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Rainfestival 2005: Wet Dream
This weekend was Puddletown's annual Fly-in. For those of you not familiar with Square dancing events, a Fly-in is a weekend long event with national callers and dancers attend from all over the region (and all over the country for some of the bigger fly-ins). Different clubs do things slightly differently, but most include a trail-in dance on Friday night, dancing including workshops all day Saturday, food and the big dance event on Saturday evening, then more dancing on Sunday. At all the Northwest clubs up and coming callers are mixed in with the headliners during the Sunday dance.
Friday night I wasn't sure what to expect since the dance was at a new location and you never know what to expect. We got to the Yesler Community Center right at 6:00 since I had the T-shirts and Dangles and they needed to be at the registration table when it opened. Justin was beside himself because his database had come unraveled during the day so instead of printing off registrations, he was having to open each one to multiple error messages and hand print them on the back of the "Schedule/places to eat in the neighborhood" flier. He is pretty even keeled so he put it behind him by 6:05 and just set about writing things up and being friendly to everyone. I brought my wire work plier and put the event dangle on everyones badges as they came in the door, and Ron folded and sorted t-shirts. It is always fun working the registration table since you get to hug everyone right as they arrive.
The Yesler community center is brand new and a really beautiful facility. It is on a bluff on the south side of the city so it has amazing views of all points south of the city. We were a little concerned since it is located in the center of one of the more notorious low-income housing projects, but the area has changed a lot in the last few years. There was something else going on on Friday night (we had the center to ourselves the rest of the weekend) and we had trouble with small packs of 8-10 year olds shouting the usual anti-gay obscenities and random children coming up to the registration table to ask for money, but I think most people just rolled their eyes at them and by 8:00 we had the place to ourselves.
I had been appointed to organize the GCA (Gay Caller Association) callers to do 15 minute tips throughout the weekend as well as to call on Sunday, so as soon as I could get away from the table I checked in with everyone to make sure that when I had scheduled them was okay and verify that they still wanted to call and let them know I would have a finalized schedule for them on Saturday.
Sandy and Mike's first tip lasted almost half an hour which got the evening off to a fun start. Everyone one was all smile for the rest of the weekend from that point on.
Saturday morning I got up to feed the cats, then just stayed up to make food for the potluck that night. I had printed out the revised and finalized GCA schedule and when Ron rolled out of bed a little while later, I sent him off to get Starbucks and drop the fliers off at the community center for the GCA callers since most of them dance Challenge and were already there to dance at 9:15. He returned and said there was no one there so he left them on the registration table (cue foreshadowing music.)
(Also, a word to the wise, Starbuck's new turkey bacon breakfast sandwich is not yummy....I am a fan of Turkey bacon, but the lowfat cheese they pair it with is not good...)
Dancing started for our level about an hour later so we arrived and danced the morning away. Just before lunch I made a startling discovery. Since Ron is a caller, and we are both on the board, we are on the short list of people who go to meals with the headliners. Yikes. Both Ron and I freeze up conversationally in those sorts of situations so it was with some trepidation that we followed the crew down to Seven Star Peppers for lunch with Mike DeSisto. We needn't have worried. Mike loves to tell stories, and not "stories" with a little "s", we are talking full-on STORIES. He is a born entertainer and he has been everywhere and I would guess he has always been the person to follow into the fun sort of trouble, so he kept us all entertained. He doesn't seem all that old, but he was a national caller when I was in grade school. It is no wonder he creates such a fun dance, between who he is, and how long he has been doing it, he really know what he is doing. Ross and Justin were there too and they are so funny that they filled in any gaps in conversation.
I will have to ask Ron how he experiences "business lunches" but I didn't even taste my food even though I was having a great time.
More dancing in the afternoon, then home to collect our potluck food and change into fancy western stuff for the evening dance. The potluck was a success, finally breaking the Puddletown Potluck Curse™. We haven't had a potluck since before Ron and I even joined the club. Keith had called a stop to it after the last one produced three bags of chips and some Grocery store deli fried-chicken. Saturday night's potluck was great. There was tons of really yummy food, and the only bad part was that as club members we had to let our guests and the Mainstream class students go first....
We ate out on the patio overlooking the lights of Beacon hill and the SODO. It got a little cold, but it was fun to eat outside for the first time this year.
After dinner was the graduation dance and all the class member got their official Puddletown badges and lots of pictures were taken. They were such a strong class and they all really like each other, so I think the club has actually grown finally!
We were completely exhausted by the end of the evening, but we had a birthday party to go to so we loaded![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
fuzzygruf and double_ohsteven in the car and headed off to an artists studio under the freeway in Eastlake. We did not expect the huge number of people who were there. There was a room with food and places to sit (with a DJ) and a fire pit and another room with another DJ playing dance music. It was all lit with rope lights and candles and such and the birthday boys had invited most of the leather and bear communities so it was wall to wall eye candy. Unfortunatly, we didn't really know anyone, and we were really tired so we just had a beer and found the birthday boys to say hello too, then we left. Apparently it turned into a naked rave later on that evening but we were sound asleep at home by then...
The next day, after a wonderful brunch out on the deck of the community center (Puddletown does a great brunch thanks to Ray) I discovered my GCA caller arranging had gone awry. Some of the GCA callers had not gotten their schedules, and no one who had gotten one remembered to bring it. I hadn't brought mine since I thought I had given the schedule to eight people and everything was taken care off. Oops. Lesson learned. Next year, no matter how tired I am, I will put the schedules in individual envelopes with each callers name on it so everyone gets their schedule, then I will carry one with me. Ron bailed me out by making a new list (I didn't even think of that...the list was made, I just had to find a copy of it!) for the headliners to use for announcing the GCA callers so it was allright, but I was still embarrased.
After we said goodbye to all our guests (including sexy Greg from New York who used to live in Seattle and came back for the fly-in...) we rushed home to change so we could go to dinner with Sandy. We took Mike someplace fun when we took him out, and we took Sandy to Ray's Boathouse since someplace with class seemed appropriate for dinner with her. It was a lovely evening watching the sun go down over the Olympics.
All in all, it was a really fun weekend, and everyone seemed to have a really great time.
ps. The theme, like many Puddletown flyin themes, only sounds (or in the case of the geoduck themes, looks) a little on the lascivious side...it is actually from the title of a song played on the Dr. Demento show, called "Wet Dream" by Kip Addotta and is a song about the singles scene under the sea and is basically one really bad pun after another.
Friday night I wasn't sure what to expect since the dance was at a new location and you never know what to expect. We got to the Yesler Community Center right at 6:00 since I had the T-shirts and Dangles and they needed to be at the registration table when it opened. Justin was beside himself because his database had come unraveled during the day so instead of printing off registrations, he was having to open each one to multiple error messages and hand print them on the back of the "Schedule/places to eat in the neighborhood" flier. He is pretty even keeled so he put it behind him by 6:05 and just set about writing things up and being friendly to everyone. I brought my wire work plier and put the event dangle on everyones badges as they came in the door, and Ron folded and sorted t-shirts. It is always fun working the registration table since you get to hug everyone right as they arrive.
The Yesler community center is brand new and a really beautiful facility. It is on a bluff on the south side of the city so it has amazing views of all points south of the city. We were a little concerned since it is located in the center of one of the more notorious low-income housing projects, but the area has changed a lot in the last few years. There was something else going on on Friday night (we had the center to ourselves the rest of the weekend) and we had trouble with small packs of 8-10 year olds shouting the usual anti-gay obscenities and random children coming up to the registration table to ask for money, but I think most people just rolled their eyes at them and by 8:00 we had the place to ourselves.
I had been appointed to organize the GCA (Gay Caller Association) callers to do 15 minute tips throughout the weekend as well as to call on Sunday, so as soon as I could get away from the table I checked in with everyone to make sure that when I had scheduled them was okay and verify that they still wanted to call and let them know I would have a finalized schedule for them on Saturday.
Sandy and Mike's first tip lasted almost half an hour which got the evening off to a fun start. Everyone one was all smile for the rest of the weekend from that point on.
Saturday morning I got up to feed the cats, then just stayed up to make food for the potluck that night. I had printed out the revised and finalized GCA schedule and when Ron rolled out of bed a little while later, I sent him off to get Starbucks and drop the fliers off at the community center for the GCA callers since most of them dance Challenge and were already there to dance at 9:15. He returned and said there was no one there so he left them on the registration table (cue foreshadowing music.)
(Also, a word to the wise, Starbuck's new turkey bacon breakfast sandwich is not yummy....I am a fan of Turkey bacon, but the lowfat cheese they pair it with is not good...)
Dancing started for our level about an hour later so we arrived and danced the morning away. Just before lunch I made a startling discovery. Since Ron is a caller, and we are both on the board, we are on the short list of people who go to meals with the headliners. Yikes. Both Ron and I freeze up conversationally in those sorts of situations so it was with some trepidation that we followed the crew down to Seven Star Peppers for lunch with Mike DeSisto. We needn't have worried. Mike loves to tell stories, and not "stories" with a little "s", we are talking full-on STORIES. He is a born entertainer and he has been everywhere and I would guess he has always been the person to follow into the fun sort of trouble, so he kept us all entertained. He doesn't seem all that old, but he was a national caller when I was in grade school. It is no wonder he creates such a fun dance, between who he is, and how long he has been doing it, he really know what he is doing. Ross and Justin were there too and they are so funny that they filled in any gaps in conversation.
I will have to ask Ron how he experiences "business lunches" but I didn't even taste my food even though I was having a great time.
More dancing in the afternoon, then home to collect our potluck food and change into fancy western stuff for the evening dance. The potluck was a success, finally breaking the Puddletown Potluck Curse™. We haven't had a potluck since before Ron and I even joined the club. Keith had called a stop to it after the last one produced three bags of chips and some Grocery store deli fried-chicken. Saturday night's potluck was great. There was tons of really yummy food, and the only bad part was that as club members we had to let our guests and the Mainstream class students go first....
We ate out on the patio overlooking the lights of Beacon hill and the SODO. It got a little cold, but it was fun to eat outside for the first time this year.
After dinner was the graduation dance and all the class member got their official Puddletown badges and lots of pictures were taken. They were such a strong class and they all really like each other, so I think the club has actually grown finally!
We were completely exhausted by the end of the evening, but we had a birthday party to go to so we loaded
fuzzygruf and double_ohsteven in the car and headed off to an artists studio under the freeway in Eastlake. We did not expect the huge number of people who were there. There was a room with food and places to sit (with a DJ) and a fire pit and another room with another DJ playing dance music. It was all lit with rope lights and candles and such and the birthday boys had invited most of the leather and bear communities so it was wall to wall eye candy. Unfortunatly, we didn't really know anyone, and we were really tired so we just had a beer and found the birthday boys to say hello too, then we left. Apparently it turned into a naked rave later on that evening but we were sound asleep at home by then...The next day, after a wonderful brunch out on the deck of the community center (Puddletown does a great brunch thanks to Ray) I discovered my GCA caller arranging had gone awry. Some of the GCA callers had not gotten their schedules, and no one who had gotten one remembered to bring it. I hadn't brought mine since I thought I had given the schedule to eight people and everything was taken care off. Oops. Lesson learned. Next year, no matter how tired I am, I will put the schedules in individual envelopes with each callers name on it so everyone gets their schedule, then I will carry one with me. Ron bailed me out by making a new list (I didn't even think of that...the list was made, I just had to find a copy of it!) for the headliners to use for announcing the GCA callers so it was allright, but I was still embarrased.
After we said goodbye to all our guests (including sexy Greg from New York who used to live in Seattle and came back for the fly-in...) we rushed home to change so we could go to dinner with Sandy. We took Mike someplace fun when we took him out, and we took Sandy to Ray's Boathouse since someplace with class seemed appropriate for dinner with her. It was a lovely evening watching the sun go down over the Olympics.
All in all, it was a really fun weekend, and everyone seemed to have a really great time.
ps. The theme, like many Puddletown flyin themes, only sounds (or in the case of the geoduck themes, looks) a little on the lascivious side...it is actually from the title of a song played on the Dr. Demento show, called "Wet Dream" by Kip Addotta and is a song about the singles scene under the sea and is basically one really bad pun after another.
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And, yes, I would have blogged about that!
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The other guest staying with Fred & Brian left the party around 4am and said the party stayed tame, but the crowd kept dwindling down, mostly with people just looking for rides home, LOL. We left around 2am. Lots of shirtless guys dancing at that point, but I missed any naked raving. Damn.
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