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Pennsic report
The weather was fairly cooperative -- a couple storms, but nothing that forced us to pull down the dining flies. It was mostly sunny and dry. I got all the way to Thursday of the second week before I had to start taking my once-a-day allergy pills every 16 hours instead; last year I was having serious problems by Tuesday of the second week, and I even went home for one night just to get away from the allergens for a while. (Today I still apparently have to take the allergy pills more frequently -- residual effects, I guess. With luck, things will be back to normal tomorrow.)
We ended up breaking down the camp yesterday. I'm going to make a separate entry about that, because it had Shabbat implications that make me uncomfortable.
Our choir performed Monday night. The performance went
very well, I thought; we nailed some of the harder pieces
that had been giving us trouble. After our concert was
a performance by I Genesii, a comedia del'arte troupe,
and that performance was a blast. (A few choir members
sang one song during it, which went over well. Sheesh
-- stick the word "dildo" in a song and people laugh
even though it fills the functional role of "fa-la-la". :-) )
Dani received his Laurel (the SCA's highest award for arts and sciences) on Tuesday night. The vigil (time when peers and random others can come talk to him, give him advice, etc) was Sunday afternoon. We held it in the little house. Micolina prepared a wonderful spread of food for the guests.
The elevation ceremony went well. Ts'vee'a made him new clothing (a cotartdie), which looks great on him. Hraefna made the hood and added gold laurel wreaths around the bottom. There's also a bell on the end of the liripipe -- a long "tail" that hangs down the back. When I put the hood on him during the ceremony I shook the tail and got a laugh, but Dani says he didn't notice. Specifically, he didn't notice until he took it off that night that there was a bell. I guess he was distracted. :-)
There was a baronial dinner Sunday night. It went much better, logistically, than it did last year. The food was wonderful. There was a particular dish that I'll have to get the recipe for; it was a vegetarian alternative for one of the meat dishes and it was really good, though I have no clue what it was.
After the dinner was a party. Hraefna had made a pinata -- I'm not sure why, but it was fun. It was a comet (from the barony's arms), so it had a head and a tail. The tail was for the kids (lighter construction, I think), and the head was for the adults. After watching several adults swat at it without breaking it I decided to get in line. It was still unbroken when my turn came up, so I took the stick, switched on the neurons in the back of my brain that still remember how to fight, and broke it open. That was fun. :-)
Pennsic has public transit of a sort -- wagons pulled by tractors that loop the site. (They're called "hay wagons" even though the hay was replaced with benches at least a decade ago.) I wanted to take the ride around the site to see all the nifty architecture that's too far to walk to comfortably (or that I just plain don't know about), but both times I tried I was thwarted. The first time it was by a sudden storm; the second time, after a long wait, I got onto a wagon and it promptly ran out of gas. The driver said that another tractor would have to tow him, so I gave up for that afternoon. There are very few tractors, so taking two out of circulation wasn't going to be good. (I did try a couple other times, but the crowds at the stop were large and the waits were long. I'm only reporting the times when I actually waited for the wagon.)
I got to spend time visiting with Steffan and Elspeth from Rhode Island. I don't get to see them nearly often enough. Steffan (Steve) was in our wedding, and he was one of my confidants during the whole religion-quest thing. (That's when he moved from an acquaintance to a good friend.)
I failed in my attempts to visit with Thora, another good friend (from Poughkeepsie). She was there; we just kept missing each other. Sigh. Pennsic is big.
Speaking of big, the final count this year was approximately 11,200 -- lower than last year by more than a thousand. Last year was Pennsic 30; I guess people made a special effort because of the round number. 25 was bigger than 26, too.
I made one new purchase that I'm particularly happy
about: correct lighting for the little house. I
had been talking with Alaric about how to fake it
with electricity, because I didn't think I'd ever
be able to find something both correct and safe.
(Aside: I thought of the perfect place to conceal a light switch: as a push-button inside the mezuzah. Makes perfect sense: as far as my persona is concerned, this is a house and requires a mezuzah, which she should be touching on the way in and out. However, Monica knows that it is a temporary structure that does not require a mezuzah, so the case is empty.)
Then, one day fairly early on, I saw someone with hand-blown glass in the marketplace. Turns out I know of him; he's widely considered to be good and to know his stuff. He had lamps of various sorts. On a lark, I said to him "mid-tenth-century Cordova; any clues?" and he pointed to a few things and basically said "this, that, this, and maybe that". He then pulled out his documentation and showed me pieces in museums that fit my temporal and geographic requirements. And the lamps he made looked just like the ones in the books. And it looked like they weren't fire hazards. And he was quite obviously a craftsman who happens to sell stuff, not a merchant who just wants the money; he was actively interested in discussing the matter with me, answered my "oil lamp 101" questions, and even made a house call when I had a problem later.
I bought three lamps, one large one to hang from the ceiling in the center and two smaller ones to hang from the loft supports on the sides. A phone call to someone from our camp not yet at Pennsic got me a couple pulleys, a tie-off bracket, some rope, and all the associated hardware, and we already had a long ladder on site, so I was able to use the large (main) lamp. (The other two require some modifications to the house first that I wasn't going to try to do on the fly. I'll do them for next year.)
I can't believe what a difference the lamp makes to the correct look, especially at night. I love it!
I'm still getting tourists for the house even though this
was its third year. On the last day, as we were packing
up, Duke Cariadoc came by and made approving noises.
I don't know why that pleases me so much, but it does.
Unfortunately, it was half-full of stuff by then so we
couldn't give him the detailed tour.
Our new kitchen got a lot of attention, too. This is a knock-down 10x10 facade -- two full walls, two partial walls, and a canvas roof -- that folds down into flat pieces that can fit in a van. We included windows on the full walls and used it as our cooking space. That worked really well. Several people who came by to see it were talking about making similar structures to replace their tents. Johan is trying to figure out how he can safely publish the plans without violating the rules of "his guild" (the authorities who regulate civil engineers). At least one person in our camp is talking about building one of these for next year, now that we've test-driven it on a non-essential structure.
(Some people think Pennsic is camping. I think we are creating a temporary city for two weeks each year. And if Polyhymnia, my camp, ends up introducing row houses to that city, so be it. :-) )
Someone named Tomasso built an Italian canal house on a flatbed trailer, new this year. I saw the outside, but was never able to catch him at home to see the inside. I hope he'll post pictures on the web or something. He did something clever that I hadn't thought of for my little house: he taped up some brief documentation, explaining what he had built, to the outside, for the benefit of people who came by when he wasn't there. I should do that for next year; I'm still getting people who think mine's a church or a mosque! (Sheesh. One little arched door...)
This year, for the first time, there was a merchant
offering Internet access. I didn't use that, but they
were also offering related services, including downloads
of digital cameras to CD. I took pictures liberally,
intending to use that option at least once.
When I went for the download, they asked for the card from the camera. (I had assumed they would just use the camera's USB connection.) I popped the card out (and gave them the smaller card I had also filled up), and when they were done I tried to put the larger card back in. No go. What the f...? I tried the smaller card -- same problem. I squinted into the slot -- nothing obiously wrong. I shook the cards and blew across them, thinking maybe some dirt had gotten into the holes or something. I also shook out the camera. No change (and no apparent gunk).
The proprietor (whom I've known for years -- good fellow) took a closer look for me and reported that one of the pins in the camera is bent. I don't know how that happened; there's really no way for the cards to go in any way except straight. He eventually offered -- if I would accept liability -- to try to straighten the pin for me. Since I couldn't even see the pin, and certainly didn't have appropriate tools, I accepted. (Either way, I'd have to take it to a repair place once I got home -- so better to have a camera there if possible.) He was able to straighten it and put the card in, and I haven't messed with the card since. I'll download those pictures using the USB connection and then take the whole thing to a repair place. Sigh. In theory I can use the camera forever if I never pop the card, but I'd rather not rely on that -- or be limited to one card . But popping the card will weaken the already-weak pin, so the next time I do that it should be with a repair person on hand.
A more time-critical mechanical failure involves the house, or rather, the trailer it's built on. The hitch has a jack built into it. While moving it at the beginning of Pennsic, the staff member towing it broke that jack. (Our best guess is that he failed to disengage it before moving -- sort of like driving with the emergency brake on.) At the time, Johan's understanding (I wasn't there) from the Coopers was that this would be ok for now; they'd be able to move it at the end of Pennsic without that jack, and we'd come up in the fall and fix it.
That story was different yesterday, when a (different) Cooper told me I would have to replace that jack today. Problem: the only supplier open on weekends doesn't have the right part. Fortunately, Johan went up today (he had to collect some stuff anyway) and talked to Dave, the Final Arbiter of All Things Cooper, and the message I got back from Johan is not to worry about it. Presumably I still need to replace that jack (I wasn't able to catch Johan directly today), but I infer that it is no longer urgent. Good.
(No, the storage agreement we signed doesn't cover this case. If they're gracious landlords they will recognize that they caused the error and replace the jack for me, but if they don't I am not going to push them on it. A good relationship with them is much more important than the cost of repair.)
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