Travelling Time and Space

When I joined the SCA a mere 4 years ago I never thought I'd ever waste a thought on paper plates. These days I'm finding myself talking about them more often than I think they warrant.

Mind you, I was born and raised in germany, a country where trash is indeed expensive and recycling an absolute -must- if you don't want to go broke trying to pay your trash bills. If you aren't being careful you can easilly find yourself paying a stunning $100 or more a month for the privilege of somebody taking care of your garbage.

That being said maybe people have an easier way of understanding why I shun paperplates, not only in the SCA but also in mundane life. If you're over at my place on a dinner invitation or party expect real china and real cutlery. Oh, and real glasses [although I have been contemplating getting some of that unbreakable glassware for drinks because clumsy toddlers and glasses on hardwood floors just don't go well together]. I'm simply very reluctant to cause any unnecessary trash and using all this party stuff is a great way to bump up your level of garbage production in an instant. Yes, it is practical. Yes, I do hate doing dishes. Yes, I dislike waking up to mounts of dirty dishes after a party but it's easilly taken care of especially with a little help from a hubby and/or a friend. But I also hate paying incredible bills every month for somebody to make the trash go away. {Did I mention that there is a version of 'paperplate' for fairs and carnivals that's actually a waffle without taste for things like french fries, etc. ? ]

No such problem in the States. Garbage is still cheap and so are paper plates and plastic cutlery for all kinds of parties. The variety of designs is incredible. It's not going to cost you an arm and a leg to use a bigger trashcan than absolutely necessary and clean up after parties is a breeze if you have a trash bag that's big enough.

That number ?

Well, that's the number of results you get when you google "feast gear". Granted paper plates get you a mindblowing 29.700.000 results but almost 4 million webpages dealing with feast gear in one way or shape isn't shabby. So why is it that I keep seeing more and more paperplates and plastic products at SCA events ? Did feast gear go out of fashion and I just didn't notice ? Why do people tease me when I sit down in the feasthall happily spooning my lunch with a wooden spoon from my turned wood bowl and drinking from my silver goblet ? Why do people think "bring your own mug" speaks of a horrible sense of hospitality ? What happened to scouting fleamarkets and thriftstores and yard sales for pewter wares and goblets and plates and mugs and bowls and everything else that falls under the category feast gear ?

I vividly remember one early morning at Nibelungen War. One of my magic "The Dream" moments. The sun had just risen and there was still the early morning mist wavering over the soft curves of the valley where we camped. Medieval style tents from A-frame and marquee to round pavilion were quiet, banners waving lightly in a little breeze. Bridget and I had just gotten some fresh firewood and rekindled our encampment's firepit to brew some tea and so we were sitting there, our hands cupping mugs with steaming tea while we watched the encampment slowly wake from peaceful slumber.

No plastic in sight. It was beautiful.

Feast gear is in most cases dirt cheap and one of the easiest and most affordable ways to help The Dream on its feet. It adds to the ambiance of any event, not just Feast. And more often than not it helps people into their personas. Paper plates do neither and what's the point of being a member of a club that calls itself an educational organisation that studies and recreates pre-17th century Europe if even bringing and using some appropriate dinner ware is too much of an effort ?

All you see on this picture [except for the narrow wooden plate with decorative carving I brought from germany - I don't remember what I paid for it] were collected over several weeks from various places such as thriftstores, fleamarkets, yard sales and cost less than $6 total including fabric for napkin and tablecloth. Yes, most of it is more peri-oid than period and for a much more generous budget you can get very nice replicas of the real stuff but hey *G* my cheapest feastgear beats your most expensive paper plates anytime ;o) Yes, sometimes there's not a chance for doing dishes at an event but it's no big deal if you bring a plastic bag and zip your feast gear into it cleaning it when you come home [or you could keep a small cloth bag with a sponge, some dishwashing detergents, a small container with bleach and a dishtowel with your feastgear and bring some kind of bowl for some water and you're all set]

My Dream { you know the dream with a capital D } does not come with paper plates. It comes with silken banners fluttering in the breeze, brightly colored tapestries, lords and ladies dressed in fashion of bygone times and deeds of honor and valor.

So now that you know about how to help my Dream - how can I help yours ?

So here I am, wide awake and slurping my first cup of tea while everybody else is still snoozing happily. Finndragon woke up just shy of 7am and snuggled into the big bed with us quietly asking for some milk. When I returned from the kitchen armed with what equals my first cup of tea for Finndragon, both my men had zonked out and were peacefully asleep *L*

I'm cursed, however, with the once awake no go to bed again curse *sigh* That's what gets you the early morning posts and emails :o)

Finndragon will need a tunic or two for this upcoming weekend. He has outgrown some of his stuff and I think I can salvage the red woolen tunic by turning it into a little coat to last us through this month. Then it's going to go someplace else I guess. His fancy 15th century german garb I'm planning on sewing for him will have to wait until summer so it's going to be ready for the fall season. I'm too busy with my art-sci entries and other projects to devote too much time to sewing at the moment. I haven't even finished my blue wool kirtle yet but I guess that's because I'm scared of getting started on those 26 handsewn eyelets *groan* 

At least I've finally made the mental switch from winter= slow season to summer=slow season judging by my evergrowing todo-list *L*

More about that later :o) 

Not quite a week and three more fish later [Dory I, II,III and Mo I, II] there is no more fish tank in this house and won't be for another couple of years. While Neo I and Dory II died because Finndragon wanted to share his absolutely favorite treat "bodylotion" I have no idea why the next three went belly up. I know, however, that I don't like creatures dying in my care. Not even when they are only a dime each and don't have any fur. So after flushing the last one today around noon I declared our house a live fish free zone for the next couple of years.

My little Coronation project is done : a cute little handstitched linen pouch lined with linen and embroidered with a little viking "duck" [well, bird I guess although it does have duck-like qualities] in couching technique and filled with 2 double-stranded bead festoons [the bead necklaces strung betwen the tortoise brooches of the female norse dress] and half a dozen beaded spiral rings. Pictures will follow shortly :o)

Other than that not much is new. We had a little get together last night and swapped stories and listened to Cs Gulf Wars stories and got to oh and ah over her loot. Nnnnnnnnnnnnnnice stuff :o) Yeah, I think I'd like to go next year although right now priotrity is getting my papers finally so I can go back to germany for a visit. It's been more than a year now :o/

Years ago even after becoming a roleplaying game nut I got hooked on ElfQuest and of course ended up joining a couple of fan art places and even had my own elfwood gallery.

Elves and all other kinds of roleplaying game characters were all over my place, doodled on every imaginable medium that'd take pencil or ink. While today the computer appears to be the preferred choice of coloring I had tons of beautiful prismacolor markers some of which are still around. Friends commissioned drawings of their roleplaying characters from my hand. Well, my roleplaying game times are over, mostly for the lack of a good gang to play with, the handbooks are collecting dust and the Finndragon is using my prismacolor markers while I tend to paint more medieval stuff with the occasional newsletter artwork in ink tossed into the mix of calligraphy and illumination.

That, however, might change with the author of a children's book being interested in having me do the illustrations :o) After talking on the phone for several times, trading artwork and meeting for some more talking yesterday my next task is now to compose a few preliminary sketches for the book to better present it to a potential publisher.

Nothing might come out of this but it sounds like fun and is refreshingly new and different and thus worth a shot, I think. Funny what can happen if you let new people into your life...

Coronation is coming up and for that I've started a little in-between project : a small linen pouch with a norse duck [yep, that's what it looks like] embroidered in Bayeaux stitch to hold a bunch of wirework rings. Depending on whether I have to make new garb for the Finndragon or not after today's garb check to see if his old garb still fits I might or might not have the time for another pouch.

Finn ? Garb ? Yes. I'm planning on bringing Finndragon along to Coronation, not only because Tim can't go because he's working saturdays at the moment but also because the moAS meeting is too early in the morning to make daytripping feasable. So I'm contemplating driving over on friday, staying for the night and driving home sometime saturday just to make sure we'll get -some- sleep that weekend.

I'll let you know how it went :o) 

To me it's a mystrey !

If the layout of this blog changes for you every time you stop by to read it, well, cool for you I guess because I have no idea why that is. I'm not doing it, nope. I haven't touched the layout options of this thing since tblog did their little update and all I did was pick a simple template I can live with without going blind or getting knots in my brain :o)

So since then it hasn't changed. At least not on my end. 

Yesterday hubby and Finndragon went for a ride swinging by at Wallyworld to pick up munchies while I was teaching my first class of a series that ties illumination to calligraphy of various eras. We had just settled down to tackle our potluck dinner when they returned a very excitedFinndragon possessively clutching a clear plastic bag containing 2 little goldfish.

Yep, right. My hubby admitted it was the only way to get Finndragon out of the pet zone with the fishtanks *L*

Finn is very excited about his fish and once they were out of the bag and in a little glass bowl they started to relax. Well, at least for a while. Short of getting rid of the fish there's nothing that will keep chubby toddler hands out of the bowl for long in that first day or two of excitement because he wants to hug them and then there are the cats who are very interested in the newcomers as well. After all that stress those tiny creatures had to go through I was actually surprised to not find them belly up this morning. They seem to be doing okay, Finn was happy as can be about feeding them this morning and now he's taking his nap and they should too ;o)

Oh, he calls them 'mo and Dory. 'mo is actually his short version of Ne-mo but he always drops the first syllable [he did that with "Elmo" too at first]. Dory is just as orange as 'mo but that doesn't seem to bother Finndragon at all.