Changing course.  The day after the job fair, as I was leaving the Aikido school after teaching the noon class, I received a call on my cellphone from Karen, my previous supervisor at SHOP.COM.  She kept it short: “would I like to have my old job back?”  I was truly speechless for a moment, on the verge of tears, but did manage to say ‘yes’ without shouting!  After everything had settled from the April layoffs, accompanied by some improved performance in the business, the company realized they had room to bring a couple people back and I was one of those they asked.  With fewer people doing the same amount of work, it isn’t easy, but no complaints!  The year ended well for the company, but new challenges await.  Job insecurity is the prevailing sentiment.

While all this was going on, we came across a beautiful boat up in Seattle: a Nordic 44 that we came very close to buying.  We had an accepted offer, and returned to Seattle for the survey and test sail.  We even located a nice slip in Gig Harbor where we could live-aboard.  The test sail showed her to be a fast and agile boat, but we ultimately decided that several issues uncovered in the survey were beyond our means (with the house still unsold) to deal with at the time and reluctantly withdrew.

When the 90 day listing on the house expired, we decided not to put it back on the market until March 2010.

Even keel.  With some level of stability restored, we again found time for a number of fun activities/events.  We attended the Renaissance Faire 4 times this year.  The theme for the 2nd weekend we attended was ‘Bacchanal-Masquerade’ and I wore this fabulous hand-crafted dragon mask that was a gift from our friends Cyndy and Keith.

Aikido was again a major activity as we attended/taught at the annual Mt. Baldy Retreat, the California Aikido Summer Retreat, and our Big Sur Weapons Retreat.  Danielle and I each taught a seminar at Aikido of San Luis Obispo.  Danielle also taught a seminar in San Francisco.

In June I attended the Aikibojitsu Instructor’s Camp. I’m now a licensed instructor in jo (wooden staff).  For the past year one of my students has been Ikuyo Conant, well-known artistic director/instructor/composer for several taiko drum groups in California. Over the years she has created a number of exciting taiko presentations, and she asked me to create a 5-part jo performance to accompany one of the pieces in a larger work entitled ‘Kannabi’ (The Mountain Where Spirits Dwell).  It was a great honor as well as a significant challenge.  The performance took place at the CSUMB World Theater on October 18th to a sold-out audience of almost 500!