some stories of the weekend

[forgotten_aria]

Many bugs, much more than last year.

More time of course still turned into a rush, but my crew pulled it nicely together. I also so glad to get that practice of having to think of what to say, think what song is next and then think about what I have to play, which is really difficult. I also got two songs off (raku and island stroll) where as B and D had to play in every song. I made the set shorter on purpose, but it was still a long, tiring set, especially with the hachijo medly in there. One of the kids had clearly seen the ONE school show, since he asked, "isn't hachijo supposed to be played from sun up to sun down?" which was completely awesome that we had a fan.
I got lots of personal comments this year about how nice it was to have the drumming as atmosphere and some people who had actually watched us up close. There were also some people clearly very excited about taking taiko classes. Hopefully they'll find the time to start.

I'm also so happy this place has the pavillion. It started to rain a little while we were practicing, but the pavilion is water tight enough that the drums were completely safe. We of course had a tarp near by, just in case a leak did show up.

At ~4am, I got up to go to the bathroom. While there, pants down around my ankles, I hear this buzzing and look up and there is this (at the time I thought wasp, but I later learned) hornet which had just emerged from a golfball sized hornet's nest. I had just enough time to think "Oh sh@#!" when it fell-flew down upon me. I covered my face and as much skin as I could and froze. It buzzed again and I realized it was on my shoulder. I kept as still as I could until it luckily flew to the stall door. Since it was 4 am and no one was around, I opened the door and kicked it open in hopes he'd fly out. after a little bit of patience he did and escaped sting free. Since there was a second nest I went to seek out someone to tell or some way to leave a note. With someone's help I left two notes and put a duct tape warning on the stall door. In the morning, I talked to a abode care taker who had obviously been told, but thought it was in the showers, so I showed him the nests and we swiftly took care of it. He was very nice.

I played my koto some. Most people said, "what is that?" who noticed it.

I had decided before the weekend started that I would face my fear of heights and meditate at the end of the bridge to no where. What better challenge than to calm the mind when you're on the edge of a fear? It was a weird sensation, because I would calm myself, forget where I was and then open my eyes and have a moment of OMG!!

I found out that when I'm there I really need to eat about 4x as much food as normal. It was weird forcing myself to eat more, but I had a number of food crashes when I would forget this rule. I also figured out I can't really wear those sandels all weekend and need to choose my foot wear more carefully. They also let me park/sleep in the commuters lot because my knees hated the hill last year and I am very thankful.

I saw so many people who live right near me who I never see, but it was still good to see them and the other people who live far away too.

Moraccian mint was my favorite flavor this year. I'm sad that I got to try the miracle fruit but then didn't have anything sour to taste afterward.

EDIT: coolest new taste experience: bacon toffee