sex (or alcohol, for that matter, although I rarely have more than a cider or two anyway).
Only 4 people showed up to my workshop; I think I'm going to have to make it an afternoon one to get the newbies to show up. However, someone else did a workshop on hand chants, which I enjoyed a lot. (More on that general subject on a limited distribution later.)
Spouse managed to not blow up at the gathering itself.
Attended three rituals, all good, one of which was patched together by the participants when the officiator managed to get injured and couldn't make it. At the first ritual, got two very good one-card readings (in fact, got one superb one from someone using a Thoth deck - the reader pulled things out of the card I never would have seen there) and a so-so spirit reading. The last ritual was absolutely gorgeous - I'm usually not much for fire-based ritual, but this was utterly stirring.
DM didn't show.
Got to hang out with some cool folks from Dallas, including one member of the old HSPVA crowd. Also interacted more with the camp group, although they're still heartier partiers than I'm comfortable with.
theoldone and greeneyedpagan are True Royalty, and everyone should worship at their feet for all the hard work they did this weekend.

On the down side, we blew two tires (one I had noticed before we left was low, but the Spouse didn't think it was worth looking at; the other was the spare) on the way home. Spouse then decided to make the MIL get us a new tire and rim and come out to meet us (about five miles on the wrong side of Sealy), rather than try and get local help. However, after a frustrating two hours by the side of the road and an unfortunate encounter with some fire ants, we did manage to get home safely.

Since the Spouse and I will be going to the campout this weekend, and since we're going to be leaving as soon as I get off work Thursday, I don't think gaming this Wednesday is really going to be a possibility. :( Sorry, y'all. Will rescheduling for the next Wednesday (the 20th) work for everyone?

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I'm beginning to suspect that Bagels, as an institution, is not going to survive the loss of this last place. Not that I dislike Bohr Bros. as an eatery, especially - I'm not thrilled, but they're at least as palatable to me as the previous sandwich place. But if we're going to go all the way out to the one on Westheimer, we're generally not going to make it until nearly 2ish, which is far too late for those with wee ones. And asking them to come all the way in to the one on Montrose seems selfish, especially since parking is not the greatest there.

I'm sure we'll still get together with PB and occasionally others on Sunday afternoon for a nosh. But I think we've had enough horses shot out from under us to do the regular event in.

Good thing we still have Movie Night. (Which won't happen this week either, BTW, again due to the campout.)

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We went by Big Wal's Club today, to pick up some stuff both for the campout and for just general resupply, and they had a box of assorted baking pans for $20. Not that I needed any more baking pans, really, but it looked like it might be decent and I can always use extras, so I picked it up. It includes:

1 15" x 10" jelly-roll pan (it claims it's a cookie sheet, but it's a jelly-roll pan - inch-high sides)
1 12-cup muffin pan (it claims to be "jumbo," but I think that's a reference to having 12 cups, as they look normal-sized to me)
1 13" x 9" x2" rectangular cake pan (actually closer to 2.5" deep, it looks like)
a plastic cover for the rectangular cake pan (this is really why I bought it, as I didn't have a covered cake/cookie pan)
2 9" x 5" loaf pans
2 9" round cake pans (again, fairly deep for their diameter)
1 9" springform pan (the least well-constructed item in the set, and it's not that bad)

The nice thing is that they're all (except the plastic cover, of course) fairly heavy, which means they should conduct heat reasonably evenly. They have some sort of dark non-stick coating, which probably won't last too long before scratching but which doesn't look like it'll flake off. I'll try a pound cake or something in one of the loaf pans, but probably not tonight - maybe during the day tomorrow. (memeslayer, the springform pan is the perfect size for cheesecake!)

Strange thing . . . wonder what's happening . . .

Beginning from about a week ago:

Got my new contract. The green one. Life ever-renewing, is the green - and so is the contract. They have to give me reason now if they decide to fire me, and I get to fight back.

He Who Has No Feet, The ADHD Kid, and one of my "ghetto girlz" who is far brighter than she chooses to let on were all in tutorials at the same time, and had an argument about what religion I was. HWHNF thinks I'm Jewish; ADHD has it right. I find this amusing; I would find it more amusing if HWHNF would stop asking me to settle the discussion.

Then the gathering . . .

What can I say? It would have been the second best Beltane event I'd ever been to if it weren't for the scar in the earth and the impending doom. The workshops were all at least good and usually kick-ass in the extreme. Carol Queen is just as cool in person as she is in print. MGZ-R is always a delight to listen to. DreamTrybe kicked out the jams in their own powerfully magickal way. I didn't get much ritual done, but that was okay. I am in love with the new tent. I think I met some new friends, and got touched a lot in very good ways.

Something good has happened . . .

I may have found a Sweetheart. I don't know yet - I haven't really talked with him since getting back from the gathering. I am NRE'ing pretty hard over what connections we have made, but I don't really know if he's interested in anything beyond a festival fling. (Meanwhile, the Spouse is being as supportive and kind as he can be while being paralyzed by his own self-referential neuroses - he's terrified that he will be jealous, so scared that he can't even tell whether he's actually feeling any jealousy. What will happen when he finally manages to pick of the scab of fear and doesn't find anything there? {Which I think is what will actually happen.) If I can only manage to work though his pseudo-abandonment issues, I think he'll be all right - but he's gonna hafta talk. Gods, I love him.) I'm terrified that my possibility doesn't want any more from me, I suspect he hasn't thought about what he wants, I'm hoping he's at least a little nervous about coming over for Movie Night.

Tragedy has struck . . .

Surely they can't all have been right for the wrong reasons all this time? What happened to us as an electorate that we all screwed up this badly? I've thrown my lot in with the rebel alliance, and we will win, of course - but at what cost? "These are hard!" "Yeah, but - this is great - these are hard!" We know now that we cannot take what we have had for granted, that constant vigilance is needed. Damn. I hate being paranoid. But the Trust has been broken. I'm gonna have to be prepared to serve this community better. I think now is the time - now that my contract is green instead of winter's white, I think I can afford to.

We are a Circle, Within a Circle . . . .

What we can do when we work together, sing together! So many people under that tent, with all their issues, all the fighting they've done - pulling together for the greater good. But how did something good become something we needed to fight against? How did that wound in the Land get there?

No Beginning, Never Ending . . .

We're home. We'll be leaving again, to fight for my family, and the Spouse's . . . what? His right to sit under a tree and read and listen to Blue Man Group? He's not just fighting for me. He believes in this, somehow, for himself. Even Satyr showed up. Maybe it's the Spouse's family too, after all.


Oh, and the school finally has a principal. She's moving up from KMS, but she's been an AP here before. We are no longer acephalous. We'll see what happens.


Tomorrow . . .