Thoughts

It was a day for cutting out hood & mantles. Got four hoods cut out and five linings - yeah, that was strange but it is how the fabric worked out. I might save the extra lining to use on something for ourselves. These are to give as bribes to mercenaries at Pennsic. They are getting four full Viking era outfits; trous, leg wraps, tunics, and hoods. I don't know how many of them are in their household or how they are going to divide their take. My job is just to make the hood & mantles. It took me a while to cut them out. I had to keep taking a break so my back would stop hurting. I really should invest in a tall table for cutting out fabric.

We went to Target today where I picked up a strange little lidded basket to take to Pennsic. I was going to include a link to it but they don't have it up online, probably because it is in their shelves by the front door, those ones where they stock ever changing impulse-buying items. It is a good size for sunscreen, Motrin, and Tylenol - the stuff we want handy to grab but is so unsightly in the "salon" section of our "medieval" tent. It will be experimental. Bringing a basket is fraught with risk of angering the man who is not careful with items to be loaded and unloaded from our truck. And who hates, absolutely, baskets with rigid handles so "basket" is a dirty word even without handles.

KFC shares a parking lot with our Target so I went wild and got a chicken pot pie. I like them. I know it is very plebian of me but I am okay with that.

Arni was up and in the front yard almost as soon as the sun started to show. He sorted out all of the loose branches from our downed tree and put them in separate piles so the city's garbage service will pick them up. They have rules about the dimensions of what they will haul away. Then he re-piled what is left of the now-firewood. We both had posted a "curb alert" about it being there and one guy came out and hauled away about half of what had been stacked up but he made a mess as he sorted what he wanted. Arni cleaned that up and added to it by slicing parts of the huge trunk off with his new chainsaw. It is hard to tell by looking at the trunk that he'd sliced any of it except that the wood pile which had been about half a cord is now closer to a full cord. And we still have a piece of trunk wood about five feet long and a solid three feet in diameter. He managed to get the last edge of it away from the stump sticking out of the ground - there isn't much sticking up, honestly. It seems to have sheared off very close to the ground. I anticipate that more trunk "shaving" will happen over the next few days.

We're home from Pennsic.

I have not had a Pennsic that was so difficult ever, in the 29 years I have been attending. I'd agreed to be a deputy to a department head, who is already overwhelmed with life and on top of that had their son & family coming for a first-ever visit with their grandchild while staying in their camp... and they are the camp master, to add to their stress. They're also a micro-manager who does not believe in training their subordinates and responds to every question or suggestion with a loud and public diatribe about why the speaker is wrong. We bled out volunteers as if we had a cardiac wound. Extensive training-from-below was applied by me, discussions held with their direct superior to reinforce "volunteer management advice" and I bit the inside of my cheek so much I ended up with a cold sore in the raw area.

"How bad was it?" you ask.

I worked 20 hours straight on Landgrab Friday because I was unsuccessful in pinning them down on forming a schedule in advance when only they and I could be in charge of a shift and the department had to be open for 38 hours straight. Then when they came to relieve me so I could finally rest they let me know that they'd need to be relieved soon because they spent their sleep hours working on the infrastructure in their camp and "missed their window for sleeping".

I made it to bed around 5am (was relieved on Saturday at 4am), falling asleep in a closed tent which roasted in 91-degree (f) weather and woke up to heat exhaustion around noon, woozy and weak. Had to phone my husband to come take care of me because I could not stand without aid... he opened up all the sides of the tent for air flow, force fed me water and juice, trained two fans on me, and stayed with me until my temperature went back to normal, then went back to the department we'd been working in to continue the work he'd been doing there since 8am. I saw him again when I returned to the department around six in the evening and we both worked until it closed that night at 10pm.

That was just day One and a half.

We didn't have time to cook any food. Everything was grab-and-go or purchased from a food vendor. We didn't have time to help our camp set up hardly at all, or to assist at tear down. We didn't see a battle, a class, a show, a party, someone else's camp, our friends, or the merchant area except for one hour the day after our department closed down. (I got to see Kendrick which was a treat.) I never set foot in the Cooper's store - I hear that the upgrades are fabulous. I look forward to seeing them next year.

I got heat exhaustion twice. And retained so much water that I had to buy men's extra wide shoes to make it through the second week because I'd damaged one little toe from jamming my feet into shoes that were too tight. We thought I might have broken it. Oh - and had a UTI to boot.

One night I posted something on Facebook about how sad I was that a camp I knew well had six parking tickets (between two couples) and that meant that they'd lost their seniority on their block - and was immediately attacked by members of the unnamed camp for "betraying them" (of course I had not named anyone or the camp) and "owed [this ticketed couple] and [that other ticketed couple] a public apology as well as one to the whole group for not acting like a Peer and attacking them in public..." I just set the post to "private" so I could save it should the offended parties try to do more than merely backstab me now that we're back from the event. I'm still a little at a loss how I'm the bad guy for mentioning a camp losing their block seniority in a post explaining why I was sad that day while the ticketed folks have become my poor viciously benighted victims. They are, of course, blameless and what I was posting about "never happened". My spouse asked me why I'd posted - why did I let myself care about what they do to themselves? He is right, so I've set myself a new rule - ignore the group. Disengage from any interaction and from their FB page and put myself in the mental space of noting but not speaking about anything the group does. I'd been heading that way over the last year anyway and this just put the nail in the coffin of an already dead relationship.

Nonetheless, and barring all of that, friends did stop in to say hi while we were working, and we had little moments of joy when they did even though we were usually too busy to talk for more than a couple of minutes. One person volunteered at my department specifically to spend some time chatting with me between duties. It was lovely to catch up with her. She's grown up so much! I've known her since she was a senior in High School and now her children are almost all out of High School. Towards the end of the event, there were more people allowed to be in charge of a shift and I even got a whole day off to go into town and do laundry and shopping. My spouse had to work though. That was tiring in its own way, but I felt a lightness of freedom too. One friend brought a sample of her cooking to me to taste - beans cooked in bacon fat with onions and garlic, spiced with a mix of herbs and spices she'd bought at Aunty Arwen's. That friend cooks over a fire every year and tries to eat what her persona would have eaten. And she brought it to me in an adorable little cast-iron pot that had been enameled on the inside and had a wooden lid. Hers is enameled in red but I could only find it in black - I'm going to get me one of those pots! It is just the right size for one person or two not-so-hungry ones. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07KBY4RCF/ref=ox_sc_act_image_2?smid=A1TWYVWG4QDVKK&psc=1

Before Pennsic I was asked if I'd be willing to take on getting new walls for our camp's giant ger and I agreed. The old walls had been thrown away (without anyone being consulted) because "they take up too much room in storage" so I searched for a useable alternative and found seven-foot-long fabric shower curtains with a repeating design on them. Folks in the household threw money at me until we could buy as many as we needed. They look like a Persian interpretation of Mongolian art. The curtains are lightweight and pack down into a tiny pile. They are polyester so will age over time but we can replace them at need or maybe someone will make real walls someday. In the meanwhile they worked very well and looked pretty, too. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09DB17DG1?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details


We also brought "sheep walls" from home, three-foot-long panels that we'd made for the Great Dark Horde encampment for War of the Wings long ago. A long-ago Autocrat had decreed just two weeks before the event that every camp was to "be completely encircled with sheet walls" but they'd typo'd and had written "sheep walls". So of course our quickly-thrown-together walls featured sheep of all varieties. At Pennsic we've been using them to hide a big plastic sink at the top of our camp but this year we learned that our regular walls had gone walkabout, so the sheep walls were press-ganged into being camp walls. We have a long boundary at the foot of a hill that we don't normally wall off, not having enough red & black panels to use. We made it into a clothesline this year but weren't really thrilled with it. I'm going to make more of those sheep walls, as are some of my household members, and we'll run the sheep walls along that boundary. Lots of people walk along that block edge as it is beside a road leading from the Bog and lakeside areas. I think the walls will entertain some of the children who make that hike.

We tried to go camping this weekend. We planned for it, packed for it, got sidetracked one day thanks to a tornado watch, and finally arrived at 8am on Saturday, complete with a rented scooter for me to use... set up was a mess. The area mapped out for camping had turned into a horrible bog. It was a farming field that they used for growing corn. The site is a "farm venue" - they have goats and ducks, horses, a farmer's market out front. The owner is a guy about our age who visited around on his golf cart, greeting people and introducing us all to the white duck that had somehow adopted him. The duck's name is "Peter". They have huge shelters on site which they rent out for weddings and festivals, and they plant corn for the October Halloween season and run a haunted house there. It is a nice site and I hope the barony that rented it continues to do so but the gully-washer of rain on Friday so soaked the ground that the unharvested stalks and ears of corn were completely buried in the mud. You could see ears of Indian Corn buried in the ground we walked on. That worked out for those of us camping there - the ground was now relatively flat rather than hillocked. Our camping group was unable to reach our original spot thanks to so much sucking muck so we were placed in a new spot on higher ground. (The land agent took pity on me and my electric cart, I think. It couldn't possible be because I introduced him to Lego addiction.)

There was a couple set up next to where our camping "spot" (a very flexibly-shaped spot depending on who else was arriving to try to set up too) was and they came over to help us get situated, bless them. In the course of the day as we struggled to get everything arranged after positional changes, renegotiations, and confusion, one thing became painfully clear. We are not campers any longer. It took forever-long to get things set up. I was incapable of helping for more than ten minutes without becoming winded. My condition alarmed those around me even though they kindly did not remark on it. My hubby was working as if the air was comprised of molasses, he was just so tired and sore after the labor of loading the truck at home that he could barely move.

In the end, we got everyone set up except for ourselves. We decided to switch to day-tripping the event. Our pavilion went up to be a common gathering area and group kitchen. We visited, ate dinner, enjoyed conversation, and then Arni and I drove home. The trip is a little under two hours long - not bad, really. We were up again early on Sunday and hit Wegman's to purchase more beer for our in-camp buddies. Arni never got around to shooting any archery. He was too sore and tired to try. But he helped out at the field as a marshal and gopher and enjoyed visiting with friends. I did much the same in our camp spot after ascertaining that the cart was not powerful enough to drive through the muddy areas. On Sunday afternoon our campmates informed us that we were not to be returning on Monday morning to work on pack-out. They had already planned to help us load the chairs and tables and other equipment into our truck on Sunday night and would bring our lantern, pavilion, and any leftover beer to us after they packed up the camp themselves. We were amused that they'd done all that planning behind our backs. And I really appreciated it. Instead of getting up at 5am this morning I slept in until 10:30. Arni actually slept until noon. He really was exhausted. This afternoon we unloaded what was in the truck, washed the scooter I barely used (poor scooter - soggy farmland was not what it wanted to be on!) and we took it back, then greeted Arni's protégée who had returned from the event with our stuff. It wasn't until he was gone again that we opened our third cooler (TWO were full of beverages!) and learned that the camp had left one bottle of each beer type for Arni to enjoy at home. And they iced it down again in case he wanted them today.

Our helpful camp neighbors are new to the area, having come here from the kingdom of An Tir. It was lovely to learn that we had mutual friends - heralds, as a matter of fact. It was double-lovely to meet people who came from "home". We talked of Pacific Northwest things for a bit.

I painted a target for the archery shoot. It was 24x36" and was more of a lesson than a project. It'll be easier to try again later. I even want to make some more of them now that I know I can make the target overs without waiting on the target backs to be formed. It came back with Arni's protégée since it didn't have so many holes in it to be unusable for practise. There was a serious hunk of cardboard backing forming the body.

The realization that camping is too exhausting for me is hitting hard. Some of the effect I may be able to mitigate by getting up off my duff and becoming more physically active but the wear and tear on joints and muscles went deep and I fear that pain is going to be a constant whenever we are living out of doors. I think I should budget for a hotel room and a two-day packing process for us for Pennsic so it doesn't overtax us more than we can handle.

Our local friends who I introduced to the joys of boil-a-bag meals are converts. They'll be getting a FoodSaver sealer this week. She's making all sorts of plans for what she can use it for beyond just prepping for events.

I'm supposed to be doing chores to get ready for camping this weekend but instead I am playing here.

I got a message requesting my help with a person's elevation ceremony in another kingdom (verbiage and ceremony ideas) and it was a bit of a challenge. I will not be celebrating that person becoming a Peer. But I live very far away and only see them once a year, so maybe within their home area they are kinder and more service-oriented than they are when I see them. The dilemna is one SCA peers rarely talk about.

Tonight will be a night of leftovers. I tried a slow-cooker recipe for chicken cooked with cream cheese, a keto one. It is very good but also very rich. Knowing that we couldn't even finish half of the original batch, I laid in a zucchini and a summer squash, which will get turned into zoodles to serve as a base for the creamy chicken. The recipe suggested sauteed spinach as a side so first I tried that. Boy, did I learn a lesson! It includes freshly-cooked bacon crumbled on top of the chicken so I had this wok with a bit of bacon grease in the bottom, right there and handy... you see where this is going, right? There was way too much grease and it was too hot - the spinach nearly exploded out of the pan when I tried to pour it in from the bag. Got that settled and fried it up while being amused as usual about how much it shrinks down. And then tried to eat all of it after my spouse refused to eat spinach. Ugh! Grease! I ended up using three paper napkins to soak up enough bacon grease to make it even remotely edible. Well, they were napkins saved from a take-out order a while ago so I guess they weren't wasted. But my gawd, the grease! For the record, that is the first time I've ever cooked spinach in anything besides an Ember Day Tart. Lesson learned. And having learned it, I'll be making spinach for myself more often now that I know how. Unlike my Philistine husband, I like spinach. The chicken really does need a side dish. It would be lovely over pasta or rice but I have to forgo that so zoodles it shall be. And Himself agrees that would be tasty.

Tomorrow a friend is coming over to use our seal-a-meal machine. I had suggested that she and her husband use the same dodge I do for preparing Friday night dinner after setting up camp - I make a soppy dish in advance to freeze in the boil a meal bags and serve it in bread bowls so I only have to wipe water out of the pot and wash silverware after dinner. Then I remembered a friend's meal plan where he used the same bags to mix the ingredients for individual omelets, which cook up nice (and square) in the bags. Since our whole camp is of archers who will rise and head out to the archery range to spend the day, I am going to ensure that everyone has some protein under their belts. I hope that my friend likes the doged. She and her spouse haven't really camped at SCA events since they were mainly living in Europe. I'm sure she'd have advice for me were I headed for some event held in a castle.

Speaking of belts, I just realised that I will have to wear a belt pouch in the SCA from now on. Man, I hate doing that. I look like a sack of potatoes with a string around it. But my glucose monitor is new since our last SCA event and it has to be within 20 feet of me at all times. I could put it in my basket, yes, but sure enough I would get up to help with something and wander away while totally forgetting the thing and then it will have a little monitor heart attack and start alerting like a smoke detector until it is reunited with me. It has startled my DH often enough here at the house when I've gone into a room too far.

We're going SCA camping at the end of the month. I am feeling trepidatious about it. Over the years of covid isolation I've grown physically weak. In fact, we're renting an electric cart for the weekend so I can reach point B from point A at the campground. And yet we're going to set up a canvas pavilion and live in it for three days... it is the process of set-up and tear-down which worries me. Too much will depend on my husband's strength. And his temper, which always runs high during such process. I will be doing the cooking and cleaning, of course, for at least us and maybe two others. I think one night's meal is going to be sausages. :) I mean, we will be bringing that lovely fire pit/grill with us.

I am camp master for our little group of archers who do not wish to camp with their local groups. There won't be more than ten of us. Right now there's only six but we're holding room in case someone else would like to join us. In many ways it is something to look forward to - sitting around the fire pit (Dragonwing fire pit http://dragonwing.biz/firepit.htm ) with friends and just relaxing. During the day I expect I'll be hanging out near the archery field working on my needlework and keeping a side board filled up, and nagging friends to hydrate, eat something, and to use sunscreen. We have a modern sunshade in glorious Great Dark Horde colors (red and black) with a raised central bit that helps vent out hot air. It's small, only 11x11, but it'll do by the field.

The event site is a new one for SCA camping and I've never been there before. It is a farm but appears to be one developed for hosting venues as well as growing fruits and veggies. There is an electric outlet set aside for recharging my cart.

We have friends who will be camping with us who have never done long-term camping but who are planning on attending Pennsic. This will be their shake-down event. Part of the reason I am going is to help them think through what they will need and to sort out packing requirements.

Before the event I have to make two simple undertunics for a friend, maybe something new of my spouse and I, and my very first attempt at making an archery target. It is supposed to be two foot by three and have an Amazon's belt painted on it. I've found a couple of lovely Scythian medallions to use as decorations on the belt. Thank goodness the irfanview or paint program can take a photo and render it as a line drawing so I can have an easy starting point for the artwork. I can use a transfer grid with the best of them, I can. In a sad side note, the artifacts are two of the ones that the Russian army stole from the Ukrainian museum and will likely never be returned or maybe even seen again. Bastards.

I recently watched a 70-episode Chinese soap opera based on the women living in the Forbidden City at the time of the Qianlong Dynasty. There is another one based in the same time period but I've only seen clips from it on YouTube. The clothing was amazing and it inspired me to get back on the costuming horse and make new clothes for Bossman and I, only ours will be late-period Mongolian. But fancy. We need some fancy stuff. And definitely some deels that are not in just household colors.

I attended Trimaris' Royal University. Their online one, that is, where a man was teaching a whole track on Mongolian topics. I'm not so positive about the reliability of everything he was presenting but the classes were interesting and sparked a book search during each one. I now have a new book on medieval Mongolian life waiting for me to read it, right next to the new Ottoman clothing book. And my new Viking research book. I also took a class on the differences between Ottoman and Persian clothing - very useful! It was taught by someone I would call a friend even though we've never met face-to-face. Decades of email and then Facebook interaction supports that.

A friend of mine is dying of pancreatic cancer. She was just supposed to be going into the hospital to get a stent replaced but somehow that led to the discovery of the tumor. It has already spread to her liver. She'll be starting palliative chemo in a couple of weeks, which may double her expected life time from "Maybe up to six months" to "maybe a year." The news hit hard. Even after knowing her regular health issues this was a bolt out of the blue.

We are talking about Bossman's retirement. He turns 70 next year and sometime after that he's retiring out. We have been thinking about moving to the Las Vegas area when that happens. That would put us in the same area as our eldest son. Rocky mountains and western life, sort of back to our childhoods. We could have chosen to move near his younger brother but - - Georgia. Humid, Gulf Coast Stormy, really Republican Georgia. No thank you. Dry and hot Nevada, which doesn't tax retirement pay, sounds more appealing even with the dire projected water situation. We're giving up pavilion camping when he retires, or after Pennsic 50, whichever comes first. Man will that cut down on our storage stuff. I'm trying to talk my man into investing in a camper. If we do, we could maybe keep going to Pennsic. Maybe. I'd like to explore Great Western War.

I'm down to three totes of fabric. Plus the stuff I just bought for making the deels but I'm using up some of the stored stuff for edge linings and cuffs. I am determined that it will all be used up before we have to move. I have enough space taken up by books and Lego kits!

I begged Bossman for a cute little building under glass that was also a music box. Little did I know, it is a kit you have to put together yourself. The pink one, which is all of seven inches tall. https://www.cutebee.net/products/diy-miniature-dollhouse-kit-24 He gave it to me for Mother's Day and the kit is sitting on a shelf in our kitchen, guilting and intimidating me each time it catches my eye. It is so tiny and is going to require a steady hand and lots of tweezers. There is electrical wiring on each floor that must be put in place before each wall is "papered". Good Gawd!

And I have three Lego kits waiting for me to build them too. One can wait until November-ish, as it is last year's Winter Village kit, but the other two I've just been too forgetful to pull out and build them. I should do that.

We need to buy a new tent, a smaller one specifically for weekends & WoW (War of the Wings, which is five days long) since our 16x16' will be the kitchen/gathering tent for the longer event. But I can't decide which type I want to get. A modern 'cabin' tent would pack down small enough to fit in our KIA Soul, which means a huge saving in gas costs to and from an event, but... modern nylon. With all of the drawbacks of that. And the cost of an acceptable one is very close to the cost of a new canvas wall tent, which would NOT pack down small enough for the Soul.

So cost being equal, I am undecided. And if I am, I hesitate to start the discussion with my other half. But there is little time between now and War of the Wings, so I'd best make up my mind and start that conversation.

Our willow is beginning to shed leaves. It hasn't hit the heavy dropping stage, just the sort of shedding that we get after a hot, hot summer and then wind moves in to usher the seasonal change. Hurricane Matthew continues to be watched. We are supposedly heading west this weekend to crash with friends who live in the country (yay, a botany major's fall harvest on the table! Yum!) and then attend a meeting in the middle of Saturday elsewhere. It will take longer to get to, or from, the meeting than the thing is scheduled to last but sadly, I must attend so I can pick up fence posts and sheet walls from the guy who'd borrowed them from me last spring. It really is tempting to throw the whole idea to the wind and simply drive to the guy's house on Monday since he lives only 90 minutes from me rather than the six hours we'll be driving to get to the meeting. We are due for heavy rainfall Friday through Sunday but Monday is pretty clear. Ah, but we'd not be visiting Ken & Jael, and missing all the storm-surge flooding in our area over the weekend. It should soak back down by the time we head home Sunday afternoon. But still - three hours on Friday, six hours on Saturday, three more hours on Sunday... I really don't feel up to all that driving just for a quick meeting, even if we get to visit friends as the better bookend part of it. Our house sitter lives where flooding is normal during storms so is more than happy to relocate to our place for the weekend. We somehow ended up with a place that is about a foot higher than the surrounding area so (knock wood) have never flooded even when our next door neighbors have water in their living rooms.

I've been painting sheet walls for the last couple of days. Just a simple badge in the upper right corner of each wall but 22 badges do make for a lot of time bending over a table. Those are done and now I'm inspired to finish a very fancy sheet that I'd started last spring and had to set aside. I should be frying up ground beef to freeze for the event but the paint, it beckons. Expect to see some photo before I fold the thing up for packing.

Stormy weather has brought on another headache. I suppose I should consult with a doc and let them diagnose 'cluster migraines' but it seems rather silly given that the main treatment medication isn't something I can use so Motrin or Tylenol will be what I can take for the pain. So why waste the doc's time with something he can't treat and I'm just going to have to tough out? Especially something as medically hazy as 'cluster migraines'?

One of my most difficult food-intolerant diners has had to back out from coming to the event. She was 'difficult' only in that her sensitivity was one I'd never heard of before and necessitated a lot of pre-cooking for things I'd normally buy ready-made. Of course, all of those are prepared now. Poor lady, though. I can't imagine living with such a restriction. (She cannot have carrageenan, which hides in 'processing' so is often not listed in the ingredient lists on food packages.) She was really looking forward to the event but her doc has nixed it.

In a little while we will be going to a five-day camping event. I have to be honest - the only reason I am looking forward to the event is that I will be cooking for about 10-15 people and that makes me all squeely-happy. I've been happily contemplating my menu and my diners for months now. But I threw the invitation open to everyone in our camp (it is a small camp) and now have a couple who will be on the plan who will be camping for the first time in about 17 years. No, longer than that - Pennsic 17 was their last event. He is handicapped with fibromyalgia and diabetes complications. That doesn't affect my menu planning much at all since I, too, am diabetic. There will be plenty to eat for him and I without shorting the selections for the normal (and the food-sensitive) folks.

I am ashamed to admit that I am now dreading the event because of this couple. They are open-handed and kind folks... but he's been shut up in two rooms of their home for years now and is one lonely garrulous man. Constantly talking about himself, his past jobs, honors, and actions for hours on end. Hours. And any sign of disinterest results in smoldering rage cumulating in a dramatic flounce of some sort.

They will be there the first day, which is normally a light one, just one or two tents in camp and few in the event at all. So will I since I am the camp master for the household camp. They know only a handful of people from our baronial group, who will likely be camping in a spot too far away from him to be able to visit. Which means that I anticipate he will be sitting in my kitchen nearly full time, talking.

I understand his loneliness and his need to connect with people, to feel validated and worthy. And I can usually support that with an open ear for an hour or so. But after that I begin to want to run away... too introverted, I guess, because I end up exhausted after interacting with him.

I have no idea how to reduce the amount of time I'll be, well, subjected to his self-focused verbosity. The last time I tried to change the subject to something more up-to-date and general he went into a pet and "quit" the SCA within a half hour of walking away. That's on him, I know, and not my problem. And to be far he was going through a difficult drug withdrawal as they were experimenting with various types to try to alleviate his pain.

But how - especially as a Peer - do I create an open dining area such as I've had in the past inside our tent and at the same time divert him from spending all of his time sitting there monopolizing the conversation with bragging and 'instructing'? Politely? Got any useful phrases or actions you could suggest? I don't want to hurt his feelings or make him feel unwelcome but at the same time, I will be basically chained to my kitchen - by design - and that means I am a sitting duck.

I'm guessing that this is a time-worn problem so there has to be some coping skills in history somewhere, yes? "Garrulous old man you can't escape" has got to be fairly common in village/castle/town life?

[Edit] In the manner of things, once I'd typed this and left it to try to sleep I thought of a couple of strategies. One would be to simply be honest with the man and tell him that I am far more introverted than I appear and that I need quiet to balance out the socializing that will come at each meal. If he can be quiet around me, I could deal with him always being in the dining area. And, since our tent is divided in half with the front half the 'dining/hosting area' and the other a kitchen on one end and our sleeping area in the back, I can just pull the curtain between the kitchen and the dining area (the sleeping area's curtain is always closed) and say that I am going to rest. That I'd be doing so by sitting in a chair stitching on something is beside the point. Additionally, I plan on offering our little collapsible wagon to him & his wife so they can tote their chairs and beverages with them and send them out to visit the nearby 'village' (artisan's row), merchant area, and even the archery range. I only need that wagon once or twice a day to fetch refilled water jugs.

Three weeks of living in the muggy outdoors was exhausting. And yet not. For the first time I had an air mattress on my bed rather than a real one and it was a joy. The mattress predictably lost air during the first night and then stayed in that state for the rest of the time. Its softness was an awful lot like sleeping on our waterbed. For once I came home without sore shoulders and hips. And slept deeply, too, almost every night.

The Deputy Mayor job was fun. Great, even. I'm going to miss doing it next year.

I'm taking a year 'off' from the SCA. Or more specifically, from my local group. Maybe two years, I don't know. I've been very excited about my plans ever since I made the decision - projects that I had waiting are now things I am looking forward to, and I'm even planning new ones. They are all for my own satisfaction - no deadlines, mostly, and no pressure to please others or work around their expectations. So relaxing.

This break time will eliminate the time sink volunteering has had over me so I cannot use any more excuses about getting stronger and building muscles & mobility. I'm looking forward to camping next summer and being able to be useful during set-up, or rather, during unpacking and erecting the pavilion. I AM useful during set up after the pavilion is up, as I am the one who arranges all the furnishings and creates the kitchen set-up. But the heavy lifting has been done by my husband and it's not fair.

Yesterday started the 'build muscle' regime. Minorly, just one exercise done here in the house, but I feel good about it. Today I return to my food log. It was lovely to set it aside for a month (a whole month!). I ate double-stuffed Oreos last night as my celebratory farewell to unmonitored munching. It wasn't as satisfying as I thought it would be - the dietary changes have modified my dining desires. I would have killed for some decent cherries instead. Alas, the season has passed.

Today I also pull out my sewing machine to put together the rest of the blank sheet walls our camp will use for War of the Wings. Or at least 'this batch' of them. I've had the fabric sitting there for a year and was never inspired to finish it up, even with a whole bag of bias tape hanging from one of the cabinets in the craft room as a 'reminder'. Now I want to do it.

After I get some sleep. It's become fugitive again so I guess the "Pennsic Recovery Period" has passed.