Travelling Time and Space

At TMT I witnessed the probably oddest and to my mind most disappointing Laurel ceremony in my - admittedly - short SCA life. Now, I do not know if that was his wish or if there was anything else planned so I apologize if I'm judging a situation knowing only half the facts but it was the thing that got me started thinking about how would I want my laurel ceremony in case it ever happens [and I don't expect it to happen, frankly *G* waaaaay too many personal shortcomings :o)]

Thomas who we've all at one time or another run into demonstrating blacksmithing with his forge at various events was elevated to the Order of the Laurel which was great. It's just the "how" that surprised me more than anything.

Anyhow, what happened during court was that TRM called forward the Order of the Laurel and then Thomas and after a few nice words had the herald read the scroll. At this point I expected some kind of Grant of Arms or the like but never in my life would I have expected an elevation to the Order of the Laurel. Calling him to a vigil - yes. Elevating him here and there - err... ?? This was followed by a slightly uncoordinated but heartfelt hug-fest when the members of the Order welcomed him. No medallion, no cloak. Nothing.

I admit having really high expectations in regards to peerages and I want my Kings and Queens to be regal too *G* so I consider an elevation to a Peerage Order as an absolutely crowning moment full of glory of someone's SCA life. The person has excelled in their chosen field and overcome those personal shortcomings I mentioned earlier, taught and mentored and is an example of the best of the SCA. I think that deserves a bit more attention that 5 minutes in court :o)

In the highly unlikely event of my own laurelling I'd want 

- it to be a surprise for me but please allow my friends and family to be a part of it and to prepare for it. Ask me the question, send me off to vigil and elevate me the next day but please please please don't handle it like a simple armigorous award. I'm a sucker for pageantry and this is such a grand occasion *S*

- something spiffy to dress up [or down, you know, having a knighting ceremony in mind, actually] for this occasion

- a vigil

- my Master to be there and definitely as much of my family as possible

- have a party afterwards to share this with everybody who was part of this quest, to celebrate the occasion and to encourage others to take up the path too

I'm sure I can and will come up with more ideas and even more concrete ideas as time goes on. I have many years ahead of me of learning and growing and maturing so I'm in no hurry but I thought I'd mention it - just for the records :o) 

This is one of the small silk banners I painted yesterday. Isn't it pretty ? I discovered that I still had some of my old silk dyes and resist from when I painted silk scarves etc. years ago and so I only had to order some purple silk dye and some silk to get going. This banner started life as a scarf and I only trimmed the one end into a two-tail. The other end will get ties and some bias tape for added strength [and then I'll need a proper day pavilion or something to attach it too, heh]

I survived TMT.

There were moments when I started to doubt that especially when people fell face first into the dirt from heat exhaustion, dehydration and other niceties caused by the incredible heat this past weekend. I fled sunday afternoon, a bit earlier than originally planned because I could sense the first signs of my own specialty knocking at the back of my head. Prolonged exposure to bright sunlight are the cause of those weird migraine-like headache attacks I've been suffering for the past 2 years but at least now I know what to keep an eye on ... or rather, off. armed with sunglasses and hat making sure to stay put in the shade as much as possible I did quite well but sunday afternoon, enough was finally enough.

I did enjoy myself though. I missed Crown List but everything else was a lot more fun than you'd have expected at 96 degrees Fahrenheit. Our Bratwurst Orgy was fantastic and acting as the household's fire devil a lot of long missed fun. The wobbly sunshade with home sewn cover I'd brought held up valiantely and was an absolute godsend. Without it we wouldn't have lasted saturday :o)

Classes went well and only one had to be cancelled, unfortunately. It's a bummer but not much could be done about it when Penda's oxygen tank regulator broke and struck him housebound :o( He -is- going to teach his class on the local level but I would have loved to see him share his enthusiasm with a wider audience. Better luck next time. Also, the person who was supposed to receive my special assignment scroll didn't make it on site and TRMs don't do proxies and as such there's still a scroll waiting for a next chance. That of course also means you all will have to wait for that picture a little longer :o)

My own class on woven thread buttons went well and was very pleasantly spent in the cool air of a classroom and in the pleasant company of a bunch of young ladies chatting while stitching away. Next time I'll definitely try to attend the Textile Tea despite being textile arts challenged because it sounded like a lot of fun [it did conflict with my class though]. Every teacher I managed to talk to has been happy with the class they taught and most of them actually got my little thank-you token attached to the waterbottle for generously giving of their time to share their knowledge. All but two classes were taught by members of my local group which has me tickled pink with pride.

Awards were given out [quite a bunch from my hand and or with assistance from Darlene], a new order for female fighter's created and some court schtick was pulled too. Company was delightful and I managed to chat a little longer with people I hardly ever get to see.

Coming home to husband and son, airconditioning and a clean shower was good though :o) 

Now we got us a Champion for the crested helm tournament at art-sci though so that means we gotta get going on all kinds of cool heraldic display stuff :o) Wheeeeeee ! I already painted two small silk banners for this purpose and despite a little blotch here and there where the resist just wasn't as closed as I thought it was they turned out real nice. Pictures to follow later !

On may 24th Gytha North known in the SCA as Lady Gytha Haideesdottir lost her brave fight against cancer. May she rest in peace and may the memory of her and her life give her family the strength in this difficult time.

I have never met Gytha face to face but we traded a few emails a couple of years ago and only a few months ago I stumbled across her blog. She sounded fairly optimistic about the progress of her treatment and so her sudden passing came as a shock.

Good bye Gytha. Maybe in another life we will finally meet *S* 

Well, except for stitching up a new coif since I lost my old one at Cutlasses & Corsairs earlier this year. However, that little thing is coming along and everything else is finished and washed. Now all I need to do is get all my copies together, the materials for my button making class [yep, teaching that one instead of a scribaly class because nobody volunteered for a costuming class and that was just odd] and of course make sure there's food for my men ready to serve in the fridge :o)

My special scroll assignemnt for this weekend is all done and I like it. I think it turned out really nice and I'm getting it scanned for my files. I'll show it to you later, after court ;o)

TMT, Trimaris' Memorial weekend Crown Tournament, is coming up this weekend and as usual the last days before the kick off of the event are filled with last minute preparations. After a cool and comfortable last week it has turned typically blazing hot which is a pity. I hope the sun glare isn't going to be that bad but I'll definitely bring my straw hat nevermind the fact it'll probably look a little odd with my norse gear. Better looking funny than in the throes of a migraene attack caused by the bright glare of sunlight. I don't have too much problems with the heat so I'll bring my favorite fulled wool aprondress :o) I'll simply skimp on the layers of dresses and just wear the smock with it and I'll be good to go. Here's my to-do list for this week before leaving on friday night

- finish second quarter A&S report to take to TMT

- put finishing touches on special scroll assignment 

- copy hand-out and ready materials for class I'm teaching at TMT

- send copy of TMT class schedule [I'm the class coordinator] to autocrat and web-M'OM

- possibly stitch together another smock and another coif

- shop for water and event food 

- pack

Not bad, eh ? I'm pretty much all set with no major projects needing lots of work that'd keep me up until the middle of the night. true, there's stuff I -can- do before the weekend but nothing that has to be finished until then :o)

There are times when you kick back, all relaxed and mellowed out down to your toes and life is just good.

This weekend was dedicated to my family only and I think we had a pretty grand time from running around taking a look at possible big boy beds for the Finndragon who can't stop babbling about the "grosse Bett" he's going to get sometime this week to our trip to the beach this afternoon that left us besprinkled with fine sand, refreshed and happily exhausted after chasing waves and digging moats that quickly filled with the incoming sea.

The beach was also probably the only place where today's heat was bearable. "Unseasonaby hot" declares my little weather bug icon in the lower right of my browser window and yep, it's hot. Outside everything is still radiating the heat of this sunny day, the wooden floors of our porch are sunbaked and so is the asphalt and the gravel downstairs. My plants were begging for water despite the fact that I'd soaked them good just this early morning before church.

Time for an ice cold breezer with hubby on the porch :o)

Life is good :o) 

So I finally found the time to update pieces of my wardrobe such as fixing seams that were coming apart or correcting the width of my favorite apron dress's shoulder straps. Next thing on my list are a new smock for my norse wardrobe and a 15th century chemise for my alter ego's ensemble, not to mention the 26 eyelets that need to be handsewn and the sleeves *sigh*]

I think I'll fire up the torch instead ... heh *L*

Last night my SCA partners in crime and I had a wonderful little dinner-feast in honor of our patron saint and it was wonderful, food, drinks company and all :o) It'll be great to be going together to the next crown Tournament at the end of this month :o)

link

Awesome video :o)

Weekends with hubby and Finndragon are loads of fun :o)

And as icing on my piece of weekend cake I found my brandnew

superdupermegacool greencard in the mailbox today ! Yippie !! 

Remember that Sting song about the englishman in New York ? Well, I can relate, sometimes in a slightly amused way, more often though with a bitter-sweet note.

I'm born and raised german and nothing, not even the citizen test maybe sometime in the future, will change that. There is hardly a day ever when nothing reminds me of the fact that I'm an alien with different values, different views, different ideas and finding people who understand that and don't make me feel alien even more is hard. Harder than moving cross country, definitely harder than moving across the Atlantic. In those 2 1/2 years I've been living in my new home I've only managed to find a small handful of people and not really surprisingly all of them have some connection to the alien world of foreing countries, either married to another immigrant, military people who didn't stay on base only when abroad, people who have in same way tried to connect to their strange surroundings in one way or the other while they were aliens. I'm glad to have found those people and I'm sure hubby is too because it takes some of the load of trying to make me feel at home in this new strange alien country off of his shoulders.

I'm trying not to give in to temptation of listening to german radio stations, reading german newspapers, watching german/dubbed movies only because this is my new home and I'm determined to make do as best as I can and as best as I know but sometimes the reminders of how I do not fit in leave a little bad taste.

I cannot imagine what it must be like for somebody all on his/her own and illegal if it's like that for somebody with family and a greencard.

I'd love to quote a rather famous german born american physicist who developed the special and general theories of relativity and was awarded a Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921 but people are so easilly offended and so instead of posting it I'm just thinking it because it makes me feel better.

Nyah :o) 

Martine's reaction on the revelation that I've volunteered to be class coordinator for Trimaris's Memorial Tournament the last weekend in may was definitely worth it *G* and yes, there's plenty of room for lots of nifty classes so all you people who do cool stuff get in touch with me ! Share your knowledge, corrypt the world, muhahaha ... err, right ;o)

Finndragon is easilly confused by an alarm clock in our house. The funny thing about it is it makes him sleep in and while it never works when we do it on purpose, it definitely works when hubby has to get to work by 5:30am because there's breaking news just waiting to happen. Finndragon slept soundly until 11am and I'm just suspecting him of being awake and listening to Papa getting ready for work before zoning out again. It is a little odd every time he does it but I got plenty of household chores done while he snoozed happily in his shrinking crib and was all ready and set to take him to the Zoo after he had a -very- late breakfast.

The new kids area at Jax Zoo is coming together nicely and we can't wait 'till the grand opening. Finally ! Even -I- want to check out a couple of things and I know Finndragon is going to love it bunches. The excitement is only marred by the loss of Rafi, the baby giraffe, who died about 2 weeks ago :o( She was a little over a year old only when she caught this weird infection and died. We'd seen her that monday morning and she didn't look any different but according to the zoo staff wild animals tend to mask any illness which makes sense. The next day she was gone :o(

Poor thing.

Guess now it's back to hoping even more fervently that Sawadi, Rafi's former mom, is pregnant again. Yes, I happen to like giraffes a lot because they have beautiful eyes and while they look put together oddly they move with such a natural grace and elegance that I could watch them for hours [giraffes and manatee]. Of course, that ain't gonna happen because Finndragon is a man on a mission. There are places he -has- to go at the Zoo and we can't wait for Mami to finish up watching the least interesting creatures [to him] before storming off to say Hi! to the monkeys or the parakeets or to make sure the playground is still there. Heh :o)

We came back, finished up some laundry and primed Finndragon's wooden chair set together for later painting. He'd been "decorating" his natural wood chairs with markers and it started to bother me so we decided to paint them. Finndragon -loves- to help paint things and so we got the chairs primed in no time and with surprisingly little paint splatters :o) He had a small dinner, then we watched "Racing Stripes" for a bit before he started to sink against me growing heavier and heavier by the minute. Hah ! 30 minutes before his usual bed time the munchkin was in bed and out cold *G*

Now, -my- evening can begin, wheeee ! I already managed to paint his two chairs in a soft babyblue and will add details [bugs'n stuff] tomorrow when the coat is truely dry [See ? I've learned patience ! Yay me :o)]. Now I only have to make up my mind whether to fire up the torch and try some beads or to finish sewing the little frilly renaissance dress for my friend's daughter. So many fun things to do, so little time :o)

Catch y'all later ! 

What kind of question is that ? To nosh, of course !

friday hubby took me out for a splendid and thanks to a wonderful friend of ours Finndragon-less wedding anniversary dinner. we went to "Nosh" at the corner of Main and 9th since I'd heard raving reviews and we both would like to try more neighbourhood-y entertainment and our neighbourhood does offer some surprisingly nice option.

"Nosh" used to be "Henrietta's" when it was sold and reopened under new management. It's a cool place, huge with a theater and a courtyard in the back and now it presents itself as a tapas restaurant with a nice menu that's not too big and yet still makes it hard to choose from because franly there was not a single dish on it that I wouldn't have like to try.

I had the best lumpy crab cakes with avocado aioli ever. I didn't think crab cakes could be this light and fluffy and simply delicious and hubby's grouper filet came with a simple to-die-for sauce, young vegetables and a crisp little potatoe pancake on top and was as delightful as my first course. After that we split an order of mussels in a broth whitewine, shallotes and garlic with roasted ciabatta bread and were happy to discover that while the portions aren't anywhere near Olive-Garden-size you are being fed very well and there was still room left for some delectable dessert. Nosh's pear crisp was immediately declared my new everyday comfort food :o) Hubby loved it as much as I did and still hummed happily over his chocolate mousse cake thing [I wasn't paying attention to what it actually was but it had butter caramel and rich dark chocolate and a crust with nuts]. We left happy and full in a good way and even our wallet was quite delighted that we'd chosen this place.

Now, how to come up with another reason to go there ? It was soo good !

9thandmain.com

Since noon yesterday I'm a lawful permanent resident of this country with a preliminary greencard stamped into my passport and the real thing due in 10-14 days in the mail !

Considering the amount of paperwork we went through until yesterday's interview the interview itself was very anticlimatic, very nice and over quickly. Too quickly, actually, so that both hubby and I kept repeating "You're/I'm an actual resident !" and checking the passport for the stamp over and over again. That was a really nifty wedding anniversary present :o)

Speaking of nifty wedding anniversary presents. Hubby found a copy of King Rene's Book of Love for me. It's absolutely stunning :o) I've got the bestest husband in the world !

And now it's back to feeling crappy 'cause we all caught a stomach bug sometime yesterday. You wouldn't believe how stinky the Finndragon is although he doesn't seem to ahve caught the same headache-causing nausea both hubby and I acquired :o/ Bleah .... 

Not too long ago I taught a class on writing letters of recommendation and turned the hand-out into an article for "CastleLore", our local newsletter. In both I stated that once or twice -every- reign I sit down and write up a list of people that caught my eye and I intend to write a letter for. Then I start browsing the Order of Precedence to make sure I didn't pick an award that they already have.

While Finn's happily splashing about in his kiddie pool flooding the porch I managed to compile my latest list of people I'm going to write letters of award recommendations for :o). 15 total, in case you're curious, and not all from my local group. Now all I have to do is really write them which will probably happen tonight as I'm going to take Finn to the Zoo in compensation for having to accompany us to our immigration interview tomorrow. Yes, we're all excited about it :o) Hopefully they'll let me stay *G*

Back to the letters of recommendation. Thanks to Bridget, my former partner in scribal crime, I got off on the right foot because she graciously explained the whole concept to me when we met fairly early into my membership of the SCA. It's a lesson that stuck and in general, my stupid grin when the award is finally given out is just as big as that of the recipient of the award :o)

So, have you written your letter/s of recommendation already ?

Every day is a good day to write one ;o) 

I'm now the proud owner of a little medieval notepad ! Yay me :o)

Over the past couple of days I've been causing a lot of saw dust and curly cue pieces of wood flying everywhere and dragged even farther by Finndragon and his sidekick Blob and I'm surprised nobody got hurt. Without further ado I present thee the fruits of my labour :

 closed

open [with wonky wax]

It didn't turn out too bad for a first attempt especially considering my ...uh, less impressive knowledge about woodworking techniques and the fact that I used basic tools only [nope, no nifty modern power tools for me].

The wax tablet was cut from a piece of 3'' x 24'' of cherry, 1/2'' thick. It now measures 3''x4'' and rests comfortably in my palm. The wax is pure beeswax blackened with soot. I need to smoothen it out better but it works just fine [there're no wax shavings when you're trying to write]. Next thing to make would be a stylus to go with the tablet :o)