Knitting lessons

Last night was Queen Anne Helpline charity auction. This year they hired a professional charity auction firm to run it rather than using only volunteers. The format was slightly different also, the biggest difference being the auctioneer. More on that later.

We have gone to the auction I think for nine years. Each year it's gotten bigger, and last year there was a systems breakdown with the checkout process for people wanting to pay for/pickup their auction items.  I was one of the first few people in the checkout line last year - and I still wound up waiting 20 minutes. Nobody could figure out what the heck the problem was. By the time I was through the process, there was a huge line snaked around the lobby area - heavens only knows how long those folks had to wait.

Bringing in a professional firm meant that a 10% surcharge was added to all auction purchases. I was OK with this at first, but started to have more mixed feelings about it as the evening unfolded.

The silent auction worked basically the same way as last year. Usually, after the last silent auction closes, you go into the ballroom, eat dinner, after which there is the live auction. This year, after they moved us into the ballroom rather than serve dinner they started into a series of speakers and then a video presentation, which together lasted about an hour. This would have been OK - except in years past we've eaten at 6:30 and this year they didn't serve dinner until 8:00. I had done a long bike ride/run that afternoon and I was seriously wilting by 7:30. I could have eaten the entire bread basket, but of course that would have been too rude.

The live auction was a bit awkward. I thought it was distracting to have to try to eat (my primary interest at that point!) and follow the auction (refering to the catalog, fussing with your bid card). But the most awkward aspect was that the beloved master of ceremonies, Gregg Hersholt, a local radio personality, was replaced with a professional auctioneer. However, they didn't want to cut Gregg out all together, so they gave him a "supporting" role of helping to describe each item. But it seemed like the auctioneer kept forgetting Gregg was even there. So, poor Gregg was stuck behind a podium, basically doing nothing, while the auctioneer walked up and down the catwalk running the auction. We were at a table up front where this was painfully obvious.

The whole evening had lost a certain neighborhood folksiness about it. But, then, it's probably just too dang large now run it with good-hearted volunteers.

We were winners of some cool stuff. Two hours of rowing on Lake Union in a vintage wooden row boat. A gift certificate for A & J Meats. But what I am most excited about is knitting lessons at the very nice knitting shop in my neighborhood! I have been thinking about getting back into knitting and the lessons were just the catalyst I needed. My mom was an expert knitter and we used to knit together. I stopped knitting after she passed away in 1993. Just didn't have the heart somehow to carry it on. But now I am excited about taking it up again. It's been a very long time, but I suspect it's like riding a bike, once I start at it it will come back to me.