Today was the 2nd annual Boston area blogger’s picnic, held at the First Parish Church in Milton (Unitarian Universalist). In what appears to becoming a tradition, it rained and the picnic was held inside. Actually, it did more than rain. It poured. Traffic on Interstate 95 heading to Milton slowed to 40 miles an hour at times — this on a road where the average speed on a Saturday morning is 70+ miles an hour.
But I arrived at last, and when I walked in to the kitchen at the Milton church, dripping wet, there was Philocrites, big as life, tearing lettuce leaves off a head of Romaine lettuce. Unity arrived, with the new baby, the baby’s older borthers, and the baby’s mom. We all admired the baby, then wandered in to the dining room, where Free and Responsible Search and Rick were having a deep discussion about politics. So I chatted with Fausto, our gracious host, about the state of UU blogging.
Pretty soon the hamburgers were done (no vegetarians in this crowd, though I personally passed on the burgers because they weren’t organic or otherwise politically correct). At lunch, I sat next to Free and Responsible Search, with whom I’ll be working as one of the General Assembly Web site reporters. Peacebang regaled us with a stories of her “beauty tips for ministers” series on her blog. Recently, Peacebang said, she went into the Harvard Divinity School bookstore, got to talking to the young woman (a new seminarian) working behind the counter, who upon finding out that this was the one-and-only-Peacebang burst out with, “Oh no, here I’m talking to Peacebang, and I’m really not looking my best!”
Under the leadership of Philocrites, we made plans for General Assembly. Looks like bloggers will meet for dinner on Friday night, and Philocrites is planning another informal “meet the bloggers” session, both for existing bloggers and for anyone who wants to know what blogging is all about. Watch Philocrites’ blog for details.
As we were cleaning up, Peacebang looked out the window and said, “Wow, it’s stopped raining so hard.” “Don’t say that!” I said. Sure enough, the weather gods were listening in, and by the time Peacebang and I walked out the door it was pouring again.
Maybe next year the sun will shine…
(Not present at the picnic were Paul Wilczynski’s Observations, Radical Hapa, Debitage, and a few others. No excuses next year: be there.)
Actually, Peacebang has been taking the lead on gathering the bloggers at G.A. But I’ll be putting on a promotional push about it so it stays in the spotlight. So glad you made it to the picnic!
Anybody have Peacebang’s email? Since I live in St. Louis, I’ve been trying to help out with the logistics. I left a comment on her post about GA, but I don’t know if she’s spotted it:
http://peacebang.blogspot.com/2006/04/ga-blogger-dinner.html#comments
Hmm, I was trying to leave this URL–but it disappeared…
Hi CK, I’m at lunadiva@msn.com. And Dan, those burgers were GREAT! Moo moo!
It was extremely groovy to see you all. By the way, Dan, that new seminarian is actually a new MINISTER, and she’s going to look darn fine at her first formal congregational event in Lockjaw Land (as you put it).
CK — Sorry about the delay on your post, but due to heavy spam volume, I have to moderate any comment that has a link embedded in it.
Philocrites and Peacebang — Of course it’s Peacebang who’s arranging the bloggers’ dinner at the tapas place (much more her style) — Philocrites is arranging the other gathering of bloggers, the one where we’re going to have wifi access (much more his style). My apologies for the confusion.
what IS the state of uu blogging?
Joseph — Summary of our discussion on the state of Unitarian Universalist blogging: There sure are a lot of Unitarian Universalist bloggers these days. We’re not quite sure who’s reading our blogs, but one group we seem to be reaching is people who are relatively new to liberal religion. Peacebang says it helps to be manic if you want to write a blog.