12th Night!
My 12th Night adventure started when I arrived in California on Thursday to discover that my host for that evening, hrj had come down with the flu. So instead of spending time visiting with one another she spend the afternoon and evening resting in her room, while I did arranged for transport, took a nap, did some uni work down stairs,followed by my daily yoga, assisted by her very friendly cat. I have stayed in quite a few different homes over the course of this month of travel (9 total, but three of them I stayed at twice this trip), and many of them had a cat(s), dog(s), or both. In all of the other houses if the animal(s) were free to wander about on their own they'd come over and say hello when I started yoga, then get bored and wander off to do something else. Not so hrj's cat--it snuggled with whatever body part happened to be within reach during any given yoga pose, for the entire time. As a result instead of doing just 24 minutes (my current minimum # per day), I continued to stretch (and occassionally scritch the cat) for 30 minutes.
Since I had planned to go to the event with hrj and she (wisely) decided to keep her flu at home and rest, I needed to work out a plan B. So I posted a "looking for a ride" note on line, and then thought a bit more, remembered getting a lift to June Crown from duke_flieg this summer, and wondered if he'd be willing to pick me up again. Since he's listed in the Page, I gave him a call, and he said "yes". Shortly there after I received replies to the on-line post pointing out that BART was an option. A bit later I was woken up from my nap when duke_flieg called back to say that since baroness_eilis was the outgoing Queen for the event she was bringing even more stuff than usual, so the back of the van wouldn't actually be a safe place for a human to travel, after all. This made me feel rather stupid--I knew she was Queen, but hadn't had any reason to think about that fact recently, so didn't remember it when I thought about asking duke_flieg for a ride. If I had, I wouldn't have asked him, since I would have realized that they wouldn't have room in the car.
In addition to not remembering who the Royals were, I hadn't actually known where the event was--there had been no reason to look it up other than to note that it was close enough to the SFO airport that I would be able to get there without inconveniencing anyone. After BART was mentioned I checked Google Maps, which showed that it would be possible to do a 30 minute walk to the station, take a short ride, then walk to site in 30 minutes from the station. Since my exercise log for the year was looking pretty pathetic compared to the last couple of years, this sounded like a good plan. As I fell asleep that night it occurred to me that the plan could be improved upon if I didn't have to drag my heavy suitcase along with me for the walk.
As a result, on Friday morning I called duke_flieg back to see if he'd be willing to pick up just my suitcase. Wonderful man that he is, he agreed, and at 11:00 my luggage departed for the event without me. I spent a bit longer on my computer (I've re-started reading 1000 words of geologic literature a day, and thought I'd best do it in the morning, as I wouldn't make time for it later), and then set out. The walk was quite pleasant--just cool enough to make it possible to wear my coat, which is good, since that is the easiest way to carry it.
I arrived on site around 2pm, by which time duke_flieg had largely finished emptying his van and was ready to go park it, so I got my suitcase out, and then borrowed a mobile phone to call my roomates for the weekend, dorinda2212 and jesijoy, who are two of my favourite people from when I lived in Phoenix, Arizona (between 1986 and 1988). They said that they'd not be there till about 18:00, so I volunteered at gate, signing in the people who had pre-paid for the event, for a few hours, which gave me a good place to store my luggage while I waited, and ensured that I got to see people as they arrived. I considered joining some of my friends in the hotel hot tub or swimming pool, but decided that it would make more sense to wait till I had a room (and therefore a room-towel), and as a result never did get my bathing suit out all weekend.
After we three were checked into the room I took a quick shower (I hadn't wanted to disturb hrj's rest that morning by using her shower, which shares a wall with her bedroom) and put on my knot-work laurel tunic and blue under dress and went out to spend some time being social before the bardic. The bardic started pretty much on time according to the schedule, and we happily sung songs till the hotel staff kicked us out of the room around 12:30 in the morning. The bardic was started at the request of the lady who wrote the song Fair Mistlands (mp3 here). She's not been active in the SCA in recent years, since she is very active in Science Fiction Fandom, and the two groups, while very compatible in interests, tend to conflict in their schedules, there being only 52 weekends available in any given year. She had us start the evening with syele (who is from Atenveldt) singing Flower of the Desert, the song which inspired her to write Fair Mistlands (mp3 available here). That was followed up with To the West (mp3 available here, since the theme was inspirational anthems. From there we switched to the "play, pick, or pass" method of selecting the next song--each person in turn, anti-clockwise around the circle was given their choice of singing something, requesting something, or passing the turn to the next person without doing anything. As a result the songs flowed steadily, with not much time lost to random chit-chat, which made me happy.
There were enough people in attendance (some came and went over the course of the evening) that those of us who were there for the full time had three or four turns each before the room closed for the night. It was a very fun evening, with a good mix of silly songs, inspirational songs, performance songs, and sing-along songs (my personal favourite). There were a few people whose presence would have enhanced the evening, had they been able to have been there, but I think we all had fun nonetheless. Most of the people who were active in the singing were people I knew or had heard of, but there was one person who was new to me that I was particularly glad to see there--a knight from Calontir, who has moved to Silver Desert. This was his first big event since moving to the West, and his repertoire was very welcome.
After the Bardic spent another hour or so visiting with people before heading up to my room, where I did yoga quietly enough as to not wake up my sleeping roommates.
Saturday morning my roommates woke up bright and early (they both have kids these days, so are used to getting up in the morning, regardless of how late they stay up), so I also woke up and enjoyed visiting with them for a bit before getting dressed and heading downstairs. There was time to get hugs from quite a number of people (and to chat with some of them) before court.
During the morning court I sat next to a long time knight of the West, and she and I had fun making comments to one another during court. I made some good progress on the beautiful green herringbone wool tunic I'm making for clovis_t. One of the highlight of that court was gurdymonkey's Order of the Western Lilly (for excellence in teaching), which was well deserved. Wish I had been one of the many people who thought to recommend her. Another noteworthy happening for that court was when the herald called in a couple, whose names I neither recognized nor caught, and then added "accompanied by their family". When I saw the "family" who processed in with them, I understood why they'd been called as a group. The children of the couple who were present included the captain of the Queen's guard, the Queen of Atenveldt, accompanied by her King and their daughter, and the Crown Prince and Crown Princess of the West. Once the family was gathered around Mom and Dad their Majesties named the parents as Baron and Baroness of the Court of the West. baroness_eilis then told the crowd that the title had originally been created by an early SCA King who felt that if he was King his father should not be "pond scum".
As soon as the morning court was over I returned to my room to get something to eat, then spent some time visiting with people and nibbling some of the food others brought to the event to share with their friends. I wound up missing the play, which I'd have liked to have seen, but hunger was more important.
I was a bit late getting back to the hall for the Investiture Court, and as a result wound up sitting much further back than I did in the morning. The hightlights of that court were the singing of To the West early on (the lead in to a very nice speech from His newly Crowned Majesty, whose key-note encouraged us all to seek out the special feeling that the SCA gives us in moments like that song being sung--he told us that when he was young and new to the SCA he saw someone win Crown, and he decided that some day he'd propose to his future wife by winning her a Crown (U-tube link for those of you who missed his proposal at October Crown), and everyone laughed as HRM showed off the ring) and Fair Mistlands (when both the SCA founder and the author of that song were added to the West Role of Honor).
I had been twitching about not getting to swear fealty (since I want to be able to enter Drachenewal Crowns), but when they called for the Royal Peers I saw Greyhelm, who lives in An Tir, walk up and stand at the back of the crowd. I joined him, and after the Royal Peers swore he and I went up and gave our tribute to the Crown of the West, even though we are not free to swear fealty whilst living elsewhere (in the few seconds available while the knights assembled for their oath).
After court there was time for more visiting, and more food (I again grazed upon a combination of what I'd brought with me, and what others brought along) before the Dance Ball. I spent the evening dancing (of course!), never missing a dance, and then several hours after the dance ended talking to people. Enjoyed the longest conversation I'd ever had with sirst, never mind that I first met him in 1991, when he and another Westie came up for An Tir 12th Night (the first event I attended after moving to that Kingdom) (he was in an inactive phase during the three years I lived in the Mists, so we have only seen one another occassionally at events over the years).
I finally returned to my room sometime around 2, or 02:30, to find one of my room mates deeply asleep, and the other sitting on the floor in the loo, being very sick into the toilet. I did the sensible thing and left her to it and went back downstairs to use the public toilet, before heading back to the room. She'd finished by that point, so I coaxed her into the bathtub (in case she got sick again, poor thing), and proceeded to clean up such mess as didn't get flushed. I then washed her dress for her in the sink, and left her to soak in the bath while I did my yoga, enjoying the fact that there was no longer a smell of digestive juices in the air. She was doing much better when I finished and went to sleep (around 03:00), and seemed pretty much completely recovered in the morning.
Today I got up around 08:30 and spent some time visiting with my roommates while doing my morning sit ups and push ups and re-packing my luggage into flying mode. I then hung out in the lobby visiting with folks on their way out until learnteach and his lady were ready to go. We had a lovely drive back to his place, through Niles Canyon. I'd never gone that way hitherto, and found it a rather pretty area. He will take me to the airport much too early in the morning, and I'll arrive in Italy on Tuesday morning, having lost a number of hours to time-zone changes.
Since I had planned to go to the event with hrj and she (wisely) decided to keep her flu at home and rest, I needed to work out a plan B. So I posted a "looking for a ride" note on line, and then thought a bit more, remembered getting a lift to June Crown from duke_flieg this summer, and wondered if he'd be willing to pick me up again. Since he's listed in the Page, I gave him a call, and he said "yes". Shortly there after I received replies to the on-line post pointing out that BART was an option. A bit later I was woken up from my nap when duke_flieg called back to say that since baroness_eilis was the outgoing Queen for the event she was bringing even more stuff than usual, so the back of the van wouldn't actually be a safe place for a human to travel, after all. This made me feel rather stupid--I knew she was Queen, but hadn't had any reason to think about that fact recently, so didn't remember it when I thought about asking duke_flieg for a ride. If I had, I wouldn't have asked him, since I would have realized that they wouldn't have room in the car.
In addition to not remembering who the Royals were, I hadn't actually known where the event was--there had been no reason to look it up other than to note that it was close enough to the SFO airport that I would be able to get there without inconveniencing anyone. After BART was mentioned I checked Google Maps, which showed that it would be possible to do a 30 minute walk to the station, take a short ride, then walk to site in 30 minutes from the station. Since my exercise log for the year was looking pretty pathetic compared to the last couple of years, this sounded like a good plan. As I fell asleep that night it occurred to me that the plan could be improved upon if I didn't have to drag my heavy suitcase along with me for the walk.
As a result, on Friday morning I called duke_flieg back to see if he'd be willing to pick up just my suitcase. Wonderful man that he is, he agreed, and at 11:00 my luggage departed for the event without me. I spent a bit longer on my computer (I've re-started reading 1000 words of geologic literature a day, and thought I'd best do it in the morning, as I wouldn't make time for it later), and then set out. The walk was quite pleasant--just cool enough to make it possible to wear my coat, which is good, since that is the easiest way to carry it.
I arrived on site around 2pm, by which time duke_flieg had largely finished emptying his van and was ready to go park it, so I got my suitcase out, and then borrowed a mobile phone to call my roomates for the weekend, dorinda2212 and jesijoy, who are two of my favourite people from when I lived in Phoenix, Arizona (between 1986 and 1988). They said that they'd not be there till about 18:00, so I volunteered at gate, signing in the people who had pre-paid for the event, for a few hours, which gave me a good place to store my luggage while I waited, and ensured that I got to see people as they arrived. I considered joining some of my friends in the hotel hot tub or swimming pool, but decided that it would make more sense to wait till I had a room (and therefore a room-towel), and as a result never did get my bathing suit out all weekend.
After we three were checked into the room I took a quick shower (I hadn't wanted to disturb hrj's rest that morning by using her shower, which shares a wall with her bedroom) and put on my knot-work laurel tunic and blue under dress and went out to spend some time being social before the bardic. The bardic started pretty much on time according to the schedule, and we happily sung songs till the hotel staff kicked us out of the room around 12:30 in the morning. The bardic was started at the request of the lady who wrote the song Fair Mistlands (mp3 here). She's not been active in the SCA in recent years, since she is very active in Science Fiction Fandom, and the two groups, while very compatible in interests, tend to conflict in their schedules, there being only 52 weekends available in any given year. She had us start the evening with syele (who is from Atenveldt) singing Flower of the Desert, the song which inspired her to write Fair Mistlands (mp3 available here). That was followed up with To the West (mp3 available here, since the theme was inspirational anthems. From there we switched to the "play, pick, or pass" method of selecting the next song--each person in turn, anti-clockwise around the circle was given their choice of singing something, requesting something, or passing the turn to the next person without doing anything. As a result the songs flowed steadily, with not much time lost to random chit-chat, which made me happy.
There were enough people in attendance (some came and went over the course of the evening) that those of us who were there for the full time had three or four turns each before the room closed for the night. It was a very fun evening, with a good mix of silly songs, inspirational songs, performance songs, and sing-along songs (my personal favourite). There were a few people whose presence would have enhanced the evening, had they been able to have been there, but I think we all had fun nonetheless. Most of the people who were active in the singing were people I knew or had heard of, but there was one person who was new to me that I was particularly glad to see there--a knight from Calontir, who has moved to Silver Desert. This was his first big event since moving to the West, and his repertoire was very welcome.
After the Bardic spent another hour or so visiting with people before heading up to my room, where I did yoga quietly enough as to not wake up my sleeping roommates.
Saturday morning my roommates woke up bright and early (they both have kids these days, so are used to getting up in the morning, regardless of how late they stay up), so I also woke up and enjoyed visiting with them for a bit before getting dressed and heading downstairs. There was time to get hugs from quite a number of people (and to chat with some of them) before court.
During the morning court I sat next to a long time knight of the West, and she and I had fun making comments to one another during court. I made some good progress on the beautiful green herringbone wool tunic I'm making for clovis_t. One of the highlight of that court was gurdymonkey's Order of the Western Lilly (for excellence in teaching), which was well deserved. Wish I had been one of the many people who thought to recommend her. Another noteworthy happening for that court was when the herald called in a couple, whose names I neither recognized nor caught, and then added "accompanied by their family". When I saw the "family" who processed in with them, I understood why they'd been called as a group. The children of the couple who were present included the captain of the Queen's guard, the Queen of Atenveldt, accompanied by her King and their daughter, and the Crown Prince and Crown Princess of the West. Once the family was gathered around Mom and Dad their Majesties named the parents as Baron and Baroness of the Court of the West. baroness_eilis then told the crowd that the title had originally been created by an early SCA King who felt that if he was King his father should not be "pond scum".
As soon as the morning court was over I returned to my room to get something to eat, then spent some time visiting with people and nibbling some of the food others brought to the event to share with their friends. I wound up missing the play, which I'd have liked to have seen, but hunger was more important.
I was a bit late getting back to the hall for the Investiture Court, and as a result wound up sitting much further back than I did in the morning. The hightlights of that court were the singing of To the West early on (the lead in to a very nice speech from His newly Crowned Majesty, whose key-note encouraged us all to seek out the special feeling that the SCA gives us in moments like that song being sung--he told us that when he was young and new to the SCA he saw someone win Crown, and he decided that some day he'd propose to his future wife by winning her a Crown (U-tube link for those of you who missed his proposal at October Crown), and everyone laughed as HRM showed off the ring) and Fair Mistlands (when both the SCA founder and the author of that song were added to the West Role of Honor).
I had been twitching about not getting to swear fealty (since I want to be able to enter Drachenewal Crowns), but when they called for the Royal Peers I saw Greyhelm, who lives in An Tir, walk up and stand at the back of the crowd. I joined him, and after the Royal Peers swore he and I went up and gave our tribute to the Crown of the West, even though we are not free to swear fealty whilst living elsewhere (in the few seconds available while the knights assembled for their oath).
After court there was time for more visiting, and more food (I again grazed upon a combination of what I'd brought with me, and what others brought along) before the Dance Ball. I spent the evening dancing (of course!), never missing a dance, and then several hours after the dance ended talking to people. Enjoyed the longest conversation I'd ever had with sirst, never mind that I first met him in 1991, when he and another Westie came up for An Tir 12th Night (the first event I attended after moving to that Kingdom) (he was in an inactive phase during the three years I lived in the Mists, so we have only seen one another occassionally at events over the years).
I finally returned to my room sometime around 2, or 02:30, to find one of my room mates deeply asleep, and the other sitting on the floor in the loo, being very sick into the toilet. I did the sensible thing and left her to it and went back downstairs to use the public toilet, before heading back to the room. She'd finished by that point, so I coaxed her into the bathtub (in case she got sick again, poor thing), and proceeded to clean up such mess as didn't get flushed. I then washed her dress for her in the sink, and left her to soak in the bath while I did my yoga, enjoying the fact that there was no longer a smell of digestive juices in the air. She was doing much better when I finished and went to sleep (around 03:00), and seemed pretty much completely recovered in the morning.
Today I got up around 08:30 and spent some time visiting with my roommates while doing my morning sit ups and push ups and re-packing my luggage into flying mode. I then hung out in the lobby visiting with folks on their way out until learnteach and his lady were ready to go. We had a lovely drive back to his place, through Niles Canyon. I'd never gone that way hitherto, and found it a rather pretty area. He will take me to the airport much too early in the morning, and I'll arrive in Italy on Tuesday morning, having lost a number of hours to time-zone changes.