Mortaine’s Blog

Saturday, despite the sad news brought by the post, was actually kind of a good day.

I cleaned the upstairs landing in the morning, vacuumed, and changed the litter, which improved things there considerably.

I then kicked around, trying to decide what to do for the day, since John was working.

My palm pilot and iCal reminded me that Poacher’s Feast, a local SCA event, was happening that day. I went online and searched for information.

The local Caer Darth website had no information, so I mosied over to the West Kingdom site and found the invitation. Ah, look at that– starts at 10 AM (it was 10:45), runs until 6, bring a side dish like bread, and $13 for non-member admission fee. Best of all, the event is at Highlands Park, which is all of 1 mile from my house.

Okay. I get dressed, finally settling on a muslin peasant blouse I made about 12 years ago and a rust-colored cotton weave skirt. The skirt has elastic and is really too short to be “period” (it comes up above my ankles), but I don’t mind. It’ll do for my first event, and I’m sure no one will say anything. Black sandals, plain, and a blue kercheif to tie my hair back. I put my personal belongings into my spinning basket, along with some fleece and a couple of spindles, and tuck a blue cloth over the modern-era things (cell phone, wallet), so they won’t show.

I call John to let him know where I’m going, and head down to the grocery store to buy a round loaf of sourdough bread and get some cash from the ATM. No problemo– I even wave at some similarly-dressed young women on my way in.

Get down to the park and find parking, then kind of wander around looking for people wearing Garb. I mean, that’s the advantage of an SCA event, I guess. Even if no one has a pavillion and banners out, you can tell where they are. I eventually found them in the group picnic site. I signed in, introduced myself as “New” and sat down to just kind of hang out, listen to people, etc.

Eventually, I broke out the spinning, which was cool. Meg, a long-time SCA person who I knew at UCSC, at one point remarked that my fleece (the beet-dyed stuff from mom’s sheep) wasn’t very well carded, that whoever had done it should have kept carding it…. at that point I interrupted her and said “Ah, that would be *me*.” I then went on to explain that I have no kids to employ as slave labor, and I don’t have a drum carder, so when I get bored with hand-carding, that’s when it’s “done.” Hence, the coarseness. But that I also don’t really care, because I know and expect that from this fleece, thanks.

*sigh*

So, anyway, many compliments on my spinning, which was nice. A lot of the ladies there were familiar with spinning– Meg’s parents used to spin and probably taught her– but most of them remarked that they couldn’t get it to be even, and they seemed to think that evenly spun yarn was something that you either could or couldn’t do, not that it was something that came with practice (and not even a whole lot of practice, either).

In any case, I met some nice people, had some good food and didn’t overeat, danced the Maypole, played silly games, laughed a whole lot, and spun and plied about an ounce of the beet-dyed yarn, plus an additional amount of the Cheese Omelette yarn, which I started working on after I’d finished plying the beet-dyed and didn’t have much else I could do with it, without having my niddy-noddy around.

Since I’d had such a great day, when the letter arrived, I didn’t even get all that upset. I mean, my head is kind of trying to catch up with it, but it couldn’t have come on a better day, at least in terms of me being emotionally capable of absorbing the blow.

Yesterday, however…. not so much. I woke up tired, but I made omelettes for breakfast. John and I went shopping for a TV stand. I bought some fabric at the craft store (yay– 50% off of $25/yard fabric and a cape pattern), which I’m going to use with the blue velvet I bought years ago (at $5/yard) to make an evening capelet. We spent a couple of hours looking at furniture and ordering some, and then went home. Had lunch in Ben Lomond. Went grocery shopping. Back at the house, I went over my current fabric and measured it to get an idea of what I might make with it. I mean, what do you make with 5 yards of white shiny satin, anyway?

While we were out, however, John got on my every last nerve. If he wasn’t complaining about my driving, he was getting on me for picking at my scalp– it’s a fucking bad habit of mine, but I DID NOT ASK HIM TO CHANGE ME. It drives me fucking crazy when he gets on me about it, especially when I’m driving, but also at home. Jesus fucking Christ, isn’t there something more important in your life than whether or not I’m scratching at my head? This, by the way, is the kind of thing we argue about, which I suppose is better than arguing about money, but since it’s essentially us arguing about things that I do that already make me feel bad about myself, IT’S NOT EXACTLY HELPING. It’s kind of like when your loved one says “are you sure you want to eat that?” in the middle of dinner with your boss. Um, yeah. Thanks, honey, for making me feel like shit. In response to that stress, I think I’ll do more of it, kthx.

By mid-afternoon, I was so fed up and frustrated and tired…. I just went into the bathroom and took a hot bath and ignored him. Our bathtub, I found, is kind of sucky when it comes to getting and staying hot, but whatever– that’s why we have a hot tub, I suppose. I read Marquez in the tub and had a glass of wine afterwards and felt… better.

Dinner was popcorn and wine. After the huge omelette breakfast and the hearty lunch, I wasn’t really in the mood for much food last night.

By the way, I clenched my jaw so much yesterday, it’s cracking every time I try to open it today.