Tue Oct 2: Organize and Hunt - I haven't gotten to fully implement my new calendar idea from Monday, but I did finally get my desk clean at home on Tuesday. I did one of those drastic clean-up measures: Empty everything out into a gigantic pile, and re-sort everything from scratch. I found several items I'd been thinking about in a "where did I put that?" sort of way, and tossed out lots of junk. I now have a working place for my calendar, in-boxes that make sense (and are mostly empty), and a comfortable work space for my job hunt.

I got a late afternoon phone call with a last-minute dinner party invitation. I didn't have any other late night plans, so I went to Nathan's, Nate & Lilya's, Bruce & Ellen's place [yes, there are 5 of them living in two houses], where Cynthia and her Mom (Calin?), plus our friend Lorien, and I gathered for one of Nathan's big dinner shin-dig's. He likes to go overboard with gourmet meals, and although I could only eat about half the items served, it was still an enjoyable evening with friends. We ended up talking about the Nine Muses, ancient (and famous) poets, philosophy, relationships, and generally fun life topics, punctuated by happy mmm-noises coming from Cynthia, who had to hum over every bite of food (she was really impressed). Nate and I did clean-up and dishes late, and I was finally home around 2 am. I was thankful I didn't have to be up early this morning!

Wed Oct 3: Job Interview, Dinner w/Tonwen - I had an interview today that went fairly well. The IT and the Training guys quizzed me first, followed up by the Training guy grabbing the President and asking him to come in and grill me too. I think all three of them liked me, and the Training guy would be the hiring manager, and he sat in on both interviews. Afterwards, Meala and Lot and I grabbed a late lunch (4 pm) at our favorite local deli, and now I'm headed to Tonwen's for dinner and projects.

The job hunt itself is going fairly well, I suppose, but I hate not having something secured yet. I am enjoying my "go walking every couple of hours" trick, and got lots of walking in three times yesterday, though none yet today. My morning today was taken significantly with interview prep, so I never did get out of the house. Tomorrow is another day.

Dinner at Tonwen's was nice (good ol' standby: Pickup Stix for Chinese food), and working on projects at her house was nicer. It was just the two of us, since it was a quick "hey there's no fighter practice" and it wasn't a generic, regularly scheduled "apprentices night." Medb was already out at Great Western War (our biggest, local regionally hosted, annual camping SCA event), and there was that "my house is empty" kind of feeling for Tonwen. I got lots of painting done on the outfit for mid-November, and we had more generic chatting about projects and wild ideas. She did tease me once that she might need proof that I actually do sleep, but I think she's just joking. (You're joking, right? You *do* believe me that I sleep every night, right?)

Thu Oct 4: Nothing much to report - No new hits for the job hunt: no feedback from the interview on Wednesday, and nothing from the staffing guy interview last Friday. But it seems he caught strep throat, and promised to follow up with me on either Friday or Monday.

Fri Oct 5: Printer and Packing - I had tried to get my color printer working, to finish sending out the printed copies of the newsletter. Bad news: Printer doesn't work at all anymore. Good news: Staples refunded me completely for the ink I purchased (which was over $75). Also good news: There were color printer / scanner / copiers on sale at OfficeMax, which I noticed after I went shopping on Wednesday. So I found one I liked for $80 (just barely more than ink for the old printer), and now I own a working color printer, and I even know how to make it scan and how to work as a copier. Hot diggity! Of course, that took nearly all morning and afternoon, to figure out and then to finish all the color printing to get into the mail before packing to go camping. Got all the bills paid, all the last-minute email tasks mostly addressed, and all the laundry done.

By 4 pm, I was able to start shopping for food for the event, and get all my packing done. Usually, I pack everything and stage it in the living room, then start packing my car once all the boxes and bags are ready. This time, I packed the boxes and bags in the same order they needed to be loaded into the car. I'd pack a box, load it in the car, then go back in the house to start packing the next box. It was fun in a bizarre way, to think differently, and to work out the entire game of "Car Tetris" before starting a task in the house. At midnight I was finally in bed, leapt out of bed to retrieve one item I almost forgot, put it next to my purse, and then go back to sleep.

Sat Oct 6: First day at GWW - I got up at 4 am, showered, dressed in costume, did my long-hair extensions and braids, packed the refridgerated items, and was on the road by about 5:00 am. I pulled into site around 7:20, paid the site fee, and drove off to find my household encampment. The new site is rather straight-forward, and they had marked their location on the site map at gate, so it was easy to find them. As I unloaded the car, my roomie was awake and pitched in, so we had everything out rather quickly. I set up the coffee bar first (of course), and had the hot water on for my roomie's tea before 8 am.

The morning was filled with handfuls of friends dropping by to say "did you know that so-and-so was looking for you?" or "and they recruited so-and-so to work on scrolls for you, for the King." Sometimes I marvel and just shake my head.

Coffee Bar was a huge success, and then I got my dayshade and bed set up. By then, my scribal buddies had all found me, as had the Queen and her Chief Lady for the day, so we had our assignments and all our equipment on hand. The wind was kicking up, so we went next door to the Inn of the Crimson Spade, and spent all afternoon working on scrolls together. Medb Renata and Aliskye pitched in, painting and touching up scrolls that needed more oomph. I penned all the names and dates, the heralds' cards, and sorted the Queen's cheat-sheets. We ran into some other court staff who handed off the scrolls worked on by some other members of the kingdom, sorted them, (made a few corrections), and wandered off to the Royal encampment. The King and Queen signed all the scrolls, (I penned two more missing scrolls), and we processed over to court.

Court was a mixed bag of experiences. I am once again inspired to work on a "Single, Unified, Complete Heralds' Court Book" for the kingdom, that has *everything* a herald needs to know to conduct any piece of business or announce any award. There were some unusual snags and bumps, but everyone kept their heads and we made the best of everything as much as possible.

As an aside: Sometimes I feel unusually lucky that I have a natural sense of stage presence. I'm very grateful to my Mom for having raised me in the theatre, but even without some of that, I imagine I might have still taken well to public speaking. And I'm not always sure how to feel, when some of my friends struggle with something I don't struggle with. I imagine it's like when my friends who exercise easily, or maintain a trim figure, watch me struggle and don't keep up with them.

But some of the exciting things from court included: Colwyn Stagghorn was made Caid's newest White Scarf. Arabella da Siena was made Caid's newest Pelican (including an impressive array of horses in full barding, and their riders, escorting her into court). Marco Savolio received a Legion of Courtesy. Sir Gavin was made a Court Baron. And there were nearly a dozen other awards. (You can see our award records on the Royals Section of the Caid website. Kolfinna and I keep those lists up to date.)

Finally, one of the big accomplishments for the war, for me, was completing another musical composition. Back in January, the Kingdom held our 2nd "Bard of Caid" competition at 12th Night. You may remember, loyal readers, that I was busy working on the super, secret costuming project at the time, and I did not enter this year. I did, however, challenge myself and the entire community to *do* the four pieces required by the competition, in the span of 12 months.

Tonwen asked me at our dinner on Wednesday, what did I have left to complete in my BoC challenge? I determined that I needed to complete my original composition including the words "Hands, Honor, and Scion" first, and that I wanted to write it in honor of Mara, who had just passed away in August (you may remember that I sang at her wake). At the Bard of Caid competition, I would have had to write the new composition while everyone was performing. To approximate some of the limitations of this format, I wrote the following piece while driving to GWW at 5:30 am on Saturday. Then I penned the words after the song was written, to make certain I didn't forget them, and I made some obscure reminder scribbles on the rhythm and the tune (it wasn't true musical notation, but some short-hand I could figure out again later). Then I practiced the song to myself all day on Saturday, and found ways to perform it on Sat and Sun.

Mara's Song
Lyrics and Music by Cat C. Ellen (THLady Eilidh Swann) (c) Copyright 2007

The son of the bard is weary tonight
As memory threatens to drown him
From boyhood to man, just overnight
As her life was stricken from him

      CHORUS
      Her scion, her heir, her only son
      He will stand tall, he will move on
      Her scion, her heir, her one and only son
      He will remember her with honor

A tear wiped away as it threatens the page
As he writes the music that fills him
His hands take the quill and the staves once again
That she will ne'er be forgotten
      CHORUS

But how should he tell of her sweet lilting voice?
And all she meant to those who loved her?
Each branch in the road's just a matter of choice
With courage he'll shoulder his burden
      CHORUS

He knows that he is not quite alone
There's others who grieve for her memory
For each of these then, he'll sing a home
With oath-making not taken lightly
      CHORUS

* * * * *
First, I got to share my song with 2 friends who are bards (thanks, Beathog and Domnhall), which was really helpful since they understand when I'm struggling with lyrics. Then I sang it out at the Crimson Spade party fire (when the mood was finally a little more serious, not in the middle of the rowdy set, of course).

Dinner was fine Caterina-style yumminess, preceeded by birthday cake next door for Gideon, and proceeded by a ridiculous filk of the Barbarian Bday song in honor of my favorite war entree, Current Chicken. No, please don't learn my silly "Happy Cheek-en" song, or it will get stuck in someone's head. After dinner, we went next door to the Inn for a lovely back-room (back-yard) Havdalah moment, and then to the party out front.

The party on Saturday was really nice, and I nicknamed a new drink of Diego's the "Aliskye" (because she had one first, and I liked it). With a Nagila, 2 Aliskye's, and a Pommel Strike, it was more than I usually drink, but I never felt sick and I felt just wonderful and fine in the morning. And apparently one of my fire stories comes out just a bit more humorous than usual, if I've had a few. But this is a family journal, so let's leave that right there. *beaming grin*

Sun Oct 7: Rapier day, Quiet night - Sunday morning, one more round of Coffee Bar, and then it was off to have a day at the Rapier field. There was a challenge round of "Blood of Heroes" and then league play. I took two water gallon jugs with me, plus some cookies and strawberries, plus a bag full of cups. After a few hours, I went back to camp with Lot so that I could give back the tarp he'd loaned me for a ground cloth. Grabbed two loaves of challah (braided egg bread), and a container of ruguleh (sugary wrap pastries), and went back out to the rapier field. I probably refilled the water jugs 10 times, which meant the fighters drank 15-20 gallons of water, in addition to downing 2.5 dozen cookies, a dozen pastries, a pound of strawberries, and 2 giant loaves of bread. I got a lot of sun, a lot of exercise, and several new friends from the five-hour experience.

I also ran into True and Taliesin, so I got to sing Mara's Song for them. (Taliesin is True's and Mara's son.) Taliesin was as 8-year-old stoic as you would imagine ("Oh, that's cool" and "Did you just make my dad cry while he's packing?") and True and I just hugged and cried quietly a little together. True would like to see me record the song, so I may have to tap Lynn's recording knowledge sometime soon. But I did get the music and lyrics written tonight, so I could link to it in this journal entry, which is a start.

On my way back from the rapier field, I managed to slip through merchants for the first time (finally!), and Hroar had my new ceramics done. They are simply GORGEOUS, and I'm so happy with my purchase! He also did a *beautiful* job on the B'nei Caid oil lamp that Meala commission for Channukah, and I helped her pay for it. Hroar, Huette, and Miriam bas Levi were kind enough to let me sing Mara's song for them, too, which was nice since Huette won't be able to be at the apprenticeship at Coronation. We've had a fun little friendship for years now, where I've always called her "Auntie Huette" and I'm her "Niece-ee."

Dinner was a collection of all the war orphans, gathering and pooling resources and sharing one another's company. Mina and I cooked our leftovers, Alexander Baird dropped by, we were joined by Meala, and then Morgana and Alexander K dropped by. We had a great time, and I sang Mara's song once more.

Finally, I spent some extended time at the Lyondemere encampment, telling stories, listening to stories, watching a shadow play (complete with musical sound effects!), taking pictures, singing songs, and tasting meads. It was wonderful fun to spend time with everyone, but by 10 pm I was exhausted and ready to turn in.

Mon Oct 8: Home and Dishes - It was time to pack up and head home. It was sad to see Teffan go, and I didn't get to spend nearly enough time with her in only a two day visit. But it sounded like she had a great time at the war, and at least I was able to make two of her nights more comfortable with a real bed to sleep on, rather than the ground, and with more blankets.

I got home in good time, and had lots of energy for putting away coffee bar and washing all the dishes. But that's where my energy stopped. Mina and Tom and I went out for Thai food, for the express purpose of bringing home lots of leftovers [it worked].

Tue Oct 9: Computer Dominated - And finally, today was a big computer get-caught-up kind of day. Still no job nibbles (grr), but I got lots of apprenticeship files and notes updated, the records for our exercising group updated (our walking "pilgrimage to Canterbury"), and the music transcribed for Mara's song. I'd call today a success.

* * * * *
Today's Blessing That I'm Thankful For: Thomas and Angelina. I'm grateful to have such a fun barony.