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Albuquerque

Complex Weavers was wonderful as always. I was very excited to be teaching this year for the first time. I didn’t finish my class until the night before (more on that later, but it’s a good thing I was teaching on the last day). I taught a “Tablet Weaving Tour,” a show-and-tell class with lots of images of bands from as many times and places as I could find, and associated maps, plus lots of speculation on origins and spread. There’s so little actual data that it was mostly guesswork, but guesswork supported by what little evidence is available. I wish I could make it available, but I don’t have rights to most of the photos. I’m still thinking about how to distribute the Google Earth files and updated bibliography. I’d kind of like to get credit for them in some way.

Laura and I shared a room, and we tried very hard to eat as much green chile and drink as many margaritas as possible while we were there. We did okay, though I’m already craving more chile. Photos will have to wait, as I left my camera card at the office.

Here’s the bad part, though. I got home from work Friday evening to discover that Nick had gotten the phone call that everyone with an ailing parent dreads: “not expected to live through the night.” We rushed downstate, arriving around midnight, and passed the night with his dying father and as many relations as were able to get there. Most of the family lives far away. This was not a surprise in anything except the exact timing, but that doesn’t make it a whole lot easier. We decided that I would head to Albuquerque anyway, and I drove home Saturday evening to do laundry and pack (having been out of town all the previous week, I wasn’t yet ready for my trip) for a 6am flight. Nick called as I was leaving for the airport with the final update.

The funeral was scheduled for Saturday, so I changed my airline tickets to get home Friday evening so I could drive down first thing Saturday morning after CW was over. That didn’t work so well, but that’s another post.

Since then I’ve been trying to catch up on sleep, on all the things that didn’t get done because I dashed out of the house so unexpectedly, on getting ready for Pennsic (something I am not at all excited about this year). Stringpage Supplies is on hiatus until after Pennsic, but I have something neat to show you then.

Anyway, I just wanted to reassure you all that I’d made it to and from Albuquerque, and was now home with the ferocious monster.

1 Comment on “Albuquerque”

  1. #1 Vince
    on Aug 2nd, 2010 at 11:14 pm

    Sometimes life comes all at once, and not in the best way. Glad Complex Weavers was good, and hope you get caught up a bit on sleep.