Travelling Time and Space

I've always wanted to visit New Orleans.

I've always wanted to stroll through the French Quarter and eat the -real- cajun cuisine.
I've always wanted to see the grandeur and splendour of the beautiful old mansions, learn about their ghost and other haunts.
I've always wanted to quietly admire the peaceful decadence of the old cemeteries with their huge trees spreading their branches across many a tomb and silent angels carved from ageless marble.

Nevermore.
It's all gone.

I have no doubt that New Orleans will be reborn in sweat and tears and blood some day but it's never going to be the "Big Easy" we've known and taken for granted for so long. How could it ever be "easy" again ?

I've never been through an actual hurricane, thanks be God, we're in a lucky spot here in Jacksonville, but if I ever consider sitting out a hurricane strength 5 in my little wooden house please please beat me over the head with a big stick, quick and hard.

Well, to be honest it was two days instead of one since I had to spread all the work throughout two of Finndragon's naptimes and one evening. Without Finn and 'just' being a homemaker it would have been a true dress in a day dress :)

Tuesday's A&S Night turned into a "Sticth'n Bitch" since only girls were present : C., K. C. and myself. While I was handstitching some stuff on my Cranach-dress and C. was cutting the fabric for two new chemises the rest only kept us company and we talked and talked and talked ... At one point C. mentioned that Darlene's birthday was coming up and I felt I had to make something for her.

Darlene is one of the sweetest and helpful people I've met. She likes to stay in the background and I have to nudge her forward or else people would consider her some kind of Brownie or other houseelf quietly working when nobody is looking.

So in a moment of goodnaturd insanity I decided to make her a dress for 20th Year, Trimaris's anniversary event. I know she would maybe daytrip and that she wouldn't have any new garb for this occasion [She doesn't really sew and is more comfortable with it when somebody is holding her hand; that's the reason her norse garb isn't done yet, workshop or not *L*].
Wednesday morning, during Finn's nap, I eyeballed the changes I needed to do to my own pattern, then I cut the fabric and pinned everything together. Wednesday evening and Thurday morning nap saw me sewing everything together, and thursday night I was able to bring a dress to the Shire meeting for a first and final fitting *G* It fit except for the shoulderstraps that were too long, and she loves it :)

While the dress probably won't win many points for authenticity because of all the shortcuts I had to do to make it possible in such a short time it looks good and it looks very cute on her. Yes, I do have seen plaid fabrics in late 15th/early 16th century german dresses but only as underskirts peeking out from underneath the top skirt. Yup, the sleevs are not lined and I used trim instead of extensive time-consuming slashing and constructing sleeves, but again she looks good in it and it looks good on her :)

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And she will feel pretty at the event :) She even has the right headcovering to wear *G*

Here's a little list of what I did the past months ... heh, at least the things that I remember *L*

Costuming :
1 Cranach-style dress [green and black velvet with beading on stomacher]
1 Cranach-style dress [green cotton, white linen]
1 brocade caul
1 velvet Tudor cap with feathers
1 Landsknecht pants with slashed designs and slashed codpiece, black lined with red
1 men's renaissance shirt
1 apron-dress handstitched with handfinished seam decoration
1 norse underdress with handfinished seam decoration
1 adult norse "poofy" pants
1 adult norse regular pants
1 child norse "poofy" pant
1 adult norse tunic
2 child norse tunic


Calligraphy & Illumination:
6 award scrolls as commission for the Kingdom of Drachenwald, various styles
8 award scroll blanks for the Kingdom of Trimaris
planned and lead the Pennsic giftbasket project to provide 2 booklets per SCA Kingdom with the Kingdom Arms, painted 12 Kingdom Arms throughout the entire project [rest finished by the other Castlemere Scribes]

Classes taught :
"How to make period buttons" Shire Meeting august 2005
" Norse headwear" A&S Night july 2005
"Illumination 101" Scribal Tea june 2005

Other :
started making glassbeads with a hothead torch and glassrods
1 marquee tent
several pennants and banners
A&S chancellor for Panhandle Skirmishes october 2005
Autocrat Scriptorium november 2005

When I was little it was quite popular to have a diary. You know, the cute little books with a lock and a little fancy key. Well, being a paperhog I had several of those cute little books, even later after school I lost my heart - at least for a moment long enough to pick the book and pay at the cash register - to a little diary booklet with lots of blank pages and the sweet drawing of a little winged fairy on the cover. I never lost my heart to writing a diary though and never seemed to have the time to sit down on a fairly regular basis to write down what was going on in my life.

Looking back I think it would be nice to have small journals with pre-teen and teen scrawl, doodles and other things you could possibly have done to a diary along with the challenge of finding a place where my mother would never find it.

[ Mind you we're talking about the woman who can 'see' through the wrapping of birthday and christmas presents. Yes, even through faux cardboard boxes meant to hide the true present. How I have no idea :) ]

Today "blogging" is the thing and oddly enough, despite family and household chores and lots and lots of projects, I now manage to find the time to simply type up what's bothering me these days. Granted, some of my secrets stay in my head where, frankly, they belong most of the time but it's become a rather nice habit to simply sit down for a moment in the early mornings or late in the evenings and reflect and vent and babble about stuff. Once you get through the first month it's not so bad :)

... please let us move to Tampa, please ... I'm doomed amidst Tussies of the worst sort ...

As you can tell I've been pretty busy this past month, even busier than usual which kept me from keeping you uptodate :) Sorry 'bout that !

Now that our german guest is back home life could return to normal if it weren't for so much stuff that's come up in the past weeks.

Right now everybody including myself is scrambling to finish up preparing for the anniversary event in Trimaris next weekend. Garb and tent need finishing touches and there's so much other stuff I'd like to have but won't get done in time for this event.

I did volunteer to run the A&S Competition at Panhandle Skirmishes in october.

I'm autocrat for Castlemere's Scriptorium on the first weekend in november and since we have only 2 months to prepare everything needs to be pushed and be purpose driven at this point of planning the event.

Finn's birthday is coming up this monday and our babydragon will turn 2. Amazing, eh ? I can't believe it's been 2 years already since he was born into our lives *S*


With all that's coming up in the next few months it was actually nice to have some sort of 'vacation' while our guest was here. We spent a lot of time on the beach and doing touristy stuff which was great. You, too, learn how spoiled you are by your beautiful weather and the exotic landscape and being so close to white sandy beaches and warm water to splash in *S* Before, aftyer and on our trip to Orlando we got friend though with the temperatures rising to hot and humid 106 degrees. That's when you cheer the orca whales on to splash harder for some much needed refreshing cold shower *L*

SeaWorld was absolutely fantastic and now we're all dying to see Discovery Cove to swim with the dolphins. Just where to get all that money ? Disneyworld was a lot of fun too despite the fact that everything was very familiar to me from my earlier trips to Disneyland in California.

Anyhow, my house calls for cleaning and the cats are giving me the "Have you noticed the litterbox lately ?" look so I'll have to postpone the rest of this update for later :)

We'll be driving to Orlando to do the tourist thing on wednesday or thursday the very latest but here's a little update for you all before you wonder what happened to me ;)

Having a touristy guest is fairly time-consuming and quite exhausting. Finn needed to catch up on a lot of sleep after the first week already and I, well, I had to catch up on some housecleaning chores. Everyday we're out visiting something or at least heading out to the beach despite the heat. We've been to the Jax Zoo, Amelia Island where we toured the Intracoastal by boat which was nifty, Fernandina Beach and yesterday we went to see the Jacksonville Suns play baseball. It was our first baseball game and we all enjoyed it. Baseball seems to attract families; it's neat, tidy, clean and sort of slow which probably makes it easy for kids and non-sport-fanatics to follow the happenings even with only so much as a half-grasp of the rules *G* Today it's church and my Shire's bragging rights tournament for the fencers and maybe shopping for a baseball glove and ball as a souvenir for our guest to take home.
Monday and tuesday I'm thinking "beach" with tuesday sporting an A&S Night so she gets exposed to some english speaking people :)

And then it's off to Disney- and Seaworld !

On a SCA=project related note, the Cranach-dress is done and I 'm going to pose for pictures with it soon. My mother-in-law bought the fabric as a birthday gift for me and I promised her pictures of the finished dress before the event at which I'm going to wear it officially for the first time. I can't wait ! It's preeeeetty :) even the feathery hat *G* Now I'm working on the tent. It's all measured and lined up properly but somehow I managed to run out of thread and so I -need- to go to Joann's to remedy that shortcoming first before I can continue. As soon as it is stitched up again I have plans for a vest and a hat for hubby and some Landsknecht garb for the Finndragon *G* Time permitting of course.

Busy, busy, busy. Lots of shopping, lots of sightseeing. Went to each and zoo and got sunburned at both.

The dress is finished, tent is next. 

It's been a busy weekend what with having a visitor eager to check out all kinds of things and us trying to show off our corner of the world to its best advantage.

- daytripped to the beach and had a real burger at Sonic's complete with rollerskating waitresses ;)
- daytripped to bright and sunny St Augustine for some spanish-tinged history and beautiful architecture
- served an all-american breakfast
- had a fun bar-b-q with lots and lots of food and german-american Kauderwelsch *G*
- took her to church to show her how different it is here
- went discovering the nifty and huge St John's Towncenter shopping mall and managed to see half of it [ guess we'll have to do the other half another day ;) ]

Today is monday and for me that's my big household chores battleday. There're just things I'll have to do, guest or not and I might ask her how she feels about exploring downtown all by herself. There's the Landing, all kinds of small stores and restaurants and galleries and museums to entertain her and she wouldn't have to wait for me to finish laundry and sweeping floors n' stuff.

On the garb front, the bodice is now fully lined as is the plastron so I get to sew them together and add the skirt today. Then I'll have to sew the sleeves to the bodice and add a few finishing touches and the dress will be done ! That leaves me 3 weeks to stitch the tent back together and come up with some kind of toilet enclosure *G* Not bad, so far it looks like I'm going to meet my deadline :)

Yes, it's that magical time of the year again when the Darwin Awards are bestowed upon deserving members of our society. Here he is then, the glorious winner.

2005 Darwin Award Winners
Grand Prize Winner

1. When his 38-caliber revolver failed to fire at his intended victim
during a holdup in Long Beach, California, would be robber James Elliot
did something that can only inspire wonder. He peered down the barrel and
tried the trigger again. This time it worked.

However, I found my absolute favorite with the "honorable mentions"

After stopping for drinks at an illegal bar, a Zimbabwean bus driver
found that the 20 mental patients he was supposed to be transporting from
Harare to Bulawayo had escaped. Not wanting to admit his incompetence,
the driver went to a nearby bus stop and offered everyone waiting there
a free ride. He then delivered the passengers to the mental hospital,
telling the staff that the patients were very excitable and prone to bizarre
fantasies. The deception wasn't discovered for 3 days.

... before it's off to bed :)

The sleeves from hell are finished as is the beading on the plastron of the bodice. I'm in the midst of lining the bodice after deciding that the raw edges of fabric along with the unravel-y velvet simply don't do well just whipstitched into place. Gnnnph ...

Got a possible date scheduled for Scriptorium; however, it's not the one we'd opted for [too much competition] and I'm slowly starting to think that simply forgetting it for this and planning it for next year would be best. We'll see what the others think ...

We were at the beach today and got the "americana feeling" ordering burgers and soda at Sonic's *G* Yes, waitresses on rollerskates and drive-in fast-food-joints are very american in german eyes ;)

Since yesterday the german population in our household has doubled. The level of sluggishness due to jet-lag and other sleep deprivation has doubled too since we got back home from our trip to Orlando to pick her up by midnight, a good 4 hours later than originally planned - flight delays and customs be thanked :)

Today we spent mostly catching up on sleep and getting acclimated to Florida weather and the blessings of modern climate control *g* Then, after Finn's naptime and a quick lunch we drove around so she could see where on earth she'd ended up. Tomorrow we're going to go to the beach to catch some sun and a couple of waves for Finn.

What's really fun though is that she is an absolute non SCA-person. She's never heard about it or gotten involved and - funny, funny - doesn't do any kind of craft. Sooo ... the one question that's constantely on my mind, amusingly so, is "What do you do all day ???" if you're not into costuming/calligraphy/ill umination/research/archer y/heavy combat/brewing, etc. She doesn't seem to read much either because she didn't get ecstatic about our well-sorted and developed library either and didn't show any twitches of excitement over the new Harry Potter book displayed and ready for reading on the coffee table [it's Tim's turn at the moment, and yes, I liked it very much].

Odd, eh ?

Other than that she is very nice and we get along quite well, considering the fact we've known eachother now for a day and a half :) I'm trying to make her stay as relaxed and enjoyable as possible and I think it's going to be fun. We're planning on going to St Augustine and of course do the Disney trip to Orlando with a detours to SeaWorld as well - stuff I haven't seen yet either and I've been here for more than 1 1/2 years now *L*

Anyhow, this sluggish and tired german needs to go to bed. Good night !

The sleeves from hell are almost completely done - took long enough if you're asking me. The bodice is hemmed and trimmed and waiting for sleeves and skirt. The skirt is already hemmed and ready for pleating.

And my house is a mess *G*

We did, however, get most of the painting done except for a patch that needs new plaster first which Roberto is going to take care of first thing tomorrow morning. Then the ceiling gets a second coat, the patch gets painted over and Finn's room is as good as new. Well, actually better because now the walls are a soft cheery blue instead of a dingy hospital-room pink *G*

Well, off to clean up the worst and take care of dinner :) Tada !

2,5 more days until the arrival of our german guest and the house is a mess *G*

Today, the sheetrock of the waterdamaged ceiling in Finn's room got removed and Roberto the handyman is hoping to be done by either tonight or tomorrow morning. Lena, our landlady, stopped by to look at paint chips and decide on a new color for Finn's room :) She's such a sweetheart. Finn's room is going to be painted a light cheery blue with white trim - awesome !

Hopefully, all this will be done by wednesday or thursday since we're running one bedroom short. Finn's been sleeping in the den/guestroom since the leak and having him sleep with us while our guest moves into the den will be difficult enough. Oh well, keep your fingers crossed.

The sleeves from hell are almost done and I have already decided on how to decorate the bodice's plastron. It involved lots of tiny mother of pearl and brass beads. Eh ... The headcovering is done [caul and cap] but the cap definitely needs more feathers for effect. I already checked Michael's but without a 40% off coupon I'm not going to buy a white featherboa for added "fluff" *G* Gotta wait until next sunday then :)
I think I'll skip the second lining because just looking at the thick velvet makes you break into sweat *L*

More later - got laundry to do !