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This past weekend was Revelation and Grand Officers' School for the incipient 2011 Grand Family. This blog is my fifty-third entry, marking the first of a new year for me, although technically, next week is the "Entry before Grand Chapter" entry, due to how the calendar has fallen. Revelation is when the Associate Grand Matron and Associate Grand Patron get to reveal who they have chosen to be their ten appointive Grand Officers for the coming year. It is a very exciting time for everyone. The people who have been asked to serve get to come out of the closet and are relieved of the burden of lying to their best friends and loved ones, the current Grand Family get to find out the identity of their Little Sisters and Brothers, which also means finding out how far you are going to have to travel to make the Former Grand Officer Presentation to the next person (closest one - same district; farthest one - across state lines), and the Grand Line Officers get to meet their next Family and look forward to traveling with them for a year. The one thing I wish, more than anything else, in connection with Revelation, is that there was some way to get people to stop asking the question, Are You Going to Be a Grand Officer Next Year? The answer is always NO. Whether the answer is really yes or really no, the answer is always NO. Please do not make your friends lie to you. They are not programmed to respond in this area! Please do not try to figure out when the secret weekend is, when the officers all met each other for the first time, and please do not call your friends houses to see if they are gone that weekend. Please do not hint that you know where they went and please do not tell them that you know that they will be an officer next year. Please do not try to guess the hotel or location at which they are meeting and please do not go there and search the parking lot for cars and license plates that you recognize. [No animals were harmed in the making of this rant.] I realize that everyone loves to be "in the know" but if you love them, leave them alone. And for goodness sake, if you asked and they lied, do not blame them for it. You put them on the spot and gave them no choice, so while the rest of the country may have a quandry, Don't Ask, Don't Tell needs to apply here. We've gotten the Don't Tell down, now we need to work on Don't Ask. We now return you to your regularly scheduled program. So after the Revelation, which was particularly cute this year with a power point presentation and cartoon stick figures (who doesn't love cartoon stick figures :-), we all start in on Grand Officer's School. This is a two and a half day boot camp for the new "kids" to polish their performance of the various ceremonies of the Order, and I do mean boot camp. You don't sit very much, every nuance is checked and re-checked and they feed you enough food for an army. I realize that the 2011 fun emblems of a panda and a snow leopard are traditional zoo animals, but does that really mean that we needed feeding time every two hours or less? Well, maybe so. :-) By tradition, the AGM's Chapter fixes the meals and snacks and the school is held at her Chapter's meeting place or close by. This year, some members from the AGP's Chapter also came up to help, which was really nice to see, especially for me since these same folk fed me in 2007 and 2009, so it was nice to see them. But next time, a few less cookies perhaps. :-) Perfecting your Ritual work can be a really intensive experience, but it is utterly necessary because in just three short weeks, (actually a little less now), we have to be the demonstrators and teachers for the Deputy Grand Matrons, who will watch us like hawks watch mice. Woe betide the Grand Officer who doesn't know which line to walk on or when to step out and on what foot. They are dooooooooooommed, dooooooooommed. So to give us the best possible chances of survival, we drill and drill and drill to get it just right. The school is also a great chance to get to know your soon to be new family. Even though you are totally excited about the process, it is very scary too. For those of us in our third or fourth year of this, we know what to expect. But when it is your first time, you are at the lowest tier of ignorance - You don't know what you don't know, so you don't even know what to ask. At one of the meals, I was sitting with three of the appointives and their escorts and I think we spent most of that time talking about tips and tricks for being on the road, what to expect when the year is over and The Three Things I Most Wish Someone Had Told Me When I Was A First Timer. I wonder if they'll share the info with the others. :-) All in all it was a great weekend and we got a lot done, both in terms of perfecting our Ritual and in starting to get to know one another more fully. Now if I can just remember everyone's name, I will be two thumbs up. :-) Next weekend I am getting ready for Grand Chapter and leave for the session next Tuesday.