The count down for the Clan Jam had began. I had a million things to do and not much time to do them in.

My sis, Vickie, flew into town on Thursday night. I picked her up – after an exhausting day of last minute ‘to-do’s’. I was bushed, beat, to pooped to pop, running on empty, and dragging ass. We picked up food to go and headed for home. We spent an hour in front of the chimenea in my backyard, indulging in wine and the food. Time for sleep. I settled in – sure I would sleep for eight hours or so but it turned into four hours rest that left me wishing I could go back to sleep. I finally gave it up and got up.

Than was arriving from Phoenix at 8 a.m. and we managed to find him at the airport, even though we really weren’t sure what he looked like. I told him I’d be wearing my Garfield t-shirt that read “Give me coffee and no one gets hurt.” He tried to walk by us and then it dawned on him that the SHIRT was in his face. We got in touch with Angel (another member of The Clan) and he met us for breakfast. Angel was too busy to join us at The Clan Jam so this was our only opportunity to visit with him. The company was muchly enjoyed…and he paid for breakfast too.

Then it was time to grocery shop. We figured around 30 people would show. We loaded up two shopping carts and spent way too much money…mainly because I have this fear of people going home hungry so I always have enough food to feed an army.

My son, Darian, had arranged with a friend of his, that supplies tables and chairs for conventions, to pick up 30 chairs and a table for Saturday’s fest. The chairs were stacked and saran wrapped. The only thing that really went awry was the chairs. When we started to unstack them on Saturday, they were barstool height. Ke-e-rist!

By Friday night, everything appeared to be in order. All the chores were done, the ‘to-do’ lists were checked off, and we BBQ’d steaks and sat around with wine and brews…Than had to have a hamburger. The only problem for me was that my day had been shifted to night and I was so tired I thought I’d already died and no one told me. We crashed.

Saturday found us waking by around 8 a.m. and beginning the process of more food preparation. Vickie stayed married to the kitchen on Friday and went with the whole routine again on Saturday. She was tanking down wine by about 11 a.m. and never stopped until her head hit the pillow around 4 a.m. on Sunday. Whew! That woman can handle some vino.

Tanya arrived around 1:30 p.m. – she brought portable poker table tops. The key word here is ‘tops’. Another glitch for me – just sort of adding to the strangeness of the barstools that were delivered instead of chairs. She brought her favorite dip, one that she put together and needed to go into a crockpot. It did.

By now it was almost impossible to find space on the table or any of the countertops. The food had taken over.

Speaking of tired – the Sandman has filled my face with sand and I’ve had it. The rest of the report tomorrow.