So the craziness of the past week and a half is done, and I’m looking forward to a busy, but not insane week ahead. Now that I have time to breathe, let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.

• Wednesday, 7/9 – tozier_wah crashes at our place for a week as he works on a big project at work (which is coincidentally also where I work, though in a different department).
• Saturday, 7/12 – Worked from 8 AM until 10:30 PM. New equipment delivered, vendor did not test sufficiently before it reached our manufacturing floor. Long-ass day.
• Sunday, 7/13 – Relax most of the day. Dinner that night with Toz and steviemaxwell, then a trip to Sam’s Club to price out food for the LAFF softball picnic.
• Monday, 7/14 – A fabulous evening at Ravinia (like Wolf Trap or Tanglewood, for you East Coasters) with takaza, roho and genet. Hors d’oeuvres at the Westin, followed by charter buses to Ravinia, arriving just before the Beach Boys started playing. Full dinner spread provided, along with copious beer and wine. We bug out early to beat the crowds (Roho: “It was like listening to a really good Beach Boys cover band.”)
• Tuesday, 7/15 though Friday, 7/18 – Hell. Huge crush to write a protocol, get the manufacturing line ready to go, and get all the testing complete. The days weren’t overly long, but the pressure was tremendous. Also, panic sets in as we watch the picnic we thought we were cooking for about 30 swell to 60 RSVP’s. We adjust shopping lists and are ready to go. On Thursday night, before we would need to go shopping and buy $500+ worth of food, we’re faced with a 60% chance of thunderstorms on Saturday afternoon. With the possibility of dropping a lot of money that we may or may not be reimbursed for, we chose the better part of valor and cancelled the picnic. Also, Dan’s new toy, a Macbook Pro, arrived on Thursday and my new toy, a 32 GB iPod Touch arrives on Friday. I spend the evening playing with it and loading it up with music and apps.
• Friday, 7/18 – Get protocol turned in, take off at 2 PM with boss’ blessing. fordshepherd, kai_darkwolf, and kwik arrive at our place at 11 PM, we stay up too late talking.
• Saturday, 7/19 – We go to LAFF softball, though Dan stays home feeling under the weather. Hang around, socialize for a bit, then lead ramalion back to our place where he’ll join us for the night. Dan’s symptoms take a turn for the worse and we spend a few hours at urgent care. No real answers there, but some meds to treat symptoms are prescribed and we head home. In our absence our guests have done a lovely job entertaining themselves and were generally wonderful company.
• Sunday, 7/20 – Rama and I head off to the Midwest FurFest staff meeting, Dan stays home, Toz (on his way home from work) and the Columbus contingent joins woodychitwn for a movie. Meeting goes well (and Dan is able to join in via iChat). Rama heads home from the meeting, linnaeus joins us back at our place for pizza, beer, and Boom Blox. Toz crashes at our place for the night, Paul heads off for home far too late 🙂

And here we are at today. I just got word that Ford, Jack, and Kwik are back on the road home – here’s hoping for a safe and uneventful drive for them! As always, they were fabulous guests and it’s always a pleasure to see them. We’re looking forward to visiting them in Columbus on Labor Day weekend. Dan is at home today, calling doctors and getting some things lined up there. It looks like we’re supposed to have dinner tonight with Paul, mongologue, siriuswolfstar and simbalion. The logistics on that should be interesting, but it will be a fun dinner. Not a lot of plans for the rest of the week, which is nice. It sounds like we have some parties to attend over the next few weeks, but nothing that we’re hosting, and that’s just fine by me!

As for the picnic, well, we have a killer menu, recipes, and a shopping list ready to go. I’m going to see if the picnic shelter at Madison Meadow Park will be available any of the coming dates for softball games and if so we’ll see what we can do to bring the picnic back again!