A "G-Rated Journal" That Even My Mother Can Read (because she does!)
Effervescence is a state of mind. It's about choosing to bring sunshine to the day.
Every person I meet matters.
If it's written down, I know it (If it's not written down, I don't know it)
If it's color-coded, I understand it (If it's not color-coded, I don't understand it)
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Daddy-do and me, 2010
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Thanksgiving Weekend
What a wonderful past several days!
Fighter Practice - Wednesday evening I had an appointment to chat with a friend right after work, and I ended up over on the same side of town as Jeff's place. He was home and grabbing a bite of dinner before fighter practice, so I stopped over to see him and carpool to the park. Then at practice, Shoshana and I were able to catch up on life for a few hours, and join friends for dinner at IHOP later.
Jeff and I continued chatting late, even after getting back from "dinner" long after midnight. So I just crashed on his couch rather than drive home sleepy. In the morning I was awake at 6:15 am, bored (I know, weird), so I went home, cleaned up, packed for the weekend, and went back to Jeff's to hang out for the pre-game show and eat dinner leftovers for breakfast.
Then I had an actual breakfast "date" to catch-up chatting with Saul. The coffee shop we really wanted to go to was closed (for Thanksgiving, obviously) so ironically we ended up at the same IHOP as the night before. Then off to Thanksgiving with family.
Thanksgiving - My sister has been hosting the Thanksgiving get-together for seven years, and this year was as lovely as ever. My cousins Russ and Andrew live in CA now, and my dad and their mom still live in Ohio where we were raised. My dad and aunt Joan flew out from Ohio, and then at the get together we had Russ and Amber, Andrew and Jayka and their boys, my sister and her girls, my dad, my aunt, and me. Caius is almost 3 years old, and 'Reli (Aurelius) is around 3 months old, so there were lots of photo-taking opportunities with the cute children. (I still have photos on my camera to download, so these will take a bit to get around to working on.)
My sister stayed up for a while showing me and my Dad video clips of performances by each of her girls and a few of her performances. It was a wonderful evening to sit around watching my nieces dance.
Friday breakfast, demo, and dinner - But probably the strangest, and yet enjoyable, meal of the entire weekend had to be breakfast the next morning. I knew I wasn't going to be able to come up for "Saturday Thanksgiving" with my mom, so I specifically requested breakfast with her on Friday morning. My sister cooked, and my nieces were out with their dad. So there we were: My mom, my dad, my sister, and me -- around the breakfast table. I don't think the four of us have sat around a table for a meal in over 25 years, some time before their divorce when I was in seventh grade. (I could be wrong, maybe we did have a meal somewhere in there, but I'd be surprised.) Every single one of us in that room has been through divorces, and I probably have the least amiable divorce in the set. And even though my parents did a pretty decent job of keeping their divorce fairly simple and amiable, it's just never come up to have the four of us in a room together alone, nevermind have a breakfast together. I don't think there was any awkwardness -- we've all come so far over the years, that it was really relaxing to break bread together, chat, and head out for the day.
Then it was off to Jeff's place (again). There's a science fiction convention in LA over the Thanksgiving weekend, and several SCA friends of ours also work the convention (in modern dress, not as SCA representatives). Occasionally we get new SCA members from convention contacts, and with historical fiction interests, there's a good number of cross-over opportunities. So Jeff, Saul, and I were going out there to be in costume. The boys were specifically doing historical fencing, and I brought my spinning since it's portable and visually attractive. Grainne signed up to be there in costume and fencing, even though she also does modern work with LosCon. Meala was there *only* in official modern capacity, which would make it more accurate to say that Melissa was there, not Meala. And an old friend, "Dr Bill" or Giovanni, was at the convention (in from Florida) and he also brought some of his armor (costuming) so that he could participate. In all, there were 4 fencers and 5 people in costume.
Melissa got me a press pass, since the only reason I was there was to take photos for our newsletter. Two friends from our barony were there, so I enjoyed chatting with Pierre and Etienette for a while, and we had a variable audience that came in and out through the 3-hour block. Next year, they're talking about a full-fledged demo for historical fence, inside and in the class tracks; plus other historical teaching opportunities, such as textiles history. I may look into what it would take to write a science-fiction audience historical textiles lecture and demonstration, probably pulling from popular writers and movies, to illustrate good versus bad... for example, a sit-down foot-treadle spinning wheel in 400-500 AD "King Arthur-esque" television is bad. *grin*
After the demo, Jeff and I went across town to "the Nate's" to spend Friday Shabbat dinner with friends. Nate, Nathan, Ellen, Shoshana, Jeff, and I were all there -- which was doubly nice since Shoshana was returning to college the next day (way up north, a 14-hour drive). I'm finally starting to see why people laud Nathan constantly (and excessively) with compliments for his cooking, since he's been making meals with dishes that *I* enjoy. Before, I felt mediocre about his cooking -- it was good, it was tasty, but it didn't wow me. Now, he's really gotten polished at serving all the dishes together and on time (there were issues in the past about serving food on time), and the ingredients have been more geared towards things I like too. Now I'm starting to see the amazing skills he really does have, and I'm enjoying being converted to one of his fans. *grin*
It was nice to have Jeff with me for Shabbat dinner this week. Last week, even though all three guys at the table were Jewish, I was the only person at the meal who knew how all the prayers and tunes went for kiddish. How funny! This week, the meal was the way *I* think of Shabbat dinner: I didn't mind being the woman to light the candles, since I just recently finally memorized that prayer. I no longer need to look up the words. But Jeff does the longer prayer over the wine, and I always enjoy when he sings the longer kiddish. We broke bread, and then we dug into fish (some done with the veggies, some done separately with large slivers of ginger), rice, stir-fry with yellow beets from their garden, broccoli, red chard, and other veggies, a large bowl of purple and orange yams. We'd had some of the Thanksgiving leftover potatoes and some fresh grilled pineapple before the meal, but everything else at this meal was fresh and not part of the Thanksgiving leftovers.
We spent several hours just hanging out, chatting, and socializing. Then we worked our way through some pumpkin cheesecake for dessert, hours later when we finally had enough room to eat anything else. It was truly a great evening. Jeff and I still were chatting for the whole drive home and a while at his place, so once again I just crashed out on his couch for the night.
Saturday Historical Spinning - One nice thing about the SCA is that it gives you a large network of people with different skills. One lady in the area knew a gal who needed to solve some issues with spinning linen. So she put her friend in contact with me, and I've been very excited to help with Audrey's project. She is part of a church that does more than just your typical live nativity kind of display. Their show is a live artisan's community that features craftsmen of the era (turn of the Millenium, Bethlehem or Palestine), and she works the booth that shows women spinning and weaving. Her spinning instructor didn't think you could spin linen (flax) on a drop spindle, but that you had to use a spinning wheel. This is ridiculous, of course, the second you consider the statement logically. And since I had both flax strick and flax top (long fibers versus short fibers) in my stash, and plenty of history books to describe the issues for spinning linen, I was more than happy to help Audrey work through the process.
Ellen also loaned me some specific books on linen and historical textiles. So armed with a bag full of books, a distaff (that's what you wrap the fiber on before you spin it), some spindles, and plenty of fiber, I spent my Saturday afternoon experimenting, researching, and helping critique my new friend's preparations for her show with her church. I learned quite a bit with the hands-on spinning, and after I worked out some kinks in what works and what doesn't, I also found reference to every trick that worked in the research tomes. The instructional and historical information in the books made more sense after having tried the spinning and fixed some problems. Aubrey still has some practice to delve into, before she's ready for her show, but we came a long way in those three hours, and I went away from the experience understanding linen much more.
By evening time, neither my roomie nor I had any plans, and we were bored. So we called up Jeff to "entertain us!" and we ended up having an impromptu dinner party with him and our friends Raz and Maggie (or properly Randy and Ginger). There's a wonderful Indian restaurant near Raz's place, so we met up with them there. The dinner buffet was fantastic (although of course the drawback of buffet is "no leftovers"). Then it was back to Jeff's place to watch movies with all five of us. And once again, when Adrienne phoned to see how Jeff was doing (she's off in WI [oops, I mean MN], he's here in CA for one more week), there he was reporting in "and I'm with Cat and we're ... [insert adventure here]." I had such a fantastic weekend running around with Jeff Wed-Sat, and this was no exception. Gotta keep my Captain out of trouble, doncha know?!
Sunday Project Day - I wrapped up my very long weekend by hosting and participating in a project day at my house. We were calling this one "Making Bags from Scraps" and I had to admonish myself that I wasn't allowed to "play" and have fun with sparkly shiny new bags until I'd sewn a new bag for the poles to my dayshade. The fabric that was barely considered "bag shaped" anymore never should have been a bag in the first place, and was sorely in need of replacement. Raz and Maggie made it to project day, and they brought with them all sorts of scraps for sharing. He had some lovely red fabric that he's used successfully for tent bags, and offered it to me for my poles and tent use. I had planned to quilt some olive green material, but the red was prettier. So I really did quilt the whole thing in 2" strips, then made handles (from the quilted material). Raz had some garment-weight red leather, and I lined the bottom of the bag with that. Plus I took some of the old red plaid from my old bag and lined the top of the new bag with the plaid, in homage to the old design. It took all afternoon and evening, but I can proudly announce that I successfully finished the new pole bag. It looks fantastic, is extremely durable, and definitely does the job right. Next up: A matching bag to contain the roof, walls, ropes, and stakes. Yippee!
And the final conclusion of my Sunday night was another photo album in these sets. Enjoy.
* * * * *
http://goodshipwhitestar.com/gallery/v/2007/alantheresa/
http://www.cayswann.com/v/Friends/2007/alantheresa/
Alan and Theresa's wedding, just this past September
http://www.cayswann.com/v/Friends/2005/40bday/
Alexander's and Elizabeth's 40th birthdays, as celebrated 2 years ago, together at Morgana & Alexander's house.
http://www.cayswann.com/v/Friends/2004/bajaprog04/
Dayle and Ken came with me when my band performed at a Festival in Mexico
http://www.cayswann.com/v/SCA/2007/seaswords/
Photos by Jon Thomme, at Angels Anniversary, for Meala's Sea of Swords Prize
http://www.cayswann.com/v/Friends/2005/benihana/
Dinner out with 2 friends from work (Pendleton), 2 years ago
* * * * *
Today's Blessing That I'm Thankful For: Audrey, for an enjoyable afternoon over linen and spinning
Fighter Practice - Wednesday evening I had an appointment to chat with a friend right after work, and I ended up over on the same side of town as Jeff's place. He was home and grabbing a bite of dinner before fighter practice, so I stopped over to see him and carpool to the park. Then at practice, Shoshana and I were able to catch up on life for a few hours, and join friends for dinner at IHOP later.
Jeff and I continued chatting late, even after getting back from "dinner" long after midnight. So I just crashed on his couch rather than drive home sleepy. In the morning I was awake at 6:15 am, bored (I know, weird), so I went home, cleaned up, packed for the weekend, and went back to Jeff's to hang out for the pre-game show and eat dinner leftovers for breakfast.
Then I had an actual breakfast "date" to catch-up chatting with Saul. The coffee shop we really wanted to go to was closed (for Thanksgiving, obviously) so ironically we ended up at the same IHOP as the night before. Then off to Thanksgiving with family.
Thanksgiving - My sister has been hosting the Thanksgiving get-together for seven years, and this year was as lovely as ever. My cousins Russ and Andrew live in CA now, and my dad and their mom still live in Ohio where we were raised. My dad and aunt Joan flew out from Ohio, and then at the get together we had Russ and Amber, Andrew and Jayka and their boys, my sister and her girls, my dad, my aunt, and me. Caius is almost 3 years old, and 'Reli (Aurelius) is around 3 months old, so there were lots of photo-taking opportunities with the cute children. (I still have photos on my camera to download, so these will take a bit to get around to working on.)
My sister stayed up for a while showing me and my Dad video clips of performances by each of her girls and a few of her performances. It was a wonderful evening to sit around watching my nieces dance.
Friday breakfast, demo, and dinner - But probably the strangest, and yet enjoyable, meal of the entire weekend had to be breakfast the next morning. I knew I wasn't going to be able to come up for "Saturday Thanksgiving" with my mom, so I specifically requested breakfast with her on Friday morning. My sister cooked, and my nieces were out with their dad. So there we were: My mom, my dad, my sister, and me -- around the breakfast table. I don't think the four of us have sat around a table for a meal in over 25 years, some time before their divorce when I was in seventh grade. (I could be wrong, maybe we did have a meal somewhere in there, but I'd be surprised.) Every single one of us in that room has been through divorces, and I probably have the least amiable divorce in the set. And even though my parents did a pretty decent job of keeping their divorce fairly simple and amiable, it's just never come up to have the four of us in a room together alone, nevermind have a breakfast together. I don't think there was any awkwardness -- we've all come so far over the years, that it was really relaxing to break bread together, chat, and head out for the day.
Then it was off to Jeff's place (again). There's a science fiction convention in LA over the Thanksgiving weekend, and several SCA friends of ours also work the convention (in modern dress, not as SCA representatives). Occasionally we get new SCA members from convention contacts, and with historical fiction interests, there's a good number of cross-over opportunities. So Jeff, Saul, and I were going out there to be in costume. The boys were specifically doing historical fencing, and I brought my spinning since it's portable and visually attractive. Grainne signed up to be there in costume and fencing, even though she also does modern work with LosCon. Meala was there *only* in official modern capacity, which would make it more accurate to say that Melissa was there, not Meala. And an old friend, "Dr Bill" or Giovanni, was at the convention (in from Florida) and he also brought some of his armor (costuming) so that he could participate. In all, there were 4 fencers and 5 people in costume.
Melissa got me a press pass, since the only reason I was there was to take photos for our newsletter. Two friends from our barony were there, so I enjoyed chatting with Pierre and Etienette for a while, and we had a variable audience that came in and out through the 3-hour block. Next year, they're talking about a full-fledged demo for historical fence, inside and in the class tracks; plus other historical teaching opportunities, such as textiles history. I may look into what it would take to write a science-fiction audience historical textiles lecture and demonstration, probably pulling from popular writers and movies, to illustrate good versus bad... for example, a sit-down foot-treadle spinning wheel in 400-500 AD "King Arthur-esque" television is bad. *grin*
After the demo, Jeff and I went across town to "the Nate's" to spend Friday Shabbat dinner with friends. Nate, Nathan, Ellen, Shoshana, Jeff, and I were all there -- which was doubly nice since Shoshana was returning to college the next day (way up north, a 14-hour drive). I'm finally starting to see why people laud Nathan constantly (and excessively) with compliments for his cooking, since he's been making meals with dishes that *I* enjoy. Before, I felt mediocre about his cooking -- it was good, it was tasty, but it didn't wow me. Now, he's really gotten polished at serving all the dishes together and on time (there were issues in the past about serving food on time), and the ingredients have been more geared towards things I like too. Now I'm starting to see the amazing skills he really does have, and I'm enjoying being converted to one of his fans. *grin*
It was nice to have Jeff with me for Shabbat dinner this week. Last week, even though all three guys at the table were Jewish, I was the only person at the meal who knew how all the prayers and tunes went for kiddish. How funny! This week, the meal was the way *I* think of Shabbat dinner: I didn't mind being the woman to light the candles, since I just recently finally memorized that prayer. I no longer need to look up the words. But Jeff does the longer prayer over the wine, and I always enjoy when he sings the longer kiddish. We broke bread, and then we dug into fish (some done with the veggies, some done separately with large slivers of ginger), rice, stir-fry with yellow beets from their garden, broccoli, red chard, and other veggies, a large bowl of purple and orange yams. We'd had some of the Thanksgiving leftover potatoes and some fresh grilled pineapple before the meal, but everything else at this meal was fresh and not part of the Thanksgiving leftovers.
We spent several hours just hanging out, chatting, and socializing. Then we worked our way through some pumpkin cheesecake for dessert, hours later when we finally had enough room to eat anything else. It was truly a great evening. Jeff and I still were chatting for the whole drive home and a while at his place, so once again I just crashed out on his couch for the night.
Saturday Historical Spinning - One nice thing about the SCA is that it gives you a large network of people with different skills. One lady in the area knew a gal who needed to solve some issues with spinning linen. So she put her friend in contact with me, and I've been very excited to help with Audrey's project. She is part of a church that does more than just your typical live nativity kind of display. Their show is a live artisan's community that features craftsmen of the era (turn of the Millenium, Bethlehem or Palestine), and she works the booth that shows women spinning and weaving. Her spinning instructor didn't think you could spin linen (flax) on a drop spindle, but that you had to use a spinning wheel. This is ridiculous, of course, the second you consider the statement logically. And since I had both flax strick and flax top (long fibers versus short fibers) in my stash, and plenty of history books to describe the issues for spinning linen, I was more than happy to help Audrey work through the process.
Ellen also loaned me some specific books on linen and historical textiles. So armed with a bag full of books, a distaff (that's what you wrap the fiber on before you spin it), some spindles, and plenty of fiber, I spent my Saturday afternoon experimenting, researching, and helping critique my new friend's preparations for her show with her church. I learned quite a bit with the hands-on spinning, and after I worked out some kinks in what works and what doesn't, I also found reference to every trick that worked in the research tomes. The instructional and historical information in the books made more sense after having tried the spinning and fixed some problems. Aubrey still has some practice to delve into, before she's ready for her show, but we came a long way in those three hours, and I went away from the experience understanding linen much more.
By evening time, neither my roomie nor I had any plans, and we were bored. So we called up Jeff to "entertain us!" and we ended up having an impromptu dinner party with him and our friends Raz and Maggie (or properly Randy and Ginger). There's a wonderful Indian restaurant near Raz's place, so we met up with them there. The dinner buffet was fantastic (although of course the drawback of buffet is "no leftovers"). Then it was back to Jeff's place to watch movies with all five of us. And once again, when Adrienne phoned to see how Jeff was doing (she's off in WI [oops, I mean MN], he's here in CA for one more week), there he was reporting in "and I'm with Cat and we're ... [insert adventure here]." I had such a fantastic weekend running around with Jeff Wed-Sat, and this was no exception. Gotta keep my Captain out of trouble, doncha know?!
Sunday Project Day - I wrapped up my very long weekend by hosting and participating in a project day at my house. We were calling this one "Making Bags from Scraps" and I had to admonish myself that I wasn't allowed to "play" and have fun with sparkly shiny new bags until I'd sewn a new bag for the poles to my dayshade. The fabric that was barely considered "bag shaped" anymore never should have been a bag in the first place, and was sorely in need of replacement. Raz and Maggie made it to project day, and they brought with them all sorts of scraps for sharing. He had some lovely red fabric that he's used successfully for tent bags, and offered it to me for my poles and tent use. I had planned to quilt some olive green material, but the red was prettier. So I really did quilt the whole thing in 2" strips, then made handles (from the quilted material). Raz had some garment-weight red leather, and I lined the bottom of the bag with that. Plus I took some of the old red plaid from my old bag and lined the top of the new bag with the plaid, in homage to the old design. It took all afternoon and evening, but I can proudly announce that I successfully finished the new pole bag. It looks fantastic, is extremely durable, and definitely does the job right. Next up: A matching bag to contain the roof, walls, ropes, and stakes. Yippee!
And the final conclusion of my Sunday night was another photo album in these sets. Enjoy.
* * * * *
http://goodshipwhitestar.com/gallery/v/2007/alantheresa/
http://www.cayswann.com/v/Friends/2007/alantheresa/
Alan and Theresa's wedding, just this past September
http://www.cayswann.com/v/Friends/2005/40bday/
Alexander's and Elizabeth's 40th birthdays, as celebrated 2 years ago, together at Morgana & Alexander's house.
http://www.cayswann.com/v/Friends/2004/bajaprog04/
Dayle and Ken came with me when my band performed at a Festival in Mexico
http://www.cayswann.com/v/SCA/2007/seaswords/
Photos by Jon Thomme, at Angels Anniversary, for Meala's Sea of Swords Prize
http://www.cayswann.com/v/Friends/2005/benihana/
Dinner out with 2 friends from work (Pendleton), 2 years ago
* * * * *
Today's Blessing That I'm Thankful For: Audrey, for an enjoyable afternoon over linen and spinning
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