Saturday Dave and Paul met at our place and we carpooled together to Millford, where we were offered free canoe rental in the morning in return for juggling at an event that afternoon. Ajit, Micah, and Gene met us there. The rest of them each got Kayaks, and Sara and I paddled a canoe with Ajit as a passenger, since he was having a problem with his hands.
Sara wasn't sure about the steering, so I figured I'd stop paddling for a while so she could figure out how it worked without my interference. She did too good a job, and I got lazy, and by the end she was complaining about having to do all the work, so I took over more of the paddling again.
There were a fair number of other people on the river, but we did still get to see a few interesting things, including a lot of turtles, and one bird's nest complete with baby birds and a couple of extremely agitated parents. We heard a lot of frogs, but never managed to see one.
The event was the first stop in someone's swim down the Huron River, intended to raise awareness of the Huron watershed, I guess. There were some tents set up in a park, and we juggled and interacted with the other people, including the swimmer herself, who we tried teaching to juggle.
It was a pretty good time overall, but by early afternoon I already felt like I'd been up and outside for a little too long.
So we got back home in time to nap a little before someone else gave us a lift to a party for Trond and Laura (who were married in an extremely small ceremony earlier in the year), at my coworker Andy's house. It was quite an affair--fireworks, two bands (Andy and his friends are great musicians), lots of food and drink, a bonfire, and some silly Viking hats (a tribute to Trond's Norwegian-ness). We got back around midnight.
We took it pretty easy the next day. I got in to my office late in the afternoon and did a little git housekeeping, then met Sara and some other friends at Top of the Park for the final event of the year, featuring (as always) George Bedard and the Kingpins. As it happened the "Kingpins" (Bedard's drummer and bassist) were both jamming at the party the night before, so Sara and I were feeling pretty cool. It was a good end to the series. We went home to get to bed at a reasonable hour instead of staying for the final movie ("Night at the Museum", which didn't sound that good anyway).
Sara suggested Russel Hoban's "Riddley Walker" for our science-fiction book group this year, and that's what we're discussing tommorow night. It's tough going--entirely written in a dialect of the author's invention--and though I got an early start on it I'd set it aside more recently thinking I'd leave it mainly to Sara to defend the family honor at the book group. Which she'll do quite handily--our copy is bristling with her notes now identifying all sorts of little puns and such. But she convinced me I should finish, so I did that last night and this morning. I'm glad she did. It's absolutely fascinating, and the moment I finished it I turned back to the first page and started reading again. I've never read anything quite like it.