Ken picked up the hot tub today. He still needs to do some wiring, and we’ll have to wear bathing suits at first since we don’t have a screen or gazebo. It’s actually smaller than our old one, but it will do as a temporary measure; it’s certainly far better than no hot tub at all.

So, I scheduled the Salvation Army to come and get our sofa, loveseat, chair, ottoman, and stove. They arrived more than an hour late, then refused to take everything but the stove. The chair has a rip in it, so I guess I can understand that. But the sofa and loveseat? They rejected them because they have cat hair on them. “Don’t you clean them before you sell them?” Ken asked. “Not really. They just blow air over them.” Oh. Note to self: Don’t buy such items at Salvation Army unless you want to pay to have them cleaned, too. Yuck.

Ken’s going to put them all on the truck he rented (to pick up the tub) and take them to Goodwill (which is less than a mile away—how convenient!) and then we’re going to Lowes with our 10%-off coupon to spend a frightening amount of money.

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The weekend…

We left after traffic on Friday. We had planned to leave early and maybe even go to a movie once we were in OC, but with Ken having to spend the night down there Thursday and then pick up things on the way home, then return the truck, etc., it got late. We did stop at Olga’s (mmmm, Ohlllllga’s) for a light supper on the way.

Now. The problem. I didn’t finish the Vale & Mist story, the deadline for which was Friday. More specifically, I didn’t finish the story because I sabotaged myself. Even worse, I knew I was doing it, watched myself doing it, and didn’t stop myself. (Does that make sense? I think it makes me sound psychotic. Hrm.) I kept pharting around, deliberately avoiding writing. I played a lot of online Solitaire, all the while knowing and thinking about the fact that I should have been finishing the damn story.

The real problem was, I didn’t know _why_ I was doing it. And that scared the shit out of me.

I’m still not entirely sure why, although I think it has something to do with overall stress, an overall feeling of lack of control. Things weren’t going as scheduled with the house, and that may have been affecting me more deeply than I thought. Rather than gaining control in another area of my life (writing), I subconsciously chose to sabotage that area.

Or maybe that’s a pile of bunk. Who knows? Overall I feel better now, but I needed to get that recorded because, after all, this is supposed to be a writing journal.

It also affected the drive, because during a conversation about house stuff, I ended up having a meltdown, which doesn’t make driving very easy, but luckily we were almost there by that point. We got to Mom’s and I showered, and then we chatted a bit before going to bed later that we should have. I was already overtired (big surprise).

We dragged ourselves out of bed before dawn, which supremely sucks, and were at the Harvest Tourney site by 7 a.m. Maren showed up a bit after that, and Ken went to hang signs, and more people showed up to start setting up the site.

There’s not much I can say about the tournament, because it went smashingly. Not a hitch except for one small altercation on the heavy field, which I only learned about later. The Harvest Queen was a little shy and her boyfriend wasn’t on site, so she chose a very, very scrummy visiting New Zealander as the Harvest King. Oh my, was he ever fine. Maren and I spent the rest of the day being giggling 16-year-olds. (“There he is. Oooh. Oh no, he’s looking this way! Look away, quick! Do you think she’ll pass him a note for us? Mmmmm!”) Meanwhile, Umberto came in second in the rapier tourney, and he and I officially passed on our offices.

It’d been a weird event to plan for, what with not only using a new site but making inroads into a new city that we hadn’t been able to use sites in for as long as anybody could remember. That caused some confusion and mad scrambling at the beginning. But now Gyldenholt is using the site for weekly fighter practise and the fighters love it, so more good has come out of it. During the planning phases, I was also travelling quite a bit, and Maren had more classes than she expected, so we had trouble finding time for the two of us to get together to work on things. In the end, though, it all went smashingly, and we’re chuffed. We had more than 100 adults through Gate, and in the last few years there haven’t been more than 80 (largely because GWW is the weekend before), so it was extremely successful.

We took Maren out to dinner, and were joined by a few other folks, and had a pleasant end to the day. After that, we went to Ken’s dad’s, and hung out with his 90-year-old grandmother and his aunt, who were visiting from Arkansas.

I was already exhausted from lack of sleep on previous nights, but alas, this was not to be my night to catch up. The air mattress on which we slept was completely flat within an hour. (I fell asleep almost immediately, but woke when I hit the floor.) I was too tired to fully comprehend that I could crawl onto one of several couches—all my groggy brain could fathom was that I’d have to chose between the sheet and the blanket, and I didn’t want either of us to get cold. I failed to remember that there were quilts draped over at least two of the couches. The best I managed that night was fitful dozing.

I was also awakened at one point by thunder! A huge great clap of thunder. I don’t know if I’ve ever heard thunder in southern California before. This was followed by torrential rain, which sounded wonderful. Unusual for this time of year, but wonderful nonetheless.

I staggered around in a mostly useless haze on Sunday morning, but after a shower and food and whatnot, was in pretty good shape. There was a family party for Grandma, and she was thrilled by the fact that Mom came, and Steve and Joelle and the kids (she’d never met those great-grandchildren before). I spent time with her as well, getting stories of her life, and her late husband’s (whose early life was like a TV movie…fascinating stuff). We munched throughout the day and had wonderful Mexican food for supper (marinated, grilled tri-tip for burritos…mmmmm…).

It was good to get home that night. The Internet connection was being wonky, so I didn’t even bother with e-mail. Just pretty much fell over. In a good way. It continued to rain until this morning, which was just glorious. (Not so glorious for the people who were flooded or had their roofs collapse—at least three of those—but glorious for me…)