Weekend At Robbo's

Going to be one busy weekend at Orgle Manor.

On top of the double soccer games tomorrow and choir on Sunday morning, the LMC's Future ROTC Scholarship Winner and his sister will be staying with us for a couple nights. The Llama-ettes are drooling over the prospect, as they invariably swarm the boy whenever he comes to visit. I can't help noticing that he seems to enjoy these attentions more and more every time. Now he's a nice boy and all, and if arranged marriages were still in vogue I'm sure we'd have signed him up with the four year old already, but the ol' Dad Meter is beginning to twitch a bit. I figure that when he's older I probably won't put the shotgun down, although since he's near to family I might stretch a point and keep the safety on.

On top of that, we're hosting a Harvest Dinner for our Church Saturday evening. This is an amiable custom in our parish, in which parishioners volunteer to host one of four potlucks spread over two weekends in October and people choose which one they'd like to attend. It's a chance to mingle socially and perhaps to meet some new folks (we've got two new-to-me families coming for sure to ours).

Unfortunately, it's also coupled with the kick-off of our pledge drive season. You know, when I was elected to the Vestry, I thought it would be an excellent chance to oversee the workings of the Church, to liase between the clergy and the parishioners, to really be involved in substantive issues. Well, it isn't. In fact, about 80% of the job is related to hitting people up for money, something I detest. Talking about money is loathesome enough, but to me, asking people to cough it up - even for a worthy cause - is much worse. And tieing it in to these dinners, at least in my mind, sends the signal, "Of course we love having you in our community - em, you did bring your checkbook, didn't you?" I know it has to be done, but I don't have to like it.