The gathering was called Specific Assembly on the e-vite invitation. Tina, Zack and I all attended.  It was in Medford at the home of my friend a Hank, another UU minister.  Security checkpoint involved a 10 month old in her father’s arms stretching out her hands towards me, welcoming me into the house.  A handful of UU ministers, spouses/partners and children gathered for a cookout and conversation because we were not at General Assembly for various reasons.  We had a non-agenda, attended no workshops, no lectures, voted on nothing but generally agreed it was a good time to fire up the grill about 5 p.m. We did say a perfunctory grace, but it was brief and casual even by UU standards. In general, we had a grand ol’ time. We have to specifically plan to do this more often, even when we’re not skipping GA.