Sat May 27 - I wanted to leave for Potrero on Friday, but I spent the whole day getting everything ready and then cleaning house. The idea was to have a nice clean house to come home to, and to avoid heavy Friday night traffic and having to set up in the dark on site. I'm actually glad I was home as much as I was on Friday, since my roomie was slightly under the weather, so I was able to go out and pick up soup, sorbet, and juice for her so that she could break her fever.

Roomie actually left an hour before I did. And I just barely got out the door around 9 am or so on Saturday, which put me on site around 12 noon. I would have preferred to serve Coffee Bar but, well, there you go.

The site was *really* lovely, and we had tons of shade (even if we had a lot of fuzzy tree schmutz falling on all our things, *grin*). I managed to load all my camping equipment =inside= my car, which was fortunate since I actually hit rain twice in the early morning drive. But once I got near and east of San Diego, the weather was sunny and gorgeous, and not too hot. Set up went well, and Dylan helped me with my unpacking and setup. It's nice to see him again, since he works out at sea for weeks at a time and we weren't certain if he was going to make landfall in time for the event.

My dayshade became the cool place to hang out all day and all night, since I have that huge comfortable bed, lots of shade, and open blowing breezes all day. We jokingly described the "Bed of Splendoor" as having created "self-generating rotating puppy piles" all day long. At anytime, you might see 2-5 folks just lying down, looking at the ceiling, and chatting with friends. It was pretty cool.

Pictures by Leo Varis


Shosh, Dan, and Cat lounge
Pictures by Leo Varis


Cat, Dan, and Shosh continue to lounge


I have photos too, but still need to load them on my photo site.

Saturday evening was the Vigil for Giacomo, which our household was hosting, in conjunction with our sister household. We had a huge dessert revel (lots of cookies), Coffee Bar, guards at the Vigil Tent, the Captain acting as the MC and coordinating the waiting list, two different fire circles for people to sit comfortably around while waiting, and we sent pages to find folks when it was their turn to spend time chatting with G. Next door, Crimson Spade was the host for the 2nd fire circle, and all the normal amazing things that they do at the Inn. They had Gulliver coordinating "gambling" with junk jewelry (a game called "Baubling"), drinks, singing, story-telling, and general relaxing and partying.

Over all, it was the most amazing joint experience. It was well run by nearly a dozen friends all working in concert with one another, and it was noticed by some pretty darn important folks. Several times we were approached by someone who went on and on eloquently about how this was the best Vigil they'd ever attended. How nice to be a part of that!

And all our work all week had paid off: The silk banners looked amazing. The Vigil favors were astonishingly cool-looking. I even finished Matteo's cloak repairs and the first layer of embroidery, so Lot was able to wear the cloak at the event.

I stayed up until almost 3 am, and G tells us he was awake until nearly 5 am. And in one compliment for my coffee, G said, "Let me introduce you to the coffee that kept my Vigil going until 5!" *hee hee*

Sun May 28 - Bright and early, there I was serving Coffee Bar. I think I =like= hosting coffee bar out of my dayshade (or right next to it) because the same thing happened all Sunday morning—everyone just lounged about on my bed or in chairs pulled up close, and we had a wonderfully lazy morning together. I don't remember doing all that much all day, Sunday, although we did go wandering through merchants at one point. I spent 30 minutes at the Open Bardic stage, listening to True's storytelling set. And I had a lovely lunch in the food court, chatting with a modern Press/Photographer over his lunch. His wife is a radio DJ, and he suggested that I should send her my band's CDs. The world is a very tiny place. *grin*

Sunday night I was committed to performing at both the Family and the Bawdy Bardic concerts, so I fixed myself leftovers for dinner then headed out. I was bummed that I couldn't be in camp for "The Big Toast" from Giacomo, but they tell me that they've saved the rest of the Brandy for when we hold our "decompression" meeting post-event later.

But the concerts went beautifully. I learned a sailor song that was sent to me by Lynn (Illiana) for the Family concert, and even taught it to the crowd so they could sing the chorus with me, and sang it again at the Crimson Spade later that night. And for the Bawdy concert, I learned the piece that my roomie often sings around the fire, a piece called "The Widow's Promise." Ah, the joys of memorizing new material on the drive down to the event! I really =must= remember to work on songs even without event deadlines looming.

After the Bawdy concert, I headed back to camp and just sat around with friends at the Crimson Spade. Brian and Morgana picked up a bottle of "Elderberry Honey Wine" in Ojai for me recently, which I saved just for our camping event. So I got a glass of wine and shared it with everyone there, and we proceeded to have an amazing song-filled evening at home around the fire with friends. This is one of the most relaxing and fulfilling kinds of camping I've ever been to, and I highly recommend that you get a chance to experience something similar!

Mon May 29 - Lazy Coffee Bar morning, and even lazier packing and storing everything back in our cars again. Ah. Lazy holidays. Yum.

We all went to our customary/annual "lunch after Potrero at Rubio's" stop, and just made the holiday linger that much longer. You know, it reminds me of how some people describe "Havdalah" or the celebration/ceremony at the end of the Sabbath. It's about making the Sabbath linger as long as possible, because we love it so much. We managed to have a HUGE group on Saturday night for Havdalah at Potrero, so large a group that we took up the entire central room at the Inn, singing and sharing that sense of community. And those lunches on the road after long camping events reminds me of the same "I know we have to return to the modern world, the hectic work life, but let us linger just a moment longer together." I'd never really noticed this before, this amazing parallel, but a discussion of Havdalah was in a book I was reading this week, and certainly some of the stories that I heard on the Danny Maseng album that Lot gave me (and I finally listened to on Wednesday).

Wed May 31 - Got my hair done. Yippee. I'll miss Michele immensely, but Brittany and I got along famously, so this was a Very Good Thing(TM).

Thu Jun 1 - Shire meeting today, so again I was thankful that I've been going in to work early so that I could afford to leave early and hit the road. The meeting went well (as always), and coffee/sandwiches with friends went late and lingered with that same "ah, I don't want to leave the company of good friends." Lisa and Catherine and I stayed fairly late, chatting and catching up with one another. I miss spending time up with my home shire.

I missed a chance to stay overnight at Dayle's since her phone didn't ring when I called, but all is well. I got plenty of sleep (on the road, yes, I know), but I still got home on time and off to work again for Friday morning.

Fri Jun 2 - It is what I call "miserable hot" outside lately. It's 5:30 in the evening, but it's still over 80, brilliant white bright sunlight, and no discernable breeze most of the time. I had my car washed by a mobile company that comes to our work, and they reparked my car (clean) in the sun with the windows up, no screen in the dash. It was stiffling hot inside. *sigh* So I've come indoors to wait for my car to cool down a bit in the shade with the windows down, before driving home.

This has been a theme all week: I've been getting up out of bed by 5:00 am, and leaving the house not much later than 6:00 am every day (this morning, I left around 5:40). The major benefits have included: No traffic, everyone traveling at the normal "top" speed on the freeway, cool breezes, the sun just starting to come up, no morning-sunburn through my windows in my car, no air conditioning required to drive to work. The downsides include: I'm at work so early that I'm yawning a lot more frequently and earlier than usual, the drive home is in the hottest most packed part of the afternoon. The benefits still outweigh the disadvantages, including the ability to "leave early" and get more done in the evenings. We'll see how long I can stick to this kind of schedule. If it is just too oppressively hot (and grid-locked on the freeway) to leave when my day is done (between 3:30 and 4:30), I may start doing my workouts in the gym again in the evening, waiting for the traffic and sunlight to lessen.

Now it's time to head home, do some light shopping and cleaning for this weekend's events, and possibly to have house-guests on Saturday. Tomorrow is Coronation, where Sven and Kolfinna will become our King and Queen. Kolfinna, back when she was in high school, used to baby-sit my step-kids, those many many years ago. So we've been friends for a VERY long time. I'm thrilled to see her becoming the Queen, and I'm doubly-honored that she's invited me to be a part of her court. So my journal is going to be both (a) a little bit sporadic (like it's been lately) and (b) about alot of SCA events. My calendar from now until November has filled up A LOT, with events I plan to accompany the Queen.

So, I hope you all had a wonderful week, and I hope you find a celebration over the weekend that you can linger in the company of good friends and peace.
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Today's Blessing That I'm Thankful For: Adrienne and Jeff, for the many Sabbath dinners we've gotten to linger over together, this past year. I hope you're having a lovely dinner tonight.