Weekend Update - Birthday weekend
It’s been ages since I did anything to celebrate my birthday. No really, positively ages since I tried to have a party or anything. This year I decided that I wanted German food, and I wanted to try some place new. Marc had suggested the Student Prince in Springfield, so I mentioned it to ravena_kade and allgudallthetim and got it on their calendars. Then I did a Facebook invite to my Guild peeps, and some other folks (like guy_todd) that I thought might be a good addition to the mix. Because when you’re throwing a dinner party (or a birthday luncheon) you think about the mix of people, and if they’ll all get along or not. I knew not everyone would be able to make it, and even the night before, I had a lot of maybe’s and non-answers, but I figured as long as I had a couple people it would be fine.
Friday Jennifer took the train up to Lowell. She arrived at 5:30, and while I hadn’t accounted for rush hour traffic through town (how often do I drive through Lowell at 5:30 on a Friday? Never…) I wasn’t too late to pick her up. We headed off to Panera for dinner and lots of conversation. I made a quick stop at Hannaford’s for waffle fixins (eggs and wheat germ) and then we headed home. First we headed into the sewing room and raided the costume closet for medieval gear for Saturday. We played a quick game of dress up to try things on, then headed back into the living room to watch Iron Man 2.
Saturday morning I was up early (surprising since I’ve been having so much trouble levering my arse out of bed lately). Since she’s been sick, I didn’t want to wake Jenn up until I had to, so I went spelunking in the Master-Bath-that-is-a-closet to pull out some feast gear for the dayboard. When I opened my wooden chest, on top of the tablecloth was the wrought iron fork that I thought I’d lost (which isn’t Alena’s or Kris’s, which means it probably belongs to Tom). *whew* I was smart enough to put it away before Miss Mini could use it for a kitteh toy and lose it!
I did a little quick ironing (a linen head wrap and the linen gown I was loaning to Jennifer) and then I went out to wake up my sleepy guest. While she was grabbing a quick shower I checked MapQuest and found out that rather than an hour and a half drive, they thought it was a two hour drive. Drat! So we quickly got dressed and grabbed breakfast at Dunkies on our way out of town. We arrived on site just about on time, but the church’s parking lot was poorly plowed and short on parking. We missed the fellow trying to tell us they were shuttling people from the next church down the block, and took one of the last semi-free spaces (not an official parking space, but clear of snow and not in the line of traffic). We made it up to hawkyns class only a few minutes late. He was talking about 15th century foot soldiers. He’d brought all his reenactment kit, and was talking through it, and then passing it around for everyone to look at (*squee*). He also had several books to pass around. And a living history magazine from France that had such lovely photos that I seriously covet it even if I can't read the text. I copied down the names of a couple of Osprey titles that I don’t own yet.
The next class was lady_kathryn teaching Period Correct on the Cheap. She had a pile of books and patterns for show and tell. And had the wonderful tip that the JoAnn's Fashion Fusion magazine has coupons for 40 - 50% off that pay for the $2.99 price of the magazine. The class ended slightly early, which gave us time to head downstairs and raid Small Churl Books before lunch. We mooched table space with Gwen, Roderick, Kathryn, Matthew, and Daniel. The day board was pretty good: pirogues, roasted carrots, beets, two kinds of sausage/kielbasa, cooked apples, pickled eggs, bread and butter, and a couple other things that I’m sure I’m forgetting.
When I got back to the table I had a really cute conversation with teenage Matthew. He said something about how one of the items on his plate tasted weird, and he didn’t know what it was. When I told him they were apples he changed his mind and decided that maybe he liked them after all. I laughed and said, “It tastes better when you know what it is, doesn’t it?”
After lunch there was a class on veils and hairdressing. The instructor had nice long hair, and we started out by talking about how dirty hair is easier to style than clean hair. She seemed to think that they used “product” back then, ranging from hair oil to gel (she said that was how they got braids to stay without using some sort of hair ties). I’d love to see some documentation on that, or recipes for medieval hair gel.
She talked about placement of braids, and how you separate your hair can affect how the braid lies. She had one volunteer from the audience (who ended up having a waist length braid hiding under her veil), and showed a couple different ways to arrange and pin veils and wimples. Then she had another volunteer come up, and she braided her hair into a couple of high little braided buns (Scary Spice hair) and then pinned a veil over top of that.
The next class I was interested in was English Country Dance. I danced several dances with a very flirty gentleman who clearly knew what he was doing. Which was helpful, since I didn’t. I was working with a couple other handicaps, my slippery German shoes, and my right/left dyslexia. Every time I started to get comfortable with the dancing I’d either mess up my left or right, or my feet would slip a little. Whee! I lasted 45 minutes before I really started overheating in the wool gown and sat out the last dance.
There wasn’t really a class either of us was interested in during the next class period, so we headed back up to the gym and chatted with the vendors, then sat down with Kathryn and the other Matt (who is a member of Gardiner’s Company). We sat and chatted and I flipped through Roderick’s books, while Kathryn and Matt worked on sewing projects. I found out from Matt that there is a Trayned Band in Salem, MA (having Googled them, it's a bunch of guys from the Higgins Sword Guild, so I kinda sorta know a couple of them). I was thinking about taking a class during the last time slot, but we ended up heading home instead.
When we got near Stoughton, Jennifer and I started talking about dinner. I pointed the Garmin towards Cracker Barrel, but despite the fact that we got off at the correct exit, it drove us all over creation, to a spot that definitely was NOT the Cracker Barrel. I used the map to point us back towards the Sturbridge tolls, and managed to find the Cracker Barrel without the Garmin’s help. We had a leisurely dinner, then finally headed back to Frogholm, where we looked at books and artwork on my computer, and stayed up way too late chatting before finally headed off to bed.
Sunday morning I wanted to wash my hair before we headed out. While in the shower I realized that I hadn’t sent Barbara directions to my house (I live on a row of apartments and condo complexes, so even if folks have a Garmin or Google Map directions, I still like to send some landmarks). While Jennifer was in the bathroom I checked my voice mail, and found a hilarious message from my mother. “I called to say Happy Birthday. I think it’s the fifth today, and I think it’s your birthday….” Context - For years mom confused my birthday, on the fifth, with her best friend’s birthday on the seventh. We celebrated my birthday on the wrong day for a couple of years before my grandmother straightened her out and made her check my birth certificate. Classic Mom stuff there. After I cleared out all the hang-ups on my answering machine, I called Barb’s cell phone, and she was already in Lowell! She was less than two miles away, so I talked her in for a landing.
I made waffles for breakfast, and the three of us sat in my kitchen talking and eating while I pulled waffles off the waffle iron every three and a half minutes. Once I depleted the bowl of batter, I packed the extras into the freezer to enjoy later, and we headed out the door. It was grey when we left, started drizzling on the drive to Springfield, and was raining by the time we arrived at Osgood’s Textiles. I spotted Alena’s car in the parking lot, but it was a few minutes before I spotted Alena and Jess in the stacks. We browsed fabric for about an hour. Jennifer and Barbara dug through the remainder bins. Alena was looking for some brocade for her next gown, and navy wool for another swing dress. I was looking for brown quilted fabric for a colonial petticoat, and of course, checking out the woolens. I found some great bright leaf green wool that I’m going to make a gollar out of. And some really lightweight red wool to replace my red linen petticoat (because darn it, I really like having a red petticoat!). And once I finally tracked down a cart (I had to stalk someone at the checkout), and deposited those bolts, I headed off to scan the upholstery end of the store for some quilted fabric. Where Jennifer made the ridiculous (but highly amusing) suggestion that I make my petticoat out of the white fabric with the pineapple motif quilted on it. Because what I really need is a petticoat that symbolizes “Welcome guests.” *snorfle* Finally, in the back of a bin, I found some brown quilted fabric that, when I got it home, exactly matches my new colonial jacket. *squee*
FYI - Osgood's was able to rent their warehouse to someone else. So the reason why they have half their floor space blocked off is because they're now using that as their warehouse space. I asked because they had so much stuff on sale I was afraid they might be closing. But they're not, but they'll be a bit smaller since some of their floor space is now warehouse.
We realized when we were at the cutting table that we were going to be a bit late, and thankfully Alena had Betsy’s number in her cell phone. (Note to self - Put all the Guild phone numbers into your cell phone!). When we got to the Student Prince, Betsy and Marc were waiting for us. There were seven of us for lunch (Me, Mark, Jennifer, Barbara, Betsy, Alena, Jess). I caught up with how Marc’s semester has been going. And Betsy told us that she survived a layoff at work, but her schedule may end up changing.
Alena had e-mailed me earlier in the week and asked if I wanted to go with her on Saturday to the Boston Massacre to do a podcast interview (Because I didn’t grow up in New England, I’ve never been able to remember that the massacre happened on my birthday). Which led to me asking, during the course of lunch, “So, how was the Massacre?” Turns out, that due to a series of fortunate events, she got to watch the event from a conference room overlooking the site. Which was probably a good thing, as she said that while the colonials were rowdy, the audience was even rowdier.
We had a great lunch, which started with fried Camembert and potato pancakes. People ordered everything from lamb shanks, to pork chops, to hasenpfeffer, to knockwurst, to jaeger snitzle. Afterwards we sat around and chatted for quite a while before finally heading out. Alena returned the books I loaned them last week, and there was a prezzie in the bag. They bought me a fire starter kit. *squee*
When we got home Barbara only stuck around a few minutes. While she was there I explored the tub of Walter's patterns that she was giving me. Lots of good stuff in there. She wanted to head out while it was still light, but still ended up missing her exit, necessitating a phone call and talking her back onto the highway in the right direction. Yep, girlfriend needs a Garmin. ;-)
Jennifer and I chatted until it was time to drop her off at the train station. After I got back home I called mom and dad and got caught up on things. Mom clearly had a bullet list of things in her head that she needed to run through, as every time I tried to start talking, she broke in with another thing she had to remember to ask me about. *Sigh* Mom is still on her kick about giving me an wingback chair. Dad is convinced it will fit in the back seat of my car. They have a friend who has a Honda Accord, and they’re going to test fit it in their car. *eyeroll*
One cool thing came out of our conversation. When I was talking about heading down to Jamestown in a couple weeks, dad mentioned that we have an ancestor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Delk) who was at Jamestown. How awesome is that?!?!
Friday Jennifer took the train up to Lowell. She arrived at 5:30, and while I hadn’t accounted for rush hour traffic through town (how often do I drive through Lowell at 5:30 on a Friday? Never…) I wasn’t too late to pick her up. We headed off to Panera for dinner and lots of conversation. I made a quick stop at Hannaford’s for waffle fixins (eggs and wheat germ) and then we headed home. First we headed into the sewing room and raided the costume closet for medieval gear for Saturday. We played a quick game of dress up to try things on, then headed back into the living room to watch Iron Man 2.
Saturday morning I was up early (surprising since I’ve been having so much trouble levering my arse out of bed lately). Since she’s been sick, I didn’t want to wake Jenn up until I had to, so I went spelunking in the Master-Bath-that-is-a-closet to pull out some feast gear for the dayboard. When I opened my wooden chest, on top of the tablecloth was the wrought iron fork that I thought I’d lost (which isn’t Alena’s or Kris’s, which means it probably belongs to Tom). *whew* I was smart enough to put it away before Miss Mini could use it for a kitteh toy and lose it!
I did a little quick ironing (a linen head wrap and the linen gown I was loaning to Jennifer) and then I went out to wake up my sleepy guest. While she was grabbing a quick shower I checked MapQuest and found out that rather than an hour and a half drive, they thought it was a two hour drive. Drat! So we quickly got dressed and grabbed breakfast at Dunkies on our way out of town. We arrived on site just about on time, but the church’s parking lot was poorly plowed and short on parking. We missed the fellow trying to tell us they were shuttling people from the next church down the block, and took one of the last semi-free spaces (not an official parking space, but clear of snow and not in the line of traffic). We made it up to hawkyns class only a few minutes late. He was talking about 15th century foot soldiers. He’d brought all his reenactment kit, and was talking through it, and then passing it around for everyone to look at (*squee*). He also had several books to pass around. And a living history magazine from France that had such lovely photos that I seriously covet it even if I can't read the text. I copied down the names of a couple of Osprey titles that I don’t own yet.
The next class was lady_kathryn teaching Period Correct on the Cheap. She had a pile of books and patterns for show and tell. And had the wonderful tip that the JoAnn's Fashion Fusion magazine has coupons for 40 - 50% off that pay for the $2.99 price of the magazine. The class ended slightly early, which gave us time to head downstairs and raid Small Churl Books before lunch. We mooched table space with Gwen, Roderick, Kathryn, Matthew, and Daniel. The day board was pretty good: pirogues, roasted carrots, beets, two kinds of sausage/kielbasa, cooked apples, pickled eggs, bread and butter, and a couple other things that I’m sure I’m forgetting.
When I got back to the table I had a really cute conversation with teenage Matthew. He said something about how one of the items on his plate tasted weird, and he didn’t know what it was. When I told him they were apples he changed his mind and decided that maybe he liked them after all. I laughed and said, “It tastes better when you know what it is, doesn’t it?”
After lunch there was a class on veils and hairdressing. The instructor had nice long hair, and we started out by talking about how dirty hair is easier to style than clean hair. She seemed to think that they used “product” back then, ranging from hair oil to gel (she said that was how they got braids to stay without using some sort of hair ties). I’d love to see some documentation on that, or recipes for medieval hair gel.
She talked about placement of braids, and how you separate your hair can affect how the braid lies. She had one volunteer from the audience (who ended up having a waist length braid hiding under her veil), and showed a couple different ways to arrange and pin veils and wimples. Then she had another volunteer come up, and she braided her hair into a couple of high little braided buns (Scary Spice hair) and then pinned a veil over top of that.
The next class I was interested in was English Country Dance. I danced several dances with a very flirty gentleman who clearly knew what he was doing. Which was helpful, since I didn’t. I was working with a couple other handicaps, my slippery German shoes, and my right/left dyslexia. Every time I started to get comfortable with the dancing I’d either mess up my left or right, or my feet would slip a little. Whee! I lasted 45 minutes before I really started overheating in the wool gown and sat out the last dance.
There wasn’t really a class either of us was interested in during the next class period, so we headed back up to the gym and chatted with the vendors, then sat down with Kathryn and the other Matt (who is a member of Gardiner’s Company). We sat and chatted and I flipped through Roderick’s books, while Kathryn and Matt worked on sewing projects. I found out from Matt that there is a Trayned Band in Salem, MA (having Googled them, it's a bunch of guys from the Higgins Sword Guild, so I kinda sorta know a couple of them). I was thinking about taking a class during the last time slot, but we ended up heading home instead.
When we got near Stoughton, Jennifer and I started talking about dinner. I pointed the Garmin towards Cracker Barrel, but despite the fact that we got off at the correct exit, it drove us all over creation, to a spot that definitely was NOT the Cracker Barrel. I used the map to point us back towards the Sturbridge tolls, and managed to find the Cracker Barrel without the Garmin’s help. We had a leisurely dinner, then finally headed back to Frogholm, where we looked at books and artwork on my computer, and stayed up way too late chatting before finally headed off to bed.
Sunday morning I wanted to wash my hair before we headed out. While in the shower I realized that I hadn’t sent Barbara directions to my house (I live on a row of apartments and condo complexes, so even if folks have a Garmin or Google Map directions, I still like to send some landmarks). While Jennifer was in the bathroom I checked my voice mail, and found a hilarious message from my mother. “I called to say Happy Birthday. I think it’s the fifth today, and I think it’s your birthday….” Context - For years mom confused my birthday, on the fifth, with her best friend’s birthday on the seventh. We celebrated my birthday on the wrong day for a couple of years before my grandmother straightened her out and made her check my birth certificate. Classic Mom stuff there. After I cleared out all the hang-ups on my answering machine, I called Barb’s cell phone, and she was already in Lowell! She was less than two miles away, so I talked her in for a landing.
I made waffles for breakfast, and the three of us sat in my kitchen talking and eating while I pulled waffles off the waffle iron every three and a half minutes. Once I depleted the bowl of batter, I packed the extras into the freezer to enjoy later, and we headed out the door. It was grey when we left, started drizzling on the drive to Springfield, and was raining by the time we arrived at Osgood’s Textiles. I spotted Alena’s car in the parking lot, but it was a few minutes before I spotted Alena and Jess in the stacks. We browsed fabric for about an hour. Jennifer and Barbara dug through the remainder bins. Alena was looking for some brocade for her next gown, and navy wool for another swing dress. I was looking for brown quilted fabric for a colonial petticoat, and of course, checking out the woolens. I found some great bright leaf green wool that I’m going to make a gollar out of. And some really lightweight red wool to replace my red linen petticoat (because darn it, I really like having a red petticoat!). And once I finally tracked down a cart (I had to stalk someone at the checkout), and deposited those bolts, I headed off to scan the upholstery end of the store for some quilted fabric. Where Jennifer made the ridiculous (but highly amusing) suggestion that I make my petticoat out of the white fabric with the pineapple motif quilted on it. Because what I really need is a petticoat that symbolizes “Welcome guests.” *snorfle* Finally, in the back of a bin, I found some brown quilted fabric that, when I got it home, exactly matches my new colonial jacket. *squee*
FYI - Osgood's was able to rent their warehouse to someone else. So the reason why they have half their floor space blocked off is because they're now using that as their warehouse space. I asked because they had so much stuff on sale I was afraid they might be closing. But they're not, but they'll be a bit smaller since some of their floor space is now warehouse.
We realized when we were at the cutting table that we were going to be a bit late, and thankfully Alena had Betsy’s number in her cell phone. (Note to self - Put all the Guild phone numbers into your cell phone!). When we got to the Student Prince, Betsy and Marc were waiting for us. There were seven of us for lunch (Me, Mark, Jennifer, Barbara, Betsy, Alena, Jess). I caught up with how Marc’s semester has been going. And Betsy told us that she survived a layoff at work, but her schedule may end up changing.
Alena had e-mailed me earlier in the week and asked if I wanted to go with her on Saturday to the Boston Massacre to do a podcast interview (Because I didn’t grow up in New England, I’ve never been able to remember that the massacre happened on my birthday). Which led to me asking, during the course of lunch, “So, how was the Massacre?” Turns out, that due to a series of fortunate events, she got to watch the event from a conference room overlooking the site. Which was probably a good thing, as she said that while the colonials were rowdy, the audience was even rowdier.
We had a great lunch, which started with fried Camembert and potato pancakes. People ordered everything from lamb shanks, to pork chops, to hasenpfeffer, to knockwurst, to jaeger snitzle. Afterwards we sat around and chatted for quite a while before finally heading out. Alena returned the books I loaned them last week, and there was a prezzie in the bag. They bought me a fire starter kit. *squee*
When we got home Barbara only stuck around a few minutes. While she was there I explored the tub of Walter's patterns that she was giving me. Lots of good stuff in there. She wanted to head out while it was still light, but still ended up missing her exit, necessitating a phone call and talking her back onto the highway in the right direction. Yep, girlfriend needs a Garmin. ;-)
Jennifer and I chatted until it was time to drop her off at the train station. After I got back home I called mom and dad and got caught up on things. Mom clearly had a bullet list of things in her head that she needed to run through, as every time I tried to start talking, she broke in with another thing she had to remember to ask me about. *Sigh* Mom is still on her kick about giving me an wingback chair. Dad is convinced it will fit in the back seat of my car. They have a friend who has a Honda Accord, and they’re going to test fit it in their car. *eyeroll*
One cool thing came out of our conversation. When I was talking about heading down to Jamestown in a couple weeks, dad mentioned that we have an ancestor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Delk) who was at Jamestown. How awesome is that?!?!