Blink and You Miss It

This past weekend was filled with tasks, some of which even got done.  What is amazing though is the length of the lead time on so many things.  You try really hard to keep everything low key and to avoid intruding on anything going on this year, but Wow!  If you don't get stuff done early, you are dooooooomed!  And if you blink, the time is gone and the next thing you know, you're rushing around.  I hate rushing around.  Sigh!

So this past weekend, my fraternal mom and I had a lovely meeting to talk about, of all things, Grand Installation.  Yes, an event that isn't going to take place for almost ten more months, nevertheless, plans have to get started now because of the long lead time on the many items to be arranged.

For example, it has been traditional for the Grand Officers (or at least the ladies - why the men are often spared this is completely beyond me) to have a carrying piece that they carry in when they are introduced during the recess and that they then carry it to their station when they are installed and put it on a stand and it becomes part of the Installation decorations and then they take the carrying pieces and stands home with them and then they have to bring them back the following year to serve as decorations during one's Grand Chapter session and then they get to take them home again, again!

The carrying pieces can be whatever you want them to be, but lovely stained glass panels of the Worthy Grand Matron's emblem have become the carrying piece of choice for many ladies.  I have seen (and been the happy recipient) of other types of pieces that are truly lovely (I have an embroidered piece that came out wonderfully), but no matter what sort of thing it is, they usually need months of lead time to have them made plus having the stands made, so you have to decide in January what you want in October.  It is also traditional for the Deputy Grand Matrons to have carrying pieces, so that's another couple of dozen things that have to be made.  At least that is something I didn't have to decide about because it is supposed to be a surprise.  Yay!  Something that I just get to show up and enjoy!  Yay, yay, yay!!!

Then there is deciding who is going to do what in the ceremony, if there is any special music or set up for which you have to find instrumentalists, singers or sheet music, whether you want corsages and so on and so on and so on.  All I can say is that I am truly grateful that at least after making the decisions, I have my fraternal parents to turn all this stuff into reality.  And being a triangle (which means someone who loves to delegate)  I am totally yay on having people I can count on to get stuff done and having them worry about it so I can take it off my head.  I have lots of other things still in process, so getting my installation list down to buying a dress and writing a speech sounds wonderful, maybe mythical, but still great sounding.

It was also the weekend for getting some more calendar items done in preparation for locking the calendar.  Hopefully I have all the date requests by now and no one else will want a slot for anything, but we'll see. :-).  And of course, with some dates, putting them on the calendar also involves finding a chair person to agree to get a location and get that to me, and we will see how that goes too.

Next weekend, I am in Ukiah and Los Molinos.