I picked up my train tickets today: they'd been FedExed to Snug Harbor but I hadn't been in to pick them up, so I had to go to the FedEx office in Emeryville -- just a few blocks from the train station where I'll ultimately end up. Another box was supposed to arrive today, as well, via Airborne, but their offices were off in the General Aviation Field at Oakland Airport, a dodgier proposition.
It was on the way to Airborne's hangar that I heard them: a wedge of Canada geese, the leader calling overhead as he led the flock into the estuary for a bit of a water landing.
In Time Enough for Love, every time Lazarus Long's wanderlust calls to him, he refers to it as "hearing the wild geese calling."
I hear them! It's time to go... I know I have committments, so I can't leave until Sunday, but this anticipation thing is making me jittery.
Earlier today, I stopped by The Other Change of Hobbit and picked up some books:
I also tried to get the latest Babylon 5 novel, but they didn't have it in at that store yet... I resisted the temptation to try a soulless chain bookstore, as I'd heard they had it in, and put my name on the want list. Feel my virtue!
The comic shop around the corner saw me, too, and I finally realized what to get Diana for her birthday (which I shall not commit to HTML until the gift's been given, so there). I'm a committed fool for anything written by J. Michael Strazcynski, creator of Babylon 5, so I always pick up Midnight Nation and Rising Stars (published by Top Cow) when I hear new copies are out. Shoot, I'll even give his Spider-Man issues a shot -- can't hurt.
Anyway, my train tickets arrived. Let's liven up the page by arranging a viewing of my holy relics!
Why yes, I did artistically blur out my exact train number and any non-coach arrangements. Consider it a reasonable amount of paranoia: anyone who was really fanatical about stalking me could figure it out, I suppose, but why make it easy?
Laurel started up a rune class this evening, also, partly because it's time someone did it again (Diana held a course a couple years ago that got me into the door at Hrafnar, for example), and also because she misses the Original Rune Class, which begat Hrafnar in the first place, and wanted to get back to that style of cooperative learning. It seems interesting enough, although I have some concerns about how the first night went; sailing will go smoother next month, I'm sure.
Yes, even the Elder Futhark presented as an interfaith ecumenical exercise (there were supposed to be a couple Thelemites and Catholics in attendance, none of whom could show) is still close enough to Asatru to qualify as part of "the religion with homework:" we all got worksheets to fill out each month for each rune. However, it's looking to be a lot more experiential than, say, Diana's last iteration was, which would make sense given the large differences in how the two of them operate: they balance each other well.
The most important thing about me personally going is that it helps me get a common vocabulary with my husband Mike about this Norse stuff. This is an unqualified Good Thing. In the car on the way home, Mike muttered darkly that he had to review Diana's Rune Book before the next class to get names and shapes down pat, which warmed me to no end. After enthusiastically agreeing, I animatedly retold the Binding of Fenris, because while I love my husband to pieces, he has trouble absorbing the lore from written material, and this is the best way to get the stories a crack in the door, as it were.
And then I wrote the above babble and went to bed. It's after 2:30 for pity's sake.
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