What's everyone doing for the weekend.

I've probably said this before, but Book Arts Patch Days tend to be more pleasant than Boy Scout Merit Badge days. The pace is more relaxed, and the kids tend to be more engaged.

 

Relaxing!!
We got Rod's mom settled into her permanent residence. We haven't gotten a call for 2 days. I hope that means she is being kept busy.

 

This past weekend was a Boy Scout Merit Badge Day at the Museum. And it was a full house.
The very first group was already in the 1950s Shop, when I was informed that Frank would be doing the Offset station, and so I'd be doing the Linotype myself. Even so, all four groups we got in the morning went smoothly.

Then, the second of the four afternoon groups, things started hitting the fan. There is a lot going on at the letterpress station, and after the introduction and safety lecture, we split the group in two, with half getting the Linotype demonstration while the other half works with the tabletop presses, and then we switch. Only they didn't stay split up. Kids who were supposed to be on the tabletop presses were crowding the Linotype before I was done with the first subgroup, and kids from the first subgroup weren't sticking around to print their souvenir cards and get their slugs (it wasn't until this morning that I realized that for the entire afternoon, even though we had more docents available than in the morning, none of them were doing souvenir cards, leaving me to do them myself). They were slowing everything down, and effectively sabotaging their own work. When the third afternoon group started to do the same thing, I did something I can't recall ever doing, while on-duty as a Museum docent: I bellowed.

At least that got their attention, and I got a bit more cooperation. But what a nightmare of an afternoon. I've often said that when we do Scouts, for every group that goes like a dream, there's another group that makes you wish it was just a dream.

 

We decided to be cautious and make reservations for our trip to the Redwoods. What an ordeal! I thought computers were supposed to make our lives easier.
Still, we managed after like 2 hours, involving a phone call, to get a reservation for next Sunday through Thursday. We will leave Saturday and stop somewhere on 101 the first night. I hope we can really get in some hiking and rest.

 

This weekend is Grand Floral Parade with my mom on Saturday, and then I'm driving down to McMinnville for my friend's daughter's graduation party which is on Sunday. Fingers crossed for decent weather on Saturday morning for the parade participants!

 

Today, at the Museum, I begin setting up the special exhibits, hooking up the TVs, and putting the mock-newspaper forme on the press, for the Apollo 50th Anniversary event next weekend.

 

As I may have mentioned, the Apollo 11 50th Anniversary event went quite well.

This weekend was a zoo. We now participate in Smithsonian Museum Free Day, and all I can say is that I'm glad it was just "Free Admission." If we'd had a sign out front saying "Free Beer," we'd have had more people than we could have handled.

In addition to casting Linotype slugs and unjamming the Lino, I also did the second and third passes on over 3000 tickets for our Printers Fair, next month. Thankfully, on the Windmill, not on a hand-fed press. Even so, I was there until after 6 PM.

 

Sound tiring.

This weekend was spent with my husband and SIL completing their new front stairs and deck. (Gotta love the Seattle area where wood has a short life span.) And fixing the $400 microwave that I blew up. Luckily it only blew a fuse; but getting the thing out was a bugger and putting back in after the part is replaced will be a double bugger.
Next weekend is supposed to be spent camping; barring rain and cold.

 

This past weekend was the Printers Fair. We went to two days. If all the vendors, docents, and extra volunteers had been issued tickets, we would have, in two days, gone through more than half the 3000-ticket run.

Over 1400 paying visitors in two days. With two Linotypes and a Ludlow running most of both days, we went through all the pre-stuffed slug bags we had on hand, and had to stuff more.

 

Not much fun coming up. We have an appointment with Rod's mom's accountant on Thursday. From there we will go to her house to start emptying it. Most everyone has had a chance to go through to find anything they want. There is little of any value so this will be trips to the dump and sorting for charity. She has a lot of crap so we will be there all weekend. It seems very weird to be doing this while she is still alive but she cannot go back and we need to sell it to pay her other expenses.

 

The Printers Fair was a good weekend, but an exhausting one. We issued close to 1500 tickets over two days, and if you count vendors, volunteers, and other warm bodies not necessarily issued tickets, I'm told there were around 1700 warm bodies (thankfully, not all at once!). With two Linotypes and a Ludlow running, we went through every pre-stuffed (i.e., with a label card) slug-bag we had, and had to stuff a few hundred more.

Running the Ludlow most of Saturday afternoon and all day Sunday, I realized that the machine should have been cleaned: we were getting voids in the slugs, and two of them shot short enough to jam, forcing me to open the machine and forcibly remove the slug body, then manually pry the matrices loose from the slug face. So yesterday, I spent most of the day cleaning out the machine. Thankfully, without injuring myself in the process. But by the end of the day, I was even more exhausted than I was at the end of the Printers Fair days last weekend.

 

Cleaning my kitchen to get it prepared for a week of Holiday baking with my daughter and granddaughter.

 

I think Kricket and I are going over to Long Beach to enjoy our condo one last time before the sale officially closes on it.

 

The Book Arts Patch Day that I thought was last weekend. And The Powers That Be know not to expect me until a few minutes before the girls finish with the tour and lecture, and disperse to the various lab stations. And during the "bye" periods at Letterpress, I'm going to be reassembling the forme for the Apollo 11 mock-newspaper front page into something not quite the same as the original, so it can be used to print a version for the donor envelopes, that will actually fit in the donor envelopes, and won't devalue the "limited edition" status of the ones printed in connection with the event itself.

 

Oh! I knew you had talked about selling but I did not realize it had actually happened.

 

It happened kinda quickly, but it's all good. We weren't able to utilize the condo as much as we needed to make it worth our while financially. We will still go back there to visit because the dogs love it over there, but we will hold off on the beach condo stuff until one of us is closer to retiring...LOL!

 

Maybe now you can shop for an RV

This weekend I felt I would be recovering from having my MIL here for Thanksgiving. But, there has been a stomach virus breakout in her care home so it looks like we will not get to bring her here. Maybe we will just sleep all weekend anyway.

 

Nude Holiday Weekend on tap for my house, best weekend of the year!

 

Well, we did have the demented Grandma for Thanksgiving after all. It was not easy. She usually accepts what we tell her about where she is and why. Sadly, when my husband and daughter went to get her she was packed and ready to go *home*. She had even climbed up on her bed and taken the pictures off the walls!!!! Then she spent the whole day insisting that she has NOT been living there. She was certain she was staying with relatives because we did not have room for her to spend the night. She also was certain that this was her first ever Holiday meal at our house. In the end we got her to go back because she decided she was staying at a hotel. (I guess she found a reality she could accept.)
We took her home early so we still had time to play Star Wars Trivial Pursuit and watch some old home movies.
We had 11 for dinner. So Friday and Saturday were spent alternating among cleaning up and watching TV and eating too many yummy leftovers and drinking wine. We had a lot of wind and rain so we stayed inside. Yesterday I got some work done.

 

Leaving for Scotland on Saturday morning!!!