girls on a road trip

I crawl out from under the heaps of apples and the much smaller heap of Nanowords to post a picture-studded side-trip. Specifically, a little about the Golden Swan event in October (this is apparently a non-chronological blog).
I've posted before about the Tournament of the Golden Swan. It's a persona-development SCA event, originally designed to encourage the more creative and less combative aspects of the Society for Creative Anachronism, or more pragmatically described, to give non-fighters something to do. This is done by testing how thoroughly entrants have researched and imagined the medieval person they present themselves as being.
Given that it's been going a fair few years, the contest has been stuck in several ways in a very SCA mindset, perhaps describable as a 1960s take on a romantic Victorian idea of the Middle Ages. As knowledge about medieval society and daily life has grown, and research within the SCA reached a higher standard, the better-researched your persona, the less likely you were to find a good fit with a contest that required an embroidered favour (an SCA tradition, not a medieval one) and expected entrants to inspire the lord who fought for them. Last year the outdated format was addressed once again, and actual changes were made.
Perhaps relatedly, there were three entrants this year, compared to none last year.

I leap ahead chronologically to show off a painting I did several years ago, for the Wild Women of Frozen Mountain. It's based on a German playing card, the Queen of Animals, and depicts a wild woman (covered in fur) with a unicorn.
It was hung up inside the hall, so I took the opportunity to get a digital pic of it.
Geez, guys, you could hem it sometime, you know? 

Anyway, Joan and Rosie and I drove out Friday morning--a beautiful clear Friday morning--from Port Moody. The plan was to have enough time to stop for scenery and wineries, and this worked out nicely.

Stop on the journey. Rosie surveys the Hope Slide. It must have been too cold for the chipmunks that Deirdre and I saw and fed, because they did not appear, though we made coaxing noises.

Stretching our legs in Manning Park. High altitude and shade meant lingering frost on the grass.We did not spot the derelict cabin this trip.

We did, though, encounter this cool tree-trunk,. Is it safe to turn your back, or will it lurch after you?

Despite wineries, we arrived in good time, and set up our tent alongside Alicia and Stephen's tent. Most people were sleeping inside the hall because of the cold, but we hardy medievalists were relying on wool and down (and straw mattresses) to shield us through the night. I have a photo of the frosty grass taken early the next morning, but perhaps the point was made above. It was cold. The stars were amazing, bright white in a black black sky. Until I set off the motion-sensitive light outside the hall.

Swans at bowls, on the field behind the hall. Most of the contest is indoors, sitting and chatting in close quarters, thus not appropriate for taking photos. Outdoors it's more relaxed, and I followed the gamesters about making quick sketches. This one they posed for.

Another shot from the bowls game that meandered all about the site. It started in the field beside the hall, wandered past the bandshell, behind the mock-frontier streetfront, through the seating for the fair bbq, past the animal pens, and around to the fighting field. (There was fighting going on, with HH Gemma exclaiming 'Man fall down!' at intervals.)

A game of 9 mans morris outside Alicia's tent. Entrants need to show competence in pastimes their character would have known, as well as skills in their craft or station.
Needless to say (but I will say it anyways) Alicia kicked butt in every category. Happily, all three entrants carried it off successfully and joined the Order of the Golden Swan.
We packed up as early as we could manage the next morning and set off, managing to stop at another couple of wineries on the way back, and take our pictures with the sasquatch.

A Garbage Gobbler, an icon of my childhood travels. Joan poses with it on our way out the gate.

Then I ran away with the sasquatch and was never seen again.

mermaids, stranded and rescued

 I promised you some pictures, didn't I?
 Well, my progress once out of the immobilizer has been pretty good. I got down to one crutch and to no crutch while indoors. Still can't manage kneeling other than on the bed to do my stretches, and getting up from anything lower than a regular chair requires something I can haul myself up by. I haven't tried driving yet. I think it would be okay for short distances, but road trips are out until I build back muscle in my leg.
 So I didn't think a camping event was going to work, until my wonderful former apprentice Elisa offered to drive up to Powell River for the Stranded Mermaid event, and to share her tent. (I should mention that I also had a tent offer from another wonderful former apprentice, Alicia--I have the best apprentices).  I knew I wouldn't have to cook in any case, because the Sugar Fairy would be on site, with a great full-weekend deal graded to your appetite.

 

I did well by the bacon and sausages and grilled cheese sandwiches and pound cake and ... You get the idea. Behind the camp kitchen you can see something of the site. It slopes away, first gently and then precipitately into a ravine, which has cool little stone stairways and trails down to the stream at the bottom. I was sad that I wouldn't be able to clamber down, as I've done previously at that site. But I was hanging on to at least one crutch for uneven ground.

 It was pleasant drive up, though we stuck to the highway route to make sure we'd arrive in time to catch the early ferry rather than the afternoon one. Because Comox was having a music festival and a bike tour and what all, we were a little concerned that the ferry might fill up, but we got on with plenty of room, then met Joan and her Amazing Twins in the cafeteria. So it was a lively trip. 

On the drive back we diverted briefly to the Scenic Seaside Route to check out Qualicum Beach. The sun was out and the sands stretched out invitingly, but alas! in between was an expanse of kelp-and-barnacle-encrusted rocks. More sadness, but we ate apples and walked along the promenade. 

The best thing about arriving in good time is the chance to set up by daylight and not in a rush--though I should note that Powell River is northerly enough to allow rather more daylight time. In fact it stayed light well past my bedtime. 

I wasn't much help with setting up the tent and furniture, other than holding one of the perimeter poles while pegs were hammered in, but it didn't take long, since Elisa has planned her camping so that she can do most of it herself (as I have with my little tent). 

Then we drove out to the Granada restaurant for their Greek platters. We ended up there last year mostly by accident, and loved the good Greek food and the kitschy decor, reminiscent of the old Romeo's restaurant in Victoria--though the Granada has its fountain outdoors on the patio, rather than in the foyer. This is my platter, and I managed to eat everything on it. I guess watching other people set up tents is a good way to work up an appetite. 

 

 Stranded Mermaid is a fairly low-key event. There's archery, and combat if enough heavy fighters and rapier fighters show up. The standout activity is the children's equestrian event, an obstacle course for kids riding hobby-horses. This year a new item:  besides riding through the Forest of Peril and the Row of Enemies, the kids had to rescue the Mermaid Baby Princess from a tower.
 Below, a tower rescue in action. Some of the rescuers were rather more cavalier with the princess, carrying her by her hair or tossing her in the air as they galloped.

The Tribute to the Mermaid contest this year was won by Dr. Carus, with his shadow-puppet play of the tale of the mermaid and the axe, a reference to the arms of False Isle, showing a mermaid holding an axe. The great challenge for this presentation was making a shadow play work on a bright sunny site, with few dark hours. Below is the improvised theatre behind the bandstand.

going walkies, eventually bikies

If I can get my EEE working again, I'll post photos of the event I was at this weekend, Stranded Mermaid in Powell River. I was able to go with my friend Elisa in her still-shiny-new van, and took my crutches as backup for walking on uneven ground (though the site is really well landscaped).

But for now, the big news is that I had my first physiotherapy session, at Shelbourne Physical Therapy, where Ian moved my knee around and gave his opinion that there was no ligament damage. He also measured the amount of bend and straight in my right knee (100 and -8 I think), and of course took me through a series of exercises that I'll have to do three times a day.
Then I rode a stationary bike for probably 10 minutes. The seat was up pretty high, making it possible for me to keep my feet in the stirrups for a complete cycle. I have the go-ahead to go back to weight training at the campus gym as well as riding the stationary bikes there. So I'll just have to psych myself up for the walk over to the gym from the library.
The business with my foot swelling up he says is an after-effect from the immobilizer, because my calf could not do its job of pumping fluid back and forth with the thigh muscles, and has to get that action established again. He went over the signs of deep-vein thrombosis and my leg isn't bright red, hot, or painful, so I'm less worried about the puffiness, though it's still annoying. 

This morning I had a shower with due care (like not standing on one foot at any point). It was lovely to rinse my hair out properly. I have been upstairs and downstairs several times today without any nasty flashes, though still going downstairs one step at a time because it really pulls my knee if I try two steps. (By this I mean toddler-style one-step, one foot down then the other foot to the same step)

So that's my health bulletin. 

vaguely resentful

I signed up for Facebook. Because the cousin I lost touch with about three years ago is on it, and it seems like the only way to regain contact.
Despite the fact that I've only sent a friend request to one person, and that one blood-related to me, FB is showing me vast lists of people I know from the SCA and prompting me to contact them. I'm a bit worried that I've somehow let the vampire across the threshold here. I mean, they can't go and loot my SCA address book unless I actually let them in, can they? Not just by my using my SCA-specific email as the contact email for validating my registration?
Just glad I didn't use my personal email address.
Already I'm regretting the fact that now whenever I sign a petition for human rights or labour rights I won't be able to blithely dismiss the followup 'Like Us on Facebook! Promote us on Twitter!' Though as Mark pointed out, if I don't go and sign up a bunch of friends, it won't matter what I put on my page, wall, thingy. And if I did sign up a bunch of friends, they'd get bored pretty quickly and block me, or whatever it is.
People do this for fun?
Excuse me. There are a bunch of middle-aged people on my lawn and I need to go shout at them to get off it. 

moderately eventful

Last week I was off to sunny Penticton (which it was, yes) for the Kingdom Arts & Sciences (& Bardic) Championships. A pleasant ride on the ferry, where I ensconced  myself in the buffet and nibbled my way across. Picked up by Stephen, Judy, Connie and Stewart, to drive for 4 hrs or so through ...
snow,

 no snow,

 snow,

 no snow,

to sunny Penticton.

Where I helped with judging cheese made in a gourd after a Middle Eastern recipe,

 a 14th century Egyptian shadow puppet play (yes, I have video, but who knows if it will post?)

 and sat in on the judging of an Elizabethan portrait miniature. (which reminds me, I need to send some parchment scraps to the painter, so she can try them out.)

More text later!

betwixting

Blogging once again from the ferry, in Active Pass just now. On my way to the Kingdom Arts & Sciences & Bardic Championships, in the Interior of BC this year. I'm sitting in the buffet section, watching thickly-forested islands rumble by while I sip coffee (with whipped cream) and nibble on cheesecake and florentine biscuits.
Some days I can taste everything intensely, so I'm taking advantage of that while it lasts.

So, let's catch up. Writey stuff first. I finally got Dread Synopsis 2.2, the tighter, leaner, yet historically expansive! outline off to my agent.
"Thank you, this synopsis looks really great. I think you've found a manageable middle ground between "small genre story" and "overwhelming historical epic"! 

We'll be talking on the phone in a few days, to discuss the characters' emotional arcs which I sort of scanted in covering the events.
If that's sorted out satisfactorily, I just have to write about 75k to finish the first draft. A mere bag of shells, as a friend of  mine says.

And my story is among the 9 finalists in the Friends of Merril Short Story Contest. I'm not naming the story, or linking to the contest at present, because there's another round of judging to go. We'll see what happens in a month. However, congrats to Colleen Anderson, another finalist, and best of luck to her!
No word yet on whether there will be a cage match for the last round.

Semi-writey, I was off last weekend to Seattle for Potlatch 21, and to visit with my friend Lynne. I went to panels on 'collapse novels' and 'librarians'--the book of honour was Canticle for Leibowitz--and chatted with people in the dealers room and hospitality. Somehow I acquired books, which I had meant not to do, but when a collection of ghost stories by L.M. Boston falls in my path, what am I to do?
Now I've learned about FogCon, which sounds awfully tempting, but not a lot of lead time to decide.
Lynne and I went for dinner to a Greek restaurant adjoining a bookstore, where I was only saved from further acquisitions by their system not accepting my Canadian debit card because it had no expiry date.
No, I don't get it either, but it means it's still my turn to buy dinner (just as it is for me for Nikki, but for different reasons).

And entirely non-writey, I've started weight training, 3 times a week in the mornings, with MC to make sure I do it right. Thirty-plus years I've worked at the uni, and only now do I take advantage of my free gym access for anything more than showers. I've always been a bit of a slow starter.

wherein I am artsy

 Thought I'd be lazy and just post some of the photos I took in the summer, a couple of which aren't bad, or might be mildly interesting.

 This below is a view of the shower (women's) at Coopers Lake Campground, the site of the Pennsic war. The building is over 100 years old - if you zoom, you can see adze marks on the roof joist. For several years, these three stalls (and three on the other side for men) were it for showers, unless you rigged something at your campsite. Now that Pennsic gets over 10k attending, there are a couple of shower trucks and other buildings, plus most group encampments have shower tents. It's still a rare occurence to find the whole room empty, so I commemorated the moment. About 2 or 3 am, I think it was, and the greenish light gives it a nicely underwater eerie look.

 At Mark's urging, I took my camera on a couple of early morning walk-runs around the camps. I may have mentioned that many groups do elaborate painted fabric walls or trompe l'oeil gates. This group went for the macabre. If someone had been awake I would have asked if it was a portrait or a generic head.

 I took so many photos on the way back, of changing landscapes, rock formations, cool clouds and lotsa vistas. This one comes under cool clouds--I like the way the sky mirrors the perspective of the lane lines, though I probably should have trimmed off some of the top third to emphasise it.

 Rock formations, did I say? Nature--not that subtle, really.

 We pulled over into this tiny town below for the sake of photographing the, um, mesa, that overlooks it. Although we found a good vantage point and got shots of it alone, I prefer this view interlined with houses.

 I'm a bit of a sucker for neon. We came out of the last hotel early early-oh, and I saw this sign against the hill. Just in time--a couple of minutes later the lights went out for morning.

more Pennsic photos

 It's difficult to pick what's representative of the 'Pennsic experience' when I just photographed whatever took my fancy. I'll try to provide some context.
About 12000 people attended the Pennsic War, most camping onsite. The Cooper's Lake campground was long ago filled, and I think they rent surrounding fields to cover the overflow and allow room for fighting fields etc.
There are two large marketplaces with about 300 merchants, a dozen tracks of classes (hands-on, seminars, etc.) running every day, performances of music, dance and drama, processions, craft demonstrations, ...
oh, and a war, with battles and stuff. Somewhere. But it was really hot.

 Various groups, from kingdoms to households, prefer to camp together, and there's a complicated system for allotting space. Having won their land, most groups mark it with fabric walls and gates made of anything from fabric to plywood to stone. I liked the paint job on this one, a pretty decent trompe l'oeil.

 Midweek there's a late-night shopping spree called Midnight Madness. Merchants drop their prices, offer odd bargains, and sometimes do silly things like shave their heads. The markets are full of people, it's a great night for buskers (three very young ladies outside our booth performed 'What Shall We Do With the Drunken Sailor' and Leonard Cohen's Alleluia, an odd juxtaposition), very carnival atmosphere. This photo is of some 'dead' being carried out, complete with Monty Python quotes.
 "I'm feeling better!"

 One of the many streets at Pennsic, photographed towards the end of the event. This area is residential, so not many people are about. They're either napping in the heat of the day, or off taking classes, or fighting, or wandering the market.
Hoping this gives at least a hint of how big the event is.

Artisan invasion! A number of artisans arrive in the market street with their tools and materials, and work through part of the day, then vanish, reappearing elsewhere another day.
Mark points out that almost everything they do is 18th century, but it's still fun to watch.

random Pennsic pics

A small selection of the cool stuff at the war. First, labyrinths of various designs appeared by the barn, in the food market, and along the paved pathways. Every morning they were drawn fresh. You can imagine how happy I was to discover them on my early morning walks, and to take the time to walk or run them on my way.



Another new thing: parchment makers in the market. The Meyer family has been making parchment since the 1500s, reportedly, but this is the first time they've come to Pennsic. Next year they hope to have a proper tent, but I suspect no one really noticed anything past the OMG PARCHMENT!!!eleventy.



Another thing that might almost have been chosen to make me personally happy: Alexander, apprentice to Arab Boy, is making Aldrovani-style enamelled beakers. These are the very objects that caused me to fall in love with enamelled glassware in the first place, and to work on faking them up with thriftshop glassware and low-fire enamels. Alexander is doing them for real. When I found out there would be a demo of the process on Saturday, I was all bouncy.



By the food market we met the labyrinth maker, who had just finished a gnomen sundial nearby, and was adding another classic labyrinth to the path.

I wanted to add a video of Dru and Osprey playing cigar-box and cookie-tin banjo, but there isn't room on this post, so it will have to wait.

promised pics

Just some from the Montana leg of the trip, a rest stop under a hill, with a terrific view from the top. I climbed it because I needed a stretch after a few hours driving. Forgot to photograph or note the informative sign naming which rest stop it was, sigh.
Took a fair number of photos, but I don't want to strain my available upload time.

One side of the rock formation at the top. I do love the geology in Montana. We did North Dakota in the dark, so I don't have any clever observations to make about it.


I took a few more photos of the plants as I walked back down. I don't know the names of any, so I should try to bring a wild plants book and a bird book the next time I make this trip.



And while I forgot to photograph the actual place sign, I couldn't resist this one. If you're wondering, no, I didn't see any snakes of any sort as I walked up the narrow asphalt trail to the top of the hill. Would I have stood about like a nitwit and attempted to photograph a rattlesnake if I saw one? Hm. Hope not.



If I can make this all work again (or rather, if my wonderful husband can make it work, since this is done on his laptop) I'll post some Pennsic War photos next time.

promissory post

I'm in Pennsylvania, at the Pennsic War, very temporarily online with borrowed equipment. I have some cool photos from Montana that I can't post yet because the thumb-drive won't show up on this machine, and I have a pre-written post about the trip that is stuck on my EEE, so much will have to wait for free wifi.
Things have been purchased (books, linen, ink-making supplies, parchment). Classes have been circled in the schedule. Sweat has been sweated. Wine and cider have been drunk. People have been hugged. And so on. I have even gone for a brisk walk in the early cool and done some writing on Not a Fairy Princess (working title). Haven't worked on Maenads at Band Camp yet.
More later.

Forced-perspective cat

menaces tiny deer. Roger Corman directs.

Nature, red in bloom and berry, is yapping about my heels like a border collie, lately. The rhubarb has sprung up again, after a disappointing first season, and the Transparent tree has already begun to drop apples. I have a huge bowlful that I need to process and turn into crumble or pie soonest.


I've been trying to thin out the apples, but it doesn't seem to have much effect. The deer is helping, so to speak, but concentrates his efforts on the same areas I can already reach. That and he's eaten the tops off the broccoli and the tomatoes, yet we aren't allowed to shoot him within city limits.
The alba roses are pretty much done, the gallica are still blooming away, and the front yard roses are small but steady--the Dortmund continues as usual, promiscuously.


Last month we drove out to Le Coteau and other farms & nurseries on the south island, and came back with more blueberry bushes, a josta and another currant bush. The last two have been planted behind the workshop, where a stand of volunteer poppies is flourishing away already.
We also stopped at a couple of wineries, a ginnery (I'm sure that's not the word) with an amazing steampunkish distilling apparatus, Babe's Honey and Sun Wing Tomatoes.
The spearmint honey doesn't taste at all like spearmint. It's like a double buckwheat honey. Mmm.

This month I've been to the Stranded Mermaid Tourney, near Lund, and to July Coronation, sort of near Yakima. Clear hot weather for both, with a side of mosquitoes. I'm hoping that will be it for the next while, so that I can get back into the routine of writing.
Still, had a great drive back from Mermaid, the ferry from Powell River to Comox, then taking the Seaside scenic route whenever possible. Stopped in Qualicum, and Kellii and I went wading in the shallows, which were bathwater warm and clear enough to see all the tiny tiny crabs skittering across the sand. Near the Malahat, the wind picked up, and swirled clattering arbutus leaves and barks in a russet barrage against the van. Three times this happened, as if we were driving into a pocket of autumn. I hope it doesn't mean some sort of arbutus die-off.

Coronation was at Fulbright Park, near Yakima. It's big and flat, with a stream/river running along one side. It had been mown a few days before, but not baled, and I spent part of the first night making mental plans for what to do if the field caught fire. Given that most SCA members are unacquainted with camping except within the SCA, and seem to think of open flame as a sort of special effect or CGI, I think it must be entirely due to that god that looks after imbeciles that there's been no serious fire in the last dozen years. One encampment had low tiki torches to mark their entry, and had cleared the hay away to a big pile right next to the torches and almost exactly as tall.
I figured I could, with the right incentive, scramble through the wild rose and thistles on the bank of the river closest to us, and land in the water. Fortunately it didn't come to that.

However, while investigating the river bank, I discovered that the edge of the field was full of great big teazle plants, and cut about a dozen teazle heads for Elisa to make a teazle comb, for next year's Fort Rodd Hill. And, y'know, they're cool, as noxious weeds go.
Alicia and I set up under a big willow tree (YES!) with shade from afternoon on. We laid a thick layer of straw in the tent, and laid tarps and mats over that, then our beds. I wished like heck that I'd brought one of the tick bags from home, so that I could have stuffed a tick with unthreshed hay, and maybe snuck a bagfull home to try making a bee-skep with it, and see if it worked better than threshed & baled hay, which is annoyingly short.

Because I didn't have many commitments, I was able to reduce my TBR pile, just a little. Finished The Last Apprentice, by Joseph Delaney, The Forest of Hands and Teeth, by Carrie Ryan, Darkborn, by Alison Sinclair, Monstrous Regiment, by Terry Pratchett, The Silver Ship and the Sea, by Brenda Cooper, and Precious Dragon, by Liz Williams.
Didn't get as much napping in as I'd hoped, even though I should have been tired enough. But I did sleep most of the way back from Yakima, shirking my duties as shotgun to keep the driver entertained.

I still haven't seen the actual deer, by the way. The photographic evidence is all Mark's work.

I must like deadlines

Because I've spent the last two months surrounding myself with them. Most important was the revisions deadline for Willow Knot, that being a real-world commitment. I got the second lot of agent-requested-revisions done and emailed only one day over deadline, and snail-mailed a printout that week. Whoof!

Then it was the last push for my entries for the An Tir Arts & Sciences Championship. I was entering hand-puppets and booth based on the bas-de-page miniatures from Bodleian ms.264 Romance of Alexander, a play with said puppets, a folding almanac on parchment, and a recitation & translation of a Hans Sachs poem (one of the short ones).
On Feb 20 I took some time away from the race to attend Dragon's Laire's Candlemas, where I visited with my wonderful apprentice Eileen, caught up with Deirdre about stained glass, and picked up more info and inspiration for the puppets and the almanac, as well as an insight on hunting that pointed the way into Alard's character for revisions of his pursuit in the marsh. So yayness! I came home full of excitement and energy.
And fell over with the cold Mark brought me back from Estrella. Cue two weeks of hacking up yuck and of a head full of mucus. Which slough I am only now crawling out of.
As a result, although I got the revised ms out the door, my A&S entries went to heck. I clung to the illusion that I could pull it all together in the last few days, and indeed, I had the puppets and booth ready to go, the play handwritten and the poem translated and rehearsed. The almanac was mostly blank pieces of parchment cut to shape, and my documentation was pretty rough, but still! I ignored Mark swanking around with his two entries all finished and ready to go, and struggled on.

Friday we packed up the van as I frantically edited documentation. Off we go! Customs searched the van, but in a less accusatory way than previously. Then, disaster of sorts: the puppet booth was made partially of raw branches - willow and alder that I scrounged from recent prunings around the neighbourhood. And untreated/unheated hardwood is not to cross the border. So the supports for the booth have to stay behind.
Which I don't at all argue with - it never occurred to me to check into that, although I've lived most of my life in areas where forestry was a major industry. Dumb me. And my most complete entry is now not very complete. The part made from milled lumber is okay, and the puppets are okay, but it will be something of a challenge to present the play--and my voice having mostly disappeared is not helpful.
Well, it wasn't as if I were trying to win (what I was trying to do is a long and ranty story, to be saved for some other time). So here are my puppets on the improvised supports, and beside is the model from the manuscript. My bent-willow arch with the scrim to hide my face is missing, (due to Customs) so the resemblance isn't all it could be, even above the missing supports.













Anyway, the Championship was a good event. I got to share my most recent enthusiasms with other enthusiastic people, got pretty stoked for trying the same stuff (only finished) next year, and best of all, my former apprentice Alicia took the Championship, with her student Constance being one of the finalists.

duelling geekdoms

In minutes I am off to Vancouver (Abbotsford) for a laurels meeting--assuming the ferries are running, because it is howling wind outside.
Anyway...No Potlatch for me. It's the same weekend as the An Tir Arts & Sciences Championship, which I usually judge at, and which I plan to enter this year so that the next time some Kinglike Entity whines about how laurels never enter it and dismisses my 6 hrs of judging & feedback as pfah not the same, I can get up and walk out of the damn meeting.
Okay, not a noble motivation, but a fairly strong one.
I'm kind of bummed otherwise, because Potlatch is in Seattle this year, and I'd have a chance to visit with friends and go to bookstores and fun stuff like that. And have incentive to finish a story for the writing workshop.
But there you go, this is what it is to be in more than one fandom.

Safe at the war

At Pennsic, and briefly online, on Mark's dime. The heat is presently not too bad, and the rain is not presently falling, I had my cup of tea this morning, so much is well. Now I'm off to run what errands I can, with John the Artificer not yet open.
Mark has been sharing my happy agent news (I have an agent!) with our friends--I was told by one that he won't shut up about it.
I'll have to wait until it's my own dime (or free wifi) to be chatty.

a sense of calm urgency

Is what we're supposed to employ as we evacuate the Library, should evacuating the Library be called for. It's the first item on the emergency list recently sent around.
And it's what I need presently, since I will be leaving on the 25th for the Pennsic War, followed by Worldcon in Montreal. It's not so much the prep for the trip itself, it's the multitude of things that suddenly needed doing before I leave.
* dental app't
* subsequent repair of old filling
* optometrist app't
* subsequent choosing and fitting of new glasses
* subsequent adjusting of me to new glasses
* regular blood test
* vet app't for cat
* weeding in front yard
* processing the first batch of Transparent apples
* pastry for pie to be frozen
* writing up notes for house-sitting
* finishing reshuffling of scenes for Willow Knot

And last-minute additions to packing:
* sewing up new shift for hot weather
* sewing up new kirtle for same
* finding wool to trade for sewing of nicer kirtle
* oranges (or lemons? must choose) watercolour
* next thing that I haven't thought of yet (repeat)

One major worry is taken off my mind by the arrival of my friend and apprentice Judy to house-and-cat-sit. Priss has been uncommonly clingy and whiney since I was away at Fort Rodd Hill, and I tremble to think what a horror she'd be after 3 weeks without regular company. Not to mention the gardens going unwatered and the apples falling to rot.
Judy arrived Tuesday night and is already enthused about making rosepetal jelly and apple juice, so that is well. Hopefully she'll also have time to enjoy sitting in the garden and dropping in at the several coffee places nearby, and of course, reading.

I'll be on the road for a few days, and my online access until Worldcon will be spotty, so I expect this month will be fairly uncommunicative. I had hoped to do another roses post, but haven't found time. However, here's a picture of the Kazanlik in the front yard, which is about 8 ft tall and hardly ever produces flowers. This year I managed to catch one bloom while it still had petals. The blooms aren't showy, but they are smack-in-the-face perfumey, which unfortunately doesn't come across in a picture (or fortunately, given scent-sensitivities). Kazanlik is one of the attar-of-roses varieties, like the damask in the back yard.

And just in case you're sick of roses, here's a bundle of blueberries.

photosensitive me

Back from May Crown, a terrific weekend at the Daisy May Campground near Fort Macleod. I visited with my kick-butt apprentice Alis and her lady Asha; former but still kick-butt apprentice Sina and her cute-beyond-bearing children; amazingly talented friend Nan (with detour to see her new yarn shop); about-to-be-married Meg; stunningly gorgeous Kate, and others that I'm too silly to adjectivise just now: Klaus, Nessa, Elaine and Malcolm, Freydis, ....
So yes, I was very social. And dutiful. I did about an hour of folding event handouts, two hours of gate, attended the (mercifully brief) Laurels meeting, the 'Show & Shine' (all of one person displaying work, possibly because the name is not indicative of anything specific), and the Laurel Q&A (where I ended up being Mistress Bossy-Boots because no one was in charge).

The site is a former or occasional swamp off the Oldman River. Once off the flattened campground, you can clearly see the channels and humpy islands, even without water to delineate. Doing a bit of a wander, I found two half-sunk squashed cars, with scrubby trees growing through the windows and hood in approved post-disaster movie fashion.
The full-grown trees were mostly leafless, making for a somewhat artificial, stage-setting look. Trinity thought it looked like the set for a Harry Potter film.
Where the swamp wasn't, the ground was strewn with river stones, some remarkably large. We found an impressive lump of quartz, black basalt, granite, lots of blobby sedimentary and others that Freydis identified for us (yay Freydis!). I found a little square striated stone that turned out to be petrified (?) bone - a bit of buffalo rib, maybe.
Yes, I brought back rocks. Because rocks are cool.

The first day was clear and still, the stars that night thick and swarming, the night bloody cold. I didn't properly warm up (having done the 10-midnight shift) until near light. The next two days were windy, gusting erratically and continually, and my canvas tent luffed all night. Every time I dozed off, I dreamt of sailing and woke trying to duck under the boom as we swung about to catch the breeze. Since I haven't sailed for, oh, thirty-five years, this seemed unfair.
I'm a bit wonky from lack of sleep, although I did sleep until 11 Monday morning.

After take-down, I discovered that the methotrexate warnings aren't kidding about photosensitivity. I'd managed to keep my head covered almost the whole time, but apparently not enough, and not my nose. Not only did about 15-20 minutes of sun toast the back of my neck, but my nose was blistered.
The backs of my hands burnt! The most weather-exposed, toughened parts of my body burnt, from being out in full sun for part of a day. You can see where my cuffs fell partway across the knuckles.
It makes me want to do leaf-prints on myself. If I stuck some ivy leaves on my bare pallid arms, it would probably only take about 10 minutes to establish a temporary sun-tattoo. Sure, it might hurt some, but so do tattoos.

In other health-related musings, you'd think that a test involving the words 'occult' and 'blood' would be creepy and cool, possibly admitting one to membership in an order of mystic assassins.
But this is not the case.

Interior journeys: awful damn scenic

Two trips into the interior of BC, one in July to Castlegar, the second in October to Oliver (and also to Nelson). Attempts to drag along travelling companions failed, which meant at least that I could sing in the van, because I don't sing where people can hear me.
Castlegar is in the Kootenays, and would like you to know it's the Greatest Dam City in the World, being right close to a large dam (the Hugh Keenleyside Dam, sorry no tours) with a mildly alarming array of bridges and on/off ramps (not as scary as Portland, but Castlegar is much smaller than Portland).
If I were a much hardier cyclist than I am, more in JH-R's league, I'd probably want to cycle the railbed trail between Midway and Castlegar, which looks even more scenic than the drive, but I'm a feeble old lady, so I'll just look at the pictures, and look out the car windows.
Oliver, which I've written of before, is the Wine Capital of Canada, with a classy wine shop in the town, and any number of wineries (even a fruit-winery) on the way, plus the fruit markets in the Okanagan. I'm told that while it's dead easy to find work, it's nearly impossible to live there because of the cost of housing.
Nelson is where Roxanne was filmed, with Steve Martin, and it is picturesque like anything. It had an influx of new people after the film, because it was so clearly an ideal small town, with the result that it too became an expensive place to live.

The Castlegar trip was to attend Troll Stomp, and to spend some time with my apprentice Lucy and others of the Wild Women. The Oliver trip was for the last Tournament of the Golden Swan to be held at the Skunk Hollow site, so there was a valedictory feel to the weekend, even while I was visiting with Lucy and Evangeline, and with Nan Compton and her family, and others I don't see often.
(Even before online nicknames, much of my acquaintance used pseudonyms and aliases--please note also that my acquaintance includes a number of people who are willing to camp in the Interior of BC in October.)
Castlegar is about 7 hours drive from the ferry terminal (how I measure every trip off-island--no point counting the ferry wait and so on), Oliver only about 5 hours. Nelson 8 or 9 hours. So it's fortunate that the view is not only attractive but variable. There's more than one ecosystem on the way.

On the first trip I remembered to borrow a camera(!) and take some photos of the places I look for and stop at, so here you are, a little visual relief from the usual wall of text this blog provides.

The Hope Slide. This happened when I was a small child, so it has a different sort of meaning for me than most historic sites. An avalanche that covered cars on a BC highway, the very sort of highway my family travelled every summer, and that my dad travelled every weekend to get back to us when he was teaching somewhere else. A couple of the cars were never recovered. Here's a shot of the mountain, and you can still see how it fell away.


The Manning Park cabin. The first time I saw this, I was driving with my friend Kellii as navigator, and she'd brought a book of West Coast ghost stories to enliven (endeaden?) the trip. So we were primed to see this as a haunted cabin. It's fairly close to the western end of the park, right after an eerie stretch of bog (lots of that in Manning Park) separated from the road by a rushing bit of river. Just out of this photo is what looks like a boathouse, though it's rather too far from the water, and might be a summer kitchen or other outbuilding. I don't know its history, but it should have one. Maybe I'll make one up sometime.



Bromley Rock Provincial Park, where I care little for the striking rock bluff or tiny white sand beach (okay, I do, but I didn't take pictures), and instead am drawn to the scrap of former road that the rest area and parking was built on, which remains behind the outhouses. Even when the park is busy, this spot remains quiet and set apart, as if it's waiting for something to come along it.




On the July trip return, I stopped just outside Castlegar and picked up two hitch-hikers, a young dreadlocked guy and girl who were heading to Vancouver, to be supportive for the trial of their friend, an American deserter who'd been hiding out in Nelson. They were good company, though I will offer this piece of advice for hitching: when your ride stops to fill up, it's a nice gesture to offer to clean the windshields, especially if you're too broke to put in for fuel.

On the October trip, no hitch-hikers, though I did drive into Nelson and back with Lucy and Evangeline to save them from having to hitch-hike with all their camping gear. And going to my van on the ferry, I met two young women who needed a ride into Victoria, one of them with a guitar. Pleased to hear both of them talking over the coming election and preparing to vote, and glad I wasn't a slacker myself in that way, while Lucy and her sister were planning to be helping with the vote in Nelson. Yay for the engaged citizenry!

ranting is supposed to be fun

So why don't I ever feel charged and catharted (catharsised? catheterised?) after giving in to the urge?
You don't want the background, trust me. A largely pointless discussion (polite) on an SCA-specific mailing list, with a side-issue that well and truly pushed my buttons. I bicycled home thinking it over and getting angrier at the implied dismissal of much of what I do and value, and ended up making a blackberry crumble really efficiently: cutting butter into flour when you're shaking with rage is surprisingly quick, though not particularly cathartic.

So today I posted on the side-issue. I managed to restrain the CAPSLOCKS OF RAGE and remove all the instances of effing-equivalents that appeared in the spoken drafts of said post. I kept to my point. I was sharp, but not outright rude, and I did not finish with SFTU N00B, even though I thought it really loudly.
And I did not feel better. Even though the worst-case scenario of response (banishment) would be both unlikely and, um, kinda welcome as an excuse not to do SCA-stuff for a reign or so but instead concentrate on writing. Mostly I feel kind of low and foreboding, and worried that I might have hurt someone's feelings. Not that I want to take anything back, just sick of the whole discussion, even more than I was before.

One of the side-effects of the methotrexate is supposed to be irritability, but I can hardly expect it to have kicked in after one dose Monday night, when the therapeutic effects are supposed to take weeks and months.
Damn but I want to be self-righteous. It must be so comfortable, compared to all these damned haverings.

apprentices: get it in writing

My thoughts on apprenticeship, let me show you them.

Warning: the following is very specifically SCA-related. If you're not familiar with (or interested in) historic re-enactment or re-creation, it may be somewhat baffling.

The Society for Creative Anachronism, as the name suggests, isn't really about history. One of the tag-lines is 'the Middle Ages, not as it was, but as it should have been', usually taken to mean 'without the plagues, pogroms, persecutions and general dirt, but with the ideals of chivalry, courtesy and honour, and fun.'
Sometimes it's an Arthurian dream come true. Sometimes it's the worst parts of high school.
Anyway, within the SCA I'm a Laurel of the Kingdom of An Tir. Laurels are theoretically like Knights, except for doing art-type stuff instead of fighting, and Pelicans are theoretically like Knights, except for doing service instead of fighting.
I use Knights as the model because they were established first. And I say 'theoretically like Knights' because Knights are the sexy ones, or rather the concept of knighthood is sexy. Individual knights may not bear out this concept. Knights can become Prince or King, which has all the fairy-tale / LOTR cachet possible (again, individual kings may not match model shown here).
Knights, naturally, take squires. Since Laurels and Pelicans were modelled on Knights, they should have something like squires to mentor and teach and encourage. Since Laurels, if you squint through one eye, are vaguely like Masters of a trade, their squire-equivalents are called apprentices. Pelicans' objects of mentorage are called proteges.
Side note: a good many medieval knights were bureaucrats and officers of state, so Pelicans are probably considerably closer to medieval knights than Knights are, but let's not get into that.
The ability to take apprentices and to be addressed as Mistress instead of My Lady were the things that reconciled me to becoming a Laurel. Otherwise, the main perk of Laurelness is the right to go to meetings where we discuss who else should be allowed into our meetings.
It's possible to do an extensive compare-and-contrast between the SCA and high school. I will only say that if the Knights are the jocks and the Ladies of the Noble Estate are the cheerleaders, then the SCA is a high school where people scheme and become bitter about not getting into the AV Club or the Yearbook Club.

Disclaimer, often said through gritted teeth: The laurel-apprentice relationship is a very personal and individual one.
Some model it closely on the knight-squire personal fealty model--I should mention that SCA fealty is rather more idealised and less negotiated and contractual than medieval fealty might be--others are more like business contracts, and some don't seem to be thought out at all.
Because I'm a geek and actually like history and research, not to mention having somewhat William-Morris-Socialist ideals, I favour a contract. A contract that allows for negotiation, re-negotiation, and ideally, recourse for either party should they be unsatisfied or feel there is breach of the contract.
Which means the contract should be specific about the important things. How long a term does it cover? What is expected from each party? How much contact between the parties, since the modern apprentice isn't likely to be sleeping on the master's shop-floor and opening the shutters in the morning. Without expectations made clear, it's impossible to tell whether the contract is being fulfilled.
Sometimes I twitch, hearing dramatic and fervent oaths sworn, and wondering if there's any substance behind them. One of the most dramatic apprenticeship ceremonies I've witnessed ended in a fizzled-out relationship, with the apprentice coerced into fulfilling the laurel's commitments while the laurel went off to have a nervous breakdown.
Knight-squire oaths tend to sound damn good, with promises to raise arms against enemies, defend to the death, and lots of mentions of honour. Which is appropriate for that kind of game.
But I'm portraying, mostly, a middle-class artisan. If one of my apprentices or servants needs defending, I'm not going to rummage through the longswords and rush out there. I'm going to hire a lawyer and call in some favours.
It lacks drama, I grant you.

What I believe I can do for my apprentices: I can teach them in certain crafts, but mostly I can help them research and improve their research. I can help them understand how to look at other's work and assess it. I can find resources for them, both people and materials. I can encourage them to display their work or enter it in competition as suits their temperament, and I can provide honest feedback to make that work more accurate and documentation more thorough. I can bring them into a loose network of people who care about research and accuracy and who have fun doing it. I can speak for them if they aren't being heard--at least as far as my own reputation and standing will take me.
What I won't do for my apprentices: allow them to claim the relationship as any sort of rank, such as signing themselves 'apprentice to Linnet'; bring their names up in Laurel council before other Laurels do.

Aspects of the SCA laurel-apprentice relationship that bother me (see gritted-teeth disclaimer above) are that first, there is no baseline minimum standard, and second, that there is no regulatory body.
A medieval apprentice whose master was not fulfilling the contract could complain to the guild (I have a transcript of one such complaint) but if an SCA laurel drops out of sight without warning, or uses an apprentice as unpaid general drudge, or never gets around to teaching anything, there is no recourse for the apprentice after the immediate measure of trying repeatedly to talk things over with the Laurel.
Sidenote: yes, the apprentice can be at fault, but it's considerably easier for the Laurel to drop an apprentice (it usually involves posting a note on the Laurel's email list) than for the apprentice to be heard at all.
A contract won't fix this situation. But if hopeful apprentices and Laurels talk about what they'd have in a contract, they would at least have thought about what they each wanted, and have the practice of talking about uncomfortable issues. Plus a little bit of heads-up on how well the other party handled talking about how things might go wrong.
Taking a longish road-trip with each other is a good indicator of how each handles stress, as well. I try to include that in the lead-up to formal apprenticeship.

Can I make this into a coherent bullet-point sort of thing?
* You should be able to talk to each other, including expressing disappointment or changed expectations.
* You should be able to at least tolerate the people associated with the other person, ideally to find those people interesting and helpful.
* You should be able to make a road-trip without the urge to leave the other person at a rest area.
* You should each be bringing in something that the other person values.
* You should be able to claim the other person with pleasure and pride.
* You should be able to admit the other person's faults without defensiveness or shame.

There's a first draft. I'll see whether it still looks rational after I've had dinner. And perhaps post a sample contract.