Random Images - You might think I hand-pick the "random picture" feature on the left navigation. Sometimes I'm a little bit selective, but most of the time I really just put a random highlight there. Today's picture is Lynn at Morgana's halloween party 2007, and the random photo before that was Lynn and Bill walking up in Darach's court at Pirate Tourney for an award in 2006. I'm not *trying* to find cute pictures of Lynn, but they keep finding me! *grin*

What I've Been Up To Lately - Yoikes, when I get behind on my journal, there's so much to tell you!

Music Preparation - Fri Jan 11, Jeff and Adrienne came over and we practiced a four-part Italian madrigal with my roomie for the first time. Mel plays Viola, so she was our accompanist when we needed a part played out. I couldn't find the speakers anywhere for Kristin's keyboard (which I still have temporary custody, hee hee), so Jeff just pretended to play the parts on the piano while learning to sing them. We sounded really remarkably good!

Family Time - Sat Jan 12, my Mom, step-Dad, sister, nieces, and I met up with the grandparents and some other extended family for lunch, then went over to Lorene's to visit. She's my great aunt (my mom's mom's sister), and one of my most beloved relatives. If I were to have a musical hero in my family, it would be Lorene. From her university bio:

Lorene Forsyth: Her roles as pianist, accompanist, chamber artist, harpsichordist, teacher and voice and diction coach have taken Ms. Forsyth to many parts of the world. She has played with the Syracuse Symphony and Opera Company, maintained a studio in New York City and, for 23 seasons, played and coached at the Spoleto Festivals in Charleston and Italy, working closely with composer-director Giancarlo Menotti. She has worked on more than 1356 operas, more than 90 in production. Ms. Forsyth currently accompanies the Canto Bello Chorale, participates in productions of the Redlands Theatre Festival and plays for the Metropolitan Opera auditions and master classes.

Did you catch that? One thousand three hundred and fifty six operas. Twenty-three seasons of the Spoleto Festivals. As I remember Lorene's stories, she was one of Baryshnikov's favorite accompanists. (To her, he's "Misha.") She's worked with Jerome Robbins, Bernstein... on and on and on.

It was amazing, to sit and listen to her tell us tales for over an hour. We were three generations of nieces, and I couldn't have been prouder to be her family. I can only dream of accomplishing with my life some fraction of what my aunt Lorene has done.

Evening Bardic - After an amazing visit with family, I headed out on the road to my old college shire, for an evening of Bardic performances. The traditional annual "Bardic Collegium" was supplemented with "messy" artistic crafts, but I spent the day with family and was only going to be in town for the evening's entertainment. We didn't do the "State of the Bardic Community" discussion like in years past, but I can tell you the state of the community is really good! based on what I saw in that Bardic circle! People were prepared, they had good material in their repertoire, they had a focus on medieval material, they believed in the mantra "Never apologize, never explain" (thank you Thomas!), and they were a gracious and exciting audience as well as participants. The rule was "pass, play, or request" but the construct of "going around the circle" was not as limiting as I've seen in some other "bardic circles." There was so much genuine interest in the material, that anyone could have volunteered with "Ooo! I have a good one!" without a feeling of being overshadowed or steam-rolled. At the same time, people did a wonderful job of using the "I'm listening and not performing yet" time to think of appropriate material to present, or to think of fun requests from anyone else in the circle.

As for me, it was my first "appearance" as Bard of Caid, and so obviously I couldn't just sneak in and be unobtrusive. There was a tiny bit of fanfare when I arrived (to which I blushed mightily), and it turned out to be the perfect time to tell my Turkish saga snippet from the competition, a week earlier. They *loved* my story of Bamsi Beryek from the Book of Dede Korkut, and I loved having the opportunity to continue promoting real sagas from the middle ages that were told in real courts of the middle ages. This one happens to be from the 1300s in the Turkish (earliest rise of the Ottoman) courts. Throughout the evening I also sang "First You Take a Sheep," my new composition "The Swordsman's Honor," and was requested to tell the (persona or character) story of "When Eilidh was on the White Star, or Why Captain Lot Always Checks the Hold for Eilidh Before Setting Sail." It's a cute story. *grin*

Afterwards, I went "home" with Bebhinn, and we spent nearly 45 minutes finding and squeezing my car into a parking space before being able to walk to her apartment. The legend says this off-campus neighborhood is the "most densely packed square-mile west of the Mississippi." I'm not sure whether that's true, but it sure feels like it on a Saturday night. The two of us chatted like little school girls for over an hour, and then promptly fell asleep. *grin*

More String Better - Sun Jan 13 I lounged around the kitchen with Bruce, Sam (Bebhinn), Ellen, and Sarah nibbling on breakfast, sipping coffee, and chatting for a bit, then I headed back home to my barony for a meeting called "Company of Clothiers." We were featuring "More String Better!" at this CoC meeting, and I shared a few braiding techniques with three lovely ladies. They took the instruction, the supplies, and the training well into hand, and are now making "largesse cords" for the Kingdom so that when the King and Queen give out medallions as awards, they can be strung on hand-braided cords. Yippee.

Apprentice Dinner and Friends - Mon Jan 14, I headed over to Tonwen's for "Apprentice dinner" with Rick and Jon Thomme, where I spent some more time on my silk embroidery, and got to tell my turkish story again. Then Tue Jan 15, I went over to Jeff & Adrienne's for the evening, just to hang out with Adrienne for a bit. I helped Jeff move a desk out of their apartment, down to their garage, in preparation for turning the old office into the baby's room. *squee* I'm so excited about their baby! Wed Jan 16, I headed out to the park at the end of the evening for "social practice" and joining everyone for coffee. It was my last chance to see Shosh before she went back up to college again, and I hadn't seen some of my other friends in a while either. Thu Jan 17, I just worked late at the office and caught up on some late night reading at home.

Fri Jan 18, I would have loved to have gone to Cecilia's "Embroidery Night" but I already had dinner plans, and then met everyone at the apartment again for madrigal rehearsal with Jeff, Adrienne, and Mel. We got one page further in our rehearsal than the time before, and I recorded the soprano part on my computer for Adrienne, then burned an MP3 file to CD so she could practice it further at home. (Major thank you's to Lynn, AGAIN, for showing me the free software from Audacity and giving me a set of headphones with a microphone. I couldn't do it without you, love.)

Angels Melee and Rockband - Sat Jan 19, Lot picked me up at 7am and we drove out to a "war practice" event for the SCA. "War" is generally the term we use for large camping events in the SCA, where the sword-fighters stage large melee scenarios complete with fighting units, tactics, commanders, and some of the more "war-like" fighting techniques like using archery and siege weapons. To prepare for group fighting techniques rather than the one-on-one practice we do for tournaments, every January we have a Saturday dedicated to just melee fighting.

I've been working on some new compositions, in my responsibilities as the Kingdom Bardic Champion, and one of them is specifically designed as a "Kids' Song" about the history of our Kingdom, specifically how we got our name. The tune is what you might call "insidious" and can get stuck in your head, like any good sing-song type children's tune. *hee hee*

I got to teach the song to a number of friends, and sing it for a few royalty and peers, and thoroughly "infect" people with the song. *mwahaha* I'll post a link later to the completed piece, with recording and sheet music of course. I've also been working on another marching song for the fighters to sing on the way to the war field, and I have a chorus I like. Now, to write the verses.

I also met a nice young man who is a merchant, who I remember meeting in passing at 12th Night two weeks ago. He was very flirtatious, which flattered me greatly, and I got to be of assistance since he had no lunch food but the Inn of the Crimson Spade did... so I introduced him to the proprietors, who were happy to share their lunch spread with him. We've exchanged a few emails since then, and he's a nice new friend.

Afterwards, a bunch of us went to a friends' house where we got to play a video game called "Rockband." Some of you might have heard of a video game called "Guitar Hero" where you "play" along with a video game, trying to sort of simulate guitar playing on a plastic button-controlled guitar. (I know, work with me here.) Well, I'd tried it once but it was very bizarre and not a little bit disappointing since I've played guitar before.

I'd heard there was a bigger, more elaborate version where you had a drummer, a guitar player, a bass player, and a singer, all "playing" to the video game. Naturally, I rolled my eyes at the idea. But then I saw the video game, and I got to be the singer for a while. I even tried the drummer part once (on an easy song, with the drummer part set for "Easy") and I completely failed to be any good at drumset. [The drummer part is done on a set very similar to electronic drums, and is more like "real drumming" than the guitar or bass parts that have you pressing buttons rather than strings on a fretted neck.]

But the singer part really actually needs you to be able to sing, and sometimes to have the rhythm of a percussionist (when they have you simulating the tambourine or the cowbell on the mic by smacking it). I didn't know 80-95% of the songs in the video game, but they've concocted a pretty elaborate "these are the notes and the rhythm" visual that goes along with the lyrics. Once I figured out the visuals, I could actually figure out how to sing the song, and I did a little bit better than decent on most of them. We "played" the video game together for nearly 5-6 hours, and had an absolute blast. On top of the actual "playing" and earning points for accuracy, there was the silly character development of "designing our band" and creating the band logo, changing the clothing and shoes that our band characters were wearing, and just being silly with friends.

On the down side, some things in life were bothering me, and late in the evening I got cranky and blew up at one friend for something completely unrelated. I spent the next 24 hours apologizing for snapping and making a scene, plus just debriefing the issues in general.

Fortunately, Jeff was my carpool, and as we drove home from the party, he let me rant and cry and complain and vent. He had some really kind things to say, and some very astute philosophical observations that I think I'll be chewing on for some years to come. Adrienne was still awake when we arrived at midnight-thirty, so the three of us stayed up for the next hour-plus, talking and debriefing and chatting until we all started to drift off asleep. I crashed on their couch, and we didn't bother unpacking the car full of stuff until morning.

Brunch and Quidditch - Sun Jan 20, Adrienne was awake long before Jeff, and so she drove me home and even helped me unpack the car a bit (again some of my protestations, of course). Then she, my roomie, her sister and her sister's boyfriend (who were crashing in our living room), and I went to have brunch at the new Noah's bagels in the neighborhood, and had a lovely morning together. I had just time to get cleaned up and changed, before going out to Quidditch in the afternoon.

I've been made the new "Captain of the Green Team" and my wonderful team helped me inaugurate my captainacy by crushing the Blue Team, 200 to 50. I only say "crush" jokingly, because actually I enjoyed some of the tactics of the other players very much. They played hard too, we just happened to score more often than they did. Rick and Jim and I had a really good passing and scoring game going on, which made all the difference in the world. Marie had an impressive hustle (I couldn't possibly catch her with my fastest walk), and Adrienne (not Caterina, but Fedelm) had a really impressive defense when she and I paired off. And Nigel was fantastic as usual, but the points fell to Green instead of Blue this time. Oh, and our bludgers Renata and Kim were pretty amazing too, but Nigel was feeling the brunt of being a bludger-magnet this time... not that I didn't have my fair share of penalties from the bludgers, too. All in all, a wonderful practice and great exercise.

Birthday Dinner Party - Nathan's and Bruce's birthdays were both within the last week or two in January, so the boys threw their biggest dinner party yet. Nate says he counted 15 guests, plus the three of them that live there in the house. I haven't stopped to count everyone who came through, but yes the house was packed. Dinner was a variety of foods over an hour or two, but I had some salmon, potatoes, and a coconut gelatin, as I remember it. I missed the pizzas completely, and I don't eat beef or mussels, so I skipped those. I'm not really a big chips, salsa, or guacamole person either, but I did have a bit of the cheese appetizers too. And for the second evening, I enjoyed some red wine with my meal, which meant another night on someone else's couch rather than sleeping in my own bed. [I'm very zero-tolerance about drinking and driving: Absolutely NEVER will I drive if I've had any alcohol at all.] We wrapped up the evening with just a quiet five of us playing some table games with Bruce (his favorite birthday present of all -- to play games with friends) and then went to sleep some time after midnight.

Quiet Holiday and More Board Games - No one was awake at 7, not even Bruce who's a morning person, so I slipped out quietly without any social time over breakfast or anything. Back at home, I finally had some time to clean up all the detritus scattered about for the past week and a half, then went in to the office to get caught up on our frantic schedule to get another User Guide written in about a week. At dinner time, I picked up some of my favorite Persian food and took it over to Meala's house, where she, her husband Scott, and I scarfed down some saffron rice, sour cherries, hummus, pita, chicken kabobs, and lentil soup before the Arts and Sciences meeting of the month.

Master Niccolo (Bruce from the birthday party) is a Laurel in "Leisure Arts" and has a passion for games from history. Baron Thomas came to the meeting, as did Jennifer and Cesare, and the group of us learned about Byzantine Chess (played on a round chess board), Gluckhaus - or House of Fortune (or as I remember it "Lucky Pig"), and "Tables" (which many of you would recognize as being played on backgammon boards). It was a fantastic evening, and I even got a few photos for the baronial monthly newsletter, as well as some ideas for a possible craft project for me to work on.

More Persian Food - I was able to take the leftovers home from dinner on Monday night, which lasted me for breakfast and lunch on Tuesday. Then Saul and I finally got to have dinner and chatting together for the first time in months, and we decided to go get Persian food together. I adore that restaurant, and having Persian for 4-6 meals in a row (when you count the leftovers I have today) doesn't phase me in the slightest. *grin* It was a wonderful dinner, even if he never made it back for coffee when the errand he had to run right after dinner snowballed out of control. I made the most of the time to enjoy a quiet hour reading alone, and then headed home.

Overall, it's been a good week and a half. I'm doing *zillions* better since the unfortunate blow-up on Saturday night (for which I'm quite embarrassed and apologetic), and the slight depression I was feeling for being single is dissipating even as we speak. *sigh, buck up and deal, and smile* Life has much that is good.

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Today's Blessing That I'm Thankful For: Lorene. You are my hero, dearest.