The trip to Lisbon for the Association Congress was a fun one and it rekindled my interest in association management.  I met some really nice and interesting people and reconnected with a friend from ASAE.  He and I had a lot of fun catching up, AND during a few hours in a casino in Estoril I won 150 Euro and Jakub prevailed on me to stop, so I did and therefore didn't lose it as I usually do!  My presentation there went well also and it was a good preparation for when I do it in August in Atlanta.  All in all a good trip.

I was back in Dublin just one day before we left again (on Friday) for Sligo and my memoir writing workshop.  I'm always so disappointed with those things.  It's always the same for me, I go with such high expectations and really think I'll learn so much more than I do.  The presenter was nice but I don't think that she, herself, has actually written a memoir so by the end, her credibility was pretty low for me.  There were six students including me, three men and three women, so the mix was good and they were all very nice and good writers I thought.  I did learn a few tips so hopefully I will apply those lessons to my next steps in getting a book proposal done.  We returned from Sligo yesterday and have been busy since trying to catch up. 

Today is my birthday and I have a lot planned, but most of it is stuff associated with things I've been doing for a while.  I'm off to CoisCeim dance rehearsal at two and then Alan will meet me downtown for dinner, then I'm off again to set dancing at eight.  I'm actually pretty happy with spending most of my day engaged in dancing.

Sligo is Yeats Country and there are a lot of references to both W.B (the poet) and his brother Jack B. (the painter).  W.B. is the more famous of the two but the Sligo people are warmer toward Jack because he actually lived in Sligo most of the time.  Anyway, W.B. did a poem that references dance, and a quote from it was on a wall in a really nice restaurant we visited there.  Also, on the train coming back we met a pretty well known fiddler, Maurice Lennon, AKA "The Legend of Leitrim" so the convergence of dancing and fiddling seems apt just now.  Here's "The Fiddler of Dooney"

THE FIDDLER OF DOONEY     William Butler Yeats 

When I play on my fiddle in Dooney,
Folk dance like a wave on the sea;
My cousin is priest in Kilvarnet
My brother in Mocharabuiee.*

I passed my brother and cousin:
They read in their books of prayer:
I read in my book of songs
I bought at the Sligo fair.

When we come at the end of time
To Peter sitting in state,
He will smile on three old spirits,
But call me first through the gate;

For the good are always the merry,
Save by an evil chance,
And the merry love the fiddle,
And the merry love to dance.

And when the folk there spy me,
They will all come up to me,
With ‘Here is the fiddler of Dooney!’
And dance like the wave on the sea.