The girls passed their belt tests

Fiona (Ms. Ihinger) now has a brown belt, and Delia a brown stripe.

I start cleaning this weekend. I will clean once during the weekend (I will try to get the girls to help then) and once Monday night. I resume class next week, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. The girls take Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

Yep. Six, sometimes seven days at the dojo. Go us.

John M. Ford's Memorial service

Yesterday was John M. Ford (Mike Ford's) memorial service. I must say, it was one of the best I've ever had the privilege to attend. Many of Mike's friends spoke and provided music, and excerpts of his writing were read. As the pastor says, it really helps when most of the best things said were written by the departed himself.

Eulogies were offered by Jim Rigney (who writes books under the name Robert Jordon), who considered Mike a brother of the heart, Victor Raymond (badger2305), Lynn Litterer (lynnal), Teresa Nielsen Hayden (tnh), Neil Gaiman, and his aunt, Jane Starner. Many, many of Mike's friends were there, including quite a few from out of town, dozens of whom are on LJ.
Some things said and read: Mike's sonnet, "Against entropy. Jo Walton (papersky) read the Janus sonnet. Steve Brust (skzbrust) read the villanelle "I am the king and I want a sandwich." jonsinger read the list of new items from Acme Food Enhancement, "Dining for the Posthuman Era," which you will find among the samples of his writing here. tnh read his recipe for cooking Hot Gingered Pygmy Mammoth & Jumbo Shrimp Salad:

( recipe here: Feeds your whole tribe. )

casacorona read from his unfinished novel Aspects and Emma Bull coffeeem read from "Shared World." She and Adam Stemple played a song that he had written, "Madonna of the Midway."

Some of the things said during the eulogies:

Neil Gaiman: "He was my best critic because he was the smartest. You'd give him something to read, and he'd say, 'That's brilliant. It just needs this one line.' And you'd say, 'You're right,' and put it in. And then it would win awards. And just you and he would know." He told a story of once sending out an invitation to a party which included a typographical error. Mike build an entire musical play around that typographical error. And then he would perform it.

Another time, Neil sent an invitation out with just a flat listing of directions to his address, and he added at the end, "I'd like to see Mike Ford make literature out of this." And Mike did. He made a sonnet cycle out of the directions to Neil's home.

Teresa Nielsen Hayden (tnh) said, "He wasn't the sort of smart person who made you feel stupid. He made you feel smarter just knowing him. He told me once, 'I have a horror of being obvious.' I told him, 'Mike, you have no clue what other people consider obvious."

Since Mike loved cheese, there were exquisite cheeses from the Wedge Co-op served in the fellowship hall afterwards. The wake was held that night at the Sheraton, the hotel where innumerable Minicons have been held, and really, with all the old familiar faces, many of them gone from Minneapolis for years, it felt like a night in the green room at Minicon ten or fifteen years ago. A music circle formed, of course. I came in when Emma Bull was singing "Signal to Noise" and stayed, happy listening, for hours. jbru reminds me of one memorable moment of music and laughter being the singing of "Puking in the Heather," an Irish folk song inspired by an off-hand comment of Mike's at a convention a long time ago--proof, as skzbrust put it, that not all of Mike's legacies were positive ones. fredcritter sang "Ripple," which made the tears flow again. People brought wonderful food, potluck: cheese (again) chocolate, ham and other meats, cake and pies and sweets and nuts and several different kids of scotch. . . pameladean brought her gingerbread, which brought tears to my eyes, because it reminded me of the Shakespeare reading group meetings where Mike would dazzle us all with his readings.

I stayed late. We thought of Mike with love and toasted his memory. May it remain ever green.

Edited to add: Other write ups of the memorial: The Pioneer Press and paperskyJo Walton's report.

Edited to add again: The UK's Guardian article. pameladean's report here. She mentioned, which I didn't know, that gerisullivan did the programs. And if you haven't seen it yet, here is Mike's Wikipedia entry.

My personal tribute to Mike is here.

A great image for the ceiling of a smokers' lounge

Edited to add: Further information from Snopes on the picture here.