In which we pack up our troubles in our old kit bag and head to Lakeland

The Land o’ Lakes has 8 divisions. Most of them are pretty reasonable, but a couple are a little tight on judging for one reason or another. Which means that a couple of people who think they’re settling in for a little patch of dainty PF judging, which is done with the pinky extended while Debussy plays gently in the background, will actually be judging VLD, which is done with bare knuckles while death metal, hardcore rap or crust punk play loudly in the foreground. We’ll be setting up the complaint desk over by Brian M. Or maybe Stefan, who I gather will be there in his full-body cast. “Complain to the guy on the gurney,” I’ll tell them. Usually I just tell them to complain to the Paginator. Same difference.

(Which raises the issue of why I feel compelled to take random shots at the Paginator. Or, for that matter, while almost everyone I know feels compelled to take random shots at the Paginator. It’s not as if he’s an easy target; far from it. Maybe that’s the reason. He’s got too much gumption. Our little band of traveling tabbers eats gumption for breakfast.)

The Gem closes registration next Monday. We’re now up to fighting strength in tab, with the addition of Andrew M handling the speech chores. So it’s the Old Farts vs. the Young Turks, i.e., me and Kaz vs. the P and Andrew. It should be fun. Not that the usual gang of idiots isn’t also fun, to tell you the truth. The Gem is one of those big tab rooms with every event running out of it, where everybody enjoys everyone else’s company, and never is heard a discouraging word, unless we’re cursing out the Paginator, who so far has never even been there. I’ll miss having Fr. M. with us; it’s always nice to send in a priest when a problem comes up. The only thing that would make people shrink in their boots even more is sending in a nun, but we usually don’t have a nun handy when we need one, which is always a problem in the tabbing business.

So, nuttiness this weekend, big business next weekend. And then CFL Grands and it’s time to close my own book on the season, aside from hanging out at the NDCA. My first official year of retirement. To tell you the truth, it seems a lot like my last year pre-retirement. Not a bad thing.

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