ishte, posts by tag: social - LiveJournal

So this weekend is the Dayton Celtic Festival. After my 7 hour shift at the ARC Store for our very last day ever, I went home and washed my feet, chilled for an hour and then walked up from my house in South Park to the Celtic Festival at Riverscape ( about 2.1 miles). I  met up with two very old friends and hung out with them at the first beer line for a while as I enjoyed my first Guinness. I got a bridie and shared a table with/hung out with a dude named Tony who did a 'freak show' and a lady from the CitiFolk festival for a while as I enjoyed my second Guinness. Taught Tony's five year old daughter about how to play my flute. I saw a couple of people I know from The Dublin Pub.  (No seriously, I will totally just walk up to strangers if I'm alone and ask them if they mind if I share their table rather than standing/sitting alone at a table by myself. It's a matter of boring vs interesting opportunity to meet other people, and this is what I did with this Tony guy. I chose his table because it would mean not having the setting sun in my eyes while I enjoyed my bridie (which I love). I even played my flute for them a little after Tony had already suck a nail up his nose with a hammer two or three times and ate fire several times.)

I ran into a couple more friends just after that, and the three of us which are (informally) Celtic Ink walked around for a couple of hours, during which I peed many times and enjoyed my third Guinness bought a package of roasted almonds and a thing of short bread. (yes I shared both.) some other people we knew one of whom gave me 5 tickets she decided not to use. ( you buy tickets in advance and use them to buy beer/wine (this helps them to control inventory) whenever you want from a different line.) Welcome to my 4th Guinness. (some of which I shared with G).

We also ran into a guy we play music with at The Dublin Pub, but when he got finished helping out with a mutual friend's booth (where I actually did end up buying a lovely claddagh ring which I really wanted) he met up with family and was not available to play with us. I'll try to remember to take a picture of the ring later. It was inexpensive, but I love it.

We eventually settled down at the tables near the stage at Jefferson street. (The hell if I know which one it is.) and played some Irish music ourselves, gathering a small group of listeners. That was a good time. Then Kat and Grant headed home and I set out on foot again to walk the 2 miles back to South Park. Ok.. I worked on my feet for about 8 hours before this excursion, so my feet a a bit sore now. But I had a great time and am glad I went.

I hope some people I know are going tomorrow.  I'm game.  I know that Dulahan is playing at um... 13:20 hours, Scythian at 14:40 and then Gaelic Storm at 16:30. There is also a bunch of Irish dance starting at 14:40 which I might have to see. hmmm...I hope some people will show up with musical instruments and willing to play. My feet are tired, so I may not be as mobile, but I'm game.Oh boy my feet do hurt though. I"m going to bed.

I stole this off evil_little_dog's LiveJournal Post, and I am reposting.  I'm way far behind in my LiveJournal because of Real Life just being too busy to spend much time online right now.  However, this is something that I feel is very important to Women's Reproductive Rights whether you are pro choice or pro life, there is a certain point at which we must draw a line, and constitutional provisions in any state that will prevent women from using most methods of birth control cannot be allowed to stand. 

It was originally posted by gabrielleabelle at Mississippi Personhood Amendment

Tuesday night is Open Mike night at Dublin Pub, which is (perhaps needless to day) an Irish themed pub in my neighborhood. In recent weeks, I've been going to meet up with composer2005 and some other people.  Those of you who do not live in Ohio, or perhaps some of you who do, who do not know that Ohio can be someplace to love rather than revile, may not know that Ohio is home to more people of Irish descent than currently live in Ireland. (once you throw in the Scots and the Germans, it may as well just be a Viking Homeland with all the Cels) So we have a lot of  this sort of thing here.  Besides Dublin Pub, there are places like Flanagan's, Harrigan's, Shhhnanigan's, Beef O'Brady's, and various other's I can't think of.  I have heard that this is because beautiful Ohio looks like the Irish countryside, (though I understand that the winters are not so bitter there, despite it being at a more northern latitude, heavy snow is far less common.

Anyway, I digress.  I've noticed that most of the time rather than a typical Open Mike where some guy comes up and introduces various acts one after another, ranging from good to terrible, that here, it's is more of a sort of free for all, where various of the attending players assemble themselves on stage and just start playing stuff fairly well at random according to who knows what and who can play it in what key. Often there are brief interludes between songs while players are teaching each other bits of the progressions.  Often if someone else sitting around knows the song once it starts, or thinks they can fake it, they also get up and play along. So it's a very dynamic thing, that stage act expanding and contracting with the music. The first time I went, I enjoyed the hell out of it, though I didn't actually play any. Well I did play, but i didn't get up to play. I just twiddled along from my seat on the floor. I did get some comments even though I was sure no one could be hearing me, since I couldn't actually hear myself most of the time. Since then I have been playing more, as I'm becoming more familiar with the music I can usually figure something out on the flute, or a whistle, or if not that then singing.

Last week I missed. I hadn't been feeling to well, and since I'd stayed home from work, I kind of felt obliged to stay home from the Pub too. You know the rules. You don't go to school, you don't get to go play with your friends afterward even if you feel better. One of my friends told me that the group had moved from the stage at the front back to the corner where the fireplace was. This week that's where everyone was when cheapcarnival and I arrived so we settled down and drank and sang and played.  The Irish songs gradually degenerated into a lot of twiddling of yuletide favorites.  I imagine we'll have more of the same next week given that Tuesday will be on the 21^st which is when Yule will be this year and then Christmas on Saturday following.

Just before I left a few pictures got snapped of our dynamic little group, one of which contains me and one of which does not. I will share it them here. (Note: this is a friend's locked entry because other people besides myself are in these photos. I wouldn't care for myself, but I can't say so for others, so please don't share outside.)

( Pix are under the cut...Collapse )