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norsegirlThe event yesterday was okay. I ended up staying up very late the night before. Georgia was fussy and not at all in the mood to sleep. I figured if I was going to have to be awake anyway, maybe it was time to get around to making an outfit for her. Made the dress in 2 or 3 hours that night, starting at 11 or midnight. Got up the next morning all inspired about how to make an apron dress work for a baby (no brooches, but I figured some large decorative buttons would make a reasonable imitation) and had to whip one of those up before we left for the event, which took about 2 hours. The apron's not as long as I'd have liked, but that was due to a limitation in the size of my scraps. Hopefully I'll have larger scraps when I make her next one.
I used what fabric I had easily at hand. Of course it was the scraps from my outfit, so I had a perfectly matching baby.
Meant to get a picture of both of us at the event, but of course never got around to it. Maybe I'll remember at the next event. Who knows when that will be though. Hopefully the outfit will still fit.
With all the sewing we got to the event quite late. I believe it was around 2:30 in the afternoon when we pulled in to the site. I had intended to spend most of the day hanging around with William, but I think I saw him for all of 10 minutes over the course of the day. I'd also hoped that Jason might get some archery in, but he decided that bringing the doggies would be more fun than shooting, so he just spent all day sitting around with me, and occasionally wandering off with the pooches. Dogs seemed to enjoy themselves reasonably well. They're getting very used to people in funny outfits, and seem to have realized that most of them will share food. Even Lizzy isn't her usual shy self when we go to events.
It was a beautiful day. Sunny with just a little bit of a breeze and the perfect temperature for me to be utterly comfortable with neither chills nor sweat. October in Texas really is fantastic as long as it's not a rainy day. In the evening it dropped down a tiny bit, but only enough that I wanted a shawl, not a cloak or a coat, so again, right about perfect.
I ended up spending my afternoon sprawled out on a blanket under a sunshade with a woman named Elizabetta (not sure on the spelling). She lives rather near us and has a beautiful 6 month old girl. She and I have been having many of the same issues (leaky boobs that just don't let up) so it was nice to compare solutions with her. She doesn't do the cloth diapering thing, so nothing to discuss there, which is a bit of a bummer since I am very excited about that subject. And of course we were able to discuss babies and garb, both making garb for them and coming up with nursing-appropriate gear for us.
Speaking of which, I decided to splurge and buy myself a more appropriate pin for my Norse ensemble. There's a local merchant down here whose stuff I just love. It's simple, inexpensive, and pretty accurate. I picked up a lovely brooch, and while I was looking through his Norse coin thingies for new danglies because I'm thinking it's about time to get back to the torch and make myself some new festoons he complained that people usually look at those and say "I can make that myself". My response was "well yeah, I could but then I'd have to invest in the tools to do so, and that's why I'd rather just buy them." He grinned and exclaimed "for you, 3 for $20" which was quite the steal. I was so pleased with the price that I picked out 6 lovelies for myself. His wife also took a chance to gripe about people who want to buy the metal bits and beads from Michael's and make their own festoons and I explained that I only want to make my own because I make my own beads. "Well that's totally different and good" she agreed.
I'll probably be back to buy more bits and bobs from them in the future. They have a rather reasonably priced brass needle case that I rather admire and lots of lovely Thor's hammers. Elizabetta commented that she didn't care for the period pins because she didn't want to be fussing with a pin while baby is crying for food and that she was going to go with hooks and eyes instead. But I discovered a neat thing... I can just leave the pin in place and slide myself out below it. It's also a lot more discrete than undoing the whole thing, which is what I was doing before.
The evening kind of left a sour note in my mouth, so I figured I should write about it.
There was a bardic circle in the evening, with the theme (tying in with the 30th anniversary theme of the whole event) being "things we had in 1979". Of course the world only barely had me, so really, what was I going to come up with to suit that theme. The first few performers were TERRIBLE. If they'd been singing at feast I would have excused myself from the room to spare my poor ears. Calling them tone deaf is an insult to off-key singers everywhere. They were so far off key they weren't even in the same zip code. What was odd about it was that everyone seemed pretty accepting of their performances, even going so far as to request second performances from them later in the evening ??!?!?! I understand being polite, but encouraging?
Anyway, A knight got up and made a speech about "back in the day" when knights were expected to know a few pieces to perform so that knighthood was not only about prowess, but about being well-rounded participants, and then he performed a recitation. I decided I should follow-up with the piece that I think every fighter should know (and that every drunken party seems to enjoy), For Sutan, King of Ansteorra. I also mentioned that I was new to the area, and thought this song especially appropriate as a piece from my people to theirs and said the name of the piece. Now I have always thought the name of the piece odd as neither Sutan nor Ansteorra are mentioned in the song. People seemed to enjoy it well enough as I was singing (laughing at the right places and all) but at the end someone said something that I think was questioning the appropriateness of the song in front of children, to which someone else replied that the circle didn't even get started until 10:30, so any parents whose children are up should be aware that this is an adult gathering. I didn't think that song was too inappropriate or bawdy. Maybe we're just a little looser North of the border, because even when people said they were singing "bawdy" things later they seemed rather tame to me.
A few minutes later I "ouched" as someone kicked me in the butt because I was sitting on the ground. I assumed they were just drunken stumbling past me, but then they bent down and whispered in my ear "you're new here so you're not to know, but Sutan was the rape King of Ansteorra and was stripped of his belt and title, so you shouldn't be saying his name, but it was a lovely song. I'm a "Lion of Ansteorra" and it's our duty to tell people these things" or something to that effect. I'm not sure of the exact words because my hearing is terrible, but I was a bit annoyed. *I* didn't name the song, *I* had no way of knowing that there was history behind this character, and frankly it points out everything I have ever thought was wrong about the royalty in the SCA. If your royalty-selection method is who can best swing a stick and possibly shrug a shot, you can't really be surprised if you end up with one or two people who aren't exactly shining beacons of humanity. Sure, you'll get a few people (Vik and Inga spring first to mind, but there are others I hold in high regard) who are absolutely inspiring and embody everything we strive for in this organization. But since you're not specifically selecting for those traits, you've got an equal chance of getting some real unsavory characters. Ironically, this is the thing that our royalty has most in common with that of our period, that the selection is essentially random. Now it's skill with a sword, then it was an accident of birth but in either case you aren't choosing someone based on the skills you want them to have. Frankly, you can't be surprised that you get a bit of a grab-bag when it comes to the results.
Last night I was irritated that I'd fallen into a social faux-pas that I had no way of knowing was there before I stepped, and thinking that I should maybe advise Hector to look into what has happened since the song was written and consider changing the name so that doesn't happen to anyone else. But now I'm feeling differently. The truth of the matter with respect to that song is that whatever else this King may have done, he inspired a bard to write a great piece. I think we run a risk when we vilify people of falling into a trap of thinking that people fall into one category or the other. If we pretend that this guy was 100% bad, and that we dealt with him and got rid of him, that everyone else is safe and okay. I think that makes it easier for other people to do bad things because we're trusting that everyone else here is okay. Criminal Minds commented on that the other night: "Gideon and Reid mention the “Stranger Danger” program that was widely shown in public schools. Reid mentions it taught children about “scary man" instead of warning children that strangers are only a fraction of the offenders."* I don't think that any of us is 100% hero or villain, and even if we trend towards one camp or the other, it's not that easy to tell which way someone swings in any given situation. We can be an absolute hero when it comes to helping out friends, but a total villain when it comes to raising our kids. We can be a superstar with preparing a feast, but a complete failure when it comes to doing our taxes.
And then there's the issue of rumour mongering... I did a bit of poking around and all I could find on the guy was that he had been accused of rape, that it went to trial in the real world, and that he was found "not guilty". Granted, that was just what one poster on the archives of the Kingdom mailing list had to say, but no one jumped in and pointed out that the information was in error. That doesn't mean that he is in fact not guilty, but if he was innocent, what business of anyone's is it to spread around an accusation? I freaking hate the "court of public opinion" that we have here in the SCA. Is it okay to whisper a word of caution to a girl that is partying with him, yeah probably. But if the guy doesn't even play any more is it really appropriate to bring it up with every new-comer and air the dirty and unproven laundry over and over?
* Excerpt from the Wikipedia article on Stranger Danger
Anyway, have to run to the grocery store and pick up some supplies to make dinner for the gang tonight.
I used what fabric I had easily at hand. Of course it was the scraps from my outfit, so I had a perfectly matching baby.
Meant to get a picture of both of us at the event, but of course never got around to it. Maybe I'll remember at the next event. Who knows when that will be though. Hopefully the outfit will still fit.
With all the sewing we got to the event quite late. I believe it was around 2:30 in the afternoon when we pulled in to the site. I had intended to spend most of the day hanging around with William, but I think I saw him for all of 10 minutes over the course of the day. I'd also hoped that Jason might get some archery in, but he decided that bringing the doggies would be more fun than shooting, so he just spent all day sitting around with me, and occasionally wandering off with the pooches. Dogs seemed to enjoy themselves reasonably well. They're getting very used to people in funny outfits, and seem to have realized that most of them will share food. Even Lizzy isn't her usual shy self when we go to events.
It was a beautiful day. Sunny with just a little bit of a breeze and the perfect temperature for me to be utterly comfortable with neither chills nor sweat. October in Texas really is fantastic as long as it's not a rainy day. In the evening it dropped down a tiny bit, but only enough that I wanted a shawl, not a cloak or a coat, so again, right about perfect.
I ended up spending my afternoon sprawled out on a blanket under a sunshade with a woman named Elizabetta (not sure on the spelling). She lives rather near us and has a beautiful 6 month old girl. She and I have been having many of the same issues (leaky boobs that just don't let up) so it was nice to compare solutions with her. She doesn't do the cloth diapering thing, so nothing to discuss there, which is a bit of a bummer since I am very excited about that subject. And of course we were able to discuss babies and garb, both making garb for them and coming up with nursing-appropriate gear for us.
Speaking of which, I decided to splurge and buy myself a more appropriate pin for my Norse ensemble. There's a local merchant down here whose stuff I just love. It's simple, inexpensive, and pretty accurate. I picked up a lovely brooch, and while I was looking through his Norse coin thingies for new danglies because I'm thinking it's about time to get back to the torch and make myself some new festoons he complained that people usually look at those and say "I can make that myself". My response was "well yeah, I could but then I'd have to invest in the tools to do so, and that's why I'd rather just buy them." He grinned and exclaimed "for you, 3 for $20" which was quite the steal. I was so pleased with the price that I picked out 6 lovelies for myself. His wife also took a chance to gripe about people who want to buy the metal bits and beads from Michael's and make their own festoons and I explained that I only want to make my own because I make my own beads. "Well that's totally different and good" she agreed.
I'll probably be back to buy more bits and bobs from them in the future. They have a rather reasonably priced brass needle case that I rather admire and lots of lovely Thor's hammers. Elizabetta commented that she didn't care for the period pins because she didn't want to be fussing with a pin while baby is crying for food and that she was going to go with hooks and eyes instead. But I discovered a neat thing... I can just leave the pin in place and slide myself out below it. It's also a lot more discrete than undoing the whole thing, which is what I was doing before.
The evening kind of left a sour note in my mouth, so I figured I should write about it.
There was a bardic circle in the evening, with the theme (tying in with the 30th anniversary theme of the whole event) being "things we had in 1979". Of course the world only barely had me, so really, what was I going to come up with to suit that theme. The first few performers were TERRIBLE. If they'd been singing at feast I would have excused myself from the room to spare my poor ears. Calling them tone deaf is an insult to off-key singers everywhere. They were so far off key they weren't even in the same zip code. What was odd about it was that everyone seemed pretty accepting of their performances, even going so far as to request second performances from them later in the evening ??!?!?! I understand being polite, but encouraging?
Anyway, A knight got up and made a speech about "back in the day" when knights were expected to know a few pieces to perform so that knighthood was not only about prowess, but about being well-rounded participants, and then he performed a recitation. I decided I should follow-up with the piece that I think every fighter should know (and that every drunken party seems to enjoy), For Sutan, King of Ansteorra. I also mentioned that I was new to the area, and thought this song especially appropriate as a piece from my people to theirs and said the name of the piece. Now I have always thought the name of the piece odd as neither Sutan nor Ansteorra are mentioned in the song. People seemed to enjoy it well enough as I was singing (laughing at the right places and all) but at the end someone said something that I think was questioning the appropriateness of the song in front of children, to which someone else replied that the circle didn't even get started until 10:30, so any parents whose children are up should be aware that this is an adult gathering. I didn't think that song was too inappropriate or bawdy. Maybe we're just a little looser North of the border, because even when people said they were singing "bawdy" things later they seemed rather tame to me.
A few minutes later I "ouched" as someone kicked me in the butt because I was sitting on the ground. I assumed they were just drunken stumbling past me, but then they bent down and whispered in my ear "you're new here so you're not to know, but Sutan was the rape King of Ansteorra and was stripped of his belt and title, so you shouldn't be saying his name, but it was a lovely song. I'm a "Lion of Ansteorra" and it's our duty to tell people these things" or something to that effect. I'm not sure of the exact words because my hearing is terrible, but I was a bit annoyed. *I* didn't name the song, *I* had no way of knowing that there was history behind this character, and frankly it points out everything I have ever thought was wrong about the royalty in the SCA. If your royalty-selection method is who can best swing a stick and possibly shrug a shot, you can't really be surprised if you end up with one or two people who aren't exactly shining beacons of humanity. Sure, you'll get a few people (Vik and Inga spring first to mind, but there are others I hold in high regard) who are absolutely inspiring and embody everything we strive for in this organization. But since you're not specifically selecting for those traits, you've got an equal chance of getting some real unsavory characters. Ironically, this is the thing that our royalty has most in common with that of our period, that the selection is essentially random. Now it's skill with a sword, then it was an accident of birth but in either case you aren't choosing someone based on the skills you want them to have. Frankly, you can't be surprised that you get a bit of a grab-bag when it comes to the results.
Last night I was irritated that I'd fallen into a social faux-pas that I had no way of knowing was there before I stepped, and thinking that I should maybe advise Hector to look into what has happened since the song was written and consider changing the name so that doesn't happen to anyone else. But now I'm feeling differently. The truth of the matter with respect to that song is that whatever else this King may have done, he inspired a bard to write a great piece. I think we run a risk when we vilify people of falling into a trap of thinking that people fall into one category or the other. If we pretend that this guy was 100% bad, and that we dealt with him and got rid of him, that everyone else is safe and okay. I think that makes it easier for other people to do bad things because we're trusting that everyone else here is okay. Criminal Minds commented on that the other night: "Gideon and Reid mention the “Stranger Danger” program that was widely shown in public schools. Reid mentions it taught children about “scary man" instead of warning children that strangers are only a fraction of the offenders."* I don't think that any of us is 100% hero or villain, and even if we trend towards one camp or the other, it's not that easy to tell which way someone swings in any given situation. We can be an absolute hero when it comes to helping out friends, but a total villain when it comes to raising our kids. We can be a superstar with preparing a feast, but a complete failure when it comes to doing our taxes.
And then there's the issue of rumour mongering... I did a bit of poking around and all I could find on the guy was that he had been accused of rape, that it went to trial in the real world, and that he was found "not guilty". Granted, that was just what one poster on the archives of the Kingdom mailing list had to say, but no one jumped in and pointed out that the information was in error. That doesn't mean that he is in fact not guilty, but if he was innocent, what business of anyone's is it to spread around an accusation? I freaking hate the "court of public opinion" that we have here in the SCA. Is it okay to whisper a word of caution to a girl that is partying with him, yeah probably. But if the guy doesn't even play any more is it really appropriate to bring it up with every new-comer and air the dirty and unproven laundry over and over?
* Excerpt from the Wikipedia article on Stranger Danger
Anyway, have to run to the grocery store and pick up some supplies to make dinner for the gang tonight.
