huntersglenn

Posting this mini-rant here, because there's less of a chance of someone involved with this to see this post here. I'm involved with a genealogical/historical society that has the issue of plenty of members, but not enough volunteers to be officers/run the thing. We had a new person take over as newsletter editor last September, but she didn't think that it was necessary to keep including obituaries in the newsletter.

Most of our members do not live in the area, so the obituaries are ways for them to find out if the relatives of people they grew up with have died, or if classmates have died, that sort of thing. So, I stupidly said I'd gather them. It's not hard, it's just time-consuming. I have to search through the obituaries of our local newspaper, and then the funeral homes that cover this particular county, then copy and paste, put them in order and send them to the newsletter editor. I was Vice President of the Society, and our President decided in July to quit, even though we hold our elections in October - so I was stuck as President for those few months. I was very happy as VP. My main duty with that was to arrange for speakers, and lead the meetings if the President wasn't there. And even after she quit, she only missed attending one meeting. Luckily, I had the rest of our speakers lined up, and was working for speakers for this year.

The woman who was newsletter editor ended up heading the committee to get a slate of officers for October. Our Treasurer was old, and having vision problems, and couldn't continue as she was scared she'd make mistakes (she also gave up driving due to her vision problems). Our Secretary works for a farm that decided to grow more crops, and she's their only office worker, so she was working more on weekends - at that point, we had a deal with her where she was Secretary, but if she wasn't at a meeting, someone else would take the minutes, so she wouldn't have to worry about things. The newsletter editor and I worked out a deal - if nobody else volunteered to run for President, she'd run for VP and I'd run for President. And that's what we ended up doing. Our Secretary stayed on, and we did get someone to volunteer to be Treasurer (which is now an entirely different problem, as she's ill, but we also elected her son to be Assistant Treasurer, so all is covered on that front). So, as President, I provide a letter or message for the newsletter. I was doing the obituaries for the newsletter. And for January, I provided the meeting announcement, since the new VP wouldn't take over until our January meeting. Which didn't happen because she was ill. And then she let me know that she had to step down as VP, because she couldn't do both positions.

This pissed me off. While I understand that real life has to take precedence, I felt that I'd been tricked into running for President. With her stepping down, that meant I had to continue doing the VP duties until and unless a new VP could be found. At that point, she'd done nothing as VP. I've got speakers lined up through April. As for the newsletter - all she had to do was re-format the obituaries, the message, the announcement, and then add whatever she wished to add. In short, most of the work was being done for her. I can't do VP, President AND the obituaries. I also have a job, even though I'm self-employed and don't have a boss breathing down my neck, so that extra time it took to collect those was time I really don't have.

So, today, I find out from her that she's giving up being newsletter editor because it's too time consuming. Her mother died last year and her elderly father is living on his own, and she has to check up on him in person a couple of times a week. Her work is picking up, and her boss is in more often (it's a real estate office that mostly handles rentals). I don't know when her mother died, but it was at least a few months before she volunteered to be newsletter editor. And again, I understand that real life has to take precedence, but she knew back in September how much work this was going to be - and it's not all that much, since she's mostly copying and pasting. Most of the newsletters go out by e-mail, the rest by mail, so there is printing to do, and a visit to the post office to put them in the mail. I think she just didn't want to handle collecting the obituaries, and even though I backed down on insisting that they not be included, leaving it up to her, she doesn't want to take the time to do them. It's not like they can't be collected on a weekly or daily basis, instead of trying to grab them all at one time.

Granted, this is a position that can be done by members who don't live anywhere near here. But I doubt if any of them are going to volunteer. It makes me afraid that the Society will fail, not because of a lack of members, but because of the antipathy of its members. Those members who live in the area are older, and many of them have already spent years volunteering - either for our Society or one for the next county over. They're tired, and rightly so.

But, I still feel aggravated toward this woman, because hey, she can find plenty of time to post to Facebook during her work day, and I think that as long as her volunteer work didn't actually require her to do anything, she was fine with it. It pisses me off that the 'work load' of the two positions are too much for her to handle when she never did the one job in the first place, and someone else provides most of the stuff for her to use in the newsletter.

Yeah, it's easy to do a job when someone else is actually doing all the work for you. It would have been far better for her to not have volunteered to do either position last year, so we could have started out this year with people who were willing and able to do the work. Or else have put it to the members in October that they either volunteered or the Society came to an end.

Current Mood: frustrated

Title: Wednesday Night: Nathan
Author: Cathy Roberts
Characters/pairings: Nathan, Mary
Rating: PG-13 (for subject matter)
Words: 1,259
Summary: It’s Nathan's night at Judge Travis’ brothel in the hills!
Note: This story is set in an old west alternate universe where Judge Travis hired the boys as both lawmen to protect the town and prostitutes to serve the clients at his brothel in the hills.

Mary had to keep from frowning as she looked over the men who were waiting for Nathan to arrive. They seemed to be a varied bunch, and she knew that at least two of the men rarely had two coins to put together, which made her wonder why they'd showed up. The rest of the men seemed to have some money, and she knew good and well that Stuart James had money, and some to spare. She was a bit surprised to see him sitting there, calmly drinking tea and talking with Tiny, as if it were the most natural thing in the world for him to be doing. But, it wasn't her place to judge those who came there, no matter how she felt about the men in question. Nathan was late, nearly an hour late, but the clients didn't seem to be too anxious about that. Everyone seemed to accept that with Nathan being the nearest thing to a doctor, there would be nights when he'd be late

The door opened, and Mary knew she wasn't the only one looking to see if it was Nathan finally arriving, and she sighed softly with relief when it was. Had he been much later, then she was certain she'd run out of the special tea he insisted upon for his clients.

"Ma'am, gentlemen." Nathan removed his hat. "Sorry to be late, but Mrs. Harvey had her baby today, and I'm just now getting' back to town."

"It's good to see you, Nathan," Mary said, smiling warmly at the healer. "Did she get the daughter she's been wanting?" Alice Harvey had already given birth to five healthy sons, and the woman seemed desperate for a little girl.

Nathan grinned. "She sure did. And Ned Harvey couldn't be no prouder than if it'd been another boy."

Before anyone else could speak, Nathan glanced out at the assembled men. "Mr. James'll be last, so other than him, you can send them up in any order." And with that, Nathan headed on up the stairs.

Mary waited for five minutes before asking which of men wanted to go up first, and as Tiny made his way up the stairs, she retreated to the office, hoping that things would be quiet and she'd be able to get some stories finished for the next day's edition of the paper.

It was a little after midnight when Mary closed the door behind Stuart James, and in the process, closing the business for the night. Nathan came down the stairs, his hat and rucksack in hand, and his coat already on, clearly more than ready to head on to his own home for the rest of the night.

Mary led the way into her office, and she pulled out the ledger, then took a seat and opened the book to Nathan's page. "Business seemed good tonight."

"Yes, ma'am." Nathan reached into his rucksack and pulled out a leather pouch, which he handed to her. "There's the money for tonight."

Mary opened the pouch and spilled the money onto the desk top. "Your fee is five dollars per client, and you had eight clients tonight, bringing the Judge's share to twenty dollars."

Mary began to count out the money, but Nathan interrupted here. "There ain't twenty dollars there, ma'am. It's just seventeen dollars and one cent."

Mary took a deep breath, not liking the facts that Nathan thought he could shortchange her father-in-law, or that she'd now have to take him to task for doing so. "You know the agreement, Nathan. Judge Travis gets half of your set fee."

Nathan nodded. "I know. But, Aaron has promised to drop off two chickens tomorrow, and they're worth three dollars, which would then be giving the Judge more than his share, since I've put the penny in there, too."

Mary shook her head slightly. "You're letting a client pay you in chickens?"

"It's all he has, Missus Travis. He was hurtin' pretty badly tonight, with his arthritis actin' up on him, and a carbuncle needin' to be lanced. I couldn't hardly turn him away, now could I?

"What do those things have to do with…" Even as she asked, Mary knew the answer. Nathan was treating his clients, and not giving them sexual favors in return for their money.

Nathan sat down in the chair across from her. "I know the Judge means well, but he sometimes don't see the forest for the trees. I appreciate the pay I get for keepin' this town safe, but I didn't sign on to help these people. You were the only person in this entire town to stand up for me when those cowboy's were gonna lynch me, and I appreciate that more'n you'll ever know. And, I don't mind one bit about makin' sure you stay safe here in town, but the others?" Nathan shook his head. "Most of 'em never came to see me in the first place, either out of ignorance or hate. Most of 'em won't come to see me now, no matter how badly they hurt. But, the men, they came here thinkin' they could buy me for thirty minutes of fun, and there was no way that was gonna happen."

"Now, I 'preciate that Judge Travis could look past me being a black man and all, but he forgot that I was a slave, and there's some things I'll never do." Nathan got to his feet. "I made myself a promise a long time ago that no man was ever gonna own me again, no how, no way, even if they want to think of it as rentin' me."

Nathan put his hat on and draped his ruck sack over his shoulder. "I figure that as long as the Judge gets his thirty pieces of silver, then he ain't got no cause to find fault with what I do with my clients. Up til now, everyone's been able to pay me a little bit, and I've been able to put any extra money in, so's that makes up for those who are short. But, I weren't gonna turn someone away just because he had no money. I figure you and me can get plenty of eggs out of those two chickens, and then the next time the Judge is in town, you can bake him a chicken for dinner. That's gotta be worth more'n three dollars."

Mary nodded, as her understanding of Nathan's position grew. As did her admiration for him. She knew that at least one of the other seven was taking advantage of the fact that Orrin let them keep what they earned over and above their fee. But, she doubted if any of the others were using that extra money to help any of their other clients pay their fee. "I'd say it's worth far more than three dollars, Nathan. I'll make a note of it, and then the next time someone can't pay, their fee will be taken care of."

Nathan smiled and nodded, touching his fingers to the brim of his hat before turning away to leave.

"Nathan?"

He paused in the doorway and looked back at her, waiting patiently, and Mary realized that Nathan always seemed to wait patiently. Most likely a holdover from his days as a slave.

"He doesn't admit it to anyone, but Judge Travis likes a nice rabbit fricassee. So, should someone ever want to pay you with a rabbit, please don't hesitate to take him up on the offer."

Nathan grinned. "Yes, ma'am, I'll do that."

Every Thursday, my local newspaper has articles and information about upcoming events for the weekend. My biggest complaint over the years has been that by the time I read about something on Thursday, it's too late for me to make plans for that weekend. There were many shows that I missed because of lack of notice.

Last Thursday, it seemed to have happened again. There was an article about "Blood On The Beach 2012", a local horror-con that was to start the next day. I'm not into the horror genre at all, and I was about to skip the article, but then decided to go on and read it. And discovered that Michael Biehn would be one of the celebrity guests.

And me? My husband and youngest son were leaving on Thursday and were not expected back until Sunday night. And I'd volunteered to watch my son's dog, Luna. Luna is an English Mastiff who now weigh well over 100 pounds and it just as hyper as she was when she was a puppy. My cat Sky does not really like Luna. I knew I'd be in for an interesting weekend with the two of them. But now I had a new problem. Never having been to any kind of a con at all, I really wanted to go to this one. Friday night was out of the question, but Saturday afternoon looked hopeful. That would be when they'd be screening a movie "The Victim", which was written and directed by Michael Biehn, produced by his wife, Jennifer Blanc, and starring both of them. After that would be a Q and A panel with the two of them an one of their castmates, Danielle Harris.

Never made it for the screening. The pets saw to that. I did make it there in time for the Q and A, and even managed to get some rather dismal pictures (as if any picture of Michael Biehn could be dismal, but I managed…). I never did get a chance for an autograph since I got there late.

There was a good crowd in the room, although it wasn't completely full. And then the actors came in. MB's wife went over to get some water, as her throat was bothering her. MB was headed down the middle aisle and stopped when she called over to see if he wanted water. This put him at the end of the row where I had just sat down and was about to get my camera out. As he turned to answer his wife, I had the most excellent view of MB's rear assets. He was wearing sweat pants, and the material clung to all the right places. I thought about rushing for the camera, but when faced with the option of taking my eyes off of that sight so I could get the camera and continuing to look, I chose to continue to look. I used to work with a man from Austria who sometimes wore leather pants to work. Reinhard was in his early 60s, but that man filled those leather pants out very nicely. As MB continues into his 50s and gets closer to 60, his read view reminded me so much of why I always liked to watch Reinhard walk away from me.

Before the first question was asked, the three actors joked about MB's haircut, and then the questions began. I didn't take notes, so this is all from memory and might not be in actual order. There's also lots of paraphrasing. It seemed that all three got pretty much the same number of questions to answer, and several of the questions were directed to all three of them.

Several of MB's answers about directing and acting had references to directors James Cameron, Robert Rodriquez and Michael Bay - all directors that he respects. One question was about if MB now found it difficult to listen to a director's instructions since he'd done his own directing on "The Victim" - the answer was that he didn't, because it was his job to help the director get his truth out there. But, MB then added that if he felt something wasn't working, he would write up something as an alternative and share it with the director. If a director was good, then he'd recognize when something else was as good or better than what he'd originally come up with, and he'd go with that. MB also mentioned that it was up to the actors to make sure that the written word was properly portrayed, and to make sure that the audience wasn't left with questions - such as why are they doing that, where did he come from, etc. It was asked if MB was a harsh director, and both his wife and Danielle Harris said that he wasn't. MB added that he didn't feel that he was harsh or demanding, and then went into a short spiel, complete with hand gestures, about a missing prop. "Where's the prop? We can't do this scene without the prop? Who took the prop? WHERE'S MY FUCKING PROP?" MB then said that nobody was fired and no-one quit, so that must be an indication that he'd done okay.

Another question was about the amount of male nudity in "The Victim" with the sex scenes. The women handled that question for the most part, and it was mentioned that the sex was simulated. Jennifer Blanc then joked that she and MB should actually have sex in a future movie, and the look on MB's face was priceless. He then shook his head at that idea. A follow-up question to MB was if it was difficult to watch his wife doing a sex scene with another man. MB explained that it wasn't, since that was a case of two people doing their jobs, and not at all the same as betrayal.

MB and his wife do have some future projects in the works, but nothing that they could speak about in detail. It was mentioned that MB had been invited to the set of "Sushi Girl" and asked to take on a part, and he accepted. They wouldn't give away details about his role, but encouraged people to see the film ("Sushi Girl" was an earlier panel topic, and stars Noah Hathaway who is probably best known for playing Atreyu in "The Neverending Story").

The Q and A pretty much ended with Jennifer Blanc's aunt asking MB if he knew what day it was. He looked thoughtful, then gave a slight scowl, and commented that they'd been celebrating Jen's birthday all week with birthday lunches and birthday dinners. He then turned to his wife and asked her if it was that day. We all sang "Happy Birthday" to her, and they did end up going out to dinner to celebrate her birthday once again.

Someone asked if the DVD of "The Victim" would have any behind-the-scenes stuff, or out-takes. Jennifer Blanc replied that there would be a behind-the-scenes feature, and that you can view some of it on their website for Blanc-Biehn Productions. Once you're at the site, go to the bottom of the page and click on the B&B there. She did warn that there's a bit of fighting between her and Michael on there, and that every time they'd get into it over something, people would back away. She went on to explain that that was just the way the two of them were with each other, as they were both very passionate people. They also joked on each other with him complaining about her snoring at night and her complaining about how he takes up the whole bed. MB joked that at their house, they don't really go to bed, that it's usually a case of them passing out, so it's not unusual for one of them to wake up later and find that the lights and television are still on.

What with getting to the con later than planned, and not having the chance to get an autograph, and not really caring about the overall genre, I left feeling that I had not wasted my time. MB's assets were well worth the price of admission.

I'd like to give a special thanks to Van, who helped make my photos a lot less fuzzy. I tried to get a shot of MB and Jennifer together, but the people several rows in front of me kept getting in the way (Jennifer was seated between MB and Danielle). The two photos (as well as bragging pics of Sky and Luna) can be viewed here:
http://s1072.photobucket.com/albums/w365/Huntersglenn7/