September 2009 Archives

Pagan Pride Day on Saturday was very nice indeed. We had at least 200 people and quite probably more. The weather was nice. We collected for the Erie Zoo.

The opening ritual went fairly well. We included the Merry Meet, Merry Part and Merry Meet Again thing, and I added the usual “Oh Mary!” + snap, which is a local tradition. It makes us happy.

Fave lines during clean up. Jim had helped tear down one of the big tents and put away the tent poles. He walked over and told Cindy, “Well, I just laid some pipe in your husband’s trunk.” One of the other board members chimed in with (seeing as how we were pretty close to done with clean-up) “That’s probably our last load of the evening.” I giggled. Because I am apparently 12.

After I left, a woman injured herself by the bonfire and apparently there was an ambulance called. She is doing okay, and is looking forward to next year. I am very proud that some members of the coven that I belong to helped her in various ways. I feel really happy that we have so many good people in the local community.

I posted a feedback form for the event at the web site. I still have a bunch of responses that were submitted on paper to key. One of our board members was wonderfully dutiful about getting folks to fill them out. Yay!

I overheard part of a conversion from the next cubicle ending with one of the programmers saying something about sticking a cucumber into someone’s PC. I asked if I had heard what I thought I had heard. I guess that there was some kind of unknown CD and he was trying to make a point about installing unknown software or something else into a PC. I was visualizing some kind of specific geek fetish porn. (Okay, “Hard Drive".” “RAM me!” I guess that there are a few obvious jumping off points here.)

The programmer then went on to state that someone he knew years ago had tried to make a point about safe computing that involved bringing in condoms and 3 1/2” diskettes. I said that sounded fine, but when they were excited, they presumably turned into 5 1/4”. It got a chuckle and a groan. I expressed gratitiude since I had been waiting YEARS to use that one. And how many people would get floppy diskette humor at this point anyway??

Reason # 103 why I am glad to be Pagan:

We had a final board meeting on Wednesday of the United NeoPagan Council of Lake Erie about Pagan Pride Day this Saturday. We were going over the opening ritual. We are going to have everyone form a circle by joining hands, and then 7 or so board members will say some opening remarks in turn. Then we are going to throw a ball of yarn from person to person (starting with the board members) while saying one word that we hope describes the day.

We were trying to figure out the order, and Ruth is going before me, and hunky straight Rich is going after me. When we were describing the order, I said, “So what we are saying is that I am pitching and Rich is receiving???” It got a laugh, including from Rich who realized that I was just being silly.

We also reminisced about last year’s ritual that involved fire being passed. I had to work on handling it appropriately, as I almost set myself on fire and we touched on having to extinguish flames with my breath. I then observed, “So, I am pitching while another guy is receiving and I’m blowing? You know what I call that? Tuesday!” This was followed by a drag on the imaginary Bette Davis cigarette.

Seriously, it is showing all signs of being a great event, and I am so deeply grateful for being part of such a terrific community!

This is from the LBT Women Picnic this past Sunday. Laurie and Andrea had fun with this. Andrea was showing off her new lawn tractor and Laurie took a video. It was kind of silly. When it was passed around, we all laughed at the playback.

I had a particularly nice weekend. Friday, I got out of work late, but it was okay.

Saturday, my friends Laurie and Jan were having some computer problems, so I stopped over to take a look and they made lasagna. It was great hanging out with them, and I think that we have everything taken care of now.

Later that night, I went to Vertigo in Butler, which was fun. I took some photos as well for the next issue of Erie Gay News.

On Sunday, a couple from LBT Women of Erie had a picnic, and I was invited to go as well. I ended up bringing hummus (which I hoped wasn’t too much of a stereotype.) The food was great and all of the ladies were really nice! We had a great time. We played a lawn game involving tossing bean bags. Later on, there was some silliness. (Trying to find the video for that.)

When I went out, I had a lovely chat with Season and Chris. They had organized a fantastic group costume effort 2 years ago with DC Comics and are planning on doing Marvel characters this year. They asked me if I wanted to participate, so we have an idea in mind that I need to do some research on.

More geek stuff to do, but I really feel happy about how this weekend went.