The Big Black Oak Lodge Recap - The strangest thing happened on my way to the office Friday. I often take my laundry to work, since there's a nice laundromat nearby (just 'round the corner) so it's easy to drive in, put in my laundry, work for bit, swap the clothes into the dryer, work for a bit, then go pick up the clean clothing either on my lunch or at the end of the day (if I did my laundry in the afternoon). (How does *anyone* get anything done in life, working in an office?! Gosh, I miss working from home!)

As I drove past the towers where I work, crowds of people were streaming out into the parking lot. I thought "hmm, maybe fire drill?" and went straight to the laundromat. When I got everything in the wash, and drove back to go to the office, there were guards at the parking structure, sending us all away and streams of cars leaving the parking. Right that moment, my boss phoned me to say, "Go home. We cannot work today." So even though I had only planned to work a half-day then head off to the event, I didn't even get to do that. (It was a blown transformer, btw.)

So I wandered around, dropped off a package at the post office, and just waited in my car while my laundry finished. Then I headed home early for some last minute shopping. I picked up some bread, some port and some wine, some lunch for the drive, and picked up my mail. At home, all my things were packed already the night before and we packed my roomie's car fairly quickly.

The traffic looked pretty nasty in Culver City on the 405 (yeah, go figure -- I cannot imagine trying to live on the West side of LA!!), so we took side streets near LAX to Lincoln Blvd / Hwy 1 / Pacific Coast Hwy (PCH) and headed up the coast through Santa Monica and Malibu. I love living here!

Once we finally hit town in Ventura County, we stopped at the coffee shop for some drinks, snacks, and a last bathroom break, and then finished the drive into the Santa Barbara mountains. We got there in great time, having avoided all the West side and Valley traffic, and started unloading our things. The temperature abruptly dropped 10-20 degrees in the last 5 miles, and we began to wonder if we'd dressed/packed warmly enough for the event.

But once we were settled in (to the "hot single babes retreat" as the only two people sleeping in the room off the Bardic Hall), dressed in garb, and hanging out in the Main dining hall, all was well. I brought some more costuming for embroidery (I'm adding purple silk embroidery to my purple and black overdress), and just enjoyed the hall all evening as soup kitchen was served. It was a little unusual to be the only two people eating vegetarian for the event (since I cannot eat beef and I choose not to eat pork)... but it was easier to "eat with my roomie" so that the cooks knew to prepare two portions, not just one, for the meals. The carrot soup was tasty, and I was very glad to have brought along two loaves of braided challah to share for Shabbat with friends. This was the only year at Black Oak Lodge I remember with so little bread being served. But maybe I'm just remembering wrong. But we made do with the soup and challah, hot drinks, some wine, and very good friends.

I was more restless than usual, and found myself flitting from table to table, visiting as many people as possible. In some ways, it was out of consideration that no one should sit alone for very long. Several friends I knew didn't know very many people at the event, so I enjoyed doing introductions as often as possible. But it wasn't just that I wanted everyone to feel greeted and photographed and socialized with... I really just felt restless and flighty. Odd. But I enjoyed myself immensely, and when we finally stumbled off to sleep, it was good.

Saturday I woke super early and decided it was worth it to be the first in the hot water showers. They've converted the old sleeping room off the kitchen to out-door access bathrooms with showers, which was very appreciated. I didn't have to hike down the hill to the pool for a shower and then back up the hill again in the cold with wet hair. It was still dark when I was done, so I crawled back into my covers and napped until breakfast time. My roomie and I got up a little bit late and had to scrape the bottom of the oatmeal for breakfast, but all was well and we had plenty to eat.

She was the only entrant in the Darachshire Bardic competition, but she did a wonderful job. One of the first tasks was to do a highly dramatic heraldry call on the field for the fighters, I'm told a la "Knight's Tale" but I haven't seen the movie. I did, however, understand "doing floofy things" in a melodramatic way, and so I had an exceptionally silly time calling out the first round, and Magdalene called the second round. Turns out my silly side includes channeling Fozzie Bear from the Muppets, and my favorite line was "and a Baron!" in a true Fozzie Bear voice, along with Master Korwyn flapping his arms like a chicken, inspiring me to flap *my* arms for "and a Pelican, of great SERRRRvice!" in a Fozzie Bear voice. Ah! I love silly peers!

I also ran around taking zillions of photos, including helping my friend Mwynen take shots of "Flat Stanley" for her nephew. I'd helped do some Flat Stanley photography before, and got some great shots for her. If you're unfamiliar with the story of Flat Stanley, you can check out http://www.flatstanley.com/ or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Stanley.

Lunch was a little thin for us (beef, brauts, and salad = translated for vegetarians, just salad? really?)... which was remedied when Thomasina finally caught the ear of the cooks and put together a plate of carrots, and a bagel from breakfast. Magdalene fights on the Rapier field, and as she jokes "I'm not a deer, I cannot survive on just leaves!"

She and I are seriously considering running a major feast some event, to show how easily it can be done, with major portions of vegetarian fare that is filling, yummy, and period. I mean come on, the only reason we go nuts with meat at feasts in the SCA is because we are so unbelievably wealthy in our modern day compared to history. And in the middle of Lent, wouldn't there be astonishingly period "Lenten day" fare? Where's the lentils and beans and breads?

Please, don't get me wrong. I think the majority of people at the event enjoyed the food, and cooks work their buhtuckus off, making meals for us. I appreciate all their hard work. And I know it can be tough to deal with all the unsolicited advice they get. There's the quantity of people being served, the timing of the ovens (if they're working!), the shopping, timing all the meals to come out together and on time and hot and cooked all the way through, all the prep for the next meal, trying to grab your own bite to eat in between, the volunteers in and out of the pots room, various allergies and likes and dislikes. It's a TON of work, and I appreciate everything they do for us. But there's a reason I cook for 18 people at Estrella for a week. I want to have food hot, on time, and containing ingredients everyone there can eat. And I tend to cook for a combination of carnivores, vegetarians, people who keep kosher (at different levels of orthodoxy), people with major allergies, people with serious dislikes, and I know how tough it is. But I love seeing the happy people, stuffed and satisfied. Heck, this year I got one of my best compliments ever: Rigo ate my chili at Estrella. Dude. He never eats the chili. But he loved it, and I glowed.

Anyways, I waxed on about that far more than I was expecting to, sorry about that.

In the morning I sat in on a tapestry embroidery class, and in the afternoon I found myself frantically trying to complete my embroidery, take photos, visit the field, visit the scriptorium, get my feast gear set up for dinner, and keep embroidering. We decided in the morning that the Bardic Champion's regalia (which wasn't created before the event) would include an embroidered-on-site Darach Badge. Illiuna spun up some white yarn for me, on the spot in the morning, and I used the "black" dark brown yarn from Richenda's class to stitch the acorn and oak leaf. I managed to get the entire acorn and oak leaf portion done before the feast, and a major portion of the white background. But I'll need to still finish the white, and add the blue border later. Then my roomie will make it into the regalia for the Bard -- because she won the competition! (hee hee, she was the only entrant, but still...)

In the afternoon, she taught her new song for the glory of Darach to several gals from Lyondemere... and the irony was just amazing. Here was a lady from Lyondemere, teaching three ladies from Gyldenholt, a song to praise Darachshire, filked to the music by a Bard from Northshield (who's currently living in Ansteorra). Only in Caid! *hee hee* (For those in the know, she took Mateo's "All For One" and used the music, and wrote her own lyrics.) The new Darachshire praise song was really well received, and right before the feast while she was in the Great Hall getting ready with the rest of the servers, the ladies and the autocrat and I taught the chorus to the entire assembly in the Bardic Hall. That way, during the feast when the ladies sang the song, we could surprise Magdalene and the entire hall could sing along on the chorus. It was wonderful!

During the feast, we also scattered musical performances throughout the evening. We sang for our table. We sang and wandered from table to table. We sang for the whole hall, with everyone's attention on us. We provided background music while people conversed. It was a wonderful blend of all the ways to perform. I loved it. And I was immensely proud of Magdalene's performances -- both her new filk, the Don Eogan song, and her featured "favorite song" as she did a Duke Conn song ("Echoes") that was well received. All in all, a great bardic experience.

By the way, Lorenz did a lovely job of re-engineering some of the dishes for the feast, to keep Mina and I in mind. The duck-and-white-bean soup was modified so that he made a separate pot of white-bean-and-veggies soup on the side. (Way yummy!) They planned to serve the beef-in-wine on top of the spinach, but he saved some of the spinach on the side, untouched by the meat. (Super delicious!) We were warned when the barley had been cooked in chicken broth, and then there was a separate dish of barley & mushrooms done in water. (Very nice!) And when another meat dish was served on the carrots and cabbage (pork maybe?), there was a separate bowl of cabbage (non-meat) just for us. (Tangy!) So we had a nice dinner, and were thankful for the consideration.

After the feast, the music, and the company, we spent the evening mostly hanging out between the Bardic Hall and the Great Feast Hall. Oh, I nearly forgot: The afternoon also included a sudden deluge of rain and hail! We were treated to yet another drastic drop in temperature, and it was apparently 32 degrees outside when we started the feast. We were VERY thankful to be indoors with nearly a hundred people, eating and feasting together to stay warm. When we were waiting for the feast to start, the hail was really coming down. Everyone with warm and fuzzy Viking hats looked so cute dashing between the buildings, since they'd come indoors with ice on their hats. But most of the rain and hail stopped by the time the feast was over, so our late night wanderings were cold but dry. Rhieinwen hosted the annual "Spark in the Dark" and then we had lots of us curled up around the fireplace in Bardic for the next several hours.

Finally at midnight we asked folks nicely to let us fall asleep, and we built our pallets in front of the fireplace. Combined blankets and additional body heat kept us from freezing all night, although we had one funny scare in the early dark hours when Albra snuck into the hall for a nap on the couch. She'd woken too early, didn't know the time, showered and dressed, and then realized it was only about 3:30 and not time for breakfast yet. So aftern sneaking into the Hall to take a nap on the couch (thinking there was no one in there), I woke up to the quiet sounds of someone rolling over. I was frightened there was "someone in here with us!" and woke my roomie, who bravely got out of bed, took up the fireplace poker, and tip-toed to investigate. We (thankfully!) identified it was a "beloved Countess" and not "an axe-murderer or a bear" in the cabin with us (hee hee!), and we didn't brain Albra with a fire poker. All was well. It made for much laughter in the morning.

Benjamin Maurice - We got up early, packed, enjoyed breakfast, and headed out on the road for home. We were barely 5 minutes on the road when we got the call from Jeff to just meet them at the hospital: Adrienne was really and finally in actual labor. We got a phone call from Medb Renata that traffic was hideous through the Valley and Downtown, so we opted for a mountainous pass through to Malibu and zipped neatly along the coast back to the main freeways. We made wonderful time and got to the hospital in the early afternoon. We were one-person over the visitor limit, with Theresa, Jeff, Mel, and myself. So I traded on and off with Theresa for a bit, took some pictures, hung out in the lobby a bit, took some more pictures, then drove Mel's car home leaving the girls with Jeff to support Adrienne. At home, I unpacked all our things from the event (the least I could do for Mel, since we drove her car, and she was busy at the hospital now), showered, dressed, went to dinner, and fielded a million and one phone calls and text messages about how things were going at the hospital.

Late, Melissa finally called to say she was heading home since after 3 hours of hard pushing, Adrienne was exhausted and they were going to have to do a c-section. Since I had Mel's keys, I stayed home to let her in, give her some hugs (she was exhausted too), and then head up to Ben and Erika's to hang out and wait for the final phone call. We visited for maybe all of 10 minutes at Erika's place until we got the call from Jeff to come and celebrate with him. He son was successfully born at 8:37 pm, 21 inches, 7 pounds 7 ounces, and it was time to toast and celebrate with friends.

We zipped back down the freeway to meet at Jeff's place, bringing the excellent liquor and port and cigars. I was happily surprised to see Shosh and Saul there too, so there were six of us to toast to our newest family member: Benjamin Maurice Jacobson. After a while, the three boys were on the porch, smoking cigars and pipes (and talking about video games), while the three girls were in the living room, talking about sex and relationships and mothers (especially whether we'd ever talked to our moms about the first time we had sex). (Sorry Mom, nope I never spoke to you about it. Not likely to, either, but I still love you bunches! I had nothing but nice things to say about you!) Around 1:30 am we all realized it was time to head to sleep, and let Jeff get the last sleep he's going to have for the next several years.

Since Then - On Monday night we had a wonderful "More String, Better" session at our monthly Baronial Arts and Sciences night. Amya and I brought fleeces to Meala's house, and I brought all kinds of cards and combs. We got everyone involved in touching disgusting, greasy fleece, picking apart the locks, washing them (and rinsing and rinsing) ...so we watched these amazing caramel colored pieces go to bleach white with just some hot water and soap. We used the cards, we used the combs (big giant pokey things!), made roving, made batts, made rolags, and determined that the appropriate answer to "I have a free fleece for you!" is usually "No thank you" but occasionally "How old is it? What condition is it in?" ... and then usually the answer is still "No thank you." But we had a marvelous time at Meala's playing with the wool, taking photos, and in three months the next installment of "More String, Better" will be about spinning. We also had some great conversation about the Pentathlon topics for next month's Arts and Sciences, and made some plans for additional topics ... probably we'll melt down some bricks of beeswax that Aliskye picked up, and pour little molds to use for largesse and gifts; and another night we'll look at making cheese.

Today's Photos Portion - Before I went off to Black Oak Lodge, I worked on the albums for (1) A painting I did for my step-sister, for the family Christmas gift exchange (Dec07); (2) Christmas at my sister's house (Dec07). And then the rest of the week, I put together the photos for (3) Baby Benjamin. We've been sending photo links to all the grandparents and posting them on all the birth announcements, which makes me so happy.

Night before last, I joined Jeff for a late dinner at 9 pm (after my hair appointment at 6 that went really late -- I chopped my hair short again!), and then we went back to Jeff's to do some last minute house-cleaning together. I helped him scoop giant piles of leaves off the porch, throw out a heavy and gigantic table from off the porch, scrub down the kitchen (and kill a few ants), change the sheets on the master bed, and vacuum the house. It was wonderful, although the dust from the leaves settled in my lungs and made me feel funny all evening. But we had a great time working together to make the house ready for Mommy and Baby, and yesterday I picked up Adrienne's Mom from the airport. Jeff's Mom already wrote me an email thank you for all the photos, so I'm just glowing.

And my hair is REALLY cute!


  
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Today's Blessing That I'm Thankful For: Benjamin Maurice! Welcome sweetling!