elfs | A lovely Saturday

Quick, contact ASCAP! Yamaarashi-chan is singing Puff, The Magic Dragon, and I'm damn sure she hasn't paid her license for it this week!

One of the things I forgot to blog about yesterday is that I burned my left foot, badly. When we had been grilling the salmon, I had taken the lid off the grill and put it on the ground, then accidentally brushed up against it with the side of my foot. This morning, when I ran to the dry cleaners to drop off our winter bedclothes for preparation and storage, I stopped by the drugstore to pick up bandages after Omaha mentioned we were out. So many to choose from! I must have wasted ten minutes just trying to find a plain ol' set of inch-wide strips. I did find some nice blister management patches, which are working really well on the burn.

After a quiet morning where I got to do some meditative housekeeping, changing the bedsheets and mopping the floors (I like housekeeping; there's something pleasant about knowing you're making your house into a home, keeping yourself and your family clean and healthy), Omaha assembled peanut butter & jelly sandwiches for the family and we headed out to Oloteas for a day of sun, swimming, and pagan ritual. Yay, pagan rituals! There were so many wonderful people there, I've lost count of them:

shemayazi,

damiana_swan, Leith, Kaeli,

hermesinbattle, and I'm sure the Goddess knows many, many more that I'm spacing on right now.

While I was swimming, I kicked off the side of the pool and my right leg seized up in a terrible spasm that rippled all the way up my body to the small of back. The pain was excrutiating, and I must have panicked some people the way I surfaced, screaming. But I managed to get to shallow water and stand, massaging the leg. I had a terrible limp for the rest of the day, although I found that it was mostly up-and-down motions that bothered it. I had no trouble spinning the girls dizzy. They climbed trees and

A good picture of Yamaarashi-chan
Hosted on Flickr!. Click to enlarge.

climbed around the small mound next to the swimming pool, having as much fun as children can. I like this picture of Yamaarashi-chan; it makes her look a bit like her older sister.

Somehow, I got roped into helping make the salad for the potluck, mostly by providing a rhythmic motion with my right hand (working the salt and pepper grinders). Apparently, someone thought I had experience. The food was absolutely delicious, although

The picnic at Oloteas
Hosted by Flickr!. Click to enlarge.

most of the girls didn't seem to agree. They ate mostly the fruit, a bit of the rice, and then dove into the cookies.

I wanted to go to the ritual, but it started late and one of the children was having an exhaustion meltdown (not Kouryou or Yamaarashi, though), so I had to sit out with her and a few others and watch from a distance. They were fine; they let me write this post.