Been a busy week, focusing on the Lake Union Wooden Boat Festival.

Friday was setup, and I was the staff person designated as least busy and therefore nominated to be the spokesperson for a public service announcement on television. I got to work a bit after 8 am, but then it was canceled as we didn’t have enough people to bring as audience members.

Saturday was the first day of the festival, which began with a 7:30 am staff meeting, and, for me, ended about 13 hours later. In between was tons of directing people to go this or that direction, and how to do this job, and sign them up for shifts later in the Festival. The first six or seven hours of the day, I spent entirely in Festival/Volunteer HQ.

Sunday we began at 8 am for more of the same as Saturday, but only 11 hours of it.

Monday was slowish, so I got to go out and about, and wrote up my ‘staff pick,’ only to find that my favorite boat left on Sunday night! One of our long term volunteers bought me an ice cream cone, however, which is almost consolation, and I chilled a little in the beer garden before heading home.

Tuesday, presumably, was much like Monday, except that I ran away to go hiking with Alex and a couple of his buddies, down by Mt. Rainier. It’s about three hours to drive down there, so I still got up at sixish. Actually, I woke up at a quarter to six, due to kitten. I woke up a little, looked over, and she was curled up in a perfect circle by my head — with her head stuck under the pillow! I tried to get up very quietly to grab the camera and photodocument this oddity, but she woke up, and then she was monstery, so I just got up and made buttermilk biscuits for eating in the car. At the mountain we saw wildflowers, and several frogs (! — too fast for me to catch, though), but no marmots, and none of the big damage from the November storms.

Wednesday, last day of the festival, I was back in Festival HQ for a good chunk of the day, and ended up making a fair number of announcements, as we had no particular announcer. I got a lot of comments on how great I sound amplified, something I’ve never thought about before. I guess with radio show in high school, and call center experience, I modulate my voice pleasantly. People also seemed particularly taken by the last few closing announcements, which I phrased to kindly emphasize that at six o’clock the Festival was over, and that included the beer garden.

Spent an hour or two on cleanup, then had dinner with the volunteers, and chilled on the docks for the fireworks. Alex and I ended up sitting on the Pirate, which was at the end of the dock, and therefore a front row seat. The fireworks were lovely, included a few shaped as smiley faces, cubes and hearts, but were nowhere near as many as New Year’s in China. Very nice to watch them on the water, though.

The only thing we did wrong was to leave too early, and get stuck in traffic snafus on the way home. I’d asked Alex to come with car, so I wouldn’t have to bike home, assuming I’d be tired and tipsy, but even biking tired and tipsy we would have gotten home quicker!

Today, you won’t be surprised to hear, I took a long nap!