Susan Arthur

 OMG, I am tired. Especially since I already had this entry done once and LJ ate it. Let's see how much of it I can recontstruct.

Yesterday was pretty much Teh Fabulous-- just about perfect, as far as I could tell. The lovely woman who her friends teasingly say should have been called "Lady Oblivia" shall now be called "Maestra"-- she was well and truly surprised. We got Max sneaked into court and hid him behind Solvarr. When TRMs called her into court, They told her They were arranging to have teams of children tow her in a wagon as she attended Their Excellencies during the day, because Her  Excellency is known to run all over site, and Livia figured she would get pretty damn tired running up and down that hill at Ymir this year, being five months preggers and all. When They then told her They would like to put her on vigil instead, she burst into tears, showing that she really WAS surprised.

Things continued to go as planned the rest of the day. I had asked a wonderful, organized group of people to help me, and they did a fantastic job. Rowan created a vigil tent and provided a table to display a large number of Livia's scrolls, as well as a draft of her upcoming Compleat Anachronist issue on period pigments for the modern artist. Aneira's handmade heart-shaped guest book was to die for, with its painted frontispiece and its own velvet pillow, and we aggressively chased guests around to make sure they signed it, since we were afraid they'd be to scared to touch it otherwise.  Ysolt was in charge of hospitality, and when she came down with a virus, Clare de Crecy volunteered to step in if necessary (Ysolt recovered in time, but Clare brought treats, too.)  Believe me when I say we had a gracious plenty of handmade goodies to serve our guests. Whenever things got overwhelming inside, Max and I snuck outside so he could smoke and we could gossip. It was altogether lovely.


I should leave the rest of it for the Maestra herself to talk about. I was pretty damn glad I wasn't coming home last night and could just collapse in the cabin after we got back from eating. I was so wound up I had to take an extra Xanax to get to sleep, even if I was exhausted.(Shhhhh. These are EXTREMELY light weight, I found out when one of my doctors voice rose when he repeated where the decimal point was on the dosage. I feel very safe taking an extra one if I need to. And I'm still here, aren't I? Pbthpbth.)


And to the new Maestra-- congratulations!! It has always been an absolute joy having you in Casa Bellini, and you will forever hold a place of highest esteem in my heart and my household. I have learned at least as much from you as I have taught you, and I thank you for that. There has never been a moment's regret. Vivat! 

Love this entry from Wil Wheaton.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about roles, and the responsibilities and privileges that come with them. The most extreme example of it hit me on election night when I looked at the Obama family and thought, “Oh, your lives are never going to be the same.” I know that the evolution began as soon as he started winning primaries, but the change in January will be unimaginable.
( playing the game )

I have almost finished the prize cape I'm making for the Most Valorous rapier fighter competition this weekend at Assessment. Oh, you didn't know about it? My bad. I should have written an announcement for the Merry Rose but didn't think about it till last night. Today I'm fairly incoherent, so have asked my valorous apprentice harleenquinzell to put some text together. Of course she's at work today so may have other things to do. (Pah, work!) Anyway, the cape-sewing went very quickly and it looks good. The cape, BTW, is designed for use in rapier fighting-- not a fancy-shmancy one. It is, however, large enough that it can be worn, unlike the ceremonial one that designates the WH Baronial Rapier Champion.

Miranda and even Molly helped me with the cape-- Molly helped with the cutting and Miranda was in on both cutting and sewing. I have such good kitties. Miranda has been especially lovey this laast week. I have clearly been gone from home far too much recently, and she's making up for all the petting she didn't get while I was gone. She's in my lap when I get on the computer, in my lap when I read, and plastered to my side all night while I sleep. She's also been walking through the house crying at random times-- she manages to sound really pitiful. She's going to be most unhappy with my being gone for a week again. At least I'll be home a little longer before I head out yet again for a week at Pennsic.

I have the History Channel on this afternoon and am watching "American Eats," including hot dogs. The descriptions of the creation of Nathan's makes me want a hot dog, and it's midafternoon and I've had lunch pretty recently. Crap-- now they're talking about pizza. I dunno if I can watch this whole hour.

I have gotten several minor errands done today, thank heavens. Still a few left to do but I'm generally in good shape. Now I think I need to go grocery shopping. Maybe some hot dogs.....

Tuesday already-- this visit has gone pretty quickly so far. I got in Friday night about 9, which was…. um, shall we say… rather more quickly than I should have arrived, and certainly more quickly than I expected to arrive. The trip was totally uneventful, which is a wonderful thing. I listened to a Southern Sisters mystery audio book, which I find is a good series for that purpose. It features two sixty-something Alabama ladies and is guaranteed to give me a few laughs. The only scary thing about it is that I don’t remember any of western NC. Yikes.

Mother and I have both had migraines most of the time I’ve been here. I am afraid that I definitely see a clear pattern…. Every time I’m here I have two-pill migraines most of the visit. I see a difference in Mother this time. She’s been more forgetful lately, and this time forgot when I’m leaving, though I told her several times and she apparently wrote it down (somewhere!) a couple of times. Thus, we wind up not going to Barbourville this time. Given the way our heads have felt, I don’t think it’s a great loss. I had debated renting a van this trip and taking back a TV and a pie safe from there, but realized I don’t need a TV and have no room for the pie safe, though it’d be neat to have. If I had rented a van, we’d have made the trip, but as it was I didn’t care that much.

Daddy is doing much better than he was when I was here at Christmas. WAY better. He’s sharper, more alert, and doesn’t seem scared like he did before. I still don’t think he’ll ever completely get back to where he was but I am pleased with what I see. Mother’s macular degeneration is apparently getting worse, which of course is what it always does. Her doctor says he wants to see her every month now, which is going to be a problem, especially since Daddy is definitely not up to driving to Lexington. She did just tell me that the van that is available for residents here will take them to Lexington for a fee, and that’s what they’ll do. Whew.

I had a major realization of sorts today. Daddy was getting ready to drive out to Bybee (10 miles away) and I just realized what a terrible idea that was. He definitely does not need to be driving at highway speeds. I realize I’m deluding myself that in town is acceptable but the speeds are so much slower that the results would be much less catastrophic if anything does happen. At highway speeds, though, things just happen way too fast.

On the whole, it’s been a good visit. I brought 3 quarts of strawberries, and we have polished them off already. Mother ate a few, but Daddy and I ate most of them. He even made shortcake for them. Yum. I’ve been painting and have finished the Undine I brought. I’ve also read a lot. Oh, and I brought a large print book for Mother—one of the Southern Sisters mysteries, in fact. She loves to read but says she can’t when her head hurts. I wondered if the large print would help, and I think it did—she read the whole book in no time, and loved it. The local bookmobile comes here, so she can request more now that she knows she can read the large print more easily. Yay!

We’re going to Lexington tomorrow, taking Mother for her appointment with her eye specialist. Hope that goes well. We’ll be doing some other little errands and eating lunch over there after that. Exciting stuff, eating lunch in the big city. Wonder which chain she’ll choose? Heh.

Well, I’m signing off. Back home on Thursday, get to see my kitties and sleep in my own bed. Yay.

I finally had my presentation this morning. Damn, I'm glad that's over. I kinda blew off preparing for it, honestly, except for reading the paper over two or three times. I emailed her the paper yesterday, and boy, I could tell it. It was about half discussion, as opposed to presentation like everyone else did. Which was okay, I think. She said she liked my idea and paper, so I guess it's good.

Now I get ready to go to Kentucky for a few days. I'll be leaving here tomorrow and coming back on Wed next week, so I'll be there for Derby weekend again. I'll be counting on someone to call and tell me who wins Crown, though. Gotta keep up with all the news, after all.

Better go start getting stuff together.

I just got email from the last teacher I owe work to.... ungrammatical, tough shit. I was supposed to give my presentation on Monday at 3, and was going to KY on Tues or Wed. She says, though, that we have to change the presentation date to Thursday. I am SO not amused. I wanted to get this crap over and done. Who would have thought that any grad student would ever be complaining about having too much time for a paper?

I've been painting today. I decompressed by reading this morning; read a whole silly mystery before noon. Sweet. I mean, not that I was too awfully compressed to begin with, but I still had absolutely no ambition this morning. So after lunch I turned on the TeeeVeee and started painting. I have a scroll blank I was going to try to do for the competition Livia had-- I hear no Laurels managed to get anything entered in that, BTW, which was disappointing. I decided to go on and finish that one, which was drawn, inked and calliged, with a little bit of painting started. I have an Undine to do next.

Mythbusters was on this afternoon while I was painting. I learned all kinds of interesting stuff, some of which I knew or strongly suspected, but it was entertaining. Myths are all done for the night, though, and Harry Potter is now meeting Hagrid for the first time, which is pleasant painting company.

I just finished applying for a job at State in the preservation dept, doing book repair. I had the application all filled out... when it's a government job, you do a god-awful-detailed application.... and got ready to submit it online. I was hauled up short by the option to add a cover letter. Erk? Never had that happen before, when filling out an application online. Never had an application and a cover letter together, because usually when it's an application you don't have any idea who will review it, ie, to whom such a letter should be written. Guess what-- I still had no idea to whom this thing should be addressed, but hurried consultation convinced me that I had to do it. Thank god for good librarians, because zihuatenejo came up with a solution I could use. I was still dreading it; I"m SO bad at those things. So I just sat down after lunch and started writing, using a template I found online (from VT, which gave me a jolt, though it really had nothing to do with anything-- it was just weird.) And lo, it was easy. I used a slightly less formalized approach than I've used before, which helped, and it probably also helped that I am genuinely excited about the possibility of getting this job and could explain exactly how I felt I was suited for it. Always helps to believe what you're saying!

This AM I had an appointment for a check up with a doctor for the Social Security disability claim. It was kind of medium-thorough, I guess. No idea what they'll come up with next. I'll play their silly games, though.

I also dropped off a couple of prescriptions at my local drugstore, and realized I'm turning into my mother.... I have a favorite pharmacist, I know her name, and she knows MY name. I was always kinda spooked about the idea of a bartender knowing my name (it happened once or twice) but at least I spent time talking to them. But with a pharmacist, you're just dropping off an order, not standing around chatting, and they don't even see you when you pick it up. That means I'm dropping off way too many prescriptions, IMO. Sadly, that opinion makes no difference I'll have to keep on doing it, at least if I want to keep breathing easily, sleeping easily, and not having migraines, and hopefully not having broken bones and heart attacks, either. Depressing as hell, I tell you.

I have the essay almost done-- I'm riffing off the topic I used for the big paper this semester. Oh, and there's a competition for papers about archives and preservation, and I think I'm going to submit the ink/vellum/paper piece I did last semester. School is drawing near the end, guys. Very strange.

For some unknown reason I feel like I finished something today, even though I didn't do my presentation and didn't turn in my paper. Wait, maybe because it was my last class for this degree? Yep. Must be it. I do have the tremendous advantage of seeing everyone else's presentations, and made a few notes. I was almost ready to turn my paper in today but I'm glad I didn't. I was not at all satisfied with one part that she said was "the most important" but hadn't a clue what to do about it. Today I got a better idea of a few things to say, even though it doesn't really say anything additional about how the research would be conducted-- it'll just sound more like I know more about how the research would be conducted. FTW!! A friend in the class looked my paper over, too, and made a few notes on style. It's downright confusing when you've used one style for years and suddenly have to use a different style. I felt like I was spending as much time looking up details about exactly how to do citations and such as I was writing The Damn Paper.

I still have to edit the paper and make the presentation to her. Whee. Nothing like making a 10-minute presentation to a single person in her office. It would have been easier with more people to look at and talk to. Oh, well, nothing to do about it now. I am glad I got the extension, I guess. I was hoping to finish it up this coming Monday, but she's busy till the week after that. So now I have one more set of silly questions, one essay and this paper to finish. The essay can be on any topic (and in any style) and I think I'm going to write about what this paper was about-- graphic novels. I kept wanting to veer off topic on this one, so for the essay I can follow the thread that kept intriguing me so much. Yay! Another win! After that, I'm not just done with classes but done for this degree.

Coincidentally the migraine that was plaguing me vanished when class was over. It was so bad-- I took 4 doses of meds-- the max I could take for 24 hours. Quite the coincidence, eh? Oh, and one of my fellow students works in the preservation department at State and says they have an opening for a tech. Doing what? I asked, hoping for the answer "repairing books" and guess what-- that's the answer I got. The posted job description includes a metric ton of other stuff, but job descriptions (especially for the state) bear so little resemblance to what the job actually is that I'm not going to stress about it till I talk to him. If I got the job I'd be working for him. Cool. I've had two classes with him now (including the one I took with zihuatenejo) and he seems to be really laid back, which would be a HUGE change from my last job. TREMENDOUS, HUMONGOUS change. Can I just emphasize that this would be rather unlike the last job? I swear, I still feel broken from that job. I feel like a dog that's been beaten and cowers in the corner. Makes me very nervous about applying for a job and saying "Yes, I can can do that." Even with a shiny new MLS degree. Wow..... gotta watch out or I'll talk myself back into a migraine. Eek.

My trip to Kentucky keeps sliding back, a few days at a time. I was going to leave Saturday after the essay, but now have to stay till the following Monday for the presentation to the teacher, and then on Tuesday there's a reception and presentation I want to see, about doing resumes.... could be handy. I was going to say I want to be here for Crown, but you know what? I wonder if any of my friends in KY are going to throw a Derby Party? Heh. I haven't been to a Derby Party for years. That sounds like kind of a hoot. I'll find out.

I'm enjoying not having a migraine... I have my music cranked up enough that I can actually hear it instead of it being a subliminal suggestion, and I've been singing along with all kinds of good stuff. Gillian Welsh, and now Leadbelly is singing "Midnight Special." And now George Thorogood..... ggggrrrowwww!

Okay, I'll bite.

If you read this, if your eyes are passing over this right now, even if we don't speak often, please post a comment with a memory of you and me. It can be anything you want -- good or bad. When you're finished, post this little paragraph on your blog and be surprised (or mortified) about what people remember about you.