I've been exceptionally quiet, due in large part to being exceptionally busy.

Early last week was devoted to cleaning the house and shopping. Wednesday night I hosted a birthday party for a dear friend's 40th birthday. There was much food and cake and tasty drinks and conversation past four in the morning. I had, however, had the foresight to warn corvusjoyous  in advance so she could avoid the noise and drunkeness and I took off from work on Thursday, so this did not represent a huge problem. It was a great time, with almost all the usual suspects there, with a few notable exceptions. (We missed you teffan  and dread_ex !) 

Luckily, the attendees were responsible drunks (and I periodically passed trays of EmergenCs), so there was little in the way of repercussions on Thursday, other than folks sleeping in lateish. When folks finally started to stir, I cooked everyone brunch and we sat around conversing until people started to go their own ways. I spent the afternoon shopping with two of my guests - including a stop at David Bacco's chocolates and dinner at the Claddah. Much tasty fun. Then we picked up ego_id_non_feci  and headed out to La Crosse to stay with doc_jock . We chatted for a bit then hit the hay.

Friday, doc_jock  had class, so the rest of us went out for lunch together, then I split from the main party to go see my Aunt E while they shopped downtown. My aunt is doing reasonably well - thank you to all of you who have asked after her. She looks very frail, thin, and old, however. :/ She is getting around better now but is still weak enough that she had some trouble with the half-full tea kettle. She is home now, but still needs some follow-up surgeries in the future to correct some of her remaining issues. An interesting tidbit - they removed 90% of her pancreas - but not all of it - two ~5% chunks were healthy enough to leave. While one little chunk may be failing, the other bit is pumping out insulin like a champ and actually seeming to regenerate! It's nearly twice as big as it was immediately post-surgery and she is currently able to manage her blood sugars by careful diet management alone! I had a little look-see at her meds and we talked a bit about health and family and such - overall, it was a nice visit, if a little scary to see her in such rough shape. After the visit, I drove back to La Crosse and rejoined the main party and we all proceeded West to Albert Lea, MN for the Rose Tourney. I got to site, got a tour, set up my tent with the help of doc_jock  and ego_id_non_feci and then went back into town for dinner and socialization. Eventually, we invaded teffan 's room and had some drinks and fun until late. I had planned on going back to site, but got lazy and crashed with teffan .

Saturday, I got up all bright and early and got my sorry self to site by 8:10AM. I was actually pretty proud of myself, since I'm not a morning person. I had given myself the goal of being there at 8AM, full knowing I'd never make it and that I only actually needed to be there by 8:30AM. As it turned out, TRM were running a little late, and were not going to make site before 8:45-9AM and I went to go hide under a sheepskin in my tent because it was COLD. Unfortunately, while gate told Them where I was, as I had requested, they failed to mention that I'd already been up and waiting for Them, and so goldfrog  and R decided to let me "sleep in."  *sigh* arebekah  showed up about 9:15AM, however, and had no such qualms about waking me, so I was a bad retainer for only a short amount of time. :P I hustled out of bed and tried to make myself useful. The crew I had arranged for tent set-up was already helping the shade fly go up, thankfully, but even in my slightly bleary morniness, I noticed that the canvas was inside out. Somehow I was able to communicate that to R without being eaten and it was flipped before switching it would have been a major production. After arranging a few more small items, I got garbed up and the day was truly on. It was actually a pretty quiet day, and retaining mostly meant following goldfrog  around and trying to staple someone to R - ego_id_non_feci  did a reasonable job, but he's a slippery guy to retain for. Thanks to valkyr8 , ego_id_non_feci , mightyjesse ,teffan ,fencingkitty , kumakun , arebekah , and all you other folks who helped me take care of TRM throughout the day.

One of the highlights of the day was witnessing all the events of import surrounding quackersbob  over the course of the day. He authorized at WW, so this was his very first major armoured combat competition and it was wonderful to see him fighting, especially since he was fighting on gwyneth1362 's team. Then, at the end of the afternoon tourney, it was announced that he had been selected by the Roses to be the fighter chosen as the embodiment of the knightly virtues that day and presented with a reproduction 15th century sword that Master Cadwallon had made. It is meant to be passed on to a new holder at each Rose Tourney, so it is not so much a prize as a traveling trophy. The bragging rights, however, will be permanent. I was lucky enough to be seated nearby when the announcement was made and just managed to get my phone turned on in time to snap a photo:



Later, during court, I had front row seats to seeing quackersbob  be welcomed into sirzig 's household. He is such a fine young man and it was a pleasure to see him join such a wonderful household (not that I'm at all biased in the matter). I was especially pleased that I was able to offer my very own belt for the ceremony. This particular belt had been a gift from Karl of Coille Stoirmeil, a dear friend and a kind and generous soul. While I don't know that Karl ever fought himself, his service and generousity were certainly good examples to anyone and, I think, made it an excellent gift for such an important day in this young man's life. Again, I snapped a quick photo from my vantage point, but I suspect there will be more and better from other sources.



After court, we quickly cleaned up TRM's stuff and R supervised the packing of the van. I had been weighing my options of staying on site or getting a room in town and, when goldfrog  offered to be my copilot on the road home, decided instead to bail in favor of my own bed. (Nummy, nummy linen sheets...) So my tent came down lickety-split (thanks in part toquackersbob  and his friend Ben) and we hit the road. I was home by midnightish and happily crashed early.

I mostly slept in this morning - other than an early morning awakening to scarecorvusjoyous  because she did not realize we were home already - and then spent the day largely being lazy and reading some recreational books. I'd feel bad about that except that a lot of people in my immediate social circle have been feeling under the weather lately and I was not feeling 100% myself this morning. Better a lazy, quiet Sunday than a lost day or more of work... or worse yet, lost days of fun. ;) I'm feeling a bit better now, so now I'm off to do some electronic chores and maybe to put together a towel rack for the bathroom... or maybe just to go to bed early. Tomorrow is Monday, after all, and it will be hard going back after a very full four day weekend!