The (very brief) Folklife report

Note to Self: Okay, next year? Don't wait until Monday to go to Folklife. I missed all the Celtic music! And particularly the Celtic Band Scramble! Sulk.

That said, solarbird, spazzkat, and I did have a very pleasant time hitting Folklife today. Dara went down first to take care of doing a shift gathering signatures; Paul and I caught up with her around one-ish, and found cow as well shortly after we arrived. We acquired tasty food, then went and watched Seattle Kaze Daiko bang on their taiko drums for a little while.

This did not go as well as I had hoped. A good chunk of the crowd was standing since the ground had been rained on (though it wasn't as wet as it looked at first glance), so we had trouble seeing the performers. And I actually had to sneak out during part of the performance (during which brief break I saw pauldf in passing), and when I came back the crowd had shifted--enough that I finally just scootched off to the side over by the nearby building and just listened to the drumming. Which was cool and all, but half the fun of taiko drumming is to actually watch the performers swinging the sticks around.

cow parted company with us during that show since he'd been there a while and was running out of steam, so afterwards, we went and got tasty dessert (I got Shishkaberries and Dara got strawberry shortcake) and then wandered around through all the craft booths looking for a wallet for Dara. We found some she liked in the very first place we checked, but wandered around various other parts of the fair as well just to see whether there would be any that she liked better. I pulled us into the Musical Instruments section of the fair as per usual, and although I was bummed to see that Romy Benton was not present, Trading Musician did have a booth. Paul amused himself looking at a Les Paul ukelele, and I wound up buying a little box full of brand new picks since I really needed some new ones. And then we wandered more, and got more Shishkaberries (this time Paul and Dara got tasty chocolate-dipped fruit as well, and I got a second round because OHMIGOD so tasty), and then we finally decided to wander home since there weren't any acts scheduled that we were feeling powerfully moved to go look at.

But all in all it was pretty much made of Fun. We had a nice walk back to the bus stop and stopped at Borders briefly to see if two books I'm looking for were there yet (to wit, no), and debated amongst ourselves the virtues of various forms of fruit dipped in chocolate and who might have been the first person to think of dipping strawberries in chocolate to begin with. We suspect it was somebody French, since dipping stuff in cheese seems more the speed of the Swiss. ;) Regardless, this requires research. Tasty, tasty research!

Now we are home, and Paul is barbecuing on the grill. On Memorial Day. In the suburbs. This is perhaps the most domestic evening the Murkworks has ever had!

Sunday miles: 2.1
Monday miles: 5.7
Miles out of Hobbiton: 1072.55
Miles out of Rivendell: 614.55
Miles out of Lothlórien: 152.55
Miles to Rauros Falls: 236.45

Memorial Day thoughts

I don't have anything terribly profound to say on this occasion; I have never lost a loved one to war, and I have no one in my local social circle who has lost anyone to the last war in Iraq or the current one.

But I daresay I have folks on my Friends list who can say otherwise. And I know I have people reading this now who have themselves served or who are serving right this very minute in our armed forces. You know who you are. For you, I would like to say that I will remember. And I would like to say thank you.

My dad was a Marine. He did not serve in a war; he was in Germany for a while before I was born, kind of like Elvis. I remember that he used to talk about Heidelberg, and he had a stein with a Heidelberg coat of arms on the side. It is because of my dad serving in Germany that I wanted to learn German in the first place when I was a kid.

For Dad and for the others I know who have served in our armed forces, I made a new icon tonight. That's my father in the picture. It's a tiny, trivial gesture, but it felt like the right thing to do. It will help to mark this post for me, and help me remember.

Thank you.