Achievement Unlocked

This past weekend has been the time for "unlocking achievements."  Friday night The Child suddenly decided that he wanted to go to the school fund-raiser dance after all (ah, the allure of ice-cream and snacks at an otherwise boring-old-dance).  Mark didn't feel like going, so I went and alternately danced and made sure The Child and his friends weren't Doing Stupid Middleschooler Tricks.  One of the perks of being a parent is dancing with wild abandon (and shoulder swaying) in front of the school to Cyndie Lauper's "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" and Men Without Hat's "Safety Dance."   I did wish, though, that Mark had decided to come along, and the couple dancing the Lindy (along with pretzel moves and the lovers-window) made me wistful.

Saturday night more than made up for a Mark-less Friday night dance.

Sunday I managed to dig sixteen holes in the backyard and sink sixteen bricks into a rough circle.  This isn't to say that there weren't stakes and strings and eye-balling the meridian and levels and prying bricks back out of the ground to move them an inch to the left.  The whole process took about two hours longer than I thought it would, but by the end I had a circle larger enough to comfortably hold eight, with the cardinal and cross-quarter directions marked.  

Since I'm the only (practicing?) NeoPagan in the house, the circle needed to be unobtrusive, the lawn needed to be usable for other activities, and the lawnmower needed to be able to pass over the bricks.  I imagine I'll mostly use it for meditation and the occasional solitary ritual.  Although the ground isn't level, I tried my best to level the bricks, so the square ones at the cardinal points should be sutable for things like candles or other ritual items.  

Oh, that's right, I dreamt I was in some giant community ritual in Corvallis, and also that my old drama instructor, Kathleen Whorley, had had her brain transferred into a cat's (she spoke through a LED mouth superimposed on the cat's.

Monday (and Tuesday) my quads (and my calves) were pretty sore.  Going to the gym Monday was ... interesting.  But I did the usual routine.