Odds and ends

Worldcon: For me, so-so. I somehow managed to miss damned near everyone I was hoping to see, and the timing of some of the people I'd have liked to sit down with was bad (we passed in the halls, when headed to other places). I did get to see my folks, and Marty caught me up on some family gossip.

We should have gone Friday (esp. because the party I most wanted to attend was Friday, but I misread the schedule).

The con itself seemed decently run (though I think the constraints posed by not having a Monday made a one-day Saturday membership less valuable than it usually is. Maia and I missed the art-show altogether, which I think she would have enjoyed a fair bit). Not that I am blaming Maia, but because she needed to come home and do about five hours worth of homework we decided against staying over. This did mean I could decide to buy her some jewelry, without feeling guilty, since I wasn't paying for a room. (had either of the con hotels had an open room we'd have stayed, and left early in the morning).

We'll be going to LosCon (thanksgiving weekend) though lots of people I'd like to have seen are likely to be staying at home on the East Coast. The other possibility is that we'll drift up to OryCon (which has a different crop of people who would like to see us. I'll have to talk to her about the timing. Is PotLatch in SF this year?).

As libertango says (per akirlu) I seem to be less certain what of what I'm looking for in a convention. I want to see people, and go to some ineresting discussions. Smaller is ptobably better.

On the less pleasant side, people who "knew me when." I stopped counting the people who seemed to recall me at 15, and think the subsequent time to be some sort of warp wherein I skipped the middle bits. The most annoying was the one who's daughter told her to come see me (it's not the daughter's fault I don't care for her mother much; it's not the sort of thing I felt the need to share), and said, "Look at you, all grown up."

Never mind that in the past twenty years she's seen me at least a couple of dozen times (though to be on the generous side of fair, not many in the last ten).

There was the friend who commented I was looking grown up. More lines and character in my face. I can almost accept that, save that I am far too frequently treated, at least slightly, as though I were still in my late teens. It wasn't so bad when I was in my twenties, irksome when I was in my early thirties, now that I'm just shy of forty, well...

Maia and met akirlu and cluefairy as well as cluefairy's nbh (non-blogging husband) for breakfast. That was great. We all three live too far away from each other, and the chance to gossip, talk and just catch up comes rarely. I suspect Maia and nbh learned things about our various pasts which were new (the three of us have known each other for something like 25 years, and our lives have braided in ways both simple and complex for all of them).

I can say that Johhny Reb's in Orange has a magnificent butcher. I ordered the steak and eggs. The steak was a 6 oz piece of skirt (the size was mentioned, not the cut). It was aged. It had a rich flavor, not quite gamey; sweet, mellow and complex. Pieces were shared around the table.

I also brought a couple of gifts, no longer permitted on airplanes, being fruit jellies from Le pain quotidien (an upscale-ish bakery. They make a baguette in the style called ancienne. I can get most of the flavor at home, (though I think I've been baking it too soon, and not using cold enough water), but the crust... I've not got the oven. It's think, dense, and chewy. It also prevents my greatest complaint about baguettes; it keeps the crumb from going stale.

Ok, bread aside they sell various treats; I bought a .lb of honey. Honey, like wine, coffee, tea, etc., has a lot of variety. I like darker, more strongly flavored honey, so I bought the chestnut blossom. At this point, I think I'm going to return it.

It's strong, pungent and overpowering. This isn't always a problem. I have some italian heater honey (Dr. Pescia, I believe, but the direct website is eluding me, and the re-sellers are asking about twice what I paid for it in a shop, plus shipping) which is the color of strong Darjeeling, with the texture of molasses. It's divine.

This stuff, not so much. It's aggressive in the nose, musky and sharp. On the tongue, undiluted, it's bitter, slightly acrid and it ends with a strong soapy note.

On yogurt it doesn't get any better, the best way I can think of to describe it is corrupt.

I'm trying to see if there's anything it would go with.

But I suspect I'll be swapping it for some wildflower, or perhaps the acacia.

Yesterday I went dojo-shopping. To be more honest, I went to see if the dojo I was looking at was so horrible as to prevent my joining.

The mat is too small, but that's not a deal breaker. At first I thought it was just crowded, but when there were just three of us doing rondori the edges were often too close.

But it's an active crowd (there were 18 people in line on Monday) with an interesting second class on Mondays. The teacher goes up the line (seated in rank order) and either assigns a task she thinks needs work, or asks the student what they are looking for. I was asked 1: if I'd ever done rondori (non-stop attacks, where the idea is to just deflect the aggressor), and 2: if I was up for it.

I said yes to both, and the pattern of the drill was called, in detail. I had already seen it, so that part wasn't really needed. It flowed well. Then I swapped with one of the nage and was on the attacking side. In the latter portion of the evening I was nage in another rondori was tossed into the path of the other nage. He leaped over me. I was too busy taking ukemi (the art of becoming one with the mat to be paying attention.

I took a couple of high-falls in the course of the evening, and a couple of hard ones. I was greeted warmly, and given time to absorb the culture of the place. It's not as egalitarian as Akido of SLO but I can adjust.

The the hardest thing to adjust to will be the belting/hakama. This is a dojo which allows/encourages women to wear them as soon as they are competent at ukemi. Having always been in dojos where hakama were only worn by very skilled aikidoka I am afraid I'll treat people as if they were more skilled than they are. This means my mistakes are more likely to hurt them.

The other thing is that the dojos I've been associated with use a three tier/color system, with two grades at each belt-color. Here each rank has its own color, so now I have a green belt.

Oddly enough, having so many belts makes me think less of each of them (even though no one here will think me a rank beginner, as opposed to merely unskilled). On the upside, I can train as much as I like, with five days a week of Aikido, some tai-chi, and qi-pong (some sort of healing discipline.

Downside, my sprained wrist, and toe (both two-months old) are still tender. I am being careful, but I'm afraid if I train too hard, I'll just make them worse.

I am not, however, willing to wait another couple of months to get back in practice.