Off and Running

Guess what! I managed to get myself elected and installed after all, so this blog will have a chance to be used. Whew! I am totally exhausted. I know that the Grand Chapter session is really supposed to be three days, but there is so much to do the day before and the day after that it really feels like a full five days. On Wednesday, we had lots of practice, to look our best when the Grand Officers did their stuff and I had a bunch of meetings about various pieces of legislation that had been proposed by the members. That is the last time that I will be doing the legislation thing for a while though. I've done it ten out of the past eleven years, so I am okay with taking a little rest on that. The practices were really good to have, to iron out any kinks in who goes in from where, but the concrete floor is hard on your feet, even when you are in good shoes. The real sessions started on Thursday and the Grand Officers were all very enthusiastic and excited about the Grand Chapter Session really being here and now. The sessions and days and meals and parties seem to completely run together and I am pretty sure that if I was lucky I averaged four or five hours of sleep over the five nights. I had two breakfast events that I was in charge of planning, decorating and collecting the reservations and ticket money and I don't even usually eat breakfast. Instant Oatmeal is my friend! There's something unnatural about having a hobby that gets you out of bed earlier in the morning than your day job, but my fisherman friends tell me just to get over it. We get lots of presents. They actually have a special room where you can drop off presents for the Grand Officers and they collect them and help get them delivered to the Grand Officer's room. I am certain that I came home with more stuff than I took with me. It's a good thing that my escort brought his own car because we loaded both of them. We get lots of snacks and water and all sorts of cute little items, note pads, note cards, pins and such. I got another napkin nipper, which was good because I had left mine home and I needed one. You see, for sessions, we are in formal dresses with petticoats most of the time and the dress fabrics are very slick so your napkin tends to slide right out of your lap and onto the floor. It is very awkward to fish around for your napkin in full skirts, let me tell you. So a napkin nipper is a little clothespin that is usually decorated with beads or glue on stuff. You use it to pin the napkin to the waist or skirt of your dress and then you don't lose it. They're awesome! When you first start as a Grand Line officer, you get to pick an emblem that will symbolize your year and you get to choose flowers and colors and all sorts of things that all the ladies serving with you will use for their own local installations and events. All that stuff gets revealed after you are elected. I will try to post my sheet of stuff if I can figure out how to do it. My emblem is a silver standing balance against a starry night sky and my fun emblem, which is usually an animal or a character of some kind used for fun stuff is a dragon on top of a castle. No one has ever used a dragon before. By the time I left Grand Chapter, I had been given five dragons by various friends. My Installation Escort did the math and said that if I got five dragons a week for the 200 weeks of my four years, I would have a thousand by the time I am done. Be afraid! Be very afraid! For me the whole session was rather bittersweet, especially since I had just done it the year before and remembered what that was like. I loved being at the session and getting to participate in everything, but it was sad to think that the session is the end of a year and that you have to say goodbye to an amazing group of people with whom you have laughed and cried and traveled for a whole year. You still see each other as you travel around, but it is just not the same as when you are together almost every weekend and become a family. Last year and this year has taught me that you can dry your tears, join a new family, make new friendships and get close to another group and have a wonderful new year with them, but it is still a terrible wrench to say good bye to your old family. Here's the funny thing though. When the 2008 Grand Officers were done on Saturday morning and we did our "leave-taking" ceremony, we all hugged in a big circle and cried our eyes out. Even the men were tearing up and some of the ladies were downright sobbing. But when the 2009 Grand Officers did their leavetaking, everyone was just the lightest bit sad, but a lot more laughing and hugging and saying how great it all was and how we had the best year ever. It was just as emotional, but in a very, very different way. I wonder how it will be next time and each year after that. Saturday night was the Installation of the Grand Officers and it was truly spectacular, but I must admit that it was a touch long. I have trouble sitting for long periods of time because my spine is curved so my hips are uneven, and I could tell that I wasn't the only one that had trouble staying seated in my chair until the very end. I think some people left before the end and that was too bad because there were some lovely moments that they missed. My view has changed again, as my new seat is on one side and up on a little platform where my last two seats were in the rear and in the front at the floor level. My first seat, last year, had the best view so far, in the back facing the podium. I could see everything! This year I was in front of the stage, next to the stairs going up and I couldn't see anything at all. Everything was happening above and behind me. After I found out that the podium just above me was on wheels, I lived in mortal terror that someone was going to lean on the thing and it was going to pitch over right down onto me. Thank goodness it didn't happen! My new seat is halfway between the front and the back, but on one side, so to watch the action, I have to turn my head to the left constantly, which is okay for a while but rather a bother for several hours. I am sure I will get used to it just in time to move to the other side and spend an entire year looking to the right. After the ceremonies were over, they had us go into another room to give people a chance to congratulate us. I guess I was taking too long talking with the people who came over because a couple of Past Grand Matrons told me that it was supposed to be a kiss, kiss, hug, hand the person over to the escort, move on to the next person sort of thing and I was speaking with each person, at least a little bit and taking too long. I guess I need more practice at that. After the receiving room, there were parties for the 2010s and the 2009s, proving once again that sleep is highly overrated and that you have the best time when you are a little zoned. :-) Then you get back to your room and look at the umpteen more boxes and tote bags strewn all over your room and decide that packing is something that you do in the morning. You drive back home and barely get your car unpacked before you collapse in bed and get up the next day to go to work and wonder when on earth you are going to unpack before you re-pack for the next weekend. AAAAAHHHH! Next weekend I am going to Chowchilla for Deputy Grand Matron School. I will tell you all about it when I get back.