And now the real update...
Earlier this week my mother an I have put up a hanging bookcase in my room. In order to get it to the right height, we put piles of books under it, and then we drilled and stuck nails in it. Then we removed the books, and it stayed up ZOMG. It was very magic-like and cool! I have started putting books in it. So far have put about 130 books in various sizes and shapes and it has not yet fallen. *knocks on wood*
On Tuesday I figured out the reason why grown-ups hate Purim: it's the traffic jams! I got half an hour late to where I was going that morning, and then I decided to walk home, since getting there by service taxi (a minibus, basically) took very long, and also because the service taxis had to alter their courses slightly, because a portion of Dizengoff Street was blocked for a Purim thing, so I wasn't even sure where I could catch it. And since Dizengoff was busy for pedestrians as well as cars, I decided to go through a parallel street, Bugrashov. Only, the thing I was not aware of at the time is, Dizengoff goes bendy at some point; Bugrashov does not. So I kept walking through Bugrashov. And I saw something in the distance. And I thought: "Hey, that looks like the beach. Why does it look like the beach?" So I went to investigate. And it was the beach. Which was interesting, since I had no idea I was heading its way. So I thought: "Why is the beach here?" And I went by "Molly Bloom's", which is an Irish pub I will be going to with tinkerbell1980 tomorrow, in honour of St. Patrick's Day. I did find my way back home fairly easily from that point on (I knew the general direction, so). But it amuses me that I went to the beach by accident.
Then Wednesday! Was the SCA Purim event! And, basically the only event a year where you can go out into the street in garb without attracting too many strange looks. So it started with Gills! And Tal! Gills gave Tal, my harp and me a lift to Jerusalem! So yay Gills! And we listened to "RENT" in the car! And the event was very, very awesome as well. First we sort of set up (at dhole's and aethereal_girl's house), and zachkessin gave me dance music notes he got at Pennsic. Much with the awesome! But they're in SATB form, so I'll need to harpify them. And there was FENCING. You know, with SWORDS. *DEAD!* Much fun was had. Even though Tal asked me if I was pregnant some time before it started. (...) Which, I think, answers the timeless question "Does this dress make me look fat?", even though Tal claims I didn't look fat and it's just that the pose I was standing in at the moment looked pregnant-ish. *g*
And then people talked and I tuned my harp and then played a bit. A portion was actual period pieces; a portion was improvised on the spot, because improvising medieval and rennaissance music is fun. At some point one of the improvisations sort of melted into a bit from the soundtrack of "Pirates of the Carribean"; I don't think anyone noticed, and that's probably a good thing. And I also jammed with aethereal_girl's dad (who plays the guitar), and we played Irish dance tunes. Or tried to, anyway. And then there was the feast, cooked for THREE DAYS ZOMG by mick_hale. The food was very, very good, and in very, very large quantities, so much of it was left. And then more people came by and ate as well.
(Huh, is there any logic to the paragraph breaks I'm scattering about? I think not. Also, I sometimes use people's names and sometimes their LJ names. Oops.) Then there was dancing! I did not participate in dancing, because I was The Band for the occasion. (Shawn had a bodhran in hand at the time, but mostly Zach just told him not to use it.) It was in general very entertaining. First of all, Zach taught the dancers a dance called "Upon a Summer's Day". Then we all discovered that the notes for that dance were not among the notes from Pennsic, and he also didn't have a recording of it. So we mocked him about it for the rest of the dance lesson. *g* Second, the rest of the dance lesson was a bit uncoordinated, because they were learning the dance for the first time, and I was seeing the notes for the first time, and this made for a very interesting combination. Oh, and in one of the dances there's a time signature change from six eighths to three quarters, but it doesn't say whether a quarter equals an eighth note or a quarter or a dotted quarter, so I had/have no idea how to go from the first part to the second. (Zach, do you happen to have a recording of "Jenny Pluck Pears" I could listen to in order to figure this out?) But it was a fun experience and I'm sure we'll all get better through practice!
And then there was a Bardic circle! And joshbrown told a Drachenworld legend which was awesome, and I sang a traditional song called the "The Maid on the Shore" which is from some British Isle or another (we haven't quite agreed as to which one), and Tal sang "Loch Lomond", and Naomi's mom sang a song that repeats itself (a-la "Twelve Days of Christmas", "Echad Mi Yodea", "Etze Li Hashuka", etc.), which later got stuck in my head, and at some point later on Gills asked us some riddles, and I sang an Irish drinking song (which started a debate of "Aren't they all?") called "Bumper Squire Jones" and forgot most of the lyrics in the middle (thus proving I was not drunk enough). And at some point everyone just sort of started singing every drinking and / or bawdy song they knew (and I was thus introduced to an entertaining song called "Seven Drunken Nights"). *g*
And then there was an engagement party of two people who most of the SCA people knew a few floors above us. I did not (I think I met the groom-to-be once when Alter, Naomi and I went to that apartment during the Thank-God-It's-Over party), but I was eventually persuaded to come anyway, after having delayed Alter and Naomi from going up there for some time. And then Gills, Tal and I left to go back to TA. And that was the end of thingness. Except I failed to mention that Alter and Naomi made mishlochei manot for everyone, which was clearly part of their evil plan to make people feel bad for not having done the same thing. :-p
I took some pictures, but haven't transferred them to my computer yet. (Actually, I haven't done that with November's pictures, either. I should.)
On Tuesday I figured out the reason why grown-ups hate Purim: it's the traffic jams! I got half an hour late to where I was going that morning, and then I decided to walk home, since getting there by service taxi (a minibus, basically) took very long, and also because the service taxis had to alter their courses slightly, because a portion of Dizengoff Street was blocked for a Purim thing, so I wasn't even sure where I could catch it. And since Dizengoff was busy for pedestrians as well as cars, I decided to go through a parallel street, Bugrashov. Only, the thing I was not aware of at the time is, Dizengoff goes bendy at some point; Bugrashov does not. So I kept walking through Bugrashov. And I saw something in the distance. And I thought: "Hey, that looks like the beach. Why does it look like the beach?" So I went to investigate. And it was the beach. Which was interesting, since I had no idea I was heading its way. So I thought: "Why is the beach here?" And I went by "Molly Bloom's", which is an Irish pub I will be going to with tinkerbell1980 tomorrow, in honour of St. Patrick's Day. I did find my way back home fairly easily from that point on (I knew the general direction, so). But it amuses me that I went to the beach by accident.
Then Wednesday! Was the SCA Purim event! And, basically the only event a year where you can go out into the street in garb without attracting too many strange looks. So it started with Gills! And Tal! Gills gave Tal, my harp and me a lift to Jerusalem! So yay Gills! And we listened to "RENT" in the car! And the event was very, very awesome as well. First we sort of set up (at dhole's and aethereal_girl's house), and zachkessin gave me dance music notes he got at Pennsic. Much with the awesome! But they're in SATB form, so I'll need to harpify them. And there was FENCING. You know, with SWORDS. *DEAD!* Much fun was had. Even though Tal asked me if I was pregnant some time before it started. (...) Which, I think, answers the timeless question "Does this dress make me look fat?", even though Tal claims I didn't look fat and it's just that the pose I was standing in at the moment looked pregnant-ish. *g*
And then people talked and I tuned my harp and then played a bit. A portion was actual period pieces; a portion was improvised on the spot, because improvising medieval and rennaissance music is fun. At some point one of the improvisations sort of melted into a bit from the soundtrack of "Pirates of the Carribean"; I don't think anyone noticed, and that's probably a good thing. And I also jammed with aethereal_girl's dad (who plays the guitar), and we played Irish dance tunes. Or tried to, anyway. And then there was the feast, cooked for THREE DAYS ZOMG by mick_hale. The food was very, very good, and in very, very large quantities, so much of it was left. And then more people came by and ate as well.
(Huh, is there any logic to the paragraph breaks I'm scattering about? I think not. Also, I sometimes use people's names and sometimes their LJ names. Oops.) Then there was dancing! I did not participate in dancing, because I was The Band for the occasion. (Shawn had a bodhran in hand at the time, but mostly Zach just told him not to use it.) It was in general very entertaining. First of all, Zach taught the dancers a dance called "Upon a Summer's Day". Then we all discovered that the notes for that dance were not among the notes from Pennsic, and he also didn't have a recording of it. So we mocked him about it for the rest of the dance lesson. *g* Second, the rest of the dance lesson was a bit uncoordinated, because they were learning the dance for the first time, and I was seeing the notes for the first time, and this made for a very interesting combination. Oh, and in one of the dances there's a time signature change from six eighths to three quarters, but it doesn't say whether a quarter equals an eighth note or a quarter or a dotted quarter, so I had/have no idea how to go from the first part to the second. (Zach, do you happen to have a recording of "Jenny Pluck Pears" I could listen to in order to figure this out?) But it was a fun experience and I'm sure we'll all get better through practice!
And then there was a Bardic circle! And joshbrown told a Drachenworld legend which was awesome, and I sang a traditional song called the "The Maid on the Shore" which is from some British Isle or another (we haven't quite agreed as to which one), and Tal sang "Loch Lomond", and Naomi's mom sang a song that repeats itself (a-la "Twelve Days of Christmas", "Echad Mi Yodea", "Etze Li Hashuka", etc.), which later got stuck in my head, and at some point later on Gills asked us some riddles, and I sang an Irish drinking song (which started a debate of "Aren't they all?") called "Bumper Squire Jones" and forgot most of the lyrics in the middle (thus proving I was not drunk enough). And at some point everyone just sort of started singing every drinking and / or bawdy song they knew (and I was thus introduced to an entertaining song called "Seven Drunken Nights"). *g*
And then there was an engagement party of two people who most of the SCA people knew a few floors above us. I did not (I think I met the groom-to-be once when Alter, Naomi and I went to that apartment during the Thank-God-It's-Over party), but I was eventually persuaded to come anyway, after having delayed Alter and Naomi from going up there for some time. And then Gills, Tal and I left to go back to TA. And that was the end of thingness. Except I failed to mention that Alter and Naomi made mishlochei manot for everyone, which was clearly part of their evil plan to make people feel bad for not having done the same thing. :-p
I took some pictures, but haven't transferred them to my computer yet. (Actually, I haven't done that with November's pictures, either. I should.)