ltmurnau | Monday Afternoon Quarterback

Well, Saturday was The Party of the Year at my place: the Sixth Annual Tuvan Independence Day Celebration. Saturday nearest August 15 every year, no one's been disinvited yet.

This year it went pretty well, ifIdosaysomyself. And I do. Lots of people came (some surprising no-shows, though), like last year, and no one fell in the fire, unlike last year. I made Aki Fire Safety Officer this time and charged him with keeping the other little ones out of the pit. Actually, there were 8 or 10 children this time - they never stopped moving long enough for me to count - but once they had been fed we gave them some logs to play with on the far side of the yurt, and that took care of them.

I was really tired out because I had had to do all the setting up in the hot sun all day long - Aki was precious little help to me - and then go inside and fleisch hacken for two hours, then get cleaned up. People started coming about 5:00.

Gothvic people: Gray,

seaofrainEve,

scuttleAnne, Paul, Casper, Inar and

kiri_bean Crystal, Kevin and Crystal and kids. Inar and Crystal made Tuvan-style hats out of Value Village fur hats with tasseled springy door-stop things for the tops, and gave me two wonderful little Chinese figurines! Later Siouxsie and Lennon and a couple of hippies-with-wheels showed up.

Art people: Stephen and Lissa from Seattle of course, Michael Lewis and his wife Jenny came with three teenage Japanese exchange students, but Jenny and the students stayed only long enough to use the bathroom as they were on their way to a hayride. Gary and Shelley came late and left early. Also, Ron and Soma from Darth Brooks/narc/Griefer came, I was very glad to see them.

Army people: Louis Rioux showed up as a surprise, hadn't seen him for 15 years, he came with Brett's friend Dave but Brett did not come as he had been both playing video games and drinking to excess. Brett's other friend (can never remember his name, he teaches architecture at SAIT in Calgary now) came. Mike did not come because his wife Linda, who had had a C-section 2 weeks before, had a bacterial infection in her incisions and had to go on IV antibiotics.

Others: Mxo's friends Miharu and Misuzu, and their kids. Misuzu's husband Greg did not want to leave, he never gets his fill of the folks who come to these parties (this was the third time he had come, the first time we found that he and Gary had both been in the Camosun College Visual Arts program 18 years before, had not seen each other since and now were meeting in my backyard for no good reason!).

There were probably some other people who came, but I've forgotten. No, I think that was all. As usual, I never got a chance to talk to anyone I wanted to for as long as I wanted to, this always happens and I worry that some of my guests feel ignored because I can't spend enough time with them. But it is interesting to see a large number of people, who generally have only me in common, gather in one place and try to mingle. That's what parties are for I suppose.

The yurt got some use this year! Usually people are afraid to go into it because it looks so rickety. But I put a rug in this year and that was a help. Food went down well, I actually cooked too much since about eight people I expected to come didn't. I have a feeling I will be sick of eating leftover lamb by Thursday.

The Sims were not home, unfortunately, but A.N.D. had a party going next door so we were in a duelling-parties situation for a while. His party was playing horsehoes or lawn darts or something that involved everyone going "WHOOO!!" at fixed intervals. After a bit I had on Yenisei-Punk, the Yat-kha album with the long demo of kargyraam throat-singing on it, and I noticed Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel and his cousins popping their gimme-hat-topped heads over the fence to eye the weird people and see what was making that drony vacuu-m-cleaner noise. Eventually we drove them inside, using a combination of more Yat-Kha, Klaus Nomi, Oingo Boingo, and some nice Goth-industrial compilation CDs Gray had brought with him. Fortunately we didn't have to bring out the Captain Beefheart big guns.

People started leaving about 10:30 or 11:00, and the last left about 1:00. Mxo and I cleaned up as much as we could to save time the following day. I had a headache and tired muscles all Sunday but got things cleaned up outside, and spent the evening reading over project proposals for work. (I hate taking work home.)

I think everyone had a good time, and everyone who didn't show probably lost out. So nyeah.

But there's always next year: Saturday, August 15, 2004! Mark your calendars now!