A Day At The Races

This past weekend was the pre-reveal and Revealing of the Associate Grand Patron designee for the current Grand Conductress along with her reception. The themes of both the pre-reveal and the reception were based on horse races, as the lady's fun emblem is a horse and her man was known as the Horse Whisperer. The pre-reveal is a custom that I learned about second hand from a friend who was a Past Grand Matron and never experienced until I was a Grand Officer in 2008. The usual methodology is that the man the Grand Conductress has chosen is made available about four or five hours before the GC Reception begins, where everyone finds out who he is, for certain people to meet and greet and know about early. The tradition is that the Past Grand Matrons and Patrons and each family of Grand Officers with which the GC served is invited to this event. So this year, the PGMs and PGPs, the current Grand Family, and the 2009s and 2003s were invited. The GC's own family, from when she was Grand Marshal, in this case the 2008s, were in charge of putting together the event and doing all the work for it. Since I was Grand Warder in 2008, I got to help put this event on for my big sister. You start with at least two decent sized rooms, although sometimes three works better. You need to have a waiting area, (maybe holding pen is more accurate :-), because people tend to come early, even ones that should know better, and they have to wait for their specific time to go in and meet the guy. Some years the people are let in one at a time and some years in batches. Each person, or group, goes in to the next room, meets and greets the guy, sometimes takes a picture, and then is herded off for refreshments, (remember Order of the Eating Siblings - NO event without food!). Some years, the refreshment room is a third room. This year, the meet and greet room and the refreshment room were all one big room with a built up wall to shield the meet and greet area from the entry door. I was stationed at one end of the built up wall and it was a little funny to watch the people because as they came in the door to my left and waited their turn to go around me and the wall to my right, I swear that lots of people were growing extra long necks. They were trying to lean or stretch or do anything to see around the corner. You know, I find it amusing that people who have waited four or five months to find out the identity of this guy were having so much trouble waiting another five minutes. But I suppose that imminence is everything. :-) So after each group met the guy, we lined them up for a picture and then they got to sit down and start on some drinks and snacks. When all the people had processed through, we served paninis and salad and dessert. It was really nice having the meal and letting everyone sit and chat. That is a really fun part, less so when you are one of the people ferrying food one way and emptied plates the other way, but fun nevertheless. Then everyone was off to the hotel to change clothes for the reception later that evening, when everyone would find out about the man. Based on comments and experience, it seems that the hardest thing about your first pre-reveal experience is that you have to now spend two hours in the room with the guy and NOT LOOK AT HIM! I was actually at the designee's table, but being a trial attorney, I have lots of practice at not giving stuff away with looks or funny smiles (she made a great choice and grinning at him was what I wanted to do) or too many giggles. But there you are at the reception for two hours from the beginning until the big announcement, and almost one hundred of the four hundred people in the room know who the guy is already and you are not supposed to give him away to the other three hundred people! This is verboten! Of course, as soon as the guy is announced, Blackberries are happily spreading the news to all parts of the state near and far. I know this year at least one person actually took and sent out a picture about sixty seconds after the announcement. But that is your chance to take a deep breath and go whew, now everyone knows and the pressure is off. The pre-reveal was not done in 2009 because that year's lady did not want a formal reception or a pre-reveal, choosing instead to reveal her choice of man at a large local event. I can see the value of doing it that way since it saved her and her Chapter an awful lot of time, work and money, not having a reception, and also saved her 2007 family a fair bit of work too. I know almost exactly how much work now, having just done it this weekend. But a lot of people like the pre-reveal and the reception and I am told that my 2009 Grand Family is very excited about doing it, so I currently plan to have those events. Of course, first I have to find a man and the rumors are already flying. I have been told that there are already people watching which men from the south I talk to at events. I also wonder if it isn't nicer and easier to be the person on the door side of the wall than the person on the reveal side of the wall. One way or another, I will know in about fifty weeks. Next weekend, I will be in San Ramon.

Amaranth is Not Just a Type of Wheat

This past weekend, a person very dear to me had a reception in his honor because he has become a very important officer in a different Masonic related body, the Order of the Amarath. Amaranth, like my Order, the Order of the Eastern Star, allows both men who are Masons and ladies with certain relationships to join as members. There are about twelve Amaranth Courts in California, I am told, in various parts of the state. Throughout all the Amaranth Courts in the world, the organization raises money for diabetes research and I understand that they donated over $450,000 last year. I thought that was great. But I have to admit that the event was a little long for me. I have trouble sitting for two hours and this thing, all in and all done, went about four hours. Luckily, the first half hour or so and the last half hour or so was standing up, for hors d'ouvres first and for some social time at the end, but three hours was a long tour of duty for me. It was helped a lot by being broken up by the serving of the meal and by a lovely entertainer who did songs from the fifties and sixties and did encourage some dancing so there was a break to get out of the chair for a bit, but the rest of the time was speeches and introductions. I realize that this is a different organization and I do not know their traditions at all, so I am not trying to judge what they do and don't do, but I can say that it was hard sit still and to watch. Maybe it would have been easier if I knew more. But I am pretty sure that every single person at the head table (there were ten or twelve of them) plus three or four people who weren't sitting up there were invited to the mike to made some remarks, some shorter and some longer. And all but one of them started their speech with a litany of titles to acknowledge all the dignitaries in the room. I understand why acknowledgement of these special guests, many of whom have traveled great distances, is important, but after the second or third time, it gets really boring, to be honest about it. So after the first time, is it really necessary? I know that there may have been a time that we did that same thing in Eastern Star, but for a long time we've had the rule that only the first speaker gives all the titles and after that you only thank the person who has invited you to the mike and now I totally and completely understand why. I am told as well that my friend the honoree may have broken with tradition a tad on the dress for the event. The dress code was Hawaiian or California summer casual and I wore my Hawaiian print dress (thank you Hilo Hattie's in Kona) and fit in just fine. I was still a bit warm, since it was nasty hot in the LA basin this past weekend, but manageable. However, I hear that these events are often held in formal wear and we would have just melted. I was in formal wear at a reception on Sunday, in fact, and I was worried that I was going to get heat stroke, because I have no heat tolerance at all and in a heavy dress with a full petticoat, all in nylon and polyester that does not breathe at all and sticks to you when you sweat, I was ready to keel over just to get somewhere that wasn't so hot. So seeing the event was great for two reasons. First, I was thrilled to be able to be there to honor my dear friend, who deserves every honor and opportunity. And second because it really gave me some good perspective on my own Order and perhaps some direction for the future. Eastern Star, in my view, does a better job about limiting the speakers and keeping some things a bit shorter, but we may be able to improve on that. And I have now seen just how off-putting it can be to sit and sit and sit. I confess that for Amaranth, about which I am almost entirely ignorant, meetings may be entirely different than receptions and probably are, and while their fund raisers and activities are certainly raising money for a great cause, that is near and dear to me because my father was diabetic, the length of the reception and the number of speeches and the repetitious title recitations did not excite me to join the Order even if I wasn't already busier than any three people ought to be. So I think that this experience has given me a very valuable perspective from which to think of things that Eastern Star can do to see to it that events that bring outsiders to us inspire those outsiders to join us. When non-members come to our social events and receptions, they are just as ignorant of our Order as I was about Amaranth and maybe we need to look at these sorts of events as not just being what they are, but also at least a little bit as membership opportunities. Even if the guests that come do not themselves join, it is a chance to put a few more people out in the world who know about our Order with a hopefully positive perspective. It will be interesting to see what we can do to make the most of those opportunities. Next weekend, I will be in Riverside, Ontario and San Diego.

Living in the Country

This past weekend found me wandering hither and yon in the Sierra valley area of California. For those not familiar with this piece of lovely countryside, I will start by saying that there are parts of California where the best way to reach them is to go into Nevada and then turn around and drive back into California. As backwards as this sounds, anyone from Beckwourth, Portola, Vinton or Susanville will tell you that it is accurate. You go to Reno and then turn back into California. The logistics problem is that these places are on the other side of the mountains from the rest of California and the only interstate that goes through these northern mountains is Hwy 80, which takes you to Reno before you can realistically turn off to go somewhere else. Otherwise, you have to wind your way through the mountains on twisty little two lane roads, which are actually slower than taking the interstate and then coming back an hour or so into California. I don't know what Caltrans or its predecessors were thinking when they set it up this way, but I guess they figured that the ninety people who live in Vinton didn't have a big enough voting bloc to complain about it. I spent big chunks of my childhood traveling by car because my parents were both in education which means that we had gobs of summer time, but no money. So we drove everywhere, even across the country, to get to see things. This is how I know that it is one full day's drive from the San Francisco Bay Area to the Arizona border, another day across Arizona and New Mexico, one more day across Texas, yet another day to the edge of Florida or an Eastern seaboard state and a fifth day to get where you are going. Unless of course you are headed for a northern Eastern seaboard state, in which case it is one really long day from the Bay Area to Salt Lake City in Utah (there just isn't anywhere good to stop before that), another day to get to Nebraska, another day across Nebraska and Iowa, another day to the Ohio/Pennsylvania border and a fifth day for where you are going. You are welcome to test these times if you wish, but I assure you that after doing it more than ten times, I should be fairly accurate. :-) So having done this much road travel, I have learned rules that many people in California have never had to learn, but which came in handy this past weekend. When you are down to less than half a tank of gas and you are passing an exit with a gas sign, stop and get some. You do not want to run out of gas in the mountains, the desert or pretty much anywhere. Did you know that with a modern fuel injected car, if you run out of gas you can't always just put some in and go? Sometimes you have to take your car to the dealer and have him recharge the fuel injectors or even replace them. Do not ask how I know this, please, :-) Use the bathroom while you are there too, because sometimes the rest stop is closed and in many other states, there are no rest stops on any road other than the interstate. Yes, the bathrooms are often very scary, but men have the advantage over women on the side of the road shrub method of dealing with your business, so learn to cope. Your own supply of toilet seat covers and toilet paper is a very, very good thing. While desperate times may call for desperate measures, a gas station restroom is not a place you want to be desperate. When the sign says Next Gas 78 miles, believe it. Keep in mind that much of the rural outback still has no cell phone service and if you actually do manage to get through to someone, the cost of a tow truck if you don't have a plan is enough to give you a heart attack and then you're going to have to pay the ambulance costs too. There is no exception to the laws about murder for killing someone who keeps asking if you are there yet or who didn't use the bathroom at the last stop and wants to stop now. There really should be some sort of self-defense sanity rule type exception, but there isn't, so no killing. I understand that it is also illegal to tie the offending person to the roof, trunk or hood of the car, but if they live, I think the penalty is lower. The offsetting benefit of these drives, and yes, it really can make up for the total boredom and the thousands of repetitions of the same car songs and the same car games, is the opportunity to see incredible sights. The mountains and trees in the Sierra Valley area are just awe inspiring. You can spend a lot of time just staring out the window, hopefully not while you are driving. And you can stop places and see things that no one flying over the area will ever experience. It is also true, although I will probably get in trouble for saying so, that people in these small town areas are incredibly friendly and welcoming. They are so glad that you took the time to come see them that their hospitality is overwhelming. And that is the best part of all. Next weekend, I will be in Irvine and San Jose, but not Sacramento, Citrus Heights or Hayward.

Two Tin Cans and a Piece of String

Since technical failures delayed this installment, instead of what I was going to write, I thought a word or two on technology might be in order. Let me start by reiterating my status as a dinosaur. RRRAAAARRRR! I am not a Luddite. I do not seek to destroy other people's technology. I just want it to leave me alone to wallow in my tar pit until I sink back down into the muck, someday to fuel an internal comubstion engine. I do not trust that technology will work and I am certain that it will fail when you need it most. The nice thing about two tin cans and a string is that it was a phone system that worked even when the power went out, even when the server was down, even when the contract wasn't set up correctly, and even when you couldn't remember the correct spelling for the e-mail address. I will also admit that I am convinced that the fall of Western Civilization began with the invention of the fax machine. Until the fax machine, nobody expected to get anything back for a week. You sent a letter and that took three days, then they would write you a letter back and send it and that would take another three to five days. The pace was manageable. But with the fax machine, everyone decided that if you got the fax today, you should respond this afternoon. When you told someone, the papers are in the mail, the person would say, well, just toss a copy in the fax machine so I can read them now and I will get the original when the mail comes. Of course, this has simply gotten progressively worse with e-mail, cell phones and of course now, the smartphone. I have been resisting the march of evil, but of course, no one can escape it completely. The use of e-mail at the office has increased steadily in the past ten years or so, to the point where the fax machine sits mostly idle, replaced by the scan and e-mail. In 2003, I succumbed to the 21st Century and got a cell phone, but it was just a phone, no camera, no special features. It made phone calls and held a phone directory in it. Alas, the screen on my cell phone died about three months ago and I could no longer use the phone directory, nor see who was calling, nor see the battery display to know how I was doing on charge. I could make and get calls, but without the rest, it was not very useful. So when I mentioned that I needed to get a new phone, the avalanche of opinion came down on me to get a Blackberry or other smartphone. Oh, you'll love it, everyone said. You'll find it so useful. To say that my skepticism was vast is an understatement. I was certain that it would be thirty foot Twinkie bad. (Ghostbusters ref.) But giving in to the pressure, I went and got the darn thing last Monday. So far, all my fears have come true. I lost three hours yesterday trying to get the thing to work with my computer, found out that the plan had been done incorrectly, found out that it takes an extra two days to set up after the plan was fixed, found out that deleting e-mail on the BB does not delete it on the computer so you get to do that twice and found out that typing on a teeny, tiny keyboard sucks. They say I will get used to it, but I usually avoid things that you have to work at to acquire the taste for them, like cigars and beer. So we will see if this snake I am now carrying in my purse is going to play nice and how long that will take. It particularly creates a conundrum for e-mail. Lots of members like to communicate with their Grand Line officers by e-mail. And lots of Grand Line officers and past ones have e-mails associated with their name and year that they set up on aol or yahoo or some other service where the e-mail addresses are free. Mostly they do that to segregate their Eastern Star stuff from their work stuff, so far as I can tell. I would rather not check two places (dinosaurs like to eat from one tree at a time, don't you know) so I have not created a new e-mail address yet. But it also seems that many Grand Line officers create a new e-mail so that it will be easier for the members to remember the address. The problem is that since there is no standardization for how to set up your new address, and really it can't be standardized because someone else might have taken the one you are supposed to use if it was standardized, I am not sure it really makes the remembering easier. Another group I belong to has e-mails set up on their organization domain with the various officers' titles. So for example, if you want to reach the current treasurer in that group, you just write to treasurer at XYZcompany dot org. Or if you want the president, it's president at XYZcompany dot org. Each year, the organization just sets a router that forwards all the e-mail for each title to the private e-mail address for that officer. They've done this for years and the best part is that I don't need to know who the current person is to reach them and the e-mail for the office doesn't change. Most domain names let you set up dozens of these alias e-mails for free, so there is no cost. But for some reason, some people seem unhappy with the thought of doing this for our group and I am not sure why. Perhaps they are worried that members won't remember which office you currently hold in the Grand Line and e-mails will get sent to the wrong people. Or maybe they are worried that when they are no longer a Grand Line officer, no one will know how to reach them. I am not sure. But I wonder if it would be helpful for the average member if we did this. Being the dinosaur that I am, I always wonder if the e-mail will arrive anyway, but making it easier for the members to at least try to send the darn things seems worth consideration. Next weekend, I am in Beckwourth and Portola.