CCN February (Non) Meeting
CCN held a non-meeting this week in preparation for their next round of programming activities. Everyone was so excited about this meeting that they all didn’t attend with enthusiasm. The lack of noise was deafening. It didn’t seem to matter that they had lost their office and had no where to meet. (no, the office property didn’t succumb to the foreclosure situation or the cavern closure situation. The CCN staff actually lost track of it…) Losing an office has never deterred the CCN staff or affiliates from not meeting at any time before. So it was effortless to hold a non-meeting to continue collaborations.
Ragpie Rita reported to no one that she was extremely sour about the fact that the office was lost. She had spent a lot of time tightening the bolts on the wireless connections and was a wee bit more than miffed that she had to start over. When she can find the wires again, she said, she would tie them to “those roots over there in the ground.” What roots she meant wasn’t clear since no one was there to look to where she pointed.
Tyion tried unsuccessfully not to attend the non-meeting. 
He had been on the surface improving his directorial skills so that his directions as director would be more direct. Since no one came to the non-meeting he wasn’t yet been able to try out these skills. Nevertheless, he directed the staff not to worry if they missed the non-meeting and for once everyone followed his directions. It was only much later, after the non-meeting had ended, that he discovered why Rita was so upset. Apparently Madge has learned to read the dictionary, and thought she understood the meaning of the word “non.” Unfortunately, she confused non-attendance with non-existence and so thought she’d help Tyion out in preparing for the non-meeting.
No one was quite sure just what it was she did….
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Veralun announced he was taking a vacation from these non-meetings. He said he consulted Dr. Brains about his loss-of-office trauma, and had to watch Dr. Brains sit there, thinking hard about the logic of needing vacations from not-meeting rather than office-losing. After an hour, his patient, Veralun, lost patience with his doctor, Dr. Brains, and de-occupied the office. This isn’t the office Veralun lost, no, that office was the reason he came to Dr. Brains’ office. His office was well worth the effort to occupy. The office he left was Dr. Brains’ office that rightly deserved to lose its occupant. Dr. Brains muttered something about “poor lost stubborn so-and-so” but his words were as lost as the CCN offices because Veralun’s ears were already out of range. Dr. Brains was at a loss for words. Shortly thereafter, someone noticed a sign on his door that read “unoccupied for loss of occupants.”
Ghaelen said “what meeting?”
Tyion tried to direct her to the directions regarding this meeting he had left on the directory wall, but since the wall was lost with the rest of the office, she never did find the memo about the non-meeting. Turning around several times in the same place, convinced that there was really nothing amiss, she finally sat down (on her trusty crate, which she carries everywhere so as never to actually be without an office) and didn’t think about it any longer. She did get some of the CavernCasts uploaded to the web blog and out on ITunes (which she told no one about at the non meeting). And she didn’t speak to Veralun or Tyion about an evil idea regarding characters, offices, and scripts, none of which had anything to do with non-meetings.
Altydwarber was almost at the non-meeting, then caught herself in time and said “Why should I go to a non meeting? I have better things to do.” So she did them although she did miss the tea and had saved some Kirel Baked Treats for the company snack. She also almost saw Ghaelen sitting on her crate, so she did sit down with her for a while and they laughed about explosions, balloons, bosses, and they wondered what Veralun was doing out there in the wilderness looking around as if he had good sense. He grumbled something about smart people with no brains and lost buildings (none of which they could quite understand) and then came to sit and not-meet with Alty and Ghaelen on the crate.
Mr. Jules wasn’t at the non-meeting for the first time in a row. If he hadn’t been the boss, Tyion would have given him the what-for. As it was, Tyion was able to pride himself on knowing not to attend, while Mr. Jules simply didn’t know not to attend, and wasn’t even aware that the office itself had disappeared. Or maybe he did and thought he had lost it so was out looking for it so the staff could not meet. Since no one was around to see him not there we can’t really say where he wasn’t or what he wasn’t doing. He could be lost with the office and no one wouldn’t know.
Ruby completely missed the meeting too, although everyone knew she was working very hard to not meet wherever Mr. Jules might be. She didn’t tell everyone she was writing a new storyline and that she might know where the office was but didn’t really want to say. Last we heard she had collared a third-grader who was lurking about near the door not-marked “bathroom” and whining because he couldn’t get into it. She tried to tell him it had been lost but that concept seemed totally foreign to him because he really needed that door to exist and to be open. Ruby lost her mind as well as her office and told the poor child that if he could find Madge he would most certainly get a door with the words “bathroom” on it. She then thought it might be nice to have some tea with Alty and Ghaelen. So she came over to sit on the crate and not-meet with the rest of them.
(It’s a very large crate.)
Marten was absent from the non-meeting. We’re not sure where he is other than at the Messengers surface site, and everyone at CCN misses him terribly. (Especially Madge, who finally understood about the word “extra” and very much wants to know more.) But since no one met to share their sentiments, Marten wasn’t able to hear them. Someone said he had finally fixed that “hole” at rel.to.com, but could not explain what the hole meant. Staff members thought briefly about calling him to communicate these things, but since the phone was nowhere to be found, they decided they needed another plan. They tried crate-to-crate skype calling, but since there was only one crate that didn’t work either. So they tabled that topic until the next non-meeting when, they hoped, Marten would attend.
Lord Chaos was a non-meeting absentee. Rumor had it that he was fighting a just war somewhere against something and creating non-order everywhere he went. Or maybe he was fighting to creating order out of non-order. Well, it didn’t matter because no one met to question it, but everyone who wasn’t there and couldn’t find the office was sure they heard beautiful strains of music wafting through the air. A flash of light went by where they weren’t and slowed down just enough for non-attendees to catch a glimpse of his friend Lady Chaos in her newest and largest duds. Rita took off to get some duds for herself, and no one didn’t see her again after that. But the music stayed, and everyone had a great time on the crate with the tea not talking about meetings or offices or other very important things.
