luciab | Entries tagged with pennsic

I got up this AM and did laundry-- an amazingly small amount, considering that it was all my Pennsic stuff in addition to the pre-Pennsic week's worth. Oddly enough, I didn't wear my heavy cape at all this year, even on the night it got down to 48 degrees. I did use it as one of my blankets, and it is wonderful for that. For keeping warm while walking around, I was happy with just layers of garb and the occasional use of the glorious shawl/scarf that Luisa made me when we stepped down. Damn, I love that thing; it's amazingly warm.

After laundry I decided to look at the class work posted for my UNC class on Preservation. Sigh. BIG sigh. Six required readings for the first class, plus six optional readings. Fortunately, that teacher will be out of town for the first two weeks school is open, so I'm good till Sept 11. Yikes. Didn't realize the date till I typed it.

This is the semester that I'm not only taking 12 hours in grad school, but they are spread over 3 different campuses. The first class I actually have will be at NCSU; I hear that after the first week class will be held in the State Archives building downtown, which will make parking MUCH simpler. And parking for Central is a piece of cake now that we've moved to downtown Durham, so that only leaves the UNC class where parking will be ugly. I know they have a park-and-ride system, but have no idea about where to go to get a parking pass for the lot. So much fun. Remind me again, why am I doing this? Oh, yeah, something about needing a job so I can buy groceries for me and the kitties. Now I remember.

I'm really glad I had a few days to recuperate between Pennsic and the start of classes. Much to do. Now if I can just make myself do it, now that I'm reasonably rested up.

Current Mood: lethargic
Current Music: printer churning out readings

Wow-- glorious weather, good friends, how can you top it?

I packed everything to

harleenquinzell's house Fri and we loaded up

foklens's van that night. Well, no, not "everything" despite Max's gibes. I didn't take the bookshelf that helps keep the pavilion so much more organized, nor the table that makes eating so much more pleasant, not to mention a bunch of stuff I meant to take but forgot. Oops. We caravanned up on Sat with

zihuatenejo. Walky-talkies make caravanning so much more fun and practical.

We got in at am eminently reasonable hour and, as predicted by

zihuatenejo, got through troll in just a few minutes. Amazing. I spent longer trying to figure out how they have managed to shorten it so much, than I did getting through it. Cool.

When we got to Windmasters' site, we had some discussion of exact tent locations, due to minor evolution of the original plan, and wound up sharing the sun shade with

zihuatenejo. That turned out to be a great plan that still needs some work, technically speaking. As far as I can tell, the canvas stretches, so the sunshade that started out stretched tightly between the two tents was sagging in a major way by the end of the war. It was bad enough for the three short ones of us, but it was worse for Owen. It was a great idea, though, if we can just figure out the details.

I really like the new location. Level, not too distant, and we even got a tree this time. Whee! I was a totally lazy slug and didn't go to classes, didn't work at troll, didn't do much of anything, really. It was lovely.

harleenquinzell wasn't as sluggish as I. She had actually been requesting scroll info from TRMs for weeks, trying to get ahead of the curve. She got the list of court business at about 10:30 Wed AM and came back to the common tent to work. She set up shop in a corner so as to be able to enjoy the conversations, and set to the calligraphy. I think she did 23 promissories, and filled out 3 scroll blanks (illumination already done but she did all the callig.) For Benefse's Nonpareil, she found Olivier and got him to write a poem, and asked me to give her an exemplar of a pseudo-Arabic hand to use. Since I didn't just happen to have one tucked in my pocket, I sketched one out using Persian callig examples in my new book as inspiration. (Fabulous book, BTW. Livia found it and told me about it.) Even with all that, she had all the scrolls done by 6:30 or so. Hell of a woman.

We had a bit of fun with the War of the Wings shtick on Tues and Wed.

alianor and Marc had a Hawaiian-themed party Tues night, and she mentioned that they "lei"ed our Kittyhawk. Wed night we found some plastic kittens and delivered them to her. After all, even Pennsic love can have consequences. Everyone got a laugh out of all the kittens. I wish I could go to the damn event in October but I have class that day. How disappointing is that?

Thurs night Ysolt mentioned that Jim had checked the weather and there was a 50% chance of rain on Sat. When Livia came in I mentioned it to her and we decided to consider coming home a day early. When the sky was grey and cloudy on Fri AM we decided discretion was the better part of valor and started packing. That went better than I had any right to hope, and we were on the road by 1 PM or so. We stopped for meals instead of eating on the road, and I forsook my usual speeding habits when I drove, so we didn't get in till about 10:30. Then we got to sort the van and pack my stuff into my car for the last bit of the drive. I had a lovely shower and started looking for the stuff that I had made a point of putting somewhere easy to find. Ha. It wasn't really too bad.

I have completely maintained my slug mode today. I still don't have everything in from the car.

Oh-- the "nearly" part of the "nearly perfect pennsic?" I had minor headaches almost everyday, but my beloved meds pretty much knocked 'em out. It did make me reluctant to do much Pennsic partying, but it was still nearly perfect. Weather in the 80's most days, 50's most nights (48 one night; glad I had lots of blankets.) Only rained one day, and that wasn't serious. No thunder or anything.

I had hoped to see my brother, who only lives an hour away from Pennsic, but he had to work and was actually out of town much of the week. Disappointing.

On the whole, though, it was glorious. Now if only

nomadicmedic could have been there.

Current Mood: happy
Current Location: couch
Current Music: fans

The cats are all looking seriously unhappy, scurrying around, trying to not be stepped on. Except of course they manage to be directly in front of me half the time....

I have put off packing for Pennsic just a leeeetle later than usual this year. Like, packing today, leaving the house tonight. I did start collecting things in the LR, so that's something. And it seems to be going reasonably well, thanks to the packing list that I've used for the last several years. It's honed down pretty well by now. And I'm being really lucky about finding those things that I'm supposed to have, and KNOW I have but can never find when I need them. Like veils, and caps, and those bands to keep them on with. No, no, I don't mean the damned brass hat, that thing just gives me a migraine. If I need something to keep a veil on I usually just wear one of those circlet things. I admit to a certain perverse pleasure, thinking about those people who would give their eyeteeth for some kind of fancy hat to wear, and here I can wear one and don't. Heh. And I further admit that at Pennsic I wear a straw hat like a peasant in the field and I'm done with it.

I'm looking forward to having both my main peeps at Pennsic this year, with Livia sharing my tent and

zihuatanejo directly across from us. Whee! And I swear, I am going to get them to tell me what the hell "zihuatanejo" means. I keep forgetting to ask.

Current Mood: cheerful

Wow, it's good to be home. I've had a good night's sleep, too, which helps a lot. Today, maybe a long tub-soak to get out the last of the embedded grime.

( Best and Worst and more )

Current Mood: but happy

I'm logged on at my brother's house in Akron, Ohio. Nice to be online.... confusing to be here in the middle of Pennsic, though. I had temporal dislocation when I got in the car and drove here.

The drive up wasn't bad, though it took about an hour longer than I expected. For some reason I thought it was about the same as the drive to my parent's house, which is 8 hours. Nope, it was 9+. I was fried when I got in. I stayed in Nia's tent Monday night and Her Excellency and other assorted ladies helped me set up my pavilion the next morning. I've never been in charge of setting it up before, so I learned a lot. Like, always set it up somewhere before the trip to see if you're missing anything. Someone had told me I was one pole short, but as it happens, I am FIVE poles short. Duh. Plus, it turns out there is a "door" if you know how to put it together, which I didn't, so the "door" space is at the exact back of the tent. Oops. It works, though, and it's simpler to deal than to change everything.

Tuesday was setting up, or at least getting everything in and findable. I was still tired, though, and didn't really make it organized inside till Wednesday. I wound up reading the immediately previous HP book to refresh my memory on Wed and Thursday, finishing the last few pages on Friday. Went to class Fri AM, packed up and left for Akron mid-afternoon. I've had a headachae most days, but it hasn't been bad. I'm going back on Sunday morning, planning to be back in plenty of time to see Declan fight in the Laurel's Tourney.

My brother's house.... oh, my GOD, is beautiful. Of course, it always is. This one was built in about 1917 and is of a style I've never seen in NC. It's like there's a "Northern style" house that wasn't built in the South. Weird. They have haunted antique shops for some pieces, other bits of furniture were built by our Dad, and Danny says some bits came from K-Mart. Wow. I knew Tar-zhay had some nice stuff but had no idea K-Mart did. I just love the way he puts colors and textures together, plus all the artwork they've collected. It turns out it was almost exactly a year ago that I came up here the first time. The animals (4 dogs, a cat, and a parrot) are calmer about my presence this time, fortunately. Not that the parrot does anything that suggests she remembers me, but the dogs are barking less and the cat wanted to stay with me last night.

For the first time ever at Pennsic, I found myself missing my cats. The first night I kept thinking about the kittens giving me those adoring looks and flopping over to get their bellies scratched. Awwwww.... it's been nice being able to pet the cat here. I needed a kittie fix.

I'd better get back downstairs. Just before I got online, Danny got a call.... the birthday (dinner?) that the D's thought was tomorrow is actually today and they were wondering why the guys haven't shown up yet. Daniel has some more to do on the b'day cake, and Danny is doing some minor house stuff, so I took the chance to come up and check online. Back to the family now. Ta.

Current Mood: good
Current Music: blessed silence

The kittens are becoming alarmed at all the to-ing and fro-ing. I don't usually move this fast, or this much at once, for that matter. Plus all the carrying stuff out.

And I am becoming alarmed at the accuracy of my prediction that I might have room in the car for my pavilion, but would there be room for clothes? Hmmm. Anything that can hang on a rack will be draped over the stuff in the back seat (coolers, clothes rack, shelf). I'm not sure how I can transport all the stuff that doesn't hang, though. Like veils and undies and socks and shoes. I've already got the corners of the trunk crammed with little stuff like boxes of baggies and plastic utensils. Yikes. I'm going to be a bag lady, with grocery bags full of random stuff tucked everywhere. Oh, this is going to be entertaining.

I'm planning to visit my brother for dinner or an overnight visit sometime during Pennsic, too. He lives about 90 miles away from site and it'd be pretty silly to be that close and not see him. Whee! More to pack!

Current Mood: frazzled and bemused

I switched cell phone companies this AM. I'm going on Nikulai's recommendation, so I hope he's right! ;> Mainly I wanted to be able to call from anywhere in the US w/o roaming charges, and this plan does that. I mean, I know there will be places where the nearest tower will be someone else's but it doesn't limit me to two states. Even that would have been better if I could have chosen NC and VA, for example, but no, it had to be NC and SC, and I never go to SC. Ridiulous. Anyway, this is what I wanted, and I got tons more minutes, so I'm happy. Same number, of course. I'm ditching my land line, too. Just when I finally got on the Do Not Call list. Not real organized, huh? I got a cute little flip phone... I was going to go with the cheapest, but this one was so cute.... And this from the woman who thinks "cute" is a four-letter word. There was some reason that tipped me toward this one but now I don't remember what it was. And while it wasn't the cheapest, it is still at a level of basic that would appall any red-blooded gadget geek.

I also did my pre-Pennsic shopping while I was out. You know, paper plates and bowls, plastic utensils, battery powered lantern-- all that medieval stuff. I admire the hell out of the Enchanted Ground people but I have absolutely no desire to emulate them, even for a week. Too much like work. I'm doing well to remember to bring cloths to cover the coolers with. Like I've said before, I just like to dress up funny. Well, and paint pretty pictures. Our Baroness is pretty good about wanting things nice, and I like her (and I might be camping directly across the path from her) so I'll do my best to be good. How's that for a reason?

Kyle came over and met the cats last night. Even Miss Molly came out to meet him. It's partly that she's gotten a lot braver, and partly that he has a very calm personality. The kittens were roll-over-for-belly-tickles friendly, of course. For dinner last night I got some red corn on the cob... yep, red. It's actually almost purple. The inside of the kernel is white, and the kernels are sort of variegated white and purple on the outside. I had no idea what it would be like- fortunately, it was good and tender. Tasted a bit different from the white/yellow stuff but not a lot. Mainly they're selling the novelty, I guess. I liked it better than yellow but not as well as white.

I've been cleaning out the car and loading a few things up. I'm being totally disorganized on this- I've kinda been pulling stuff out of closets as I see it, and there's stuff scattered all over the place. I've got so many big pieces, like the three boxes that hold the pavilion, and the big cooler, that I'm not sure if I'll have room to take the drawers to hold my clothes. I hope I don't have to tatke my clothes in plastic bags just because they're flexible enough to fit anywhere! I'd be feeling disorganized (okay, more than usual) the whole two weeks.

Enough lollygagging. Back to packing.

Current Mood: hyper

What a weird night/day. I absolultely could NOT get to sleep last night.... damn good thing I didn't have to get up and haul my discombobulated ass to work this morning. And I know I wasn't just lying there dreaming I was awake (which has happened) because I was reading. As in, the last half of one book and the first half of another. I'd think I was sleepy and as soon as my head hit the pillow I'd wake back up again and start thinking-- mostly about Pennsic packing and prep. By the time I realized that I needed to take something to help me sleep, I thought, Well, if I take a pill this late I'll wake up really late. (Ie, 8 hours instead of the more usual 6 hours sleep.) For some reason, the AC unit for the building next door sounded like a jet engine about 5 feet away last night, too. Still does, in fact. It was 4:30 before I finally went to sleep; I woke up at 11:30. I am now so completely off a normal sleep cycle I'll have to take a pill just to get myself back on schedule. I guess that could be handy for wild-ass parties at Pennsic, but then I haven't been so much the party animal the last few years. (It'ts hell getting old!) I've been told I absolutely must attend the Men Without Pants party, though. Heh. What I did on my summer vacation....

Tonight I'm fixing dinner for Daniello, who is coming over to meet my cats since he's cat-sitting for the first week. That means I need to wake up and go grocery shopping SOON. Yikes. And I know there's other shopping I need to do, too. I wish my head didn't feel like cotton wool.

Current Mood: groggy

I got the Laurel's Tourney prize done. Two days... that's almost a speed record for me. Heh. You can see it here. I based it on this illumination from the Alphonso Psalter.

I'm not particularly happy with the overall design; I was so focused on arranging the individual pieces that I didn't spend enough time designing the in-between bits that tie the whole thing together. Fortunately, the details are good.

I got up this morning so focused on Pennsic and getting the various specifics ready to go that I completely forgot that I was supposed to be at Ten Thousand Villages at 10. Ooooops. Then when I got there, feeling all flustered and un-together, the staff member on duty mentioned that Thursday is the day that the Secret Shopper (Mystery Shopper?) might visit. Yikes. Not the day to worry about someone sneaking in to see if I'm doing a good job of being friendly and selling stuff. I am SO not good at selling stuff-- I hate being sold to, so I can't do it myself.

So, now that I have the prize done, and enough clothes to get by, at least, I can get on the organizing part of this expedition. And I plan to switch my cell phone company, so I can do that too. Whee!

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Music: Livia burnishing gesso.... heh.

Busy, busy. Livia came over last night and I wanted pineapple upside down cake for dessert. She just happened to have her mother's recipe for it in her daytimer (!) so I decided to try it. My mother's version had brown sugar and butter or something to make the sauce for the bottom, but this was much simpler and thus more to my taste. It used instant pudding mix for the bottom. It said to use water, but I used the juice from the pineapple and it was wonderful. I also put a pint of blueberries in the cake part, thinking it would be like muffins and they'd stay in the cake. Nope, they sank to the bottom and cooked with the pineapple. Tasted great, looked not as pretty as I'd hoped. We put some vanilla ice cream on the warm cake in our bowls. Talk about gilding the lily! I wanted a wheelbarrow to haul my over-full self away from the table. I went whole hog (more appropriate simile than I like!) and had a serving of it for breakfast today. Fortunately, it seems to have taken care of my suger craving for the day, so far at least.

I'm working on a.... hell, I don't know what you'd call it. I'm scribing, painting a prize for the Laurel's Tourney to be held Sunday at Pennsic. I'm sponsoring Declan. The piece is 14th century English and I found it in a book on grotesques. It's of a knight killing a griffin, so it seemed appropos for a tourney prize.

Back to the drawing board. So to speak.

Current Mood: upbeat
Current Music: West Texas Lullaby- Toni Price

I have now officially declared it Too Hot. For anything. I can take heat much better than cold but even I have limits. Last night I moved the rotating fan into the bedroom so I had two fans blowing air over me all night and it helped. Today, however.... the predicted high is 104 again today. I plan to go to the movies this afternoon and then do some shopping I've been putting off. I checked the movie listings and managed to find one movie... that would be one movie that I'm willing to pay the ticket price to see. That would be two if I weren't being a skinflint in anticipation of the money I know I'll spend for Pennsic prep and at Pennsic itself. Besides, the shopping will take care of the AC for the rest of this afternoon. The cooler weather is supposed to come in tonight so it should be bearable after that. (That would be down to the mid 90's, with lows around 70 instead of the 77 predicted last night.)

I'm sure glad I'm sewing now instead of scribing... I hate when I stick to the paper. Ick. The cats aren't re al amused either. The kittens are spread out with their bellies on the hardwood floor. I doubt Molly could achieve that position, nor could she get out of it if she did.

On top of all this, I got a killer headache yesterday and it's still hanging on today. I've taken the full 100 mg of Imitrex for the lasts two dosages and can still feel pain lurking at the junction of my neck and head.

Enough whining for a while. (more later. ;>)

Current Mood: cranky

Quite the pleasant weekend. ( See more details of the weekend )

In other news, I'd been worrying about something I expected to be a problem for a few weeks, but had been so focused on the scroll I hadn't had a chance to actually check it out. Today I did, and I think it's less of a problem than I had feared. ( Weird tent discussion follows. )

In other matters of cosmic importance, I think I need classes in how to eat a tossed salad without looking like an idiot. Or is that possible? I admit, I don't recall seeing elegant salad eaters even in movies, but even in the real-people world, no one else looks as goofy as I feel. First off, the lettuce is always in big pieces- bigger than will gracefully fit into my mouth. Then you have to spear some stuff (lettuce, tomatoes) while piling other stuff on top of your fork (carrots, croutons) so as far as I can tell, it's not really possible to get a variety of things in one bite. Boring. Or should I just try for excitement elsewhere and let the salad-eating experience be boring as it need be? There, I knew that'd give you something to lay awake nights worrying about. Heh.

Current Mood: mostly upbeat, a little blah
Current Music: crickets?

The painting is coming along nicely on the scroll. However.... the gold leaf is looking weird. Sigh. What was a perfectly mirror finish when first applied is now crazed with tiny lines or even completely eroded off the gesso. I haven't been abusing it, either. It's not a problem with the gesso, which is performing beautifully. I think it must be that the flexing of the paper has caused the cracking. No idea about the erosion, though. I can't imagine how I could avoid these problems. Maybe if the scroll were fixed to a rigid backing to minimize the flexing. That would help at least till I take it to site, but after that.... no help. And right now, or anyway before I deliver the scroll, I need to touch up all the gold by adding at least one more layer. I don't know if more would be better. Aaargh! Frustrating. It's going to be tricky adding gold only to the currently gold areas without it sticking to the paint. All I can do is try, though. I think I'll wait till I finish the painting to minimize further damage. Sigh.

Ysolt came over with lunch today. She hadn't met the kittens yet. Carmen was friendly, but Miranda headed for cover and wouldn't come out, which surprised me. Lunch was a delicious curried chicken salad with grapes, mango and pineapple in it. Yum! Pretty good deal when guests bring the food and it's really tasty! I was sorry she couldn't stay longer, though. She was in between assignments and got a call ref one of them and had to go. We hardly had any time to talk. We'll be able to talk at Pennsic, though. I'd like to be able to go up for both weeks but it has dawned on me that I need help getting my pavilion up there, and I don't know when I'll be able to get it there. I do still have a lot of getting ready to do, though. As soon as I get done with this scroll....

Current Mood: annoyed
Current Music: Veronica Mars