Fri Jun 9 - Reheasal at the studio went even better last night than Tuesday. I've missed doing our music, and getting back into it has helped me out a lot. We're working on new music, which is inspirational. It makes me want to be there more than ever.

So, a little humor to start our evening: http://www.evolutionofdance.com is the main site, here's the list of the songs in the routine, and here's the video link on youtube.com - The video has only been on youtube.com since 4/6/06, and in two months has had over 22 million views (as of my writing today). It is absolutely entertaining! But you =do= have to have some knowledge of either pop music or music videos... let's just say it's not the evolution of ballet. *grin*

Later that evening - I spent some time on the phone with one friend, discussing a possible job opportunity overseas and all the questions he should be asking. Then later, another friend wanted me to kidnap the first friend so the three of us could do coffee or just hang out or whatever. Let me just say: Know your friends before you try to surprise them. The surprise didn't work all that well, but I hope that it wasn't too disturbing. I'm hoping that he and I are okay, and that things weren't actually aggravated. He was having a rough day, and this was *not* the way to end the day.

But by-gones be by-gones, and I still met up with Shosh for coffee and we had a lovely evening. I called up Marcos for tips on a 24-hour cafe near his apartment, and it turns out there's a Norm's in the area. This was a perfect half-way point for Shosh and I to meet, and this is going to be a future coffee stop for sure!

Sat Jun 10: Principality Tourney - The only problem with staying out for coffee is that I really REALLY must do laundry before the morning of events. No really. Really. *giggle* *sigh*

So once again I was at the laundramat at 6:30 am or so, to get ready for the event. I did half my shopping while doing laundry, and the other half after I was dressed and packed and hitting the road. (Thrilling, I'm sure.) But this is a really fun event: It's affectionately known as "Old Timers Tourney" or celebrating the way-back when of the beginning of our SCA Kingdom, before it was a Kingdom. There's always some sort of costume or armor contest where you bring the oldest item possible, and some of the fighting scenarios are based on the traditions from back in the 70's.

The =most= amazing part of the event, for me, was that the very first Crowned King of the entire SCA was there, and he was wearing a gambeson (padding that goes under armor) that he wore to THE FIRST SCA EVENT EVER, the original "party in the backyard" that started this entire Society. [He won the costume contest, by the way.] It was really cool that he was able to join us and bring that bit of our history.

This year marks twenty years for me in the SCA. Can you really believe that? Lisa was my best friend, freshman year in college, and she was in the dorm room next to me. She took me to my very first SCA event, got me clothing / costuming / garb to wear to the event, and just introduced me in general to what the SCA is all about. So technically, I've been in the SCA for 20 years, and the Society is 40 years old this year. That boggles my brain some days. I participated on and off again for two years, then took time off from the SCA just to get my college degree, and then came back to get involved full time in 1993.

Afterwards we went to Mongolian BBQ with over a dozen friends, and I didn't hit the road until after 10 pm. I would have liked to have maybe dropped in and seen my niece, but I sang her happy birthday and I'll see her this upcoming weekend.

Sun Jun 11 - It was a lazy morning with lots of sleeping in. Ah, yummy, sleeping in. I almost got up super early and just hit the road, but I decided to snooze after all. So after a little organizing on my computer, some emails, some catching up, and some tv in the background, I went up to my home shire for the day. Picked up my mail, delivered a special thank you letter on behalf of the previous queen, and hung out with Dayle for dinner. I mentioned that I had mongolian BBQ the night before, and we decided to repeat the experience together for Sunday's dinner. Yum.

Mon Jun 12 - After a full day at work, I headed up to Rancho Cucamonga to pick up some fencing helms from the current King and Queen. They're flying to a week long event out-of-state and I forgot to take the equipment home on Saturday. So I met them before they were going to the airport. They were at dinner when I arrived, so I sat around a little tiny Mom-and-Pop coffee shop and read my Spinning (fiber arts) magazine for an hour. It was really relaxing, and the coffee shop owner was pretty funny. She was going to start closing shop but since I wanted a latte, she called her daughter who was walking home (from school? from a friend's house?) to buy more soy milk at the store, and then she made me a drink and let me hang out while she and her daughter organized things for the night. She made me laugh a bit, in a good way.

Back to Taisiya and Malachi's house to hang out with them and Sven and Kolfinna before they hit the airport for a red-eye midnight flight. It was really nice to catch up with Kolfinna after all these years, and not have all the SCA pressures of an event around us. We chatted and laughed for nearly an hour, then they took off and I headed home again (with the helms!).

I stopped by Caterina's (since Lot and I are working on the hoods that go on the helms) and we probably chatted for about an hour or so. She's working on several projects and gifts for several weddings (so I got to ooh and ahh over her crafts), and we just generally relaxed together for a while. Then home and to sleep!

Tue Jun 13 - Okay, small rant: Why is it so hard to believe I do as much as I do? I mean, come on people, I've always been ultra-energetic. You've seen me like this for over twenty years now. And there's no one at home for me, no kids, no spouse, no obvious place for all my energy to already be directed. So doesn't it just make sense that if my car runs well and I can afford the gas and I want to be with people/friends/family who are scattered to the four winds that sometimes I'll really fit you all in to my life? I'm not "scattered" am I? Hmm. Maybe I don't really want to hear your thoughts on this.

It's come up in nearly a half-dozen conversations lately: "Where do you get all your energy?" or "How can you do so much?" or "You're all over the place." (Okay, honestly that last one stings a tiny bit.) I don't watch very many movies. My downtime at home includes multi-tasking (catch up on TV while ironing & putting away the laundry, or while updating websites). My drive-time includes multi-tasking (either listening to the news/talk radio, or back-issues of radio on my iPod, or language lessons on my iPod, or memorizing lyrics and music for band or for bardic events, or maybe actually catching up with someone on the phone--one of my favorite things for long drives, but really only Kristin does this with me now). I go from work to my friends house to chat and embroider, or to the studio and then coffee after rapier, or home to pack and sew for an event. My weekends might be SCA filled or family/friends filled.

There's nothing wrong with this, my dears. I value all these activities, and I thrive on them. I love them. I have the energy for them because they energize me. Is this really that hard to believe? I know it's fairly aberrational because I'm one of those very few-and-far-between adults who doesn't have a spouse and/or kids. *shrug* I miss it sometimes (having a family at home) but I make the most of what I've got.

Look. I'm single. I just deal with it. So how to I make the most of the blessing of being free to jaunt around? I go from friend to family to event to activity to friend again, and live every day as if it were my very last. One of these days it really will be my very last day. And how will I be judged at the end? Did I use my gifts and did I refuse to waste time? If I can stand at the end and I've been a blessing to the people around me, I will consider it enough. Until then, no I'm not doing enough. I can always be doing more--to bring happiness, to bring light, to bring solace, to bring comfort, to just be there, to celebrate your achievements, to sing and dance with you in your happiness, to cry with you, to bring creativity to life, and to live to the fullest.

Okay. Small rant over. Sorry about that. *giggle and grin*

Finally, for fun: Have you heard about the teenager ring-tone that adults cannot hear?

I went hunting for testing information about the tones, and found a really helpful site: http://www.hifiaktiv.at/diverses/testfrequenzen.htm You can click on links where you can actually hear sounds/tones by their specific mathematical hertz definitions.

TURN YOUR VOLUME DOWN!!, especially in headphones, before testing whether you can hear the high-end frequencies!!

At the low end, at 36Hz (3rd-from-lowest) I could almost imagine I heard a low sound, and at 40Hz I could actually hear the tone. But I definitely could not hear the lowest two (30Hz and 33Hz). According to one on-line source, the "teenage ring-tone" is between 16-18kHz. Another site used just the 16kHz tone as an example of the ring-tone.

At the high end, 16kHz still sounded like an actual high tone to me, but 17, 18, 19, and 20kHz just sounded like "the sound of a television being on in the room." Some radio commercials sometimes have this over-tone to them, but the few times a radio host tried to play the "teenager-ring-tone" it didn't seem to broadcast on the radio. And testing whether I could actually hear the tones on this test frequency site, I couldn't tell the difference between 17-20kHz, but they all "sound like the sound of a tv being on." This is a tone I've known about all my life. And after hearing it, it tends to echo in my head for a while. So even after the tone is gone, it almost sounds like it's still playing.

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Today's Blessing That I'm Thankful For: The health and energy and interest and means to do all the things I do. And the chances to be a blessing to others.