After being  around people during 8 days of traveling to North Dakota, the day after returning was basically lying on the couch all day.  Part of it was physically being tired as I missed my afternoon nap a lot of days so was pushing myself to keep going. I pushed because a lot of interesting things (for me) were going on and I was seeing a lot of people I wanted to see but when I push the fatigue pushes back and a day on the couch was worth it but part of the price of the trip.

Another part of it is that I usually spend about 60-80% of my awake hours alone and am used to that so being around people all day everyday for 8 days was exhilarating but draining due to having mild Asperger’s Syndrome (a form of high functioning autism) so I just needed some solitude.

The second day home we drove a couple of hours up north to where the Shakerwoods festival is held that Vidya does for three weekends in August. We own a permanent booth for that show as it is held on private property.

This has the advantage of being able to leave display racks and tables there and set them up well before the show.  The disadvantage is it has to be maintained and the show staff had informed us that a branch had fallen on it and it was damaged.

It wasn’t that bad but because of it Vidya dragged me along and it took a little while to repair and reinforce. It was in a storage area in the back so wasn’t too crucial to the operation but needed repair regardless. Fortunately it turned out to be less serious than I had feared.

The way back home passed by Rogers Flea Market so we planned the trip on a Friday so we could stop there when it was open. They claim 1600 vendors and I wouldn’t dispute it. We got some good buys.

We got back home and the lower part of the garden I had been whining about not being able to cultivate because it had remained unseasonably wet before I left on the trip was ready to go and rain was in the forecast the next day so I tilled it up.

Which meant I had had another long day, so after Ratha Yatra the next morning, I was slammed to the couch for the rest of the afternoon.

After the Ratha Yatra, which was the biggest one in New Vrindaban in recent memory, I was talking to Sanat and Chai who were sitting on the low iron fence around the grassy quadrants in  front of the temple.  Sanat asked if I was going to blog about the Ratha Yatra and I said no but if I did I would say I was talking to two bird turds on top of a fence which he took as the joke it was intended to be. If I was a little sensitive I wouldn’t write that, would I now?

Sunday there was a panel discussion I was part of so that pretty much shot the morning, though there was some pretty interesting people and now it appears I am going to get involved a little bit with some East Wheeling (read: bad part of town) community gardens. We will see how that develops.

After the feast which is held at 2 PM in New Vrindaban, I laid around on the grass in front of the temple with Soma and Haribhakta until 7 in the evening, something I would never have done if I had any energy but it was sort of fun, shooting the breeze and visiting with various devotees as they passed by.

So today, Monday, I am finally back into the saddle of my regular schedule and many weeds are going to perish in the garden amongst other things.

All of the above basically being an excuse why I haven’t been blogging or written more about my trip which if I hadn’t been so busy constructing this elaborate excuse, I just could have written about the trip instead.  Whatever.