Technology Notes: Google Reader rocks! I always suspected it would be lovely, but I never got around to playing with it. Sometimes I think it might be fun to work for Google, because they just turn out the most lovely software treats! For those of you who are unfamiliar with what Google Reader can do or what an "RSS feed" is... It's like having one website that keeps track of all the journals you want to read, in one place. I already have several journals that send me an email each time there's a new post (like my journal subscription), and anyone who uses LiveJournal is already on my "Friends List" there, but I was having a hard time keeping up with all the other journal subscriptions that had neither an email prompt or an LJ feed. And the old RSS-Reader I was using just took up too much computer memory, so my poor laptop was constantly working too hard to refresh a page that I didn't look at every day. Now my Google home page has my Google Reader set up to keep track of my friends' journals for me (yippee!!) which should help me keep up with everyone more easily. *whee*

The Rest of the Events - I'd forgotten that I hadn't written to you all since before I left for Crown Tourney. So let's see: Here's what else I've been doing in the meantime.

Crown Tourney - Scott was thinking ahead this time, and had me come crash on his couch Friday night so we could get up early to drive out to Vegas in the morning on Saturday for Crown Tourney. So I had everything packed by "dinner time" and drove the 45-min south to his apartment. We put the food in the fridge for overnight, grabbed a nice quiet dinner, and came back to try and get some sleep. In the morning, I was already showered, dressed, and almost packed before he was really even awake yet, which was kinda nice. I hate feeling like I'm the slow-poke, and I hate running late, so I'm always relaxed when I'm the one who's ready first. There are probably friends and/or family who's *never* seen me arrive early, but yes, sometimes I'm the first one ready. I love when that happens.

The drive out was fairly uneventful (my favorite kind of drive), and I finished the hand-braided cord for his "list shield" before we arrived on site. For those of you who are not SCA members, some events have more pomp and circumstance, and more flashy trappings than others. Sometimes a "list tree" is posted at the side of the field, where a kind of coats-of-arms shield is hung from hooks to represent each fighter still in the competition, or "in the list." Anyone in the SCA can design their own personal shield (or device, or coat-of-arms). These are not related to the modern convention of a "family coat of arms" but represents just one individual. (In fact, the "modern family coat of arms" really actually belongs to just the head of that household, but in modern America, people think that it belongs to anyone in that family lineage.)

Anyways, you can see "my" SCA arms on the left navigation bar in my journal -- the black and gold swan on a quarterly divided field. The official description of this shield or design is "Quarterly sable and Or, a swan rousant wings displayed counterchanged." It just means to put black in the upper left corner, gold in the upper right, reverse that on the bottom, reverse the swan on top of all the background colors, make sure the swan faces to the left, wings up, feet out.

So, to enter Crown lists, you're supposed to have your device or shield on a 6-8" plaque or so, that can hang from the List tree. If Bob is scheduled to fight Joe, they'll hang Bob's list shield next to Joe's. That way the audience can tell who's fighting who, and who's still in the competition on the field.

I made a list shield for Wilhelm for the second Crown tourney in which he fought for me, and I wove a cord (with the kumihimo technique) that matched his shield design. So for Scott's first list for me, I also made a list shield for him with a matching kumihimo cord. I'm really quite proud of these shields, and may try and make more for my friends. Right now, I've been making quick-and-easy ones with three layers of craft foam, painted, hand-laced for the edges, and then hung with a kumihimo cord. Later I should get some heavy leather to make some *proper* list shields that will last for years, and make some fancier list shields for my guys. *grin*

And I like how the "Lorccán cord" design is coming out, although it bears a striking resemblence to a Lyondemere cord, having those same colors that my Barony uses. Next I'll have to work on a Lyondemere cord for my Baroness to use as largesse or award cords. I've already picked up some materials to set up that cord.

I may have mentioned that Scott (Lorccán) took an injury to his right wrist, and he's been fighting "single sword off-hand" (meaning just a sword in his left hand) for over a year now. It was no different for Crown, but he went into lists hoping to convince all his opponents to bring everything they've got to the list. He didn't want anyone setting aside their shield or second sword, just because he was fighting single-sword. He challenged Sir Patrick for his first bout, and he had such good humor when Patrick "one-shotted" him in the head. For just the briefest second, Lorccán paused and let his eyes glaze over while thinking about his feet. It was enough for Patrick to take a single killing shot to Lorccán's helm. But bless him, Lorccán took it so graciously, he really did me proud.

In the second round, he drew Sir Jamal as his opponent. Again, he insisted that Jamal not give up any advantage, which actually impressed Jamal's lady, Eowyn. Of course, Jamal and Eowyn were also my Baron and Baroness when I first became Lyon Bard, so this was not just any friend I stood with on the sidelines, but a very *dear* friend. Jamal and Lorccán had a much longer fight in the 2nd round than L's 1st first, but Jamal was the victor at the end. Again, my fighter did me proud, and that's all I can ever ask for as a Consort. He had fun, he did his best, he brought honor and chivalry to the field, and he was a gracious opponent.

Since the tournament is run as a double-elimination, Lorccán and I were out of the running for Prince and Princess after round two. But this gave him the freedom to enter the "Speed Tourney" that was thrown together later in the morning. Not only did he *get* to play and fight more friends, he *won* the Speed Tourney! In fact, he tells me this is the first tourney he's ever won. Yea, Scott! Way to go! I wish I'd been there to take more photos of his time on the Speed tourney list, but *shrug* I happened to be running around visiting other friends and doing some court/scribe things.

At the end of the day, Sir Drogo won the field, crowning his Lady Ithuna Princess and taking the Prince's coronet for himself. I don't know them very well, but I did get to introduce myself briefly at Collegium the following weekend.

After Crown itself, dinner in Vegas with friends. Scott and I were the last ones to arrive at dinner, and I was nearly falling asleep by the time we were headed back to the hotel to clean up for the evening's entertainment. And in fact, I passed out asleep while Scott was showering and changing clothes. So he let me sleep and he got to hang out with friends from An Tir (the kingdom in Oregon and Washington state, plus parts of Canada), including his knight and the King and Queen of An Tir.

Speaking of, one highlight of Crown was getting to meet Their Majesties and telling them the tale of being rescued by several of their people on the way home from Estrella. I told a majority of the tale when we were speaking to the Queen, and then I let Raphael tell the majority of the tale to the King of An Tir and our King of Caid. It's always wonderful to tell other royalty how wonderful their people really are. It's one of the nicer things about traveling and getting to know folks from other kingdoms.

In the morning, we were able to meet up with Meala and Cormac for the Buffet at the Rio, which was a nice relaxing way to see a tiny bit of Vegas. One of these days I really will "go to Vegas" rather than just going to "the Barony of Starkhafn." But for now, I'll go with what little I've seen so far. The drive home was also uneventful (yippee), and since Scott's evening plans fell through, we decided to grab a bite for dinner before sending me home again. As I told Gareth later, "he's a good kid." *grin*

Mini Tourney - Back home again, mid-week at fighter practice was our quarterly mini-tourney for the Barony. Once again I jumped into garb (with full head-covering and long-hair) and headed out for some SCA fun with friends. Some weeks there's as much garb as modern clothing in my laundry.

Collegium - Twice a year, our Kingdom puts on a weekend of classes and workshops, to promote research and recreation. Not everything we do is fighting in armor or organizing events. This year, my Shire was supposed to be the hosts of the Spring classes at Collegium, but there were all kinds of problems with sites falling through. My sister, bless her heart, came through for us and helped us secure renting the high school where she's one of the assistant principals. It wasn't in my Shire's borders, but it was a neighboring Barony, which isn't too far away. The Shire organized a snack table as a fund-raiser, which I'm told did remarkably well.

The King was able to attend the event, as did the Prince and Princess, but at class-room events, people try to treat the Royalty like any other student. So there weren't as many tasks for us to take care of with Court, but Saturday night I did have to spend some time organizing scrolls for awards a week later. Since I wouldn't be able to go up to the Fresno-area after all, I made sure they had everything they could possibly need in advance. And scribes have been coming out of the woodwork lately, finishing painting and turning in stacks and stacks of amazing scrolls. So I took over a portion of the floor at my sister's house Saturday night, sorting and recording how many scrolls we had, and re-packing the King's box of scrolls. My brother-in-law lent me his laptop and I was able to update one of the scribal websites, then tuck in and get some sleep.

Between Saturday and Sunday, I attended a wide variety of classes, both planned and spur-of-the-moment. I took Elisheva's historical linguistics class on the history of the Spanish language, followed by Donals' Quick Meads. Then spanning two sessions in the afternoon on Saturday, Kelebek's Advanced Persian/Turkish costuming. I'm still excited about adapting Persian/Turkish clothing for the Rapier field, and this was a wonderfully inspiring class. Since we got done a little early, I dropped in on the last of Lot's class on Matters of Honor, which addressed "The Book of the Courtier" and how it can apply to fighters on the Rapier field. Sunday I made the segue from Advanced Costuming to Caelfind's Adapting Costuming for Rapier Armor. She insisted that none of us in her class *needed* her class (hee hee), but I still gained immeasurable information from her. Next, Marco's Lunging in Opposition -- which is to say I took my first Rapier fighting class ever. Lot's extra fencing mask fit me, even with my braids and extensions, and Meala's gorget fit for my neck and collarbone protection. Clearly I need a helm-and-gorget (all one word! hee hee) next, to learn to fence. I can borrow a sword from almost anyone, but having head and neck protection must come from me. Finally, I headed to Albra's Turkish/Persian hats class, and since I didn't have an interest in actually cutting out a pattern, I snuck out and dropped in on Cassandra's Finishing Tips class, sitting with Caterina and genuinely having fun. We would have dropped in on a Bardic class next when ours let out early, but just as we arrived, the Bards we letting out of class.

Several of us went back to Lot and Caterina's for a casual evening with delivery-Chinese food for dinner, and a movie that Lot described as "80's black-sploitation Kung Fu" which was terrible and wonderful all at the same time for it's cheesiness. We all do silly movie quotes or hand-motions now, which make me laugh and cringe all at the same time.

I've also gotten addicted again to my kumihimo projects. After all the hours working on Scott's cord to and from Crown, I spent Collegium working on the "Diego cord" that I designed to look a little like the Inn of the Crimson Spade. Later in the week, I went through the house finding all my scattered kumihimo projects, and collating them into one major project bag. I bought some new skeins of perle cotton to "warp up" several more cord designs, so now they're all sorted and bagged for specific projects.

Junior High Demo - One of my favorite things about the SCA is when we really engage in what I call "History Learning Through Hands-On Participation." It's never more evident than when we get to speak to school children. We spent Monday (the day after Collegium!) at a local junior high, as part of their "Renaissance Fair." The school did a great job of organizing all the different displays in different stations, so groups of 15-20 7th graders rotated through 16 stations from 8 am until about 1:30 pm. Basically, I spoke for nearly 5 hours straight to 16 groups of students, teaching them about spinning. I got lots of spinning done on both my great wheel and drop spindle, and really got a spinning demo script down pat. I definitely need to buy more wool that's specifically for my great wheel, since I used up most of it at the two demos in the past week.

College Demo - The other demo was Saturday at the local Cal State. The students there are trying to revitalize their chapter of the SCA, so our Barony came out in force, along with several dozen others from throughout the Kingdom. Several members of the "Artillery Corps" brought catapults and a trebuchet (oversize cross-bow machine), and did demos of their seige weapons. The Hound Coursing Guild did a demonstration with the dogs, which I would have loved to have seen. About a half-dozen fighters in heavy weapons took the field for demos all day, and fundraising for "Whack A Fighter" for kids 3-12 to use padded foam swords and attack the armored fighters for a dollar. Maybe 4 or more fencers made it out on the field, but I might be missing someone in my count. I know that it was nice to see both Eoin and Thorin again.

I set up my great wheel and did spinning demonstrations all day long, and even got to teach spinning one-on-one to Rachel and one of the ladies from the community (Kari, I believe her name was). I started to teach Meala some spinning, but she had to jump up and help police keeping people clear of the siege weapons' missiles during one demo. Genevieve set up her latest tapestry embroidery right next to me, which was a nice segue between one textile art and another. The college actually has a Fiber Arts or Textiles program, and I really need to go meet some of them again. I might want to even enroll in some classes. Hmm.

I invited Drell late in the week, since I know how much he likes to find time to get on the heavy weapons field. And since the campus festival was more than just the SCA demo, I figured his twins might enjoy the event too. They're turning 11 in about 3 weeks, and it was quite fun getting to finally meet Jared and Marcel. Marcel was the one interested in learning to spin, and I'll have to remember to have some spinning with me next time I get to run into the kids again. It reminded me so much of teaching Kyle and Morgan to spin... what is it about young male twins in the SCA? *grin* Drell also seemed to thoroughly enjoy himself at the event, so I was *really* glad I remembered to drop him a line and get the event information to him. He's good people.

And best of all, Jon Thomme and his family opened their home for a revel and bardic circle after the event. They live half-a-block from me, so I just drove home, freshened up a bit, and walked down to the party. We sampled some home-brewed meads, enjoyed potluck around the fire, and sandg and told stories until the wee hours. Aurelia and Wulfric walked me home, which was too darn sweet, and then the kids headed back to their place and I promptly fell asleep. Ah, sigh.

Now I'm still putting my home back together again after all the non-stop events and demo's. The great wheel is back where it belongs in the living room, but the box full of spinning supplies hasn't been touched. And once again, my laundry bag is more filled wtih garb than modern clothing. And I want to sew this week? Possibly a new outfit by Friday morning? Better hop to!
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Today's Blessing That I'm Thankful For: Ken M, from all those years ago at UCSB -- I'm so glad to have found you again, and look forward to our continued correspondence!