Sliding For Home

As people are reminding me almost every day, it is exactly five more weeks now to the Revelation of the 2013 Grand Family and only ten weeks and two days to Grand Installation.  Wow! 

So the time has come for me to start turning in the products of the past year's work and to prepare for the beginning of the end.  The end of the planning anyway, since after this month, the stuff that you can plan for will pretty much be over.  Then what is left is to carry out the plans.

That is not to say that being Worthy Grand Matron is stress free - far from it.  But it seems to me that the type of stress is very different.  When I was Princess, the ramp-up to ascending the throne was very much like the Grand Line process of having to find people to serve for you and doing paperwork and planning lots and lots of details.  But once you are on the throne, (also known as living in the fish bowl), the stress changes to the stresses of the moment and the day.  A crisis arises and you have to deal with it.  Someone goes nutty and you have to talk them down.  You have to pack the right clothes, make sure you bring the right stuff, buy presents for people, work out details of your events with your chairs, and all that, but the long term, long range stuff is done.

As I round third base and head for home, I hope that I don't actually have to slide in because I run out of time.  And I remind myself that some things have a "done" version and a "done for now" version.  For example, the calendar has been submitted to be included in the Grand Chapter Itinerary, but there are no places in it for the Grand Officer Receptions and several concordant bodies have not gotten me their time and place details for their events yet.  So that is "done for now", but will need more stuff put into it before the full Roster is published at the end of November. On the other hand, Lord willin' and the Crik don't rise, (meaning barring an unforeseen disaster) the selection of Deputy Grand Matrons is "done" done.  I am still working on a few committee appointments, hoping to get them "done" done in the next week or so.  I have the clothes for the Grand Representatives for next year ready to show at their Northern and Southern meetings later this month and should have the pins and Make a Difference Program sheets ready for them too, so that is "done for now" but not "done" until they have seen them and I get out the order forms to them.

It is of course also time for me to ramp up for the Revelation and the Grand Officers' School and the Deputy Grand Matron School, all of which are coming up fast.  I think that the clerks at the Office Depot are starting to recognize me when I go in there, but they are really good about helping me out, even when I have really weird questions like where in the store to find two part door prize tickets or blue painter's tape.  But I do not need yarn - No Grand Line Officer should ever have to buy yarn again as long as they live!

Tonight I am meeting with my personal secretary to go over the Deputy Grand Matron binders and their contents, and the labeling for their CDs and a hundred other things, like envelopes for the Past Grands for during and after the Revelation.  It's these little persnickety things that aren't written down that really get to you.

This weekend, I have to make a stop on Friday in Las Vegas for my mother's 75th birthday dinner and then on to Riverside and Upland.