Workshop's end

This whole week I have been conducting my annual juried intensive poetry workshop. I’m exhausted now but pleased that the poets seemed delighted with it and seemed to feel it really helped them with their craft and their delivery. Thursday night we had the public reading. Most of them did well, although some still mumbled and one read an inappropriately hammy poem. But we had a full house at the library and the audience seemed to enjoy it. At the end I read some new poems. Friday after class and my last conference, I started cooking for the party. Woody cut up gravlax we’d made a couple of weeks go, we had lots of jumbo shrimp with our own cocktail sauce, made hummus, guacamole, chickpea feta salad, tablouli I started the night before, deviled eggs, three cheeses, fancy bread and lots of crackers. My friend Martha made two fabulous cakes and Melenie made two kinds of cookies. The weather was perfect. We were worrying about having the party in the garden because it had been chilly most evenings and buggy. But the weather was perfect – not too hot, not too chilly, a nice breeze but not windy – and no mosquitoes! We had about 25 people—the 12 poets, their significant others and children, Melenie and four other friends. Two of them host my poets and Dale and Stephen came because they wanted to meet our new kitten Willow. People were great this year about helping us to bring in leftover food and dirty dishes and picking up trash. It’s a lot of work, but the party is fun and it gives people a chance to relax together with the other participants and with woody and me. I finally had a good long night’s sleep last night. I am very sore – no exercise all week, no time in the garden, little time with Woody, little time for the cats. I haven’t been able to walk at all this week. A lot of talking, a lot of sitting, a lot of time working at the computer. Willow has accomplished what I hoped for – getting the cats and us out of our depression after Puck’s death. She has snuggled with Sugar Ray. a couple of times sleeping together, she is playing with Mingus who has become very lively again – really perked up. Willow is a bit intimidated by huge Xena, but mostly it’s okay. She is extremely affectionate, purring whenever you pick her up, cuddling around my neck or on my lap or Woody’s, asking for tummy rubs – a sign a cat really trusts you. She is very playful –finds her own toys like some tissue paper when we are not playing with her or she is not playing with Mingus. Today is a pick up, tidy up, try to relax finally day. Monday what I hope a normal or nearly normal workweek begins. We slept late and then dealt with the remaining dirty dishes, cutlery and bowls and pans that wouldn’t fit in the dishwasher yesterday. Woody took a truckload of trash to the dump. I am digging away at a huge pile of clothes – everything I wore all week and never had time to deal with. My office I’ll try to get to tomorrow – papers all over the floor, books scattered, files out. But slowly into it all. We’re taking our life back. I has been a rough and extremely busy several weeks with two deaths, bad news from two friends with cancer, Puck’s rapidly declining health, back and forth to the vet every couple of days,then two weeks later, the new kitten Willow and then my workshop. Time to take it easy for two days till Monday resumes work.