Just Commentary - I try to remember not only to write this journal in both a literate and well-formed (yet conversational) manner. I also try to remember to explain the less-than-obvious when it comes to all my funny hobbies. I hope you all feel comfortable tapping me on the shoulder and asking for an explanation when I've casually blown through a story without slowing down.

And those of you who already know what I'm talking about, I apologize if this just makes me seem wordy. *shrug* You never can please all the people, all the time, right?

So today's Commentary Section is brought to you by my Mom, who asked "What and why was there a Vigil (for us uneducated in the SCA)?" Good question there, Mom.

Of course, to really answer this question, I wanted to say a few words about Vigils in History. The first hit I found off Google was to an article about Knights. In the section called "Becoming a Knight," there is a link to the wikipedia definition of a Vigil:

A vigil (from the Latin vigilia, 'wakefulness') is a period of sleeplessness, an occasion for devotional watching or observance.

So the easy answer is to say that Knights in history sat up in prayer and contemplation before being knighted in the morning. Tradition in the SCA created the positions of the "Peers of the Realm" (the Peers or the Peerage) made up of the Knights (for exceptional skill in sword-fighting known in the SCA as Heavy Weapons, among teaching and other skills), the Laurels (for exceptional skill in an Art or Science, among teaching and other skills), and the Pelicans (for exceptional skill in service and volunteering, among other skills). Somewhere along these forty (40! wow!) years that the SCA has been around, some people added a Vigil the night before their elevation to a Peerage.

Each vigil is a personal decision, and takes its shape from the peerage candidate. In our case, Giacomo's Vigil took much of its shape from not only G, but really from his Household who love him so very much and wanted a public way of showing him how much we love him, by throwing him a party on a grand scale. It worked. His Vigil was an amazingly wonderful party; people appreciated the way in which we threw the Vigil; and G felt well-loved and blessed.

On to the Daily Recaps
Fri Jun 2: Evening Preparations - On my way home, I did some shopping for the weekend events. I picked up two loaves of challah (which is really challot in the plural) to enjoy my Friday evening and to share the bread on Saturday and Sunday with my friends. I bought fresh fruit (oranges, tangerines, apples, and grapes) and dried fruit (dates, bananas, cranberries, and roasted soy nuts [I know, "not-fruit"]) to share both with the household and with the ladies on Her Majesty's Court. My favorite Fig Spread found its way into my shopping cart, and that about wrapped up the evening. I had a nice quiet moment to myself over some really yummy grape juice and some of the challah, a bite of "first fruits" in honor of the holiday of Shavuot, then just quietly cleaned a few things around the house and packed for the weekend.

Sat Jun 3: Coronation - As I was thinking about packing on Friday, I remembered that (a) I left my flute at the studio the last time we had rehearsal, and (b) I promised Finella that I would bring my flute to Coronation to help with music at the Dance after the Feast. So I got up early (good thing I'd been doing so all week!), drove to the studio at 6 am, picked up my flute, then drove back home again and started my laundry. Yes, I know, I should have done it earlier, but I preferred my quiet Friday evening alone.

I didn't get out the door nearly as early as I would have liked, but I still got on site fairly early. I would have liked to have remembered to buy ICE, but ah well. *grin*

The Closing Court of Dirk and Chamayn was nice enough, and His special award to Baroness Bridget for an act of honor on the field had me in tears. According to the story the King told, there was an incident on the war field at Potrero (the camping event last weekend over Memorial Day), and Bridget walked away from her warband to stand by the King. The warband asked her for her shield back (removing her from the warband). The King gave her his personal warshield and an award called an "Augmentation of Arms" (one of the rarest awards ever), and had the award scroll text written on the war shield itself. It was an astonishing and moving presentation. I don't care what Dirk's reputation is or has been over the years and in other situations, this was moving and awe-inspiring.

The biggest deal of the morning court, for most of our household, was the Laureling ceremony for Giacomo. Everyone looked spectacular, and I cannot wait to see the photos I took. You can see a large collection of photos taken at Lorenz's Photo Site ... including a picture of Bridget and Dirk with the warshield, Giacomo's presentation starting (with one of the silk banners I painted for him), my Roommate and my Captain doing a sword-move while marching in, I'm tucked into this part of the procession, and a great shot of Raphael and Diego in the procession.

My potluck food (bread and fruit) was greatly appreciated, and then after all the Court activities, it was an evening for the Feast and the Revel. I got to hang out with my friends from my home shire AND my home Barony, plus get to know some Kingdom musicians I've only known in passing. Now I've spent an evening providing live dance music with them, and I hope I can do much Much more of this.

Sun Jun 4: Queen's Champion - It's nice to live close to 2-day events, because you can just head home and back out again in the morning. I didn't even have to unpack the car that much. I'd heard (incorrectly) that part of Coronation was going to be an outdoors event, and so I had packed much of my outside-stuff on Saturday. But since the weather report was for even HOTTER weather than the day before, I made certain to pick up 20-pounds of ice and 4-gallons of water for the household, plus all the leftover bread and fruit from Saturday. I really Really wanted to be there nice and early (sigh), but I was barely set up when opening court was assembling. And then someone called for me to get to Court right away. Seems they needed someone to vamp and fill time before they could get started. So, since this was in Jamal and Eowyn's Barony, and I'm their personal Baronial Bard, Jamal wanted me to entertain everyone.

So here's me, telling a story to the audience about the King who had gone mad when the enemy kidnapped his son, and then he
went out looking for his son. Along the way, he has an adventure with a shepherd, which is the funny part of the story. You'll have to ask me to tell you the tale, if you haven't heard it. It's actually a story from the Dede Korkut, a collection of Turkish sagas from the Middle Ages.

After vamping in court, the morning proceeded normally as these things do. There were awards, presentations, silliness, and then on to the tournament. I opted to do something called "Field Heraldry" for the day. This is when you stand on the field and shout really loud (and melodramatically, in my case) to call the fighters to the field, do a flourish and a curtsey before the competition bout, and then announce the winner of each match. I worked on the Rapier fencing fields all day, which meant I got to spend a lot of time with my household and best friends. I was careful to take breaks between each round for water, ice, and food, and so I lasted all day. Caterina was not as lucky. She was having a pain-filled day, so I drove her home in the afternoon and went back to the event.

By the closing court, I got to help out as a Lady-in-Waiting, which is what you can see me doing here, behind Jamal and Eowyn.

Afterwards, a bunch of us went to El Torito together for dinner—Gary and Mariam, Jeff and Adrienne (after she rested all day), Kendra/Svetlana, Eric/Marcos, my roomie, me, Matt/Jaime, two fencers I'd only just met (Tiffany and Tink), Saul, Harmony, Ben and Erika, I think that's right. It was a HUGE table, and I really only got to spend time with the 3-4 folks at my end of the table. But it turns out that Kendra missed the last Greyhound of the evening by going out with us, so rather than chance her having to deal with the buses in the morning all alone, I just bundled her up in the Festiva and drove her back to UCSB myself. She and Eric helped me unpack all my stuff, I took a 5-min shower and put on comfy driving clothes, and we did the drive to Santa Barbara. It amazes me sometimes, doing that drive, since most of the places where I've lived or worked are on that route. It was a drive along Nostalgia Lane for me. So Kendra and I finally got to chat and catch up and get to know one another better (*waves at Kendra!*), and I got her home to the dorms around 1 am.

David/Arye, Todd, and Mo had already gotten home about 2 hours earlier, so no one was awake over at Todd & Mo's. Rather than worry about trying to crash on their couch, I just went ahead and started the drive home. About 30-min down the road, I got a room at a Motel 6 (next to my old office, where I'd actually gotten a room before), and just enjoyed a nice 4-hour nap on a real bed. *giggle*

Mon Jun 5: Recovery - I woke up easily at 6 am (I'm a complete weirdo!), left a message for my boss that I'd probably be late driving through traffic, got a seriously strong latté, and drove through rush-hour morning traffic. It actually wasn't that bad, since I avoided the 101/405 interchange and opted to take the 134 to the 5 to avoid downtown LA, too. The 5 was moving pretty quickly, and I got home much faster than I expected. Quick shower, change, and I still got to work just before 10 am. Not bad. I was =exhausted= by the afternoon, which was to be expected, but I didn't expect that it would make me slightly emotional.

My darling Eric called me up, to chat about relationships and dating (in his life, not mine), and I found myself a tiny bit weepy by the end of the evening. Eric's doing well for dating, Gary's girlfriend is lovely, and by Monday evening I found out that my roomie seems to be involved with someone. But I chalked it up to just being overly tired and reflective, and went to sleep.

Tue Jun 6: Election Day - Rarely do I skip voting. I did remember to sign up for permanent absentee ballot status, so future votes I just have to remember to vote early to get it in on time.

But I did have an enjoyable evening at the studio, and spent my entire evening before rehearsal getting all the photos from one of our recent gigs up on the website. Enjoy the pictures of our show at Martini Blue's, back in February. This is one of my favorites.

After rehearsal (which went very well), I finally got to meet Tom. He's been calling me the "Imaginary Roommate" since I've never been home when he was visiting Melissa. How funny! For once, I got to be the "Snuffleupagus" (see the Wikipedia article, if you don't know what or who Snuffleupagus is from Sesame Street). He's a nice guy, and looks like I might run into him more often. *wink* (Tom, not Snuffy!)

Wed Jun 7: Refreshed - I feel like I'm on solid ground again today. I think I underestimated the power of sleep-deprivation, and I mentioned that I'd been a tiny bit weepy Monday and Tuesday. Not actually crying, but feeling slightly bummed about a few things and just generally feeling emotional. Today I feel like I've gotten plenty of sleep, my eyes are clear, and the world is sparkly. Ah ha. Silly me, and my driving too late on Sunday and forgetting that I was tired for two days. Hee hee.

Work is going well, and I'm on top of all my deadlines. This brings me no end of satisfaction, in life in general.

I got some of my messy house cleaned up last night and this morning, and when I get home tonight I'm going to finish my room. Mel mentioned that she was worried I wasn't doing well, since I was getting cluttered and she knows how much I like to have a clean and neat house. Well, it's about time it all gets put away neatly again. I'm certain I'll start another messy sewing project next, to make it all cluttered again. *grin*

* * * * *
Today's Blessing That I'm Thankful For: Both Pamela and Eric, for each keeping in contact with me, even though we're apart. Big hugs to Alex.