peteyfrogboy

Another war has come and gone, and everyone has survived once more.

The trip up went very smoothly. I loaded up my gear, including the car top carrier left empty to bring back the tent I would be staying in, which had already been set up. Since D's school had just started, she and the wife were staying home in the air conditioning. Instead, I had lined up a couple of riders to help spread out the driving and gas. First I picked up Randalin, tucked her things in next to mine, then headed further north. We picked up Francesca, got everything arranged with just enough room for three people to sit, and hit the long road. It was a fairly uneventful trip, with only some fairly light rain in Virginia and West Virginia. The good luck we had on the way up would be balanced out later, but that's another part of the story.

This Pennsic was just as much fun as last year, though it had a different flavor. Where last war was all about making new friends and finding a new place for myself in the scheme of things, this war I got to know those friends better and settled into my new situation. I taught three dance classes, one as a substitute for grinnellian2001, who was coming in a day later than she had originally planned. They all went well, all things considered, and were well attended.

By the later part of the war, I had fallen into a regular schedule:
9:00 - Wake up, put on day clothes, eat granola bars for breakfast.
10:00 - Go down to the dance tent, eat an orange.
10:00-Noonish - Take morning dance classes. Could go as late as 14:00 if there are good classes and the weather is nice.
Noonish - Eat lunch.
Afternoon - Too hot to dance much. Retire to Chateau Desfontaines in the Cynnabar camp to lounge, sew, and/or play games.
Evening - Eat dinner, head back to camp to change into fancy clothes.
Night - Attend party in the dance tent.
Midnight - More dancing in the barn, if energy permits.

As usual, I spent very little time in my actual camp, and they took to calling me "Lorenzo the Invisible". I spent the majority of my time being grinnellian2001's Pennsic boyfriend, which mostly entailed being an entertaining fashion accessory and lifting heavy objects from time to time. I also spent a couple of days draping and sewing a cotehardie for her, cobbled together from an old unfitted T-tunic style dress of hers and a few extra yards of the same fabric. The old dress's body panels became gores, and the sleeves were altered and recycled. The body panels and side gores were cut from the extra yardage, with an unfortunate mishap that resulted in having to piece on a new bottom half to one of the back panels. The hem also had to be pieced in at the sides. The facings and bindings at neck, front opening, and hem were hand finished, and the buttons were made from the dress material. It turned out quite well, though after wearing it for a few hours it had stretched enough require it to be taken in a bit at the sides.

Much fun was had with desfontaines, jodybrai, and magda_vogelsang as well, including learning to play Munchkin and Guillotine. Also met and danced with a lot of new people as well as acquaintances from last year. I saw kyneburh briefly in passing, but we never really got a chance to chat. The dancing was pretty non-stop and always enjoyable. I learned and relearned a raft of dances, though I still had to fake my way through a lot of them during the balls. The new Italian wardrobe worked very well. Everything was comfortable to walk, work, and dance in, and the evening wear got a number of positive comments. The gonella turned out to be warmer than I'd hoped, despite being unlined. I also need to rebuild my brache with a center panel through the crotch. Really, I need to replace all my undergarments with linen anyway, but I can do that a little at a time over the next year. My goal for next year, clothing-wise, is to have a sufficient amount of comfortable 16th century clothing to do half the war in that and half in the current 15th century wardrobe.

Some of us braved the rain on Monday evening to go to Judith of Northumbria's well deserved Laurel vigil. There were also a couple of memorable dance moments outside of the normal ball setting. During one of the intermissions for the I Sebastiani performance at the ICOD camp, there was a masked performance of Rostiboli Gioioso and Petit Vriens. The former was done as a cat chasing a bird, while the second was a pair of dogs chasing the cat. It's rare to see that kind of dance performance in the SCA. Also, after Judith's 15th century Italian party at the dance tent, we went out into the night accompanied by Wolgemut. First, we snuck over to the Calontir encampment and the band played us a piva, which we danced in a line snaking through the camp. I ended up at the head of the line, and managed not to get anyone set on fire or injured by piles of discarded armor. We were there to break someone out of another vigil, but the Crown hadn't been by yet to release her, so we tiptoed back out into the night. We then headed over to the merchants and began dancing an alman procession through the merchant tents, across the road, and through the merchants on the other side to the barn. I don't know how long a march it was, but it was certainly good exercise. It was nice to get out and dance away from the normal venues, even if it was only a very simple step.

I also handed out my last two blank books for my library. One went to antoniseb, who is apparently going to write a treatise on astronomy, and the other went to Judith, who will likely write about clothing, dance, or both. grinnellian2001 started and finished her book at the war: an epistolary account of a ball in the style of Arbeau. I'll have her book ith me at events in the future for anyone who wishes to read it.


In contrast to the uneventful trip north, coming home got very exciting. The excitement happened only in alternate states, as it turned out, but that was more than enough. We got everything packed and got on the road by 11:00 on Saturday. We zipped through Pennsylvania without incident. About the time we hit the middle of nowhere in West Virginia (doesn't narrow it down much, I know), the rear passenger tire blew out. It was still leaking air by the time I got stopped, so no damage to the rim. The outer edge had been worn down to the belts on both rear tires. I reckon I should have put some extra air in them to compensate for the load. Called AAA, waited an hour, then got towed on a flatbed 50 miles through torrential rain to the Wal-Mart in Charleston. A couple of hours later, we were back on the road with two brand new tires. Virginia went by without incident. We dropped Francesca off in Knoxville, then made our way south again. About 2:00, we were doing about 65 down I-75 when some idiot in a little car came up behind us doing about 90 and slammed into us. He came around, thought about pulling over, and then sped off. No one got hurt, but now the back door of the van doesn't open. There will be much calling of the insurance company tomorrow. I finally got home at about 6:30 this morning. Despite the less than stellar ending, it was still an excellent war.

Pictures are up here.