Quick Posty Posty - Let's see how quickly I can write this and how little I will or will not write. Highlights as a List:

• My sister had her baby boy last night at 11:42 pm. I'd gotten the call just before 11 that they were headed to the hospital, and a flurry of text messages just before midnight, with stats and pictures. You can see pics here: http://tinyurl.com/alq5wq
• 12th Night (an SCA fancy holiday event) was lovely. The competition for my successor as Bard of Caid was held and Don Lot Ramirez (Jeff) is now the 4th Bard of Caid.
• I attended my first peerage meeting [the peers in the SCA are the Knights, the Laurels (for artistic mastery), and the Pelicans (for outstanding service)], and now I "get it"
• I had lunch with my Mom one day followed by lunch with my contracting company recruiter the next day. Lunches out on work days are nice.
• I had my hair stylist over on my day off, two friends came over for cuts, and my roomie was there too -- we were the quintessential hair salon gossip fest, and it entertained me greatly
• Last Sunday I finally got to be at one of my sister's (three) baby showers [just five days before she delivered!] and had a great time meeting lots of my Mom's friends
• I spent several dinners at Adrienne's and Jeff's recently, although my "nephew" Benji has been asleep every time I've visited.
• I've been consuming books at an alarming rate lately. I think I missed reading through the holidays.
• I'd taken my car in for some planned maintenance, which turned into a new part that failed and had to be replaced again. But now I have a new rear spindle, new bearing, new seals, and new bushings to compliment the previous repairs with a new clutch and new battery. The car drives WONDERFULLY, if you excuse the fact that the speedometer/odometer quit again a week & a half ago. *sigh*
• I got to try my hand at making glass beads (with molten glass in flame and everything!), and LOVE IT, MASSIVELY!!! But (and here's where Tonwen breathes a sigh of relief) I have NO plans to work on glass for quite some time... I already have too many "irons in the fire" right now, but I know I plan to do this again someday. It came very naturally to me, and I look forward to doing it again (later).
• Food has been hit or miss this week. I've only cooked once (lamb in onions and garlic, rice, spinach, and diced water chestnuts.. very yummy), but I have plenty of groceries to make something this weekend.
• Yesterday and today have been plagued with moments of "I want to hide! Argh!" for a variety of reasons. Today's solution at lunch was to hole up in my car over the lunch hour, with music in my headphones and a book in my lap. Don't know why I wanted to flee the huge departmental Chinese New Year's Potluck extravaganza in my building, but my cable company screwing up two of my billings had me in tears (of anger) so that contributed to it. Yesterday's sword fighting class I skipped in lieu of dinner alone, which was a wise choice indeed. Class was apparently packed with 17 people, and I didn't feel up to crowds yesterday.

There. That's the highlights. The rest is just commentary. Happy weekend, my dears.

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Quote of the Day (QotD) - A dear friend recently wrote to me: Quitters give up when things don't go their way. The rest know they need to press on but don't know why, and are in search of the motivation to do what they want to do.

I love this, my dear. Sure, many of us have those ranting moments of "That's it! I quit!" and then most of the time we recover back to "Oh, um, okay I'm better now. Working on solutions to problems. Never mind me, move along, move along, nothing to see here."

But I tell you. This phrase will ring in my head everytime I hear the typical, "That's it! I quit!" from myself or anyone else.
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First Pelican Meeting - No, of course I'm not *really* telling you what goes on in these sooper seekrit meetings where we drink Clamato juice and put sparklies on our faces. [That's a joke AND a South Park reference, by the way.] But what I can tell you are some of the fun mundane details.

First, I got there on-time/early like I was planning. Yay me. And since it was my first meeting, the joke is always that the "new guy brings the champagne." But since I'm who I am, and I had Coffee Bar with me at Twelfth Night, I brought Coffee Bar in force. There was a wonderfully shaded outdoor porch area, so I set up the tables, all the coffee, tea, chocolate, sugars, creamers, and sat myself down behind the stove to boil water. It was nice to watch people's faces as they walked up the slight curved hill, came around a corner, and recognized my Coffee Bar. To say that they were delighted would be an understatement, especially Sir Guillaume.

Once the hot drinks were made and poured for everyone, the meeting got started and I sat with several friends. It turned out that I (a) sat on "Fiber Row" where nearly everyone was working on yarn or string: winding a skein of yarn on a nostepiner, knitting, crocheting, embroidery, spinning/plying... and (b) sat with the silly people. Of course, we tried to be well behaved, but we were also a little bit giggly. I want to sit with these friends all the time. *grin*

There was a wonderful detail to the process of the meeting that I almost wish were part of my normal life, every where I go. Sometimes things would go just so much better if we all had bright green cards and bright red cards. If someone speaking at length about a topic, rather than entertain 15 people who want to say "Me too," you just hold up your green card to say "I agree." If someone is speaking passionately but you heartily disagree, you just hold up your red card. Sometimes you need to take a simple Yes/No vote in a meeting, and a quick show of red cards / green cards makes it obvious where everyone stands on the issue.

I was beginning to picture this in business meetings, brainstorming sessions, baronial council meetings, committee meetings... it was so nice to quietly and simply support someone as they spoke by just holding up a green card. And it was simple and non-confrontational to show a red card to say "I disagree, even though I'm happy to hear you out."

Can you just imagine this in your life? [A show of your red cards or green cards will be sufficient. *giggle*]

Back to other thoughts of the day: I walked away from the whole experience feeling an entirely new weight on my shoulders. My first reaction when I was made a Peer was to think, "Dude, whoa," as well as lots of stunned thankfulness and honor. There was a little bit of the world shifting 3 inches to the left, seeing the world from a slightly different persception, but mostly I still felt like me... just answering to a different title. But this meeting made me realize a little bit more about what the job of being a Peer is about. And wow. It's not just an honor, it's a job. And I'm humbled again, to have been asked to help do this job. Wow.

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Bard of Caid Results - Greetings Caid and Bards throughout the Known Worlde!

My apologies for taking a few days to comment on this weekend's Bard of Caid competition, but it is my pleasure to write now that my successor has been announced: The Fourth Bard of Caid is Don Lot Ramirez. Congratulations, Lot! Now, to the stories and word-fame.

The competition was held so that Performer 1, 2, and 3 performed Round 1, then returning to Performer 1 again to start Round 2. The performers were randomly selected for performance order: THLady Meala Caimbeul, Lady Cecilia Lightfoot, and Don Lot Ramirez.

* Round 1, A period piece or an original piece in a period style
* Round 2, A piece the performer considers his/her best.
* Round 3, About or inspired by the one or more of the Seven Knightly Virtues: Courage, Justice, Mercy, Generosity, Faith, Nobility, Hope
* Round 4, An original composition to be composed on-site, which will include 3 words announced at competition

This year's Round #4 words were: Heart, Night, Blue ...with bonus extra credit points for the extra word "Sloth" [in honor of His Majesty Sven II, of course]

Meala recited her original poem "The Song of Andrew Baird" composed in a Byzantine poetry form in Round 1. For Round 2, she sang a Ballad for (as she said) "love gone murderous" (selected by Her Majesty, from 3 possible songs), a version of "Maddy Groves." In Round 3 she sang an original composition she had written to commemorate the elevation of Kelan McBride to the Order of the Pelican (written while she was Bard of Dun Or). Finally, for Round 4 she told a tale of "The Sloth and the Dog" (modeled after an Aesop Fable).

Cecilia performed three pieces on her harp: in Round 1 a period piece called "Alle Psallite Cum Luya," for Round 2, an original composition called "Toccata in A minor", and in Round 3, a piece that invoked Mercy and Grace, "Kyrie Eleison." Her original compostion in Round 4 was a song "Mortimer was a very fine Sloth," which she also accompanied on harp.

Lot presented a French poem by Bertran de Born called "Warcry" or "The gay time of Spring pleases me well" in Round 1. For Round 2, he performed the dramatic poem "Absolute Justice" by Henri de Gautier (an SCA composer). Round 3, inspired by the Knightly virtues and Prowess upon the field, was "Song of the Vanguard" by Duke Conn MacNeill (another SCA composer) which he accompanied on drum. And finally, his sang his Round 4 musical composition, a piece he called "Advice to a Young Man."

All in all, it was a very difficult decision, and all three performers brought much glory to Caid and to themselves. I hope you would congratulate all three of them for a fine performance, and for meeting the challenge of this competition.

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Today's Blessing That I'm Thankful For: Camilo, a kind and thoughtful work cubicle roomie