23 June 2007

So, during the annual Wooden Boat Show and Boats to Tools Auction at the local folk school back in June, Tom and I had the responsibility of hosting the Instructors' Gathering / Dinner Saturday night. Unfortunately, since Tom was also slated to help with the auction, the majority of the work for the dinner fell into my lap.

I expected that the food planning, procurement (good word, huh?!), and presentation would amount to be the biggest requirement of work associated with the event . . . until we got to the Rec Hall Saturday morning to set up. It was then that we found out that the hall had been accidentally double-booked! And, since the other party reserved the space on January 2nd (!), we were the proverbial "odd man out". The result was a flurry of panicked activity in securing another space to hold the dinner in . . . with fewer than 8 hours to go!

The upshot of all of this is that the only space available at such short notice was a folk school building previously occupied by a commercial fisherman and local legend . . . but it was the space used to process the fish! Fortunately, there were no remaining "fish gut" smells and the view out the windows facing the lake WAS stunning . . . but the area - now being used for storage and extra classroom space when needed - wasn't exactly "dinner ready".

So, the priorities for my day changed from making sure everything was "picture perfect" for the dinner to simply making the space "presentable"! But, with massive amounts of help from the facilities manager (thank you, Bob!) and a whole lot of elbow grease, we pulled it off.

This shot is of Tom and one of the main "folk school folks" doing their presentation during the dinner. Shortly after this picture was taken, I snuck off to enjoy a quick break and a little vino with some of the other ladies who'd been working their fannies off to "make it all happen". Unfortunately, I returned to the building a bit too late . . . only to find Tom and a dear, dear (PREGNANT!) - friend who'd dropped what she'd been doing to come down to help - working THEIR heinies off in the clean-up effort. There was hardly anything left for me to do that night! (Oh, the guilt . . . !)