Miscellany of a Cheshire Cat

For baby photo fans, I finally uploaded a bunch of photos of Winter. Click the photo to go to the first of the latest uploads.

The last photo in the set is Miss Winter’s debut as a fierce Viking girl. (Also below.) My mother knit the cap for my brother 30-something years ago and her excellentness Alesone produced the wee Viking apron from her stash of scrap linen. She also has a tiny set of medieval mocs that she wore over hand-knit socks to complete the outfit. Unsurprisingly, our child is starting with better garb than most newbies.

The wee Viking photo is from Iron Bog’s Investiture this weekend – which was wonderful! Congratulations to Don Collin and Mistress Marion on their new positions! The event was wonderful and it was great to see folks. Dayboard was super-yummy and the kitchen smelled wonderful as they prepped for feast. Unfortunately, we had to leave before the 2nd Royal court as Miss Winter decided the day was over early. (Actually, she made that decision about when I expected her to make it given the circumstances… we just weren’t expecting there to be a 2nd court later in the day.) Congrats to Davius on his Silver Rapier! I hear our congratulatory kisses were delivered.

So the football season has been reaching its regular crescendo. I only watch football for about 4 weeks a year, mostly in January. I’m just not invested enough to care before the playoffs. This year has involved more football than usual though. Football is an excellent thing to have on in the background when you’re sick all weekend (like last weekend) or having a slow day because grocery shopping took it all out of you (like yesterday). Oh, and the Giants, the Fop’s team, made it to the playoffs, so there was added interest in football around the household.

The Patriots-Ravens game yesterday was more exciting than I’d expected. The Giants-49ers game was also fun… for me. Especially when poor, little Eli Manning got sacked. Repeatedly. The Fop, on the other hand, was rather tense most of the game. But it’s another Patriots-Giants Superbowl coming up. This time, the Pats are going to kick Giant butt. Sorry, dear.

The awesome: I deposited my first check via an app on my iPhone today. I love my credit union. This is awesome as the closest branch is approximately 300 miles away. Since I moved to Pennsylvania, I’ve been depositing expense checks and other miscellany in the joint account for the house but I want to move away from that bank (fees, hassle) eventually. (“Eventually” is a promotion from “as quickly as possible” because they gave out tree ornaments in December that you can plant in the Spring. Yes, I’m a sucker.) I’m hoping to get all our accounts at the same financial institution so we can do easy transfers instead of writing checks to ourselves every month.

The irritating: I also had an unplanned upgrade to Mac OS Lion (10.7.2) this week. My system decided it wanted maintenance and I haven’t seen my system disks since we moved sooooo… luckily I had a copy of Lion hanging around. The Internet told me how to build a bootable disk, and, when the repair failed, I installed Lion fresh over Snowleopard. I was promptly reminded why I was procrastinating the upgrade when Photoshop (CS1), Quicken 2007 and Mouseworks (Kensington trackball software) all ceased to function properly. I found a poor substitute for Mouseworks (Trackball Works – fewer features but I could reverse my scroll direction at least). Intuit promises a rewrite of Quicken 2007 for Lion in the Spring (not holding my breath) and I’ll find another image editing program to replace good ol’ Photoshop as I use very little of its vast functionality.

The amusing: My old MacBook Pro (running Tiger, 10.5) valiantly built the boot disk as requested and tried to remind me of its loyalty and love. I keep pricing MacBook Airs, you see. I think it knows. But the MacBook is a 15″ laptop, heavy and unwieldy rather than sleek and sexy like the Air. Most of the portable functionality has already been taken over by the iPad. (Oh, iPad, you are my own true love.) However I do sometimes want true multi-tasking, a real keyboard and proper OS in my portable device. I’m big on procrastination though, so I’ll be waiting to see if Apple announces an iPad 3 this Spring. In the meantime, I’ll be moving Quicken and Photoshop to the MacBook Pro!

The horticultural, which is utterly unrelated to technology but I’m going to make it fit anyway: My little key lime tree bloomed. My tiny olive tree is doing something. The paper whites were pretty even if it was disappointing that only 2 of the bulbs produced flowers… but hey, they were $2.50 at Home Despot…

I’m a bit of a weather tracking nerd, I’ll admit it. In my Mac’s dashboard, I tend to track places I work with people, places I’d like to go and places I’ve been. That’s Portland, MAINE in the upper left at 100 degrees. Concord, NH. Glen Mills, PA. Toronto, Ontario. Eau Claire, WI. Key West is certainly looking appealing and Vancouver, my beloved Vancouver, BC? 63 degrees. How civilized. Now that it’s after 11 p.m., the temperatures here are down in the low 90s.

Pennsic prep is necessarily abbreviated this year. Laundry is on-going but I think most of the Pennsic stuff is clean at this point. The humidity may be at 65-75% but it’s hot enough that stuff is still drying quickly in the sun out on the back porch. I have achieved footwear that is more supportive than my usual little medieval shoes and shouldn’t kill me in the heat. I wouldn’t call these shoes subtle or say they’ll blend in all that well, but they’re not sneakers. I’ll be taking sneakers too. Must keep feet happy.

I’ve got a vague plan for food but nothing involved. I have a bunch of eggs to use up so there will likely be cookies. (OH NO!) And Pennsic is always better with Chex mix (at least it means I get my salt).

So, yes, crazy week at work. Pushing probably a little too hard to get stuff done and yet it doesn’t feel like hard enough… Worried about vacation coverage so I’m already planning on checking email lots. Stressing about stupid stuff. Getting interrupted by other stuff. Not being able to prioritize due to conflicts. I’m ready to shut up and reboot my job. Even if I check my email 3 times a day at Pennsic, I will enjoy the time off immensely. I need it.

heat, packing, pennsic, weather

Happy birthday to the Mini-cats! There is tuna in your immediate future. The ladies are 2 years old and have been filling in quite a bit the last few months. They’re still “mini”, but it’s hard not to be with Monster Cat around.

For another year I resisted buying legal but crazy fireworks from the grocery store or fly-by-night fireworks stand. I got a taste of the Wilmington fireworks display last night which was, remarkably, just enough to make me content.

The weekend has been excellent and relaxing if insufficiently productive due to heat and insufficient air conditioning. There’s been lots of pool time and hanging out. We have proof, once again, that if you add a couple glow sticks to a group of vaguely responsible adults they are all likely to act like kids for hours. (Glow sticks float!)

I’m starting to think seriously about getting things ready for Pennsic. I’m hoping not to sew much, but we’ll see. Thinking, however, does not count as doing and hope is not a plan. I have a new comfy-garish chair for War though… it’s bright yellow-green with orange arms and has a terribly non-period print on it… but it’s the right level of comfortable and will be fine if I throw something over it to hide it a little.

4th of july, cats, fireworks, mini-cats, pennsic, weekend

My really expensive Viking clothing book arrived today: Viking: Dress, Clothing, Klaer, Garment. It’s delightful, includes some good looking patterns and resources, and in both Norwegian and English. Unlike most romance languages, I can attest that I don’t accidentally start reading Swedish without noticing. There are a few new techniques and perspectives. The archeological evidence for old Norse dress is rather limited – most of the information we have about the suspended apron dress is extrapolation from tiny scraps. Tiny, fine and beautifully scraps between 12 and 25 ends per centimeter (that’s 30 to 60+ ends per inch for those of us backwards folk). This is a practical, hands-on book rather than a historical resource. (I did pick up Medieval Garments Reconstructed: Norse Clothing Patterns with that in mind.) The photos are exquisite and the detail work is excellent and exciting.

This all means that I have sewing to do.

comics, mythtickle, sewing, viking

It’s been a crazy busy month! Here it is, almost my birthday, and I feel like New Year’s was last weekend. Work has been busy, life has been busy, and I’ve been slacking off on exercise so I’d much prefer to pretend that a month hasn’t passed since last I was at the gym.

This week has been wonderful for snow. The top photo is of my Mini Clubman Wednesday morning. We got a bunch of wet, sticky, heavy snow, maybe 3-4 inches total. I dutifully shoveled the walks for myself and our fabulous neighbors before it got even wetter with rain and then froze solid. Then last night, the snow started again. The bottom photo is of the Clubman this morning. Notice that it’s flipped around? That’s because I cleaned it off to go out yesterday afternoon. And then it got subsumed by the snow again. We got another 7-8 inches over night. This morning, our fabulous neighbor used his snow blower to clear most of our walkways because he is the best neighbor ever. I do enjoy shoveling (except when the plows push the snowbanks back onto the sidewalks) but I’m just as happy to let the machines do it.

Last week was a whirlwind of all-day meetings, driving, more driving and an SCA event up north. I still need to post the photos, but the videos I took of the finals for King’s & Queen’s Rapier are here. I’m impressed with the quality of the video from the new camera… now I just need to get the focus right. The Fop is the King’s Rapier Champion again. Hurray for him! His schedule just got more exciting.

There’s also been black tea gelato and cardamom gelato, a haircut that took 5 inches off my hair (not that anyone could tell), a crazy road trip with Tadcaster rife with silliness, 2 rather impressive bruises and a spectacular fall caused by a cat toy. Ice is nice.

All in all, a whirlwind month!
fencing, rapier champions, sca, snow, work

We drove approximately 8 hours each way to Vermont for Crown Tournament. This is farther than we drive to Pennsic. Weather reports were dodgy earlier in the week and implied cold, wet and miserable. Luckily, that didn’t happen.

The day was bright and cold and breezy in somewhat equal proportions.

For the record, it takes a while to pare 1200+ photos down to 377 – i.e. the big set. It also takes time to make them upload to Flickr. But, at the end of the sorting and upload, there are a ton of Crown Tournament photos over on Flickr. I had way too much fun taking pictures of people and fighting and generally gorgeous, bright day.

Fear not, for those of the faint of heart, or just not looking for hundreds of Crown photos, there’s a shorter photo set that features lots of people and highlights. And, of course, there’s a version of the shorter set on Facebook as well, for your tagging pleasure. I am terrible with names, so please do feel free to tag or label people!

crown tournament, east kingdom, photography, sca, vermont

Extra tunes in honor of Halloween! A different sort of monster today… with Lego.

The work trip to Virginia was productive… and provided more reasons to go to Virginia for more work. Figures. It’s a 2.5-3 hour drive depending on traffic and time of day. I may try to do down and back in one day next Wednesday.

I came back last night to a very sick Fop. Poor Fop.

For the record, 2 years ago I worked for Pfizer and I’m still trying to get my spam filter to recognize the pharmaceutical spam again.

I have many photos of Crown… I will get them sorted and put up a couple of sets (the short set for quick browsing and the extensive set for procrastination). I had a lot of fun taking pictures with the big lens and the day was gorgeous. The final fights were disappointing and did not, from my personal perspective behind a camera and as a non-fighter, seem clean, decisive or honorable on the part of the victor. As a former coworker was fond of pointing out, with a certain wise tone, “This too shall pass.” I was impressed by most of the rest of the day though. I saw some incredible fights and watched people with great skill have a great deal of fun. (For the uninitiated, this Crown event was the crown tournament for the East Kingdom in the SCA. The fighters wear medieval and renaissance reproduction plate, chain, leather and plastic armor and compete with various rattan weapons to become the next King or Queen of the East. When I post photos, this explanation will make more sense.)

halloween, monster, monster mash, music, random, work

Don Target. Yes, it’s hazing.

Congrats to all those who received awards and recognitions! :)

coronation, east kingdom, photography, sca

I took remarkably few photos this year, but I relaxed a great deal. The rather small, full set of photos is on flickr.

A few snips in no particular order:
I love my camp.
This was the Pennsic of “I Forgot”. Certain tarps didn’t get packed and Lisa and Julianna SAVED PENNSIC by getting us extra tarps from Home Depot!
The yurt went up quickly this year, probably because we lost the instructions.
We cooked in camp the first week. A casual, group effort! It was fun, relaxed and yummy. (Despite this, the food court food still got boring by the end of the second week.) Veggies on sticks were a huge hit along with grilled meat, especially spicy sausages.
Julianna and Autumn make kick-butt pork loin.

Artisans Row is the best new thing at Pennsic since pre-registration. I’m not sure if I’m using hyperbole or not!

Autumn and I went to the glass bead day and got very hooked on working with hot glass. Ivy, Siana and I went to the wire weaving day and were equally hooked. The Fiber day was good but more demo than hands-on (at least when we stopped by), but there was an impressive table full of dyeing experiments to paw over. I went back one more day and had a lovely, informative discussion with a man doing some serious card weaving work. To everyone who made Artisans’ Row happen, thank you so much! I hope it happens every year!

I did take classes this year too. I need to write a thank-you note to the teacher of the archeological evidence of norse clothing class. Not only was her lecture and Q&A excellent, the hand-outs are well-organized and composed (rather than just photocopies of other articles) and the bibliography is 2 pages! I took a couple of glass classes too, thanks to Autumn’s encouragement and morning support, including “make your own bead release”. I should be up and running with my torch by the end of next week. Can’t wait!

Merrick had an apprenticing ceremony one fine evening. It was beautifully spoken and he was presented with his new, shiny, green belt as the sun started to set. I’m very honored to have been invited and glad I didn’t miss it!

I did not make it up to the list fields or battlefields for the first time in ages. This means I missed the Fop cleaning dispatching someone in 17 seconds flat during Rapier Champions, but I’ve seen the video like a dozen times now. It was a good year for relaxing!

I love my camp. It was a really enjoyable year for us as a camp too.

There was heat. There was rain. The threshold for the yurt’s light-weight canvas roof is 2.5 inches of rain, at which point it starts to drip lightly on the uphill side. This wouldn’t be a problem if our bed weren’t on the uphill side. I’d be even less bitter about it if the drips didn’t fall predominantly on my side of the bed this year. (Among the tarps forgotten was the nylon tarp we usually throw over the uphill side of the roof when it rains profusely.) Ah well.

I love viking garb. I love linen.

Cardiac hill is easier but not easy after several months of working out.

There were projects that didn’t get done and some that did. There’s a list of projects and things to not forget next year conveniently located in the notebook I always plan with.

Readjusting to the real world and work has been … challenging. My old trainer dumped me just before Pennsic so I’m adjusting to a new trainer this week as well as trying to get back in the exercise and work groove. So far? He’s kicking my butt. Hard.

Next year, I’ll take more photos!

Laundry is on-going. Hopefully it’ll be done in time for Pennsic next year. ;)

artisans row, beads, glass, lampwork, pennsic, sca, vacation