(no subject)

12th night? let me tell you...
short version: woot!

long version: 

the drive down was uneventful except for the notable enjoyment that is travelling with the indominable envy me, oh less fortunate travelers! for I indeed had the unquestionable pleasure of six hourcountess_e s of Liz Time (tm) all to myself. hah! we solved all the problems of the universe in that time, so fear not, you should see the fruits of our labors in the not too distant future

we ended up leaving about 2 hrs later than I had hoped (stoopid work) so passed through the soggy flooded bits of AnTir well after dark. it was a bit eerie seeing buildings standing in large reflecting pools of water though. and the sand bags at the door of the restaurant we stopped at kinda gave me pause.

we arrived around midnight to find the party in full swing. we were met by the posse who helped us unload the car (apprenti rock!). I proceeded to nest for a bit, then go to bed. yep, I'm a wild one.

Sat morning dawned early enough. a quick breakfast in the room and then I made it to the laurel and pel meetings which were painless, organized and left me with a feeling of optimism I havent had for a while. Nothing against past crowns but ya_inga and vikvikingsson said the right things to get us going forward with a good attitude. yay for that :). there was only one "oh gawd. not again" moment, but it was brief and their Highnesses made their opinion very very clear. hopefully the person HEARD.(hey! it could happen!!! it could!!) as foo goes it was barely a blip on the foo radar (foo-dar?). hooray!

I met callistotoni as she dropped her sweetie off at his chiv meeting and then we proceeded to run some errands (egads thats a big hotel), I took lunch to tall gothy apprentice boy seanoconner  in his white scarf meeting with all proper deference (hee :)) and then we went to lunch in the restaurant. they had done a buffet of period and perioide foods for us!! woot! I managed to load my plate with roasted carrots, parsnips and tunrips, a meat loafy thing spiced like yrchons and some tasty carrot soup (i dont normallyc are for carrot soup but that was good stuff). hey mom! veggies! egads! I was a happy girl :)

after lunch, tottered back to court (yep...court. still going on...) and knit in the back for a bit. eventually I realised I wasnt needed and went back to the room where I had a blissful peaceful quiet 1 hr nap. oh the joy! oh the luxury! grabbed a gnosh, then back to court in time to see our new crowns sworn in, swear featly and then back to the restaurant for dinner with countess_e  fearga , and trudchen  folks wandered by our table for a bit of the chat and then it was off for the drinking to commence.....

at this point tall gothy apprentice boy had made his promised pomegranite martinis. yum! saw many people, much silliness and lovely talks. didnt see everyone of course but those that I saw? I got to spend time with. hooray!!

Sunday got up and got breakfast after seeing tall gothy apprentice boy pummel cute perky canadian apprentice girl into submission in the rapier tournament. hooray! apprenttice bloodlust! does a laurel proud. we met folks to talk about pennsic then hung out knitting until dinner time. much philosophiszing about insularity and isolation and how myopia can render a false sense of superiority. good stuff :)

more drinking (I think I drank more this weekend than I have in YEARS) and socializing. callistotoni  got to meet cute little red haired apprentice annisa_1380  and her tall dapper hubby and I got to see AnTir through her eyes which was way fun for me. in a drunken display, I may have started negotiations for poaching derba  from her pelican. we'll see what comes of that ;).






Monday morning dawned and we got packed up early, grabbed breakfast (I actually got to spend TIME       with cute little red haired apprentice and her tall dapper hubby, which was lovely :)) and then a bit of yarny tourism with the local knitting crowd (including elfie_chan ) which was AWESOME :)

so many people did drive by hellos I cant even name them all but I was left with an overwhelming sense of BELONGING which was something I'd been kinda missing. I know its a pendulum and it will swing back the other way again, but this weekend I got to be with my tribe and it was good.

to sum up:
KUDOS to the event staff and hotel staff. no really. I've autocratted a few things in my day *cough cough* and this was well done.
I managed to hit a perfect balance of That which one MUST do and That which one WISHES to do. I picked and chose meetings. I made a point of sitting down to eat, not just grabbing a sandwich from the cooler (if I remember). I made the time to connect with people rather than just passing hellos, which I find rather unsatisfying. I got enough sleep to function, drank enough water and coffee, gave myself permission to go hide in the quiet when I got overwhelmed.

It was the most fun I'd had at a 12th night in a very long time. I need to do somemore thinking on WHY and try to capture some of that for when the pendulum starts to swing back (which you know it will....)

(no subject)

one of the side effects of a lovely event is that I'm actually jazzed about the upcoming season. go figure! how long has it been since THAT happened?????

I'm full of ideas on how to bribe people to sew for me, and fun foodie games to play with like minded folks (and if they can tie into the bribing so much the better), and how I'm getting to all the places I want to visit this summer.

1. I got asked to teach at Candlemas. woot! I'll be trotting out one of my tasting classes (here. sit here. eat this while I natter on about some random foodie topic. even if you dont care about the topic you get to gnosh on tasty things and take home a giant handout of recipes). Silly people, didnt you know that to get me to teach all you have to do is ask? if I can make it I will. Heck, I've flown to colorado and Avacal to teach because people asked me. want a class on roman food? elizabethan desserts? sauces? banquet planning? my new ones are all low countries and 16th century stuff. big fun foodie wise....they were really starting with some fun new techniqies and access to fun new ingredients. woot!

2. kingdom A/S. they extended the deadline for single entry. I am actually toying with the idea of entering saomething. dont fall over from shock! well, if I actually do manage to get all my stuff aligned, THEN you can fall over from shock. entering limits judging tho, so I'll need to do some pondering on that.

3. May Crown in Montengarde. its only 11 hrs away. that's actually not that far. tall dapper hubby of cute little red haired apprentice pointed out that if one leaves at 6am, one will arrive in time to setup in the daylight. if one arranges crash space in town Sunday night and leaves Monday that is very very do-able indeed. and one can drive and take all ones happy warm woolie kit. cuz its gonna be COLD.

4. AnTir West. again, its in the middle of a mandatory shutdown, so I expect I'll go down a bit early and do some beach riding and birdwatching and quiet me time before the event again. the event itself we have a ton of plans of a "foodie maven haven" where there will be happy foodies messign with fire and food (come by and we'll shove snacks at you!). fun fun fun!

5. Pennsic!!!!!! did you know I could buy a round trip ticket for under $200 right now????? still not ready to pick dates so likely will end up paying more than that, but still :)

6. Sport of Kings. I got asked to teach, (woot again! see how easy that is? ;)) and asked to do a period encampment on the eric. what an honor, and it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside :)

7. Sept Crown. do we know where this is yet????

and thats just the sca events that need big planning. doesnt count local stuff or non sca stuff like Madrona Fiber arts.

its going to be a busy summer :)