Twelfth Night was lovely, if crazy, crazy busy.

I got on site bright and early and hauled in my four tons of stuff. In addition to the Twelfth Night gifties and the ubiquitous linen, I also had stuff for the Laureling and the Seekrit Projekt. I had decided that, since swords_and_pens  had asked for help with a doublet pattern, I would use the pattern to make him a new suit of clothes. On site. The day of the elevation. Handsewn. :) I enlisted a number of competant, speedy sewers and felt that it would be tight, but that I was in pretty good shape.

Unfortunately, the tourneys got started a little late,  so by the time swords_and_pens  was put on vigil, I only had a few minutes to cut the first pieces of his outfit before the Laurel meeting started. By the time that was done, it was already 12:30 and court was scheduled for 4:30. Since many of the people who knew about the project were not able to make it to the event after all, I was a little short handed and didn't know if we could pull it off, but I decided to go for it anyway. Unfortunately, by 4PM, it was clear we were not going to make it, although we did get the doublet, sleeves, and pants all about halfway done. I'll finish them over the next few weeks and deliver it to him later... Not as spiff as getting Laureled in the outfit, but I think there were a solid dozen or more people who contributed to the project so they could have a special hand in it. I should have put out a Sweatshop Guest Book so I could keep track of all who contributed, but thank you to everyone who helped!

While I was terribly excited and enthusiastic about the Seekrit Projekt, I really should not do such things at events I already know are going to be busy. :P I never have enough time to hang out at these sorts of events and this year was no different. I didn't even LOOK at the raffle, beyond what I saw when I dropped off my contributions and only was in the fighting hall while looking for gate. :P My apologies if you wanted to chat and I was either short on time or missed you altogether.

Dinner out with folks from across the Kingdom was really nice, though. Heh. I am comfy enough in my garb that when we went to the Chinese buffet and some lady asked me about my costume, it took me a beat and a half to remember I was still in Viking. :P She thought it was neat, though, and was really amused at our "raid" of the buffet. I even had NEW garb (or at least some new pieces) for the event! I'll post more about it tomorrow, but I was amused that people apparently had difficulty recognizing me because of the hat, overdress, and/or colors I was wearing - I heard comments about some combination of  those factors all day long. Sadly, the wool caftan did not get completed, but I did make excellent progress on it over the weekend.

Sunday was a lovely raid on SR Harris and I got to assist a number of folks in their shopping but was really pretty conservative in my own purchases. I think ilaifire  owes me more for his pieces than I spent on myself. As a bonus, lovely, lovely C brought me a nifty campfire cookpot that she acquired on sale and I just can't wait to use... Sadly, I had to say goodbye all too soon to folks headed home and turn my own car east as well. :/ Visiting is so lovely and it is hard to part such good company...  At least I had mightyjesse to keep me company, since my original rider punked out on me. I may have not been the best company by the end of the ride, but it was an enjoyable, relaxing end to a packed and pleasant weekend.

Ok... For the Files of Weird. I have seen some really, really weird shit in my life, but this evening's activities rank pretty high.

I went to Border Downs a few weeks ago and took along some of my critical books. This afternoon, I unpacked them and noticed that the first volume of the Early Christian Monuments of Scotland was missing. The ECMS is the "Bible" of Pictish studies, so I am generally very careful to make sure it is packed up when I finish a road show. It is an expensive, rare, substantial book and critical to my studies. Obviously, I was a little paniced. I called zarhooie  and she oblidged me by looking through the room where we had held the class and calling some of the local folks who had been at the moot. I looked through the empty boxes, looked through my bookshelves, looked through the piles of books I have here, there, and everywhere. I looked everywhere it could be three times... and then I had to go to the Newcomers' Moot.

When dread_ex and I got back, I looked on the shelves and in the boxes again and still found nothing. Giving up on staring at the bottoms of the boxes, I decided I would use them to use organize in the basement. I put two boxes one on top of the other, and then headed for the basement. A few steps into the kitchen, there was an audible and tangible thump from inside the boxes and they were suddenly heavy. Startled, I looked into the bottom box - and there it was!

The whole thing sounds insane, but dread_ex  was right there, saw the empty boxes, heard the thump, can vouche for the weird. The whole thing is crazy and impossible... There really are only two possibilities - Border Downs has wormhole technology they are not sharing with the rest of the Kingdom or the Good Neighbors found it for me and thought it would be funny to give it back in a dramatic manner. I need to beat the truth out of zarhooie  the next time I see her, but tonight, just in case, I've left out some milk, honey, and a wee bit of Scotch, just in case.

Many of you have seen these on the Gallery, but I have interested folks who do not have access, so I am reproducing my favorites here, including one of each of the team portraits. Thanks to shavasue for being the photographer!

Who wants to talk about forming a team(s) for Golden Seamstresses? I think Northshield could go en masse and really rock the competition. It's usually in February and, now that you've all had your first hit, I think we'll be jonesing for another by then...

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If interested, respond with best skills, favorite time period(s), level of sewer/crafter (novice/intermediate/advanced) and home group. I'll try to organize responses rationally and form multiple teams if needed. :)

I just dropped mightyjesse off at home and on the way back, there was a guy driving erratically. I slowed down so I could keep an eye on him - I was in the neighborhood of Vic Pearce, Madison's will-sell-beer-until-midnight establishment, so I assumed he was drunk. But then he slowed way down, got immediately behind me and continued with the erratic driving (way too close, brights on, and/or all over the road) until it became clear he was following me. Fan-freaking-tastic. By then I was nearly home and didn't want him actually following me home, so I drove past my usual exit to Cottage Grove Road and pulled into the driveway of the local fire station. Captain Creepy started to pull in behind me, but then sped off when I waved my obviously on and ready-to-dial phone at him and he realized what the giant garage doors meant. I waited until I was sure he was gone, then backtracked to my usual exit and made sure to take a convoluted way home where I would be certain to notice if someone were following me again.

ego_id_non_feci I did NOT want to further empathize with you on this sort of subject. Stop leaking creep attractant at my place, OK? ;P

Ugh. As if I'd not already been the Queen of Insomnia for a few nights running already...

Last weekend was wonderful. Saturday morning I spent sewing and chatting with gwyneth1362, I spent the afternoon enjoying plants and gelato with damej and spent the evening wallowing in my wooshy tub with a cider and arebekah's Pama trufles. Sunday, I spent hanging around the house, reading and cleaning and otherwise relaxing. The closest I got to leaving the house was when I opened the door to get my dinner from the pizza boy. Heavenly.

The beginning of this week, however, has been something of a failure. The weather has been cold, work has been alternating between stoopid and boring, and I have been tired and uninspired in my projects. Blah.

Random blather ensues:

I am happy that so many of my friends are politically aware and vote. Yay! I'm not the only one who cares! I also find it somewhat encouraging that, despite very similar populations at both locations it took me less than 1/3 of the time to vote as it took to post a letter.

The "letter" in question was a sort of fun project in of itself and put my OCD to good use. I have been trying to assemble a more full set of Tournaments Illuminated and Creative Anachronists and to that end posted a message to the Northshield Hall awhile ago. Yesterday, I got an email from a lady who is helping to get all the tables of contents of past TIs online and, for one reason or another, did not have access to about twenty issues. She googled TIs and found my message to the Hall. Happily, I had all the missing issues and so was able to photocopy the tables of contents and other pertinent information for her. See? I'm not a pack rat! These things are useful! Like bits of twine... ;)

Today I got my birthday present from jtdiii. He bought be a lovely set of spintriae from Antiquanova. Now I am just pondering where and how best to display them. *evil grin* Mmmm... Roman porn!

So, aaron_pike and damej, now that I have the tools in hand, we need to form a Laurel plot to break Kaydian... (Don't worry, cass_lee, we won't break him beyond repair... probably.)

I have decided that I need an all-weather cabana boy. One of the few things that would have made Saturday night more delightful would have been a cabana boy to bring me cold fruity drinks on command. But that got me thinking about the other uses one could have for a cabana boy, and I decided that one of the sexiest things a young, nubile, tanned youth could do would be to scrape the ice off my car. :P At the very least I should look into an electronic substitute... a remote starter would have been just the thing this winter.

I am looking forward to Thursday - I will have two opportunities to torture little people. The first one I will post about afterwards, provided they don't eat me. But in the evening, my little... er, younger cousin will be in town. He made State for wrestling! He's always been super excited to talk to me about wrestling because I lettered in high school and am one of the few relatives who really understands what he is talking about. So, I am planning on going and hanging out with my aunt, watching the tourney, and cheering him on. I have not seen a State tourney in better than a decade, so I am excited. :)

I am hating LJ tonight, because it ate this post halfway through the first time. Boo! Bad Frank! Don't eat my posts!


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Edit: a quote from CSI:

(Girl has just been blown off by stoopid Boy because she smells bad after doing an autopsy)
(Boy2 walks past)

Boy2: You smell like death
Girl: (scowls) So I've heard.
Boy2: You know... A real man wouldn't mind...

*snerk*

Hey y'all - If you have not done so yet and are feeling a little crazy, come join me in the Thing-a-Day challenge!

http://www.thing-a-day.com/

Gods, I hate squirrels.

Creepy-crawly critters I can deal with. I try to scoop them up and set them outside, if I can, but even when I was moving in and had to deal with the swarms of spiders that infested the basement, garage, and shed, some quality time with the vacuum did the trick. No mess, no drama, and a sprinkle of Borax to keep the little creatures out. Done!

Mice I even think are cute. However, I realize the damage they can do and therefore am not in favor of them infesting my world, where they could potentially ruin my tasty fabric stash or (horrors beyond thought!) my library. So, the little fuzzies get reported to Miss Deena, who kindly catches them and deports them to the local park. No hard feelings and out they go!

But, squirrels. Squirrels are the pure evil demon spawn of Satan and they all deserve to die horrible little rodent deaths. I was traumatized by having them nest above my bed during my last semester of pharmacy school. As if the sleep deprivation from my rounds at the UW Hospital were not enough, I had to listen to the little bastards fight and chew and try to make more nasty little spawn all night long. At one point, I seriously considered taking a nail gun to the wall I knew they lived in and just hunting them through the drywall. (Sadly, I didn't have a nail gun and my dad was less useful for this sort of thing than teffan's) I even had a lovely plan of boxing up the dead (and ideally one not-dead squirrel) and sending it to the apartment manager, who was refusing to do anything about it. Heh. I just couldn't figure out how to video tape it, so I didn't.

Anyway... deep psychological scars, probably some PTSD, and I cannot stand the thought of them in my house. Therefore, when I thought I heard some in the attic on Monday, the first thing I did Tuesday morning was call the exterminator. No mercy for the squirrels - they will be eradicated! The exterminator was here earlier today and soon (soon, SOON!) the world will be improved by sending a few more nasty little rodents back to the wretched pit of hell from which they escaped. Bastards.

Did I mention I don't like squirrels?

Whew! Three scrolls in 4.5 hours (illumination only, text by someone else). The last will be done tomorrow and if my camera holds out, I'll post the pics on Saturday night. (They are being done on a semi-emergency basis for Cecil's Siege this weekend.) 

So, yesterday I went to visit my grandparents and check up on my grandpa's post-surgical progress. He is doing OK, but there are still some problems I hope to be able to help with. In any event, while I was there, my grandmother takes me into the TV room and hands me a little dress on a hanger and says to me:

"Here is a christening dress for yout first daughter since I'll probably be dead by the time you start having kids."

Ow. Ow. Ow.

I have not been a practicing Catholic in a decade.
She is implying I should plan on enough kids to have multiple daughters.
She is further implying that it will take me so long to get around to kids that she'll be gone.

What can I say, she is an artist. ;P

So, I am certain that I take more crap for four days of WW than for a week and a half of War. Just saying.

So, this idea I've had came up while I was chatting with a friend tonight. If I suddenly decided I wanted to sell my house and all my stuff, I mean practically ALL my stuff, what would I keep? Assuming I had time to plan and pack appropriately and planned to come back some day:


What would you keep?

Holy Shit! Stephen Colbert just had a guest on who was, in part, discussing the scientific basis of the weird type of health issues I've been having! Wild!

Tonight was the Fools' Moot - as usual it was an amusing and rowdy-good time. :)

One of the standard features of the Fools' Moot is the Tacky Garb Competition. While I did not enter, I did finally make good on my threat of resurrecting My Very First Garb(tm). It was a dress from my high school theatre wardrobe and as a teenager I lovedlovedLOVED it! I took all the zippers out before wearing it to my first event, but even being shiny I knew I could never wear it to an event again... until tonight!



Eeek!

Even looking beyond the pinkness - the "chemise" is attached, the trim is a 70's horror, the fabrics, while at least cotton, are nearly see-through, and (while you can't see the hem in this picture,) the skirt is a good 6 inches too short and ends in an awful poofy pink ruffle.

 As if more testosterone was needed...

www.myspace.com/redline

My cell phone plan is pretty sad - only 200 anytime minutes per month - but usually that is more than sufficient. Indeed, many months my Anytime and Night & Weekend minutes together do not reach 200 minutes. I'm not generally a big talker. :P

However, mid-December to mid-January has been and UGLY month. I just got my cell phone bill and between calling my mom, my grandparents, the hospital, my mom (again), my siblings, my doctor, my friends, and my mom (yes, again), I've nearly hit 1000 minutes this month. Ooof! Happily many of those were of the freebie late-evening sort since that's when I usually catch my mom, but I am still happy I signed on to the "fair and flexible" plan that lets you buy more Anytime minutes at a reasonable rate. I've also lately developed a nasty texting habit, apparently, and that contributed to the sad state of affairs. :P *sigh*

I need to be more careful in coming months, but I can't really complain since most of the calls were certainly necessary to keep my mom and grandma from going crazy... What the hell did we do before cell phones?

Happiness and joy - I have a Baroness' Bus!





It is HUGE and beautiful and I can't wait to pack it full of people!

Thank you all so much for weighing in with advice, ideas, etc. about this insane plan.

I think I may have a winner - right here in Madison is a reasonably priced - but not-too-cheap - 15 passenger van (with seats that come out for additional storage). I can buy a one-year warranty that covers it anywhere in the US and the dealership says they'll happily resell it for me at the end of the season. (Apparently, they sell a lot of these in the summer and fall, so they're willing to cut me a deal on an "off-season" sale and think they can sell it quickly in the fall for a minimal loss.) I'm thinking it could haul 10-12 people and gear for a day-trip event and up to 6 or so for a war. I won't be parallel parking the beast, but it seems to handle reasonably well.



I still need to research storage, insurance, etc. and I'm waiting on some unrelated potentially important information, but if all goes well (or, I suppose, terribly wrong), there may be a Baroness' Bus in my future!