It can't hurt for asking...

I had wanted to acquire some fossils to go show ego_id_non_feci's monsters, but the local fossil shop has a "returns for in-store credit only" policy. I had also been unable to find a source of inexpensive trilobites for the sensory table/archaeological dig and, while I had petrified wood for each child to take home, I was discontent with the items I had to show, so I was being sort of grumpy. But then I got over it and decided that I may as well ask if I could have a waiver to the return policy - the worst they could say was no, right? And that would simply leave me right where I was currently, with only my personal collection to show. So I called, and they were actually willing to let me borrow a lot more than I would have been comfortable putting on my credit card as a purchase. :) I ran by, picked out a boxful and returned them promptly after class.

Three cheers for Burnie's Rock Shop for supporting the sciences in education!

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Remember when the world was new?

I always enjoy interacting with little monsters, the energy, the wonder and the joy they exude is amazing. There really is little more rewarding than explaining something new to a kid. Whether it be science or music or crafts, so much of the world is new and interesting to them, it is neat to go back to that time with them and see with fresh eyes. Bringing the dinosaur bits into a classroom of little people was a very exciting experience, although I didn't quite know what to do with the assertions that they could see Spider Man in the dinosaur bone marrow. :P This was the first time I had a show-and-tell-and-touch presentation rather than a watch-as-I-make-things-blow-up-THEN-touch sort of presentation, and I think I will do things slightly differently if I use that format again. (Thirty grabby little hands is a lot to keep track of!) Still, there were a lot of really good questions and I think they learned stuff or, at the very least, enjoyed themselves.

ego_id_non_feci, sometimes I think you have the best job in the world - playing with munchkins all day and constantly being exposed to that brightness has to be intoxicating. Granted, I'm enough of a dork to thing finding the solution to a particularly difficult equation, teaching a new string art to someone, or creating an eloquent grant proposal to be great fun too... :P  Perhaps I'm just blessed to be able to participate in many different flavors of "work" and learning.

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Midsummer in late winter

This evening, mightyjesse  and I drove down to CAM to see gwyneth1362's son in A Midsummer Night's Dream. They were supposedly doing it is a futuristic/alternate universe setting, but I was a little confused by some of the costuming choices. They seemed to be recycling a fair number of costumes from when they staged it as set in the 1950's. It probably is a budgetary decision, at least in part, but it was still a little odd. It was also a little weird to have lines and scenes cut to make the production more "family friendly." Ah well, the acting was good all around and the boy was a wonderful Lysander. :) Bravo!

Afterward, we went out for desert with a bunch of folks and it was lovely to be able to just sit and chat for a few hours before heading back for Madison. I had my Thing to do, but more on that on Sunday...

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Alright. To bed with me now. I have folks coming over tomorrow to work on some Gulf Wars favors and I have my own considerable list of things that must be completed before War, so tomorrow must be an uber-productive day.

I have had the lovely opportunity to torture a variety of children from one end of the kingdom to the other over the last few weeks, and there are some photos I actually rather like.

Here in Madison, talking to 5th and 6th graders at a local private school...


Out in Border Downs, playing "Godzilla Eithni" with some ankle weights...


And, I think my favorite, from CAM's Boar's Head with K's adorable little girl...


I got some horrified looks when I was asked who's child and I replied "my apprentice"... eventually, I realized I needed to specify that she was NOTilaifire's. :P

So today was in many ways a day of opposites...

It started off delightful - I took the morning off from work and got to sleep in a tiny bit (just 15 minutes, but hey, that's better than a poke in the eye) before heading downtown to the Henry Vilas Zoo. Madison is blessed to have a really very fine free local zoo and I was meeting ego_id_non_feci's monsters there to be a science guide to the animals and talk to them about frogs.

On the way, I realized that I was running early so I stopped at Lane's Bakery, quite possibly the best bakery in Madison, and got an entirely gratuitous donut. Usually I feel guilty about such sugary indulgences and they would not be blogworthy, but this was a chocolate donut with chocolate frosting and whipped white icing filling - all fresh and scrumptious. Nom nom nom. I firmly maintain that it was so good it must have been calorie-free. Do not argue with me.

I got to the zoo in plenty of time but the monsters were late because of bus related issues. This meant that I had some time to wander about on my own in the sunshine, which was really pleasant, as the day was just a tiny tad more cool and windy that I would like, but only just. Eventually, I snuck up on the class wearing the hood part of my froggie costume from a Halloween years ago (remember that catdfox?). The kids shrieked and then giggled when they figured out who I was. We wandered around for a bit looking at animals and when we got to the herpetarium, I told the kidlets some interesting things about frogs and then gave them each a froggie to take home (and gave ego_id_non_feci some spares for the inevitable case of lost frog - the first of which developed before we got to the next exhibit. :P).

It's funny but my sad bit of Spanish is noticeably better just after these few interactions with the munchkins. I was able to understand even one of the littlest mumbliest ones when she was upset by the snakes. Kinda cool what stays tucked in the dusty corners of your brain... I've also realized what a pathological counter I am. (Check: she has 2-4-6, she has 1-2-3, she has 2-4, she has 2-4-6... 5 minutes later:Check:...) I was terrified of loosing one and they're not even my monsters!

Then there were more animals (but sadly no carousel) and chocolate milk with sammies for lunch. We had a little time to spare, so we all went down to the playground and ran around like maniacs. I bonked my head trying to squash my average-to-tallish woman-self down a kiddie slide (still worth it) but ego_id_non_feci had to outdo me and give herself a concussion doing the same thing three minutes later! Getting the kids back into the bus at the end of playtime was something of a tragedy too, but they all got there safely and then I said  my goodbyes.

A tragedy. Yup. That's the best I can say for the rest of the day. The rest is sort of inarticulate snarls and four letter words about CMS, formularies, Nurse Practitioners who can't/won't read and weather that went all cloudy and cold. The proposed trip up to the Resort was scrapped for several reasons and I have had zero-zip-zilch motivation since my oh-so-healthy dinner of nachos. (OK, so cheese on chips, but that's really what I was capable of at that point.) I'm thinking Daily Show, then a shower, and then it will be time to relive the better parts of my day in dreams filled with blue skies, fresh green grass and sweaty little monsters.

The latter half of this past week passed in a blur!

Thursday, I went to ego_id_non_feci's class again. The theme for class this day was plants and how they eat, drink, and grow. Unfortunately, they were indeed little monsters - for some reason they were very keyed up and more interested in talking and torturing one another than on my previous visits. (I, in part, blame myself - there were no explosions this time. ;P) However, it was fortuitous since there was a lot of touchy-feely hands on sorts of things to play with and eat and many of the "experiments" were things that were to be observed in the classroom over the coming days or weeks. So, even if learning was minimal that day, they hopefully will get the intended exposure as the flowers and peas complete their experiments. Thursday evening I worked on finishing the machine-sewing parts of my projects for the weekend as well as working on my own garb for the 35th Anniversary. This time, I got the bitty chemise sewn without impaling myself... but I did wait to sew until there were other people home. Sadly, the doublet I was working on was not so successful and I am hoping arebekah will be able to help me straighten out the pattern tomorrow.

Friday, I did a half day at work and then went home to catch a ride with gflower and Cerian up to Bardic Madness. Other than some small amount of fog, the ride went smoothly and pleasantly. Once we got to site, however, it began to rain and HAIL with considerable force. Yipes! All that white on the ground? Hail. The snow came later...





I was selfishly glad that we were inside and prayed for the safety of those still on the road. The evening passes happily with lots of singing and storytelling. I am much more of a patron of the Bardic Arts than a performer, but I appreciated the soundtrack as I sewed and baked.

Yes, I went to Bardic to bake! I always request to be the patron for "Authenticity's Delight" and so I like to have a very nice, period token for the participants of that challenge. This year I decided I would make bread, so I have been working on a recipe for bread that only makes use of ingredients I know to have been available in Pictish Scotland. My one cheat is using prepackaged yeast as I do not have an authentic starter and am not too convinced about trying to make one from scratch. (If I ever go to Scotland and have the chance to pick up some local wild yeast, maybe...) I even did my best to do it right in the other details - I changed out of my modern clothes and into my garb (including headcovering and apron - valkyr8 would have been proud), used my feast gear/baking kit instead of measuring cups, and left it to rise in a Finnr bowl. I had to use a modern oven, though, since the school would have frowned on my making a fire in the parking lot. ;P For the bread itself, I used spelt for the wheat and flax seed oil for the fat, so it is super healthy and has a rich, nutty flavor. On the other hand, it was also a little expensive and difficult - I was using a stone ground spelt which is naturally lower in gluten than regular bread, so it took some playing to make the bread more edible than high-fiber lumps. The final results I was getting at home were light and soft and super tasty. Sadly, site was pretty chilly, so the bread did not rise quite as much as I would have liked and my tokens were a bit heavier than intended. It still was very tasty however, and even moreso when topped with the tasty cloudberry jam (a period Scottish fruit!) that Constanza was so kind as to bring to me from IKEA.

On Saturday proper, the event was just marvelous! The night before we had slept in a gym that was freezing and apparently had a poltergeist, but once we got up and moving, all was well. The Fyts were wonderful, the schedule ran on time, everyone arrived safely, and much fun was had by all. His Majesty was there and seemed to have a splendid time himself - watching the Fyts and participating in at least two of the classes. He even performed in the Triads Challenge, so that was extra keen. I only had four entrants in Authenticity's Delight, and while that was lower than usual, it is often an underpopulated Challenge. (Because period stuff is too scary, dontchaknow! :P Silly people.) However, this meant that there were extras to be shared with people interested in dorky bread and there were enough curious folk that it was all eaten up by the end of the Fyt, even though it was just after lunch.

After the Fyts, there was a meeting of the Northshield College of Bards. I decided to stick around and eavesdrop and somehow got voted onto the Council. :P Yes, another job, but a small one... And my very first suggestion to the Council was instantly unanimously approved, so I feel pretty good about it. Feast was lovely and tasty... and I performed a canzone I wrote! (Eeep!) An idea for the Royal Challenge had occurred to me the night before, so I ran with it. (I don't know why Court-type speaking doesn't phase me a whit, but performance does... brain weasels attack again...) Anyway, I certainly was not the best, but I received wonderful positive feedback from a person whose Bardic opinion I highly value, so I'll call it a success. Once of mine own (and a past Jararvellir Bardic Champion) was chosen to be the Bardic Champion, however, so greatest congratulations to Jose. The night ended with a nice, but dry, Bardic Circle. I certainly understand and appreciate the difficulty of finding a site, but it always seems wrong to have a dry or indoor circle. Bardic endeavors are best pursued out of doors, around a fire, with some good Scotch to hand. Granted, the snow would have put a bit of a damper on it... we just would have needed a bigger fire and more Scotch!

Over the course of the weekend, I had a spectacular sewing output: hand finishing a tiny chemise, handsewing a bitty hat, an apron, a bag, a headscarf, and two adult hats, weaving all the cord for the above projects, weaving a rope, and hand turning a veil for ysolt. Sadly, none of that includes time on the ride home, as a nasty migraine meant I slept most of the long ride home. I am fond of the new apron (which when combined with the headcovering, my garb and a bowl full of dough made someone remark that I looked just like an illumination walking down the hall), but my favorite project for the week was a little dress and chemise for Niamh.



I made it to hopefully fit soon, but include extra seams to be easily let out as the baby grows and some sections that lace to allow for even more growing room. Thanks to bebe_lily (and her mommy) for being the model!




The dress itself (but not the odd construction or the generic chemise) was based off the baby's outfit in Holbein's The Artist's Family:

Last night ego_id_non_feci came over after work. I knew she was going to have a stressful day, so I had prepared some de-stressing materials for her. First, I have been educating her about Scotch, so we each had a Scotch monkey of Glenlivet 12. Yum! Then I also had a tasty, tasty new book to share - Moda a Firenze. I splurged and bought it and cannot say I regret it in the least. All y'all late period folks need to appreciate how lucky you are to have such wonderful portraits and freaking EXTANT GARMENTS to work from when doing research. It is so easy it is almost cheating. Fun cheating, pretty cheating, but cheating. :P

Speaking of  ego_id_non_feci , last night she had pictures for me of my last torturing the kids day. I went and taught them about microorganisms. Many of them have been sick, so they were interested in germs and such. We talked about bad germs and good bacteria, and yeast-y beasites and then made bread. For the explosion part of the experiments, we had a yeast volcano. *grin* D, my little buddy, just could not contain himself - he had to be touching my table, the experiments or me, pretty much all afternoon.


Showing the yeast bubbles in bread, with D sticking his head into the photo. :)


Kids consuming their little loaves.

Heh. After the little monsters made the bread I had SO many little floury handprints on my pants from around-the-knees hugs. Happily, the little loaves apparently turned out OK, even with the rough and probable over-kneading they received.

Now... just to come up with not-too-dangerous things to do with fire, the next topic that has been requested...

This weekend brought a lot of good things.

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First off, I have pictorial documentation of Thing 28/29 and Thing 29/29.



Little linen bags - small projects, but handsewn and useful! Every few years I become intensely dissatisfied with my kit and feel a need to improve it. I feel some of that coming on and want to start with being better about eliminating (preferred) or hiding (acceptable) modern items in my kit, ergo the bags. :)

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This also means that I successfully completed the Thing-a-Day Challenge, posting one new Thing on LJ before midnight every day for 29 days straight, with only one cheat the night I posted late because of social practice. Yay! Thanks to those of you who played with me and kudos to alienorh, who I think is the only other person on my friendslist to attempt and complete the challenge.

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Most of the weekend was spent on the road traveling to and from the Midrealm's Golden Seamstresses competition. I went a few years ago and this year they invited me back as a judge. Happiness and Joy! Sewing geekage in a box! As usual, the event was barely-contained mayhem, with 20 solid hours of sewing triumphs and disasters (and disasters rescued to become triumphs, too).


Around Midnight


Final crazy moments

Of course, I forgot to bring my camera to the final judging. I stayed up almost all night (I caught a quick nap around breakfast time) so I was fried by then.

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It was a spectacular lot of fun... I am jealous of Midrealm's nifty toy! And what do we do when we covet someone else's toy? We STEAL it! ;)

I proposed an event at tonight's General Meeting - exact name, rules, etc to be determined but posted shortly - that will closely follow the Golden Seamstress model. The dates will be August 22-23 and the site will be the Jefferson County Fair Park (same site as for It's Only a Flesh Wound). So! All you sew-y types - start your scheming engines! This will be just a few weeks after Pennsic, so you will have the opportunity to employ the goodies you get in the merchants and the knowledge you gain in the classes. Those of you not making Pennsic... well, you'll be better rested. ;)

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In more personal news - my sister called me during my layover in Chicago on the way home. Eeek! She's preg-o! I'm gonna be an auntie sometime in late September/early October! I am so excited for her and can't wait to start sewing itty bitty little outfits. :) 

Today, I made Science!

Specifically, I invaded ego_id_non_feci's class and had Mad Dr. Jean's Science Hour. She had been telling me about her class and what they were studying and I kept saying. "you know, there's this really fun experiment..." About the third time I found myself saying that, I stopped myself and instead asked if I could maybe just come in and play with the kids myself. *grin*

As it turns out, that is not only allowed, but encouraged as an enriching experience for the kids. Further, because I am a science professional and demonstrating something at least tangentially in my field and certainly within my training, they can submit my activities as justification to get extra funding! Yay! So I am going to get to host Mad Dr. Jean's Science Hour periodically - probably every two weeks or monthly, depending on what the kids are interested in learning about.

I tried to teach things at a very basic level and keep the "lesson plan" very simple. The older kids (5 year olds) seemed to really get it and ask some really good questions, but the little ones (three year olds) mainly were just impressed by the cool experiments. Retention of the information would be nice, but I really have four goals for these classes :  1) Science is cool, 2) Science explains many of the things they see and do every day, 3) Girls do science, too, and 4) Science makes things blow up - so you need to be very careful, but you can do really nifty things with it.

We studied phases today, since they were interested in water and it is fun to show ice-water-steam... and then I pulled out the dry ice for real fun with vapor. By the time I was done, half the tiled area was covered with soap bubbles and/or water, but everyone had fun. And I think I really got them to understand how heat changes states by having them be little dancing molecules. :)


Cloud showers were the most popular part of the presentation.


The joys of water and carbon dioxide!


Playing with a cloud in a bucket.

ego_id_non_feci will have more pictures for me later, so I may add those at some point.

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*

Today's Thing - a linen shirt!

So, I broke down and made a poofy shirt for a boy. It is super-soft, extra-tasty linen, double-reinforced, NOT legal for the rapier field... and I'm pretty certain it will get ruined anyway. At least it's white, bleach-able, and I know the boy's caretaker knows how to properly use a washing machine... and I can't be too upset about the likelihood of damage, since the recipient is three. :P



The shirt is for Ambrose's little boy. I made it a little big, since I think Ambrose feeds the boy rocks - I swear he's a foot taller every time I see him!

Downs:
Work was Stoopid
Fighter practice was very poorly attended (maybe a third of the usual population?)
Therefore, only about seven people dressed up for my costume contest
We apparently had few to no Trick or Treaters, even though I left a bowl of Play-Doh cans on the porch
I need to go in to work early tomorrow (usually my day off)

Ups:
I got some cleaning done
Ambrose brought me 10 year cheddar, just because
Black Russians were tasty and half price and Robert drove home
I now get to keep dozens of cans of Play-Doh (including some Kitchen Green!)

Eh. We'll call that a wash, with a positive slant, since it involves cheese, Kahlua nd kitchen green.

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