Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

When I took my current job, it involved a major move on almost no notice.  When I came for my interview, I took it as a good sign that the department had put together a packet (read: binder) of information for me…guidelines for all of the majors at my university that require chemistry…information about benefits…a folder from the local chamber of commerce with information about the school system, things to do, etc…and a flyer tucked in the back advertising a house for rent.

 

I inquired about said house, and the landlady sent me pictures.  The place was ADORABLE.  It looks small, but is a 4-bedroom house with a recently remodeled kitchen, a finished basement, and a garage.  Two of the bedrooms are upstairs, and thus could easily be closed off and/or used for storage, while I use the ground floor and basement as a perfectly me-sized house.  And it was…<drumroll>…$700/month!!!

 

Of course… “if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”

 

Did I mention I was hired a mere two weeks before classes started?

 

And I was moving from Toronto.  A place where the rental market is HIGHLY competitive (my absolute unwillingness to compete for a shitty downtown apartment is precisely why I wound up living for 4 years in a tiny-but-marginally-less-shitty apartment in the suburbs), and thus one must act fast to lock down a good place.  At this point, I want the house.  I am doing everything I can to try to get deposit money to this woman so that I can guarantee I have it.  My stuff was already packed…I just wanted to find a home and move into it and get on with my life.

Even though she explains that the utilities bills will stay in her name, and be sent to her in Colorado.  So I will be expected to mail my checks to her in time for her to mail checks to the utility companies by the due date.

Oh, and she had talked to someone else about renting, but determined it wouldn’t be a “good relationship.”  She always rents by word-of-mouth, to temporary faculty and such, she doesn’t rent to “just anybody.”

 

O…K…

 

Still, I want the house.  So I explain that I live in Canada, and all of my funds are Canadian, so I’ll need to figure out how to get a deposit/first and last month’s rent/etc. to her.  IN COLORADO.  I ask if she has a PayPal account…
"No.  And I refuse to get one.”

 

O…K…

 

And she launches into an e-mail tirade about how she needs to know my move-in and move-out dates so she can draft a lease to send me, and all she gets from me is all of this information she doesn’t need to know about my finances, and yadda yadda yadda.  She also leaves not one, but SEVERAL messages to this effect on the machine of the friends with whom I am staying.

Also, one of the stipulations of the lease agreement will be that the neighbor kids are not allowed to play in her yard.  She has the biggest yard in the neighborhood, and the kids all want to play there, but the neighbor mom has sued her once already when one of the kids got hurt on her property.

Oh, and a previous tenant had been told he couldn’t paint one of the bedrooms.  She had done it in some sort of (horrible sounding –ed.) denim finish for her son.  She still hopes to come back to, at the very least, retire to this home and wants nothing changed.  In fact, there will be a clause in the lease that prohibits me from making any changes.  Former Tenant apparently mentioned to a neighbor that he was going to paint this bedroom anyway.  But, “word got back to me that he was going to do it and I put a stop to it.”

So…you’re saying that your neighbors will be spying on me and/or suing me.  At all times.  Eeeeeeeeeeeeexcellent.

 

Um…what.  The fuck?

 

This is about the time that I say, “I don’t think this is going to work out.  Perhaps we should go our separate ways.”

“I agree.”

End of story, right?

 

Nope. 

A few days later, I have another e-mail from her.  “I feel like we got off on the wrong foot.  I have been looking at the real estate listings, and all of the apartments are either in bad areas or too far from campus.  I feel for you…you are young, and I am willing to try to work this out.  We just need to work on better communication.”

 

Um, bitch?  You crazy.  I don’t think so.

 

“Thanks but no thanks.  I’ll take my chances finding a place on my own.”

 

We finally go our separate ways.

I move to my town, and set up shop in a hotel so I can start work and house-hunt.  There is a complex that I have been told, multiple times, only rents to faculty, staff, and professional students.  The sign in front of said complex says, “Now Renting”

So I give them a call.  They say that there is one apartment that just became available.

Again, coming from a competitive housing market and now literally homeless, I ask when I can come see it.

This is the point where I feel it is relevant to point out that this is the only apartment complex I have found that I am ELIGIBLE to live in.  Everything in this town falls into one of the following categories:

1.  Student housing (too old for that shit)

2.  Retirement housing (too young for that shit)

3.  Low-income housing (too rich for that shit)

4.  Home ownership (too smart for that shit)

So basically, if I don’t want to get stuck owning property in a small, dying Michigan town…I NEED THIS APARTMENT.  So I look at it.  It smells bad and the cabinets are older than my mother, but it has a nice layout, a dishwasher, and a nice big deck out back.  The property manager assures me the previous occupant has JUST moved out, and they haven’t had a chance to clean it.  It will not smell like Pet when I move in.

I say I will think about it.

But by the next day, I’m pretty sure there is nothing else for me in this Godforsaken town.

I call back and say I will take it.  Again, I am used to a MUCH more competitive housing market…the manager seems taken a bit aback by my desperation.  She does not understand that I AM LIVING IN THE HOLIDAY INN, Y’ALL.

No one should have to pay seventy bucks a night for a roof over their heads.  I don’t care if they do clean it, make your bed, and leave you wee lotions while you’re at work.

So it’ll be at least a week before my apartment is ready.  <sigh>

Finally, I sign my lease and take possession of my new home.

And it smells like fucking Pet.

At first, I thought I could get used to it.  But I spent about an hour in my new home before I started to get an asthmatic reaction to the lingering allergens. <sigh>

So I dash off an e-mail to my property manager: 

Me: Dude, I can’t live like this.  Like, asthma.  Seriously.  Can you clean the carpets again, or maybe get them replaced?

PM: We will have the carpets replaced on Monday.

Can I get a whoop whoop for good customer service???

 

So I spend one night sleeping on an air mattress on the exposed carpet padding in my dining room.  Then go out of town for the Labor Day weekend…and come home to fresh carpet.

A year later, my apartment still smells weird, but it is the weird chemically goodness of brand-spankin’-new, heavily StainMastered carpet. Meanwhile, I have settled in.  I swabbed down the linoleum in the kitchen and the bathroom with vinegar (to remove the last ammonia-riffic traces of what I have to hope were Pet accidents).  I have bought under-cabinet lighting and a kitchen cart to make my ugly kitchen functional.  I have hung pictures and posters on my walls…put up window treatments for privacy and hominess…changed the window treatments and sheets in the bedroom because I realized I couldn’t hang my favorite poster with the ones I had…cleaned out and actually started to furnish and decorate my back bedroom/office/sewing room.

 

Then the neighbors changed.

Over the course of the last few months, I have had to deal with:

1)  Screaming matches downstairs, followed by slammed doors as both of them leave to presumably tell their friends what an asshole the other person is.  48 hours of continuous howling by their neglected dog ensues.

2)  Perfectly nice-seeming downstairs neighbor knocking on my door when I was home sick and unloading a sob story about his cheating girlfriend with WAY TOO MUCH INFORMATION…all as a prelude to asking if he could borrow my phone.  Dude, KEEP THE PHONE FOR ALL I CARE…JUST STOP TELLING ME THINGS I DON’T NEED TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR HORRIBLE LIFE.  A few days later, watched the guy she was cheating with move into the apartment…when the ex had just moved into the building next door.  Bitch, have some class.

3)  Unnecessarily loud comings and goings, often around 4am when I am trying to sleep with my windows open.  A typical conversation proceeds as follows:

“Please don’t pee on my car.”

“I’m not going to.”

<sound of peeing on what one can only assume is the maple tree right outside my window>

IF YOU ARE IN MY PARKING LOT, SURELY YOU HAVE A FRIEND THAT LIVES HERE.  AND SURELY THAT FRIEND HAS A FUCKING TOILET. 

Oh…my bad.  You might have to climb TWO AND A HALF STORIES to get to a toilet that flushes, and you just have to pee.  The tree is certainly the best option.

4)  The morning symphony of birds singing…breeze rustling the leaves of the trees…and wretching somewhere in the distance, presumably in my parking lot.  Because indoor wretching should not carry through my open windows.

5)  My next-door neighbors (also faculty, and lovely, quiet neighbors, expecting their first baby) moving out because the people living upstairs from them appear to be the source of 3) and 4).  Apparently, there has been wretching on our stairwell, but on stairs I (blissfully) never need to ascend or look at.  Said neighbors are apparently not limited to peeing on trees and (not) cars…they also like to pee off of their balcony.  ON THE THIRD FLOOR.

6)  Unusually large numbers of unusually large flies in my apartment.  Specifically, around my patio door and kitchen window.  I go outside and look down…to find an entire box of dirty diapers stored just outside Downstairs Bitch’s patio.  WHO STORES DIRTY DIAPERS IN A CARDBOARD BOX???  OUTSIDE???  WHEN THERE IS A DUMPSTER LESS THAN 50 YARDS AWAY???

7) Two cinderblocks, carefully stacked just below my fire escape.  Because this is apparently an acceptable alternative to remembering to take your keys.

8)  A completely random, approximately 19-year-old drunk kid opening my front door this afternoon because he thought it was his buddy’s. 

“Um, HELLO??? GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!”

<door closes>

I deadbolt it.

<door knock>

I open door.  Nobody there.  I slam door shut and deadbolt it.

<door knock>

I open door (honestly expecting an apology, if not from Random, from one of his friends).  Nobody there.  I call upstairs, “Are you guys having fun?” as one of Random’s friends says, “you are a retard.”  Slam door.  Repeat.

<door knock>

FUCK YOU, ASSHOLE.

 

What I REALLY want to yell is, “I hope you’re in my class this fall, asshole.”

 

Today I started doing three things: writing angry letters to my landlords, and deadbolting my door, no matter how full my hands are when I come home from Meijer.

And thinking seriously about getting the hell out of this town.  Damn 2-year contract…

Letters From the Front: Hookah-ed.

Pennsic, in general, has many traditions…many social events…lots to do.

 

Blood Moon, in particular, has…well…two.

The first time I started this series, I wrote about Scotch Broth night.  That’s one.  And a lovely, family-friendly ritual it is.

 

The other one?

<sigh>

The other one is called Hookah.

And no, it has nothing to do with smoking.

Hookah is the one “party” Blood Moon throws.  But it’s more of a neighborhood block party than a ParTAAAAAAAAAY party.  The ground rules for Hookah are as follows:

1.  We cannot Hookah unless it has rained that day.  The first rain is generally a guaranteed Hookah occasion, but I usually miss that one since it always seems to happen in the first week.

2.  The Hookah is announced to neighboring camps via a few ringleaders that run around the fringe of our camp singing the Hookah Song.  It goes something like, “Hookah, dookah, dupity do!  I’ve got another Hookah for you…”

3.  The Hookah is filled with…<sigh>…Pat O’Brien’s Hurricane Mix.  It is syrupy sweet.  It is reasonably strong.  It is bright red.  It is the sort of thing that nightmarish frat parties are made of.

4.  The Hookah keeps getting refilled until we run out or everyone passes out.

Yeah, it’s that kind of party.

 

I’m not sure how far back Hookah goes as a tradition…all I know is that the Old Hookah was made by Brother, and my first Pennsic was the first year of the New Hookah.  The New Hookah looks like this:

That’s right.  It’s a giant jug with giant jugs.

There are two pieces of tubing coming out of the top of the Hookah – in the words of Brother, “So you can Hookah with the one you love.” (The previous incarnation only accommodated one user at a time.)

Operation of the Hookah proceeds as follows:

1.  Two willing victims are found.

2.  The Hookah is hoisted above a third party’s head. (Preferably by its giant jugs)

3.  Said willing victims drink, via the magic of siphoning action, from the tubes until they can’t take it anymore.

4.  Lather.  Rinse.  Repeat.

 

It’s basically a fruity, non-carbonated keg stand for two.  The new, double Hookah introduced another aspect to the ritual: that of competition.  Whoever has the least staying power is in charge of how long of a drink the other person gets.  If you crap out too quickly, your partner will be highly disappointed in you.

I never crap out too quickly.

The Hookah has claimed many victims over the years.  Those victims clearly have no grasp of hydrodynamics.  Either that, or they have no idea how to use their tongue.

Those who allow Gravity to determine the rate at which they drink are condemned to also become its bitch by the end of the night.

 

The stories of Hookah are legendary…I will spare you the gory details.  I have only experienced Hookah once, but have never been its victim; the vast majority of our camp cannot make the same claim.  I take the occasional hit, but keep my mug filled with something more palatable.  I, like my brother, appreciate the Hookah more for the social aspect than for the beverage itself.  The Hookah draws in our neighbors, and the occasional passerby.  And, in the case of the one year I was there for it, also led to a long, snaking backrub chain.

 

THIS IS, BY FAR, THE BEST PART OF HOOKAH.

 

I enjoy drinking. 

I enjoy socialization.

I freaking LOVE BACKRUBS.

By the end of my first Hookah, all I know is that I am running a decent buzz…and I am more relaxed than I have ever been IN MY LIFE.  The new girl in camp always seems to attract the most backrub attention, so I had a distinct advantage that year.  I swear I didn’t go 5 minutes without somebody rubbing my shoulders…and that person was always different.  I actually didn’t drink that much because I was TOO BUSY GETTING BACKRUBS.

 

This is the sort of thing that makes it hard for people who haven’t been to understand what an incredibly relaxing vacation Pennsic can be.  You never have to be anywhere.  You can drink whenever you want.  AND SOMEONE IS ALWAYS WILLING TO GIVE YOU A BACKRUB.

 

People pay hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars for spa vacations that do the same things.  But I’d be willing to bet that those spa employees don’t make you laugh half as much in the process as my Clanmates will. 

Hookah, dookah, dupity do…

Letters From the Front: Ma-ma-ma-My Persona

After my first Pennsic, I wrote:

“I never felt the need to have a persona, so I didn't.  There was talk of giving me a name, and I think if I'm ever going to assume one, that's how it will have to happen.  I mean, my persona is and always will be a saucy gypsy, but for now, she remains nameless.”

She is no longer nameless.

 

My second Pennsic was very different from the first.  Brother and Girlfriend had broken up about 3 months after my first one, and at the time he had requested that I (and the other Clanmembers) maintain our friendships with her and not choose sides.  In private, he specifically told me that, regardless of what he decided to do, I should return to Pennsic if I wanted to.  That I would no doubt be missed if I didn’t return.  Luckily, he decided to return as well.

Unfortunately, so did ex-Girlfriend.

Which might not have been a problem, but Brother had fairly recently gotten engaged, and ex-Girlfriend had even more recently found out.

Camp was…how do you say…a little tense.

Even though their times at War only overlapped by a couple of days, I spent that time trying to both spend time with my brother and not ignore my friend.  Naturally, this largely resulted in my spending most of my time with people who were neither one of them.  I spent my second Pennsic becoming a Swiss national.

Meanwhile, Omar’s attempt at a bigger, better onion dome had only been halfway successful, and he wasn’t able to provide accommodations for two as planned.  So I camped with Ashlyn and shared his living/dining/kitchen space under the dome.  My stay at Pennsic also wasn’t as long this year – due to other Mundane-world factors, I only came for a very long weekend this time.

All of these factors meant that:

1.  I had no true home to call my own.  Gypsy!

2.  I was a social butterfly within camp.  Social gypsy!

3.  I spent quite a lot more time outside of camp.  Par-tay gyp-say!

 

In the four days or so I was at War that year, I think I went out every night.  Middle weekend is the BEST time for parties, but that’s another post.

 

One of the first nights I went out, I was with Ashlyn…and I think Scoundrel…and I have no idea who else.  We went to a camp that hosts an Irish Pub of sorts on certain nights.  The place was fairly dead, but the Celtic band played on…

…and one random woman was bellydancing.

 

That’s right.  Bellydancing to Celtic music. 

 

This woman was…a bit more advanced in years than your typical bellydancer.  And obviously not fully aware of her surroundings or her mental capacity.  We joked about her for the rest of the night.

 

“I think that’s my Pennsic persona.  I opened the first falafel shop in Dublin.”

“My name is…Babaganoush.  Babaganoush…O’Malley.  You may call me Baba.”

(I would later change my name to Babaganoush O’Reilly, because no matter how much I try to deny it, I am fundamentally incapable of resisting the allure of becoming Baba O’Reilly.")

Baba has a mysteriously ambiguous accent.  Mostly because a certain running clan joke (which I will not retell here because it is completely nonsensical) only works in an Indian accent, but obviously a gypsy must sound vaguely eastern European.  Have you ever heard someone speak with an Indian/Russian accent?  Unfortunately, my clanmates have.  Over time, her accent has settled into semi-Romanian.  Which is, of course, just right.

Over the course of the short time I spent at Pennsic that year, Ashlyn and I developed quite a schtick.  (No really – our neighbors complained about the late-night giggling next door.)

“Have you met my beautiful daughter Tabbouleh?”

“Come here, my little falafel.  Come to Baba.”

Hanging out near one of the food tents one morning, Ashlyn noticed a man on a wagon taking pictures of passersby.  She referred to him as the Pennsic paparazzi.

“Don’t talk to me about your Papa.  His name Razzi.  He left me for that hussy Ensalata!”

“Of course, his second wife, Caprese, she lovely.  They very happy now, with three beautiful children.  Mozzarella, Basil, and a little Tomato on the way.”

 

My new persona meshed well with brother Omar.  One of Omar’s breakfast specialties is pancakes.  As we sit under the onion dome making breakfast, passersby often stop to take a look.  Omar is polite…always invites them in for a closer inspection.  He has his own schtick:

Passerby: How do you get the curvature in the dome?

Omar: Young, supple saplings…very flexible…nah, they’re tent poles for a pop-up dome tent.

This evolves into:

“Welcome to Omar and Baba’s International House of Pancake.  First come, only served.”

“Tabbouleh!  Time to make the pancake!”

“But MaMAAAH….”

The International House of Pancake turns into the falafel stand by lunchtime.

 

This year, I would be making dinner, and Ashlyn(Tabbouleh) would be juggling or playing with the kids in camp.  I screamed across camp:

“TABBOULEH!  DINNER!  FIVE MINUTES!”

and, ten minutes later:

“TABBOULEH!  DINNER!  NOW!”

One night, she had a little date-type thing in another camp.  I said:

“Tabbouleh!  Do we need to have sex talk?”

“Yes, mama.”

“NO!”

 

I think there was more early material, but it has sadly faded over the past two years.  Rightly so, as our compatriots grew more than a little tired of it being repeated ad infinitum around camp as we refined our act.  The problem was, THERE WAS ALWAYS SOMEBODY WHO HADN’T HEARD IT YET.  Now, they have all heard it, and simply address me as Baba.  When I go out, I introduce myself as Baba.  I’m sure to those who take this whole Pennsic thing seriously, people like me are incredibly annoying, but to be frank, I can’t be bothered by those people.  The SCA in general, and Pennsic in particular are supposed to be…wait for it…FUN.  The day it stops being fun is the day I’m out.

 

So, my little falafels, come.  Come…to Baba.

Letters From the Front: Shop ‘Til You Drop

I had heard this well before my first Pennsic… “The shopping!  OH MY GOD, THE SHOPPING!”

And my mental response was, “um, great!  For what?”

(I never actually asked this, mind you.  Ever since I was a wee ‘hooty, I always preferred to think first, observe later, and only ask questions as a last resort.  Long before I ever heard it articulated as such, I subscribed to the “better to be silent and thought an idiot than to open one’s mouth and prove it” philosophy.  This has been proven to make me appear less ditzy to friends, but less interesting to professors. Meh, I am the original Happy Medium.)

 

Like most of Pennsic, it is hard to explain the shopping scene.  Let’s just say that at Pennsic, I have more places to shop, and for more interesting and higher quality stuff, than I have in the town I currently live in.  Not that that’s saying much given my podunk place of residence, but it’s a start.

 

My very first shopping expedition was a couple of days into my first Pennsic (I do believe this experience has been documented, but in less detail).  Someone in camp (I believe it was Scoundrel) asked, “have you been shopping yet?” 

I answered, “No.”

I didn’t even know how to get TO the shopping.  Seriously – had not left camp yet and had been led that far by Brother and his Truck.  (Three years later, I’m still not very good at getting around much of Pennsic outside our neighborhood.  Like I have said before, Blood Moon = Slacker Camp.)  Regardless, I knew I needed STUFF.  Most notably, a belt.  I was currently borrowing one, and a pouch, from Ashlyn.  She will prove to be one of my best Pennsic friends EVER.  The Belt and Pouch are the Purse (or Murse) and Wallet of the Medieval world, respectively.  Your Pouch holds your ID (important for parties)…your credit cards…your money…your lip balm…your sunscreen…your odds and ends that you need wherever you go.  Your Belt holds onto your body said Pouch…your mug (also important for parties, as well as coffee, and water, and…believe me, you don’t know how much you need a mug AT ALL TIMES until you’ve been to Pennsic)…your camera (a perfectly acceptable form of Creative Anachronism)…your knife (steel is a generally accepted and envied form of accessory)…your cell phone (if you’re one of THOSE – I am now seasoned enough that it is no longer jarring to see a man in a tunic talking shop on an iPhone)…and anything else you want to carry around.

Clearly, until you have a Belt (and, to a lesser extent, a Pouch), you aren’t REALLY at Pennsic.

So…I go to the cheap leatherworker’s tent.  I buy a belt.  It is the cheapest belt possible – a thin, long strip of leather with a ring at the end of it.  But it works.  And will continue to work for another year.  Basically, I no longer feel nekkid.  And return the (much nicer) borrowed belt to Ashlyn.  I keep the pouch, though, because pouches are EXPENSIVE.  I can’t quite wrap my head around what people are willing to spend for something they only use once a year.  Also, a member of our clan is teaching me to crochet, and I am determined to crochet myself a pouch.  (Which also works for another year.)

Thus begins one category of Pennsic vendor: the leather guys.  No, not Leather Guys…these are guys who make useful things out of leather.  These guys make belts, pouches, armor, accessories for belts, scabbards, sandals, and pretty much anything you could ever want out of leather.  Some of them also sell just plain leather.  Leatherworking is a popular Pennsic pasttime because it is slow - Slow crafts are especially well-suited for two week periods with very little responsibility.

But I am getting ahead of myself.  My first trip to the merchants, I am on a mission, and then just browse.  I don’t REALLY start to shop for a few days.  During the Wednesday of the second week of Pennsic (also known as War Week, since this is when all of the battles occur), Midnight Madness happens.

Midnight Madness is pretty much what it sounds like – the vendors usually close up shop early in the afternoon and reopen in the evening, in order to stay open until the wee hours.  Sometimes they have special sales, but (like most of the special things that happen at Pennsic) this is really just an excuse for a social event.  People put on nicer garb, because basically they are going to Town.  We fill our mugs with something tasty and sip as we browse.*  Certain items, such as jewelry, are not bought at Midnight Madness because you can’t really see them in the lower light.  But you Scout. 

My very first Midnight Madness…I bought a very small cow made of stone.  And possibly some small pewter badges.  Not much.  But I had so much fun!  Some of my favorite pictures from that first year were taken at Midnight Madness.  I still fondly remember trying on silly hats, ogling the aforementioned pewter badges (they are authentically Period, but rather risque…they would certainly make certain gentle readers blush.  I bought more this year!), and ordering Turkish coffee from a man pushing a cart.  The sensory memory of that coffee is intense.  This…THIS is where I start to get that OH MY GOD THE SHOPPING!

 

There are:

Fabric vendors, selling quality fabrics like linen, wool, and silk at prices you simply will not find anywhere else.

There are:

Vendors with reels and reels of decorative trims.  JoAnn Fabrics has, like, 5.  AND THEY SUCK.  Trim is something else you can’t possibly understand unless you have tried to make garb.

There are:

SO many people selling pottery!  AND THEY’RE GOOD AT IT!  Most of you reading know that I have not one, but TWO potters in my family (one is quite Hairy…get it?  Ah, to heck with ya).  All of my dishes are handmade…and I am on my second set.  I have a ceramic colander.  I have a ceramic mushroom pot.  I DO NOT NEED TO BUY CERAMICS.  But I buy them at Pennsic.

At my second Pennsic, I bought my jingle goblet:

It looks unassuming, but there is a jingle bell concealed in the base.  You can only ring it (safely) when the goblet is empty, or preferably nearly so.

The man selling these is genius.  They look almost primitive, and come in different solid colors.  They all have different prices.  You do not realize until you pick them up and ring them that they are priced, not by looks, but by SOUND.  I paid top dollar for the one with the best ring.  It was TOTALLY worth it – if you jingle it long enough, someone will appear with a beverage in order to shut you up.  Chivalry?  Or low tolerance for high-pitched jingly noises?  The world will never know.

I also bought my Wee Mug:

In the words of one clanmate, “Did you put mug in dryer on too high heat???”

The Wee Mug is a VERY generous shotglass.  With a handle! 

(Handle is concealed in picture due to a particularly shoddy hand model.)

Hell…my BROTHER buys ceramics at Pennsic.  I have NEVER seen Brother buy pottery anywhere…except for one booth at Pennsic.  This booth does the most amazingly beautiful pottery I have ever seen.  Case in point, this year’s indulgence:

I also bought another cup with the most incredible brass patina glaze on it.  This pic really does not do justice to the gorgeousness of these glazes.  (Mental note: do pottery photography in daylight.)  The chemist at my core giggles in glee at good glazes (say THAT three times fast), and these FEEL SO GOOD too.  SPECTACULAR pottery!

These are not the ones that my brother buys…these are much more affordably priced.  That’s right…It.  Gets.  Better!  But there is not a thing in their booth I don’t drool over.  GOR.  GEOUS.

There are:

Jewelry vendors.  My most significant purchase at my first Pennsic was my poison ring:

And thus ends my career as a hand model.

It is significant because the stone is a Moonstone.  I belong to Blood Moon Clan.  Get it?  If they had one with a Bloodstone I would have bought it too.  I still wear it nearly every day – as a chemist, I have always found poison rings cool, and this particular vendor is the only place I have ever found one small enough to not look ridiculous on my incredibly stubby, small fingers.  Who cares if the payload is so small I would have to load it with botulism to make it a lethal dose???  My students ask about it regularly.  The ones that ask think it is cool.  I love this damn thing.

There are:

Miscellaneous vendors.  This year, I spent a ridiculous amount of money at a tent that sold yarn and hand-blown glass jewelry.  I spent a sensible amount of money at a tent that sold the most comfortable wooden chair I have ever had the pleasure of sitting in (did not buy) and the most awesome leather-clad hip flask I have ever had the pleasure of holding (totally DID buy):

The flask (in Blood Moon colors – red and black!) was purchased.  The belt loop (which is probably a more ingenious design than the creator ever fully realized) was fashioned by Chieftain.  Like I said, leatherwork is a popular pasttime at Pennsic.  I now owe him a tiny crocheted monster as payment.

I’ve also been known to buy the occasional hip scarf (especially coins for bellydancing), pair of earrings, etc. to inject my persona into my garb.  You can easily spend hundreds of dollars.  Pirate boots?  Medieval musical instruments?  Puppets?  Chain mail?  The more you spent last year…the more you will spend this year.  And so on…and so forth. 

 

Pennsic: the original self-fulfilling prophecy.

 

*NOTE: Drinking in public is perfectly acceptable, nay encouraged, at Pennsic.  There are occasions where you are judged harshly for walking around with an empty mug.  Seriously, a man’s worth is directly proportional to the quality and the content of the mug he carries.  I shit you not.

Letters From the Front: Under Siege

So, at my first Pennsic, when Brother picked me up, we stopped for some groceries on the way back to camp.  One of the things he needed was posterboard and markers.  He needed to make a sign.  This was the result:

See, Pennsic is a full two weeks long.  The first week is for the hardcore campers.  There are fewer classes offered, the crowds are smaller, the parties are less crowded.  With fewer people around to keep you amused, hobbies and small amusements are very important.  There had been a big storm that week, causing an actual current in the trench separating Upper Blood Moon from Lower Blood Moon.  (Said trench was constructed a few years before after one Clan member had a river running THROUGH his tent after a nasty storm.  It has also divided the camp into two factions – Those Who Don’t Mind Kids and Those Who Do – the trench provides a convenient boundary that conscientious parents can instruct their children not to cross under penalty of death and/or cross looks.)  What does one do with a current?  Why, one races rubber ducks in it, of course. 

In an as-yet unrelated amusement, Chieftain had shown up with a small, built-to-scale trebuchet.  Pico, another member of our camp, decided to scale it up so it looked like this:

Clearly, this trebuchet is designed for a ducky payload.

 

As Pico tweaked the design, changing pivot points and counterweights, the most convenient target in Lower Blood Moon was the Onion Dome.

By the time I got there, the Onion Dome had suffered under the sickening thump of rubbery yellow shrapnel landing on its sides and roof for several days, always preceded by a cry of “Duck in the Hole!” upon loading.  The children of camp found this hysterical, but I can assure you the humor is lost after a few days when you are on the receiving end of it.

Thus, the sign.

Unfortunately, the sign made an even more convenient target. 

So, after a couple of nights in camp, having made friends and found my niche in this group of misfits, I casually mention to a trusted ally that I would very much like to steal the trebuchet. 

He is on board.

It’s another night or two before we get our opportunity.  After a night involving quite a bit of drunken silliness, the fire is dying down and only a few people are still awake.  Perhaps most importantly, Pico is NOT one of them.  We debate places to hide the trebuchet, and there is only one tent large enough – Scoundrel’s tent.  You can see part of it on the far right behind the picture of the trebuchet – it is round, circus-like, and perhaps most importantly, tall enough to conceal a minivan if necessary while the family sleeps inside.

Imagine four drunk people carrying a trebuchet into a tent, attempting to be stealthy.  It goes something like this:
”SHH!!!  DON’T WAKE UP DONNA!!!”

Accompanied by a fair amount of running into things and/or each other.  There may or may not have been a fair amount of giggling.

As we retire fireside to congratulate ourselves on a cunning heist, Donna emerges from the tent to inform us that there is nothing funnier or louder than drunks trying to be quiet.

 

The next morning, Pico is on a recon mission.  He knows two things:

1.  The trebuchet is missing.

2.  There is only one tent likely to be housing it.

Unfortunately for him, it would be considered bad form to march into someone else’s tent uninvited.

So instead, he sets about interrogating likely suspects.  I escaped scrutiny, but he made a beeline for Donna, asking if she had seen the trebuchet.  Acting the surprisingly willing accomplice (since she had been woken by our ninja asses at wee hours of the morning), she disavows all knowledge of said implement of feathered warfare.  During the interrogation, a small, blond, cherubic youth insists at her feet:

“It’s in ow tent!  It’s wight heer!”

Luckily, Pico is oblivious to the emphatic gestures of a toddler, and never even notices his traitorous attempt to expose us.  We are, however, now aware that the trebuchet cannot remain in its current location.  It is too dangerous – Scoundrel and Donna can’t stand guard all the time.

Negotiations are made with the camp next door.  The trebuchet is safely relocated across the border via the back of Scoundrel’s tent, and stowed with our allies.

I think it was when Pico visited later and DIDN’T find the trebuchet inside Scoundrel’s tent that his wife confided, “you guys have really got him.  I have never seen him like this.  Keep it up!”

So they did.  They spent all afternoon waiting for Pico to leave camp (which he refused to do until he found out where his trebuchet was). 

FINALLY…he and his wife went out for a run.  They returned to this:

That’s right.  The trebuchet, in Pico’s tent, decorated with a lemur.

 

Say what you will about SCA folk needing to get a life, but stealing and hiding that thing provided a solid 24 hours of amusement.  And I guarantee I laughed more in that day than you did in your entire last vacation. 

Viva La Onion Dome!

Gettin’ Medieval

Three years ago, I attempted to write about how Pennsic changed me.  It did not go unnoticed that I only got two entries written out of a planned series of 8. 

 

Sorry about that.

 

But I have just returned from my third Pennsic, and am once again struggling to readjust to the Mundane world.  My Pennsic experience is much different now, but no less affecting.  I feel the need to write…to make some lame attempt at explaining the inexplicable.

 

Also, my blogging has dropped off to absolute radio silence over the last couple of years, and the number of started (but never completed) blog posts stored on my computer makes me sad.

 

So I decided that I would attempt to continue the series, in a slightly different format.  I still have my notes from that first Pennsic, but they are vague and the experiences that were so new are old hat now.  I really SHOULD have made myself finish the series when the memories were fresh.  Sadly, the first-time wonder has been lost, but the experiences remain magical.  Some of the things that happened at that first Pennsic are still talked about vividly in camp.  Some happen every year.  So I will attempt to finish the series by writing, not about specific days at War, but about individual experiences.   Hopefully, this will help some of you understand why I keep going back.

 

So, in that spirit, I present Pennsic Week.  As per MadMup’s rules, that doesn’t necessarily mean a post every day (although I will try, since classes will be starting soon and these are my last days of freedom), but it does mean a week’s worth of posts about various Medieval topics.  If there’s anyone still out there reading, I hope you will come along with me.