greg3d

Fall Assembly

I'm in the midst of Fall Assembly. It started last night, but my participation was limited to the WAAC committee meeting. Today was most of the work, culminating with a banquet and a speaker and a chance to chill out and visit for a bit. I would have hit the evening recovery meetings if this was being held out of town, but it's here in Tacoma and the desire to come home and relax was too strong. So here I am and happy to be home at 8:30. No sign of Arthur. I guess he's asleep upstairs. Tomorrow is a breakfast and a spiritual speaker, then goodbyes and home by noon.

Overall, it went well, with no controversy, except for a little bit that I started. It got resolved amicably though, amd to my satisfaction. I've never thought of myself as a politician, but boy sometimes you have to resort to politics. Actually, it was more like pitching a minor fit. In the appropriate manner, of course.

Don't they know it's a family disease?

I’m pissed off again.

I took some flyers for my Alateen group to the AA meeting that meets at the same time as my home group.  I asked a long time member of the group, who I happen to know started off in Al-Anon, if she would make an announcement that my group needs support. She told me she wasn’t sure if the group would let her because it was an outside issue. I am proud to say I didn’t hurt her, but I did give her a brief education about the tradition of cooperation between the programs. She then invited my Al-Anon group to participate in their anniversary dinner in December. They always have an Al-Anon speaker so I asked her if they would be interested in having an Alateen speaker. She said she didn’t think so, since they had never had one before.  !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  AAAAAAAARGHHH She did say she would ask.

No wonder our groups are so small. Does AA know nothing about Al-Anon or Alateen anymore?

I think I will invite this lady out for coffee and have a chat about Alateen.

Unbelievable

burned out and recharged at the same time

I spent the weekend at the Alateen sponsors retreat. It was very rewarding and very successful and i spent some quality time with friends, but I also worked my ass off. I am the coordinator in charge of the safety guidelines, so consequently I was on the job the whole time. People take the opportunity to ask numerous questions and request help, and of course, to help them is my job. I put on two workshops. I participated in, oh, six others maybe? I had some wonderful talks with people who are already friends, and people I had never met. I drove a friend and a friend of his I had never met, so of course had some wonderful conversation in the car, there and back.

My brain is full. I didn't really sleep a lot. I stayed up somewhat late and got up pretty early. In fact, this morning I was the first one up. Al least to stay up. i woke up when someone got up to, I guess, go to the bathroom. All the men, 10, I think, (a great turnout), slept in one large cabin. I had much to think about, so I got up AT 5:30  just to have some time alone.

I really don't know where I am going with this. I really need to go to bed. It was a great but brutal weekend and I am nonfunctional. I can probably give a better impression of the thing when I am rested.

Arthur was not happy about me going and was correspondingly bitchy when he got home from work, so I am avoiding a fight. In other words, I am not speaking to him till I am rested and not on a hair trigger. I had to go out for a little while, just to minimize conflict. The thing that really set me off was the comment about him working while I relaxed at my retreat. Right. World wars have started for less. 

Field trips

Since attendance at the Alateen meeting has been low lately, we took the opportunity to do something different. Kim, who sponsors the meeting in Renton, needed a substitute, so I left Kathy to hold the fort in case any new kids showed up while I took Chuckles, ZB and KG up to Kim's meeting.

It was quite fun. I hadn't seen Kim's co-sponsor in about a year. He's a kick to be around. The Renton group is pretty young. Most are 10 to 13, with one who might be 14 going on 15. One young man used to attend our group till he moved north and we hadn't seen him in a while. I'm glad to know my group doesn't have a monopoly on chaos.

This morning, Matt and Chris and I are driving up to Seattle to take a look at at laboratory that has a metals clean room for preparing samples for low level analysis. It's part of our information gathering for the design of the new lab.

WAAC is this weekend. The camp director called me yesterday to ask if we had anybody in our group that has food service experience. Their camp cook unexpectedly quit. She is scrambling to find a replacement, which had better be successful because hungry teenagers can turn cannibal in a heartbeat.

bye B

B, which is our real nickname for the Panda, leaves tomorrow for Colorado, where she is moving with her mother. She came to the Alateen meeting tonight, which turned into a reunion party. Mortimer and KG and ZB have pretty much moved on, being 18 and over and out growing it. They came tonight to bid B farewell along with Chuckles and Band Girl. It wasn't much on program, but we had a good time. I took B home afterwards and managed to say goodbye with out tears. Barely. Her dad and sisters are still here so I know I will see her when she comes back for visits. I will miss her a lot.

The speaker's meeting on Sunday went well, though it was a long drive. I received many compliments on my talk.

Richland

I am in Richland WA for the weekend. The Alateens weren't available to go, so rather than make the four hour trip alone, I checked with a couple of friends to see if they had room for me, which happily they did. Now this is a fun bunch I have along history with. One, who co-sponsors the Alateen meeting with me, was chairing my first meeting 13 years ago and we've been friends since. I was her alternate when She was DR nearly 10 years ago. Once, during that time period, I rode out this way with them. We stopped for lunch at a Mexican restaurant (stop me if I've told this story) in Ellensburg. We are sitting there laughing and joking, and As I'm taking a bit of refried beans, one of them said something that hit me as hysterical and I snorted beans all over the place. They still tell that story. Well history repeats itself. We stopped at a Mexican restaurant (Yakima this time), and I take bite of refried beans, when Kathy, who has an ample chest, says "I can't keep these things out of my plate!" Again, beans everywhere.

The Assembly went well today. At the moment I'm killing time till we gather to go out to dinner. My roommate decided to take a nap so I cleared out of the room so he could sleep in peace. He and I went for a stroll after the meeting and found a nice walk/bike trail along the river. It's a bit warm out here, in the high 80's - low 90's, but not too uncomfortable.

Back home tomorrow. Arthur is not back till Monday, so I'll still have another evening to myself. Haven't heard how his trip is going, his phone has been off the couple of times I've tried to call. I'll catch up with him sooner or later.

making progress

I'm caught up entering all the recertifications I have so far received. I have all the necessary forms filled out. The problem is getting all the people who haven't sent in their forms to do so. There are 75 of them. If they all wait till the last day i will scream. The last day is Saturday. Actually my form should have been mailed today to make it to Virginia by Monday. Procrastinators.

comedy night

Mortimer paid the Alateen meeting a visit last night and was in rare form. I'm not sure how much program we got in, but we certainly laughed a lot. I think he needed to get his mind off stuff that's going on. He took me aside before the meeting started and we talked. He's really trying to pull himself together, but has some challenges ahead. He and Panda, who were my first Alateens, are both growing up on me. Panda wants me to take her for her driving test in a couple of weeks, and then I will see her off to Colorado. She is looking forward to it and it sounds like it will be a positive change for her and her mother.

We are having a lunchtime party today for a co-worker who is retiring at the end of the week. We area also taking him out on Friday night. Happy retirement, Paul!

Congratulations to S.H

S.H., the Karate Kid, graduated from high school today and I was happy to be there to see her walk with her class. She's out with the senior class this evening, I hope havimg a fantastic time.

As for me, I think I'm getting sick. I think I've got what Arthur has and I'm not happy about it. There is something wrong with my car too. I'm going to have to get it into the shop right away. Hopefully this is covered by warranty.

I think I know what I'm doing Friday

I still have a boatload of sponsor recertifications to process. I've spent over an hour with it tonight and still have quite a few to go. I have till the end of the month to send in my form to WSO, but I have to check in who has sent in their form, so I can start reminding those who haven't. Friday is my day off so I think it will be a good day to just crank through it. If we don't go to Carlotta's Wing Ding tomorrow, I can get some done then.

As for Carlotta's Wing Ding, it's probably the last for some time. The cast is dispersing to various parts of the country, so they are having a farewell performance. I'd love to be there. Arthur isn't feeling well, so we might not make it.

I spent the day on the phone. We have two instruments, no, three, that are having problems. I was calling back and forth to tech support on two of them. I have service reps from competing companies coming in tomorrow. One is under warranty, so the manufacturer rep will be here for that one, the other is not, so an independent service company is coming to work on it since their prices are more reasonable and they had parts available immediately. Should be interesting. What ever it takes to get them working.