Thoughts

Skills unused rust. Oh, yes, they sure do. It has taking me all night to cut out four little outfits and sew one together. Part of my time was spent ripping out a neck seam... I know that there are other things worse than finding after clipping the inside of a neck facing with a slit-opening that you've sewn it inside out, but right now I can't think of one. Not that I am stretching myself to do so, of course.

A strip of masking tape down each already-cut slit held everything together while I restitched the seam - although again, I pulled the 'wrong side' error and had to pick out the bits of tape from the outside edge. But nothing frayed so I'm calling that a win. And the little tunic is very cute.

Pennsic Prep continues. Bossman cut down the dowels (whatever they are called - the long poles at each corner of a bed frame which might support a canopy) so they are about waist-high now. They'll pack in the truck much easier this way and since I won't have a canopy on my bed, there is no need for the original height. Although I did feel a pang of regret that we were abusing a good Ethan Allen bed. He salvaged the knobs at the top of each pole, which were separate items fitted with a dowel, drilled holes in the new 'tops' and fitted the knobs into those. He did such a fine job staining the raw bits of wood that I couldn't tell in strong sunlight what the difference was between the new stain and the old finish.

Tomorrow I go searching for "bed lifts", as the bed was designed for a mattress and foundation but I'll only be using the mattress. The surface of the bed will be four inches shorter than normal but the bed lifts on each leg should take care of the difference. I'm going to miss my slates. Bossman is insisting that we use a solid board instead. Ugh. As we find in so many hotel rooms, it will be like sleeping on a lightly-padded rock. Especially since our regular bed has a nice comfy waterbed mattress (with a 2" foam top).

The horrible-looking stripe on my night gown has been removed. Yay. I am still picking out bits of the ends from the seams but truly I'll be the only one who notices them since the seams are right at the edge of the armhole. Next will be making the tunic. I'm still torn on the neck opening. Experiment, or stay safe?

Our Independence Day was forecast to be totally drenched by (almost a storm) Arthur but the predictions also claimed that the majority of the rain and wind would be past by early afternoon. So we went ahead with our plans.

We had eleven friends and one son over for a cookout & pavilion-raising. Unhappily for me, the night before passed sleepless until morning and I ended up asleep, lulled by the moderate amount of rain hitting the house, until almost 1330... and I'd invited folks to start arriving 'anytime after 1300'! I went from luxuriously sleep-sated to panicked upon seeing our bedside clock. Bossman was already long awake, of course, and he'd elected to let me sleep myself out. He prepped the grill, cleaned the kitty box, and washed dishes before I even shook the sand from my eyes. I had enough time to prepare the fixings for the berry shortcake (strawberries, blackberries, and raspberries, sweetened - with the pulp and juice of one overly-ripe white nectarine added in since the rest was a tad dry) along with whipped crème and pound cake. Then I got the pasta salad made. It was a boxed mix of tri-colored spiral noodles with red pepper bits and Ceasar dressing, to which I added cherry tomatoes, sliced black olives, cucumbers, and minced bacon. It wasn't bad at all. We bought steaks for everyone who showed up since they were there partially as a work party. The owner of the pavilion, Barb (Felicia in the SCA) joined us and wracked her brain trying to remember how she and Donovan used to raise their pavilion. That was the only occasion of stress - lots of 'experts' who had definate opinions about how it should be done and few people with any real idea. But success was achieved and the 13x18' oval pavilion was set up. Along with its absolutely ridiculous ten foot sunshade, which is only 5 feet wide and hardly fitting to be called a 'shade'. What a silly looking thing it is! And it adds far too much space to the final footprint of the pavilion.

Nonetheless, we have a single-dwelling setup for this Pennsic. It is not a design I would choose for us to have. I'd harbored minor thoughts about offering for it rather than buying the single-pole 16x16 we are planning on buying but after seeing it up I abandoned that idea with near violence. For a single couple who sleep in the same bed I'm sure the tent is fine. But for the two of us who sleep on very different surfaces (and his is queen-sized while mine is a twin), the tent is woefully small. We'd planned on dividing it in thirds with his sleeping area at one end, mine at the other, and a 'kitchen and salon' in the area defined by the space between the two ridgepole uprights. That space is a measly 4.5 feet. Granted, it is the full 13 feet wide but it is only six inches wider than our kitchen table and six inches less wide than that silly long sunshade. I haven't brought it up to Bossman but I am sure we are going to be changing our plans about the layout. He has been resistant to any sort of planning discussions so I've decided to think everything out as best I can, draw floor plans for him of each arrangement I can anticipate, and then just present them to him to chew on without expecting any kind of actual discussion. Most likely I will learn what he's decided to use as we are setting up, and he'll be confused as to why I hadn't 'known' what we were going to do.

I don't care. He's coming to Pennsic instead of staying home and that is all I care about. He can be as frustrating as he wants to be so long as I get him there for recharging his batteries and rekindling his spirit.

The steaks went over well, as did the eight (!) hamburgers that one of the guest workers brought. Another brought deviled eggs (I was going to make those but she volunteered... now I have 18 orphaned eggs to turn into egg salad for sandwiches). The berry shortcake did, too, with enough left over for us to enjoy last evening after dinner. And once everyone was sated and the pavilion was stored away again, we retired to the kitchen table for a game of "Five Crowns" until our neighborhood's illegal firework-setting was over. Some folks really spent a lot of money on their fireworks but the lack of proper training in how to use them was apparent.

Ah, the time between "now" and "we're leaving" is growing shorter and our plans are jelling. (Not like the Viking burial site, but more like "Hey! one more thing to draw a line through!")

We're borrowing a pavilion this year, as I think I mentioned before. It is an oval one. I've never camped in an oval before as I find the shape to be a space-waster, but just this once I am pleased to do so. I like a plan that has double duty - we're only needing to set up one tent rather than three and we can sell the pavilion for our friends since they were not having any luck in the local area (they even offered to give it to the barony, for free, with no takers). Of course now that local people have heard of our plans there is interest in the thing. Nonetheless the owners are clear that the pavilion cannot be sold until after we're done using it for Pennsic.

It will be different to use our sleeping tent as a kitchen & entertaining one also. The plan is to separate it into thirds by putting up curtains down the middle to create a wide aisle. Each curved side will be a private area while the center aisle will be our kitchen and entertaining area. Added to this will be the length of the sunshade, however long it is. We don't know yet. We are putting the pavilion up at our house on Friday evening after Storm Arthur passes through. Weather predictions say that should be over by 4:00 in the afternoon, so it'd be a good time to get it up and measured although I think we're going to have to leave it up until Saturday in order to take it down dry - the canvas is sure to touch the ground on Friday. Changing plans to effect the raising/lowering of the pavilion on Saturday involves cancelling out a party that my appretigee can attend - she has to work on Saturday and Sunday, but not on Friday. Her birthday is the following Monday and she'll be working then, too, so I don't want to spoil her only day off by cancelling a get together with friends.

I've just secured a hotel reservation for the night before we're supposed to arrive at Pennsic, so we can sleep in air conditioning and comfort the night before setting up. After a ten-hour drive that is heavenly. And a very sweet man (who is incredibly talented in both entertainment and craftsmanship with wood) is coming to help us empty out the truck and set up the pavilion. I was really worried about that. Bossman's ribs are going to heal very slowly and I was determined that he would not be the person inside the truck moving things around, further damaging himself, so it was going to be me in there, moving much slower and with less strength. And probably precipitating an argument as Bossman reacted to me doing 'his' work. Now that isn't a concern. Of higher concern is what to do to thank the friend who is helping us. Cash seems crass but I know he needs some. I shall have to do some asking around to find out what seems like a decent amount to give him. I'm totally in the woods when it comes to that.

We're in the part of packing-phase that I love and hate. Assembling small items into large containers. I love the challenge in getting it all to pack down to the smallest container in a way that doesn't allow any danger to the contents. And I love the mental challenge in deciding which items will serve best at the event and which ones really could just stay home.

But the less-than-24-hours-before-we-leave deadline - that I hate. It makes me tense up and start to feel panicked and then my brain shuts off. Forcing myself to back off and take it easy (I really am faster that way) is an exercise in discipline.

Yay! My next step on the quest to reduce my camping footprint is here. My new twin-sized 9" mattress arrived just one day after I was notified it was being shipped. I do like Amazon. I hate the color of the thing, 'camo', but really appreciated that the box was covered with blurbs to support the National Forest Foundation, which I can join at a reduced cost since the mattress company donates money from each sale. And kindly packs in a membership form and info-paper with the mattress.

That's a feel-good kind of thing. For that, I'll forgive them the camo.

My day has been quiet. I ran errands for home & health (I was out of Sudafed and neti-pot solution as well as [gasp!] chicken noodle soup. Can't have that!) then collapsed back into bed. Then was up again, of course, because I took the Sudafed. You know, if I ever tried Meth, I'd die, judging from the effect of the diluted cold medicine. I'll keep that in mind for when I'm old and sucking my gums and sponging off of my kids...

Got a stew, or a soup, going on the stove. In true family style it's gonna be a blend of frozen-stuff-saved-for-soup and whatever is in the refrigerator that needs to be used. You know how it goes.

Arn and Opi travelled out to look at a prospective event site, one that I love, and met with the Autocrat and his assistant there. I wish I could have gone but I just didn't want to risk infecting anyone with what I've got. Except for the folks at the Sprint store, that is, who had to transfer my address/phone book from my old phone to my new one. But I sanitised my hands before I went in and didn't touch them directly or anything else in there. Arn and I spent part of yesterday combing the house for all of our old cell-phone equipment so we can donate it in one fell swoop to the local women's shelter.

Headache. Third or fourth in about two weeks, which is just stunning for me. I finally figured out that the constant breathing-of-smoke was aggravating my sinuses and thus my head. Arn handed me Sudafed and some Tylenol when I came home from inventorying the Cook's Guild stuff and he found me sitting in a dark room, crying for no reason at all except my head. Just. Hurt.

And I am back to little-or-no sleep again. But for the same reason. So maybe a few days for the Zyrtec to get settled in and I should be back to normal.

My days are filling up with shopping trips. I love my 'job' for Pennsic but there are times I just have to shake my head at the number of folks who wait until a week before I have to leave before they ask me to buy them what they need for their departments - some of which is stuff that has to be special-ordered via the mail. "Oh yeah, sure, I can get that for you." Not.

The challenge is getting things for them that are as close to what they wanted without me spending their entire budget on it. Or having to turf out my own camping equipment to make room for their specialty stuff that I can't buy near Cooper's Lake. Normally, it's not so much an issue but we're not taking two vehicles to Pennsic this year so space is at a premium.

Speaking of what we're taking... my new chair to replace 'the penguin chair' is drop-dead beautiful. Arn is so damned talented that sometimes it just stuns me. :)

{Edit: "You are the Queen's Knight. Only 4-5% of the population score this." Yeah, Yeah, Yeah... standard INFJ in new clothes.]

It's that time of year again,
The "Sewing machine breaks down again"
The "if it ain't that, it'll be the washer"
time of year...

Poor, poor beloved Janome. It's in The Grumpy Old Man's shop right now, being cherished and refurbished while he grumbles to himself in the background about ignorant women who take perfectly lovely machines to butchers such as the Tidewater Sew & Vac folks before bringing them to him as a responsible owner would.

*sigh*

He's supposed to call me if the repair costs rival the price of a new machine. I anticipate a couple of hundred dollars worth of work - but really, where would I find a decent hardworking machine that can handle tons of demin-strength fabric for less than that? Certainly not in today's machines that I have seen.