Because I've Missed You - Yes, I'm well. No, I'm not dead in a ditch somewhere. Yes, I've been busy. Yes, I've missed you all. *grin*

First, a quick moment of assimilation: http://twitter.com/cayswann -- I blame Thomas and Lynn. Thanks, my dears. You know I followed you first. [This is, of course, an invitation for other twitters to tweet my direction.]

Some Life Updates - The car is still running well. Remember when we last left our intrepid heroine, I was replacing the (original!) alternator and (only the 2nd!) battery around 400,000 miles on the car. I'd also endured brief moments of guilt that I wasn't buying my mom's old Saturn, but my niece now has her first car. Now I'm over 403,000+ miles, and I'm still thrilled. I had an unusual dream last night where my car was gushing oil as I was driving out of a flooded muddy SCA event during after-work rush hour, up a hill, and stopping before a bridge and freeway on-ramp, to have an old employer stop to check on me, while I was texting friends to meet me at the fast-food restaurants across the street since the abandoned farm house was too scary to wait next to until the AAA truck arrived. Yes, I know. Packed full of obvious meaning there: I worry about how my car is actually doing, and I worry about how my friends and family are worrying that I'm going to be out and about when my car dies... you know, right next to an abandoned farm house with a local serial killer hiding in the shadows. But in my dream, there's still cell coverage in the area, my phone is fully charged, I still have easy access to the freeway, my AAA is still responsive, and there's A/C and food just across the street. No need to worry that I'm in the middle of nowhere with axe murderers masquerading as badgers in the woods. *grin*

Like I said: The car is still running. I have plans to have her engine steam-cleaned soon, so I can get her (small) oil leak fixed. After that, I'm daydreaming about either a Chevy Aveo (ideally a hatchback in Splendoor^TM Yellow), a Toyota Yaris, or a Honda Fit. You know, a Festiva for the 21st Century.

The Latest Arts and Crafts - I'm woefully behind on several song composition projects, historical research, possibly building a musical instrument, the spinning exchange, and a few other details. But I've been finishing some costuming lately. My roomie just finished working a season (as an actor in the Italian Guild) at the Renaissance Fair. One of her under-dresses had to be hurriedly finished in time for Costume Review before the Fair opened, so she didn't finish the inside seams. However, I have been in an evening class for a few months, and needed some hand-work to do during the lectures. So I've been hand-stitching the inside seams of her white linen under-dress (chemise, for those in the know), for the entire Ren Faire season. I'm happy to say I finished the last seam before her last weekend at Faire, and I learned a lot about my sewing attention to detail during the process.

My friend Bill (Cesare in the Barony) is tired of sewing, and back when money was more uncertain, he'd "hired me" to make some clothing for him. I got distracted and didn't work on it for months, but lately got re-motivated (because of my own guilt and an upcoming event) so I finally had him over for a fitting... which meant I had to have something done to try on his body. I made a new muslin pattern for pants based on his older patterns and a pair of pants he already wears in costume. I made a complete mock-up, tried it on him, took it apart again, and made adjustments to the mock-up and the pattern based on the fitting. Now the linen is cut out and edged (with a zig-zag stitch), and ready to be assembled tonight.

My goal is to complete his pants tonight, cut out the doublet pattern tonight, and either assemble my new dark green linen dress or cut out two new white linen under dresses for me. A friend of a friend is coming to this weekend's event for her first SCA event ever, and she's apparently the same size as me, roughly. So I'm loaning her costumes for this weekend, which means I'm really trying to make sure I own enough clothing for both of us.

Speaking of Events - It's hard to believe I last told you all about Crown Tourney. Let's see, since then:

Passover Dinners at My House - The weekend of April 19-20 was a no-SCA event weekend for me, as it was the beginning of Passover. Last year, Adrienne hosted both "Night One" and "Night Two" dinners at her home. When they were happy to announce the upcoming birth of their son, I volunteered to host Passover Seder(s) in my home, to relieve her of the cooking, cleaning, and organizing. It was a wonderful weekend, where twelve people came on Saturday and a completely different twelve people on Sunday. Everyone has different traditions, but they've been melding into what I think of as "my traditions" with Adrienne and Jeff for the past couple of years. Some had family obligations on Sat, others on Sun, so it was nice to have a central dinner location for "family" (in quotes) to gather with me, Jeff, Adrienne, and little Benjamin. I also learned a lot about serving and organizing dinner for twelve people in my house, and now I have more tableclothes, cloth napkins, and silverware in my arsenal of home supplies. *grin*

Visiting with Lev - My friend Lev lives with his darling wife in Oregon, and most of the years I've known them, our friendship has been growing over years of email conversations punctuated with brief visits every few years. I saw both of them at Brian and Morgana's home in January, and then had the nice opportunity to Lev again in April. He came down for another Morris Dancing gig, and arranged his visit to have an extra couple of days on the front of the trip, so that he could see friends outside the dancing gigs. So I got a chance to spend an evening with Lev, Brian and Morgana, Dayle and Ken over dinner on a lovely Thursday after Passover.

The visit required more organizing that usual, in my own life, since I went from home to work, work to dinner in my old Shire, stay over night, and up at oh-dark-hundred and back to work but trying to beat the morning rush hour traffic in the worst part of LA traffic, and then straight from work to an SCA-based Passover dinner at the Dudley's house. And, make sure I had my potluck offering with me! I was one of only two people not in costume (out of 17 or 18 at the dinner), but once again, had a lovely dinner with friends.

Bill's 40th BDay Camping - The first weekend in May I actually went "Modern Camping." This is, to say, I went camping with SCA friends with all our SCA camping equipment but no costuming. *grin* We went to the Santa Barbara mountains, yes, just about 5 miles from the camping I'd done for King's Hunt and Crown Tourney, just 3 and 4 weeks earlier. I brought "Coffee Bar" and some embroidery, took photos, and enjoyed helping "in the kitchen" for Darren's "Feast of Elk" by Bill's request for his 40th BDay celebration. The dinner was lovely, the company and friendships unparalleled. And I was *so* glad I went.

Attending the Ren Faire - I left the camping trip on Sunday morning, to head straight for the Ren Faire with Jeff. It was the only single day in the entire Ren Faire season, that I was going to finally see Eric and Mel performing with their guild. I got there fairly late in the afternoon, but Jeff and I both wore SCA costuming, and hung out with Eric (normally called Marcos in the SCA, called Rocco Benetti at Ren Faire) and Mel (whom I usually call "my roomie" or Mina or Magdalene, who is appropriately called Magdalena at Ren Faire) plus Tom (who's Ren Faire name escapes me at the moment). We went to a couple of shows -- Commedia and a singing gig by just the Ladies from Commedia -- and otherwise just walked around and socialized. I brought some drop-spindle work with me (some of the left over spinning from my Apprentice token back in November), and was stopped by a Ren Faire merchant at the end of the day and offered her some tips on her spinning technique. If I were ever to work a Ren Faire season, I'd be very committed to textile displays the entire time.

Altavia - Altavia Anniversary and Investiture was held the 2nd weekend of May, and although I missed all of court [both opening and closing], I had a nice lazy trip to see friends in a park, with no pressures for things I had to accomplish by any particular time. I was sorry to have missed the "death" of Bridget and Laertes [staged to provide a reason for them to step-down as the local landed Baron and Baroness, so that the incoming Baron and Baroness could take their place for the next five years] but there are some lovely photos of how Bridget was killed with "death by chocolate" and Laertes suffered "death by Peeps." And there are STUNNING photos out there of Lorissa's surprise Pelican elevation, plus a few photos of Baird being offered Knighthood. Lorissa's sister was proud to show off her Altavian Fret award to me in person, and she was absolutely glowing all day. All in all, congrats to everyone for a wonderful day and some very well-deserved awards.

I got to sit and chat with Mathius (from Hospitallers) for most the afternoon: I wish I'd met him years ago -- He's just a joy to be around. And I got to listen to some of the Bardic performances of the day, both for the contest and just for the joy of performing. Secca is one of my favorite poets, ever, and any chance to hear his material is a joy for me.

Mother's Day - Because I went camping for Bill's 40th, I missed going to my niece's birthday party. So I was doubly-glad to head over to my Mom's house the day after Altavia, to enjoy Brunch with the family. I didn't realize no one in my family eats much more than a little cream cheese on their bagels, so I completely guessed wrong when I brought "bagels and shmear" to brunch: A dozen assorted bagels, whipped cream cheese, roma tomatoes (sliced when I got there), cucumber (also sliced), capers, and lox (smoked salmon). I'm the only person who put anything on the bagels, although I guessed I might be the only one who likes lox [and that's something I only learned to enjoy just about three years ago]. But the nice thing about no one eating much of it, is that I got to make fresh lox, tomato, cucumber, and caper bagel sandwiches for breakfast and lunch for work, all week long.

For mom, I picked out some specialty Godiva truffles from the local chocolatier bar at my Bristol Farms, a card with Hawaiian print (a nod toward her house-decorating from the new kitchen remodel), and an embroidered hand-towel that says "Grandma's Kitchen: Children Spoiled Daily" with chocolate chip cookies in the design. She liked them very much, so I felt very good about having found cute gifts for her. *beaming smile*

Darach Anniversary - My shire's anniversary was held up in Ojai, up in horse-country, so they were able to include equestrian activity at the event. I wish it hadn't been so darn hot and muggy last weekend, because I just never dragged myself over to the corrals to see the horses and watch the equestrian games.

I did get to visit with quite a few folks, which made the day quite enjoyable. I sat for a bit with friends here, then there, then over there, just meandering around the park site from group to group, working on embroidery and chatting. Ah, relaxing.

Arye's Recital - After Darach Anniversary, I headed up to Santa Barbara where I was staying with Sam, Sarah, and Nate for the evening. In fact, I'd given a ride to Nate in the first place, so he could had a day hanging out with Sarah. All four of us met up at Sarah & Sam's apartment after our day's activities, and I got to crash on their couch for the night. The heat was still pretty oppressive, so we were really lazy until it was late enough to sleep. In the morning, I woke *way* too early (several times), until I just got up hung out until everyone else woke up.

Then after breakfast, we headed over to the campus, for David's final Senior Recital, as a music major. The concert was lovely, David looked fantastic (and even had one "costume change" hee hee!), and the audience was packed with friends. I got to meet his parents and brothers (who were lovely), took lots of photos of the concert, then Nate and I endured the heat and drive back to LA. Nate and I hung out at his place until sundown, when it was finally cool enough to contemplate dinner with his roomie Nathan. We tried out a Persian restaurant Nathan had been meaning to check out, and enjoyed a *wonderful* meal. The service was fantastic, and we doubled our tip because of it.

Lots of Web Updates - The only other major tasks I've been working on these past six weeks have been major updates to an SCA event site and my theatre website. The new season starts with the summer shows, so everyone is scrambling to gather the show information, finish setting the performance dates and times, and assemble the logos for the shows and the sponsors. The major SCA event opens pre-registration in a week, so the big promotional material needed to be in from all the various coordinators. This one is truly a matter of "leadership by committee" and "herding cats" but I'm just the background support. Fortunately all my work is what happens *before* the event, and at the event I'll be just enjoying the site and the schedule.

This Week - Now I'm just finishing my sewing projects, and getting ready for Potrero this weekend (a large SCA camping event, down in San Diego). Oh! And my band is very nearly done recording the 3rd CD, so I've been back in the studio occasionally, getting ready to record the vocals. We have some kinks to work out in the equipment, but yup, the 3rd CD will happen!

Today's Photo Portion - (1) May Day Sciences Day: I didn't get to attend, but Meala took photos on my behalf; and (2) Darach Pirate Tourney 2005: I wanted to send a link to another friend of my favorite photo of Lynn, and realized I didn't have that album online. So I got it done.

 


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Today's Blessing That I'm Thankful For: Arye (my pet) and Bébhinn (my selkie)