Saturday, we got up far too early, rolled ourselves in the car, and headed south to Long Beach. Ken finished hand-sewing the trim on Meg's giornia on the way. It's an SCA cliché that people are always finishing up their garb on the way to events, although Ken commented that this was possibly the first time he had done so. I pointed out that that was because his normal routine was to stay up all night the night before to finish it. (I, conversely, made a personal rule years ago that if new garb isn't wearable by a week before the event, it won't be finished. Much less stress that way.)

Ken had printed Mapquest directions to the event but hadn't brought the CP directions, and given that the park was several miles long and bisected by a major road, this was a problem. We called Cat to get specifics, and learned that her day had started very badly. Seems she left her car windows down the night before, and someone had helped themselves. They'd taken only the faceplate of her stereo and her big bag of spinning and spinning supplies. Both things totally useless to the thieves (it's unlikely they'll recognize that anything is of worth in the spinning supplies), but given that one of her doors was open, it's probable that they were interrupted mid-thievery. Much of the spinning had great personal meaning to Cat, so please join me in wishing that the thieves get big oozing pustules on their private parts. Or anywhere on their bodies, really.

It was still early when we found the actual site, and we got prime parking along the road (which was two lanes in each direction, plus a turn lane in the middle). Meg and Matt hadn't arrived yet; we called and they had about half an hour to go, so we went off to grab some food. Fast food breakfasts uniformly suck, and I knew my breakfast burrito would come back to haunt me later, but at least it contained something resembling protein.

We arrived back at the park to find the lanes on the park-side of the street blocked off with cones and police cars and ambulances.

My worst fears were realized when we discovered that the car in the middle of the mess was Meg and Matt's. Thankfully, Meg was already out of the car, and the paramedics were helping Matt (who was conscious but groggy). Thankfully, too, this happened at an SCA event-a vast number of people were calmly taking notes, snapping pictures of the damage, and giving statements to the police.

Short version is that the woman responsible (non-SCA) was either taking migraine medication or reaching for her cell phone on the floor of her car, or both (there was also talk of a bicyclist she may have swerved to miss, but none of the witnesses saw that). She sideswiped Aliskye's car, destroying the front axle, then plowed into Meg and Matt's car, which was pushed against Miriam's van. Thankfully, Miriam hadn't put on her emergency break, so the van moved forward and thus there was less impact for Meg and Matt, nor was she unloading things from the back of her van at the time. (The van had a few scratches on its bumper, but was otherwise okay.) Also thankfully, Meg and Matt had just gotten there, but hadn't gotten out (the first thing she would have done was lean in the back to get baby Aurora out).

Turns out the woman's car was in the shop because she'd had an accident last week. Cops took her license when they learned that little tidbit of information. I have to admit, I briefly felt sorry for her, sitting alone while SCA members swarmed around taking care of everyone else. But it was brief. I also really wanted to kick her.

(I know I'm writing this in a very distant style, not consciously, but I think that's what my subconscious requires. [pokes psyche, just to hear it squeak])

Julian came over to be with us, and we ended up being responsible for her for the next few hours while Meg and Matt were at the hospital getting checked out. They're both fine, although Matt did hit the steering wheel and was on some goooood Vicodin for the rest of the day. We unloaded stuff from their car (no longer a Prius, but now a Mobius [g]) into ours, and Ken went to the hospital to sit with them and then bring them back to the site when they were released.

[deep breath]

Meg's Laurelling ceremony was moved from Opening Court to Closing Court (and bless the Laurels for coming up with alternate solutions if that wasn't possible). I helped with the vigil, sitting outside the pavilion and giving people the book to write in and trying to keep the line organized and moving. I didn't get to talk to Meg, alas, but I wrote in the book, and I didn't have much else to say, and I pretty much would have started sobbing anyway, which probably would have caused her to cry. My main goal for most of the day was to not fall apart (although I'd warned Ken that I would need some quiet time in the afternoon to do so).

I did cry a little during the ceremony, because Meg looked so incredibly beautiful, and it was a long overdue recognition. But I also laughed, because although the entire thing was in Latin, the herald (the Master Bruce Draconarius) somehow made it entirely understandable with inflections and hand motions. Meg stayed in persona and essentially had to have everything “translated” into Latin for her. (One of the things she was getting Laurelled for was Latin translation, see, so it was funny on so many levels.) Did I mention she was glowingly beautiful?

We found someone to take them to the friend's house where they were staying (curse my snazzy but tiny sports car!), and said friend was home from her trip and would be providing food for them, so we said our farewells. I'm not going to talk about that any more because I will start crying again. (What's weird is that they're not “gone,” because they're still in LA for a few more days. I talked to Meg Monday night and she wanted to take us out to dinner, but she was so tired and frazzled that I refused, because I didn't want to add more stuff to her life. Meg, I know you're reading this. Of course you know I want to see you. But more than that, I want you to take it easy and get lots of sleep. No stress allowed.)

We went out to dinner at Hof's Hut with Cat, because we wanted a bit of a relaxing, sit-down meal before getting on the road. It turned into a very pleasant, silly, reminiscing kind of dinner. All good. And then we drove home, brought in the ice chest and unpacked it, took off all our clothes, and fell into bed without bothering to shower. Fire bad, tree pretty, bed goooood.

Sunday, Ken woke with a rotten cold. He had planned to go back down to Long Beach to help Cat and Mel move into their new apartment, but he was in no shape to do that. In fact, he didn't get off the sofa all the day, which was a good thing, because he needed the rest, and he did feel better Monday. I'm sure part of it was being so wiped out from helping Meg & Matt pack, and then all the mayhem on Saturday.

I had a phone confab with Teresa about the schedule for editing the book, and then I spent the afternoon trying to finish it. I had a bit of a sinus headache and no doubt some residual stress, so it was slow going. We both basically took it easy, watching some TV, eating homemade pesto-and-feta pizza, etc.

It really was one of those weekends when you need a day or two to recover from the weekend before you go back to work.