Miscellany of a Cheshire Cat

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

I don’t even know where to begin. Things have been busy, the world has been a little out of control and chaos has been a close companion. In the interest of being more amusing though, here’s the progress report without any of the causes, goals or even context in some cases.

Health and exercise:
- I still love the gym and see my trainer a lot.
- I’m still feeling better than ever and still shrinking.
- It’s entirely possible I’ll miss working out when we are at Pennsic. Handily there’s a big hill and a lot of walking.

House and home:
- The ceiling in my office and many of the cracks in the plaster walls have been fixed. My office is a different shade of green and my desk is setup again after a week and a half of working from less desk-like areas.
- The ceilings in the living room and porch are also repaired and repainted multiple times and the archway has had its plaster repaired.
- The house has been cleaned thoroughly to try to mitigate the mess the workmen made.
- Many of the broken windows have been fixed. (The windows were broken by hail, not the workmen. The workmen only broke a door to my stereo cabinet as far as I can tell.)
- There are roofing supplies (albeit the incorrect ones) in the driveway to replace the roof post-hailstorm. There will also be siding.

The Mini Clubman and cars:
- The Clubman is in the shop getting $4000 of damage fixed, also post-hailstorm. Paintless dent removal is an amazing thing but there are still dents to be removed with body work.
- The Mercury Grand Marquis has been returned to Enterprise because, despite how novel I found the feeling of driving my living room, it smelled pungently of cheap air fresheners over cheap cigarettes.
- The HHR is sitting in the driveway pretending to have the allure of the Clubman but without the appealing gas mileage or zip of the Clubman.

Pennsic prep:
- We are not certain where all the garb is but we do have hunches.
- Cute Project: supplies achieved. Construction likely.
- Fun Project: may bring supplies to Pennsic and do it there.
- Sewing: HAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!
- Packing: Do we even need to go there? I bought a new basket in Media as well as some toiletries that landed in that basket, does that count?

Work stuff:
- Work has eaten my life lately.
- I’m going on vacation in a week.

Miscellaneous:
- I have wonderful, awesome, greatest of the greats friends and I love them dearly because they really are just that superlative.
- I want to spend more time reading.
- I bought Bejewled for my iPad which means time I would spend reading is actually spent playing Bejeweled. This was an error.
- If I owe you responses to email, voicemail or snail mail, I apologize. I’ve been terrible with that stuff this summer due to work eating my life.

cars, clubman, exercise, health, home, pennsic, work

I have narrowed down my Pennsic photos enough to upload them. I only took a little over 500 photos this year. I took a lot more in the marketplace than I have in years past.

Random camp, marketplace and other stuff photos are found here. (I love taking pictures during Midnight Madness – the night merchants stay open late – but I need to get better at it.)

Fencing photos from the Champions war point are found at this other place.

fencing, merchants, midnight madness, pennsic, pennsic xxxvii, people, photographs, sca

After a lovely stay at Pennsic, we’re home again as of last night. As of now, the truck and trailer are unpacked and their contents are in the living room. Yurt wall is strewn across the backyard and a nylon tarp is draped across the fence.

The first layer of dust has been scrubbed off my feet. My hair still smells like campfire smoke.

Laundry shall commence tomorrow.

Tennyson was large, gray and in the way for much of the unpacking process.

pennsic, home, post-pennsic

War survived. Trip home uneventful (except remembering half-way home that I forgot to grab our drink jug from camp on the way out). First layer of dust scrubbed off feet.

This year was by far the best weather I’ve seen for Pennsic in the 15 I’ve attended.

Also, linen and viking apron dresses are for the win.

The Durango has been unloaded but much more stuff is still in the trailer. We’re going to go to the movies since it’s raining.

Do I really have to go to work tomorrow?

More later I’m sure…
pennsic, pennsic xxxvii, travel, vacation, sca, linen, viking apron dresses

We’re leaving in 12 hours or less. :)

This year, the manic sewing marathon yielded:

• 3 Pairs of Fop Pants
• 2 Viking Aprons
• 1 Green linen under dress
• Several repairs
• and a crazy project that took longer but was less stressful than expected

Not bad. I was afraid I wouldn’t finish any of the sewing for myself but some did get done. The sewing day yesterday was very productive. The Fop did all the packing of the truck and trailer while I sewed today. And this evening. And now I’m done. And I packed almost all my stuff today which was rather insane as well. Pennsic packing was rather last-minute this year… We have remembered something we meant to buy (and bought it! Super-sized ziplock bags FTW!) and also remembered what we forgot to pack (and bath stuff is now on the list to pack) so hopefully we have remembered everything else.

Tomorrow morning, I’m going to be a good little viking and raid Starbucks before the Fop wakes up.

Then, we drive, drive, drive! YAY! Hopefully it won’t be too hot when we set up camp tomorrow evening!

Have a fun time while we’re gone! See some of you really soon! YAY!

packing, pennsic, projects, sca, sewing, travel

I think we’re on the 7th wave of thunderstorm blowing through here. This is awesome. The house is still bloody hot, but it has cooled down considerably outside. Sadly, the storms kept elzregina from coming up to take away basil, but the rain will mean I’ll have twice as much basil for her by the time she does come by. This all started here a little after 4 pm. It’s been storming on and off for 8 hours. What an awesome day! (…I should go check the basement before I got to bed…)

Much sewing has been achieved today. I somehow ended up making the apron dresses slightly too big in the bust (how does that happen???) and need to nip them in just a teensy bit. I may cheat and take a dart out of the top of the back panel… but really I should take it out of the sides under the arms. It’s probably an inch to an inch and a half that needs to be taken out. Pesky self-measurements. Unfortunately, I already finished the top seams so I’ll need to do a little bit of extra seam-ripping to do whatever I end up doing. The hems are done too. Other than the small measurement issue, I’m quite pleased with how they’re coming out!! Hurray!!!

I spent some quality time with the Goddess of Irons tonight too… I love my Rowenta iron. She sure uses up water quickly making steam too!

Of course, I’m starting to get the “not enough time” jitters. I haven’t really started any packing. Our garb isn’t even all on the same floor for sorting and inspection. I do have running lists of “things to buy” and “things to remember to pack”. I also have packed for Pennsic *mumble* times before so I suspect I can survive. I’m just twitchy and tired and blogging instead of sleeping because my brain is trying to convince me to keep sewing even though my eyes have already said, “No way!” to more sewing tonight.

What’s really excellent is that I’m excited about Pennsic! No pre-Pennsic blahs for the first time in several years!

goddess of irons, packing, pennsic, sca, sewing, thunderstorms, weather

Hot days like these call for polar bears.

I borrowed slyppi‘s shopping karma today, sort of in exchange for some zen I loaned her earlier in the week. I had extraordinary good luck at Kohl’s and Fashion Bug. I ended up with a dress for the wedding next Saturday without too much trauma! I also found 2 fabulous tops for work, 2 casual tops and 2 piratey tops (one is even pink to help me embrace my “pirate chickness” – I even have a flag). Finally, I snagged an awesome dress – black lace over red slinkyness. It wasn’t an awesome dress when I tried it on a few months ago and it was $70. But, at $14 this dress qualifies for awesome status.

I have also achieved a great deal of pleating in the past 36 hours. Stupid Fop pants. They still need buttonholes, but the cuffs and waists are pleated into their appropriate sizes. I hope. Can I mention one more time that I hate pleats? Yes? Good. I hate pleats. A lot. They tweak the little OCD chick in the back of my head and I end up using a zillion pins when I probably shouldn’t have to. There’s probably a better, easier and faster way. In fact, I expect an e-mail from my mother in the morning telling me there is indeed a better, easier and faster way to put in pleats and that I’m a silly goose for not realizing sooner.

I also finally got around to doing a mock-up of a Viking apron dress. I’ll be having Gertrude help me tomorrow with cutting the hem right. Then I’ll rip it apart and cut one or two out of real fabric. The apron dress does not involve any pleats. I’m excited by this. I’d rather do dags than pleats. The apron dress doesn’t involve dags either, it’s okay. I have a ridiculous list of things I’d like to get sewn for Pennsic. I think if I get a quarter of it done, I’ll be doing well.

This weekend has been stupidly hot. I hope all the folks at EKWC are drinking their water. Well, at this hour they’re probably drinking something else, but I hope they drank their water all day! I have been chugging ice water today. I was reminded earlier why I don’t usually drink ice water – I drank 2 big glasses very quickly. Ugh. Oops. I’m glad I could spend the day being productive in air conditioning. I am a wimp when it comes to heat. I skipped war camp this weekend in the interest of not starting Pennsic already cranky about heat. I’d be fine with a cold Pennsic this year – days in the mid-70s, nights in the low 60s or 50s… Yeah, that would be lovely.

Right, now it’s time to go to bed, but not to sleep… I haven’t finished Jhegaala yet.

clothing, garb, heat, pennsic, sales, sca, sewing, shopping, weather

Components to a bad day:

• Finding out information too late to save time for yourself and others. Twice.
• Having to force people to answer your questions directly rather than deflect. Twice.
• Getting stuck on an annoying, soul-sapping conference call without much hope for extraction.
• Not having any tasty pudding-yogurt left for lunch.
• Needing to go grocery shopping desperately.
• Being exhausted and fearing the grocery store and therefore procrastinating it. (good and bad really)

Bonus round that almost makes up for the day:
I put in the deposit for our new yurt. It’ll be ready in a couple weeks! Sadly, we’re only getting it in time for Pennsic because someone else had to drop out of the yurt queue… but at least we can give their yurt a happy home!

work, communication, meetings, tired, yurt, bad day