two more stories mailed

So, another full and fun weekend.

Friday evening Ken returned home from Portland, although I promptly lost him to his cell phone and a variety of work-related calls. Even so, we managed to have dinner (salad with pasta) and head out to the local Newcomers Meeting. We went largely because it was being held at Ceridwen and Rowen’s house, and they’re the Event Stewards for Great Western War this year, and I wanted to touch base with them regarding various questions I had re: my position of Publicity Coordinator. Once we finished going over stuff, we ended up hanging out and chatting until midnight. Eep. We came home and pretty much collapsed.

We reluctantly crawled out of bed Saturday morning and headed to a local event, Unbelted Tourney, which is a tournament for all non-Knight fighters. They were in dire need of field heralds, so Ken spent the day doing that. I helped with the A&S display and entered an embroidered hanky in the contest. I helped served the lunch that was for sale. I passed out gobs of flyers for Black Oak Lodge. And I finished a second lucet cord and passed it on to Their Majesties, who are trying to give every award medallion on a handmade cord.

That caused an amusing moment. I had one cord finished, and one almost finished between the Newcomers Meeting and sitting in the A&S pavilion. Later in the day, I tracked down Thea, the Kingdom MOAS, and let her know that she’d have two cords by the end of the day. Well, I said that in earshot of the Queen, who first clapped her hands with glee, then looked at me sternly (when I said I had “this much” farther to go on the second cord) and demanded to know what I was doing standing around and not working. I tried to tell her about all the other things I’d been working on, but she was having none of it. I worked on a third cord during Closing Court, but I don’t know if she noticed. Hee hee.

The plan after the event was that we’d hook up with our friends Lasairfhiona and Wulfric (aka the easier-to-spell Chris and Bruce). Miscommunication abounded, but we ended up going out for suuuushi with them and another couple (Giacomo and Algitha), and then they (C and B) came over for hot tubbing. Much hilarity ensued. Until 2 a.m. I think we all knew it was time to call it a night when we started quoting (in voices) our favourite South Park lines…

Thus, today we slept in, and lo, it was good. We kept the Super Bowl coverage on in the living room while we did a bit of work in the study, in the hopes we would catch Styx’s tailgate party contribution of a Queen medley (We Will Rock You/We are the Champions). Alas, no Styx. [pout] However, both the medley and a third song from their upcoming album are available for download at www. styxworld.com. There’s also a link to a review of the new album, Cyclorama. Folks are calling it the best album since Pieces of Eight or Paradise Theatre. Damn!

We thus had a slow start to the day. I had a low-grade sinus headache all day, perhaps because I was channelling Sarah’s sinus infection (stranger things have happene between us, believe me). I caught up on computer work and got the first Great Western War announcement written, approved, and sent (go me).

At some point in mid-afternoon I had a minor meltdown, mostly triggered by the fact that Ken was flying to Boston on a red-eye tonight, after only arriving back from Portland on Friday evening, and we had so much to deal with. As a result, we tried to clean the bedroom (which had a pile of paperwork that he needed to go through), but we realised that in order to do that, we had to reorganise the garage, because much of the SCA gear needed to be there while we finished the library renovations (everybody following that?) The garage is very neat now, in comparison to what it used to be, with two metal bookshelves for SCA stuff. We also put a two-shelf bookcase on the desk in the study, over The Contraption (colour printer/scanner/copier) and rearranged in here. Went through paperwork, etc. Bedroom neater, but lots more filing to do. Ken left. Called twice, second time to say he used his upgrade coupons and has a first-class seat, so he’ll sleep well. Yay.

We got a letter from my niece Baylee, who’s at National Guard Training Camp. It sounds like she’s doing really well there, which makes me extremely happy. She’s been through some rough times—or maybe I should say she’s been rough—and this may just be the best thing for her.