The Road to Eureka

What an amazing five day road trip I have had this past week! On Wednesday, I left work early to travel to an Official Visit in Santa Rosa. Some friends of mine had just been initiated up there so I was able to see and visit with them and enjoy the OV to the district that includes their Chapter and then stay overnight with them. I then left my car at their house and took off north with my escort for a four day jaunt. On Thursday, we only had to travel about an hour, from Santa Rosa to Ukiah, so we stopped the lovely town of Healdsburg, about halfway between, to shop, visit antique stores and have a wonderful lunch. The town square has shops all around it and on most of the streets leading away from the square. I was able to get a manicure (thank goodness!) and visited the little museum dedicated to the hand fan, which has some exquisite examples of folding and fixed fans and lovely historical tidbits about the use and construction of hand fans. It is just a little room, but the displays and information were great. There were several nice jewelry stores and all sorts of interesting things in the antique shops. We had a nice lunch, with cloth napkins, at a small restaurant called Ravenous. The food was very good and I thoroughly enjoyed the caprese salad, but the service was rather slow for us, so it is a good thing that we had plenty of time when we stopped there. When I am out of the office on a work day, I usually have to check my e-mails and voice mails several times during the day and get back to people so that I don't get too far behind. Also, people expect answers from me within the next business day unless I have given them lots of notice that I am gone on vacation, which this wasn't really, so before we left for Healdsburg and in the car at various points, and in the new hotel in Ukiah after we checked in, I had to listen to and read messages and return them. It's harder to be working outside the office, but I am glad and grateful that I can do that so I can go on trips like this one sometimes. Thursday night in Ukiah, the district did not have any installed Associate Conductresses to do the various ceremonial duties, so the Deputy Grand Matron asked me to do the work with the local officers. I went ahead to the OV early to help and to study the room so I could do a good job. I find it more interesting to do than to watch, so doing the work probably made this one of the most enjoyable of the OVs so far this year for me. The only catch is that when a local member makes a mistake, everyone is very patient and understanding because any of us can make a mistake and if you have a member that has tried hard to learn their lines and their blocking, which we call floor work, then that is all we ask or expect and we try to smile encouragment at them and we all understand if they make a mistake. But the Grand Officers are expected to know their work, both their lines and their floor work perfectly, and because there is an expectation, there is disappointment if you fail to meet the expectation. So there is a lot of pressure on a Grand Officer if they are filling a station at an OV. Luckily, I've had lots of practice at everything I had to do that night, between the various Instructionals, Schools and Transitionals we've done this year, so I think I got everything right. At least no one has said anything to me so far. On Friday morning, we left Ukiah for Eureka and that is another adventure that I will write about next week, since I will be home next weekend for Mother's Day.