Happy Earth Day Number 51! Honestly, last year's 50th anniversary Earth Day commemoration was shortchanged because the covid-19 pandemic was still so new. Glad to see a bit more awareness of the day this year.

My apologies for not updating for a while. I've made more posts and comments on Facebook lately.

On Tuesday the 20th I got my second Pfizer vaccination at the mass-vax site at Six Flags America. The process seemed to go even faster the second time around (maybe the National Guard shortened the path that takes cars on a grand tour of the parking lot?). After I got home, I took a nap after lunch. By the end of the evening A&S gathering via Zoom, I was feeling a little cranky and headachy and dozed off on the couch in front off the TV. Yesterday my main symptom was a bruise-like pain around the injection site, even though no bruising was visible. Today that arm pain is almost all gone.

Recently there were a couple of major announcements about events scheduled to take place later in 2021. The Worldcon/Discon committee announced that the convention will be held in December at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in DC. (Originally, the Omni Shoreham was supposed to be the "overflow" hotel, secondary to the Marriott Wardman Park one block up the hill, but the Wardman Park closed permanently.) Then the Pennsic War staff announced that Pennsic 49 will be moved from 2021 to 2022 because of the covid plague.

Thoughtful readers may be thinking, "Gee, this is the second year in a row that Pennsic will not be held. That must suck for the people who own the site where Pennsic takes place!" Well, yes, I'm sure it does. That's why Cooper's Lake Campground, our Pennsic hosts, quickly announced a non-SCA "medieval-style" event called Armistice around the same time as Pennsic would have taken place. The idea is to have a medieval-style camping event with merchants and parties but NOTHING sponsored by the SCA. I have no idea how this is supposed to work. Some people seem enthusiastic -- "Yeah! This will be a nice, laid-back event like the Pennsics of old!" Other people are pessimistic -- "Giant superspreader event!" Personally, I would worry that an event without SCA sponsorship would attract certain folks who were kicked out of the SCA for bullying people (or worse) and who would try to take over the event for their own purposes. Or perhaps those rune-loving white supremacists who would have a torchlight parade while screaming their vile slogans

Ugh. Not sure what to do. I'm very much tempted to stay home in July/August and save up my meager funds for War of the Wings in October, which will double as Atlantia's (rescheduled) 40th birthday. Since I was at Atlantia's 30th birthday weekend, it would be nice to go to the 40th as well. Plus, it would give us more time to tamp down the coronavirus, especially as residents of rural areas seem to be less inclined to wear masks and get vaccinated.

Over and out.

(I guess I shouldn't start writing these reports just before I plan to go to bed, huh?)

Anyway ... one of the other heralds went around to "cry" the warning that the storm was coming, so I headed back to the Storvik encampment. My friends had already zipped up my front door, but not the back window of my tent, so I went in and did that part. The wind was starting to whip up, and my friends thought that my tent was wobbling about a bit too much, so we staked down the ropes that hold up the little canopies on the side windows. Neil said he thinks that I ought to run ropes down from the four upper corners of the tent (where the ridge poles at the ends meet the side poles) and stake those ropes down for added stability. Duly noted for next year, as I probably won't be camping again in 2011. I also offered my stakes to a few other people to tie down their tents better -- lately I've been carrying along a tote bag with all sorts of metal and plastic tent stakes that I've accumulated over my SCA career.

While I was still in the encampment, the rain came. I could actually hear it and see it approaching across the field before the drops started falling on me. It's not often that I can see that.

At least it was lunchtime by then. The cooks served food cafeteria style from warming trays onto foam plates, so feast gear wasn't needed (except for your mug). The fare wasn't fancy like some SCA feasts, but then again, the budget was $5/person and I also think that they were required by the site owners to prepare it offsite and schlep the trays of food over there. So it was decent, all things considered.

After lunch I returned to the heralds' tent to finish stitching. The cloth I had brought with me to make the pincushion itself was this vaguely gold-tone upholstery-fabric sample, and the backing was harder to penetrate with a needle than I had predicted it would be. Oh, well, I just kept doggedly soldiering on until it was done. Then I couldn't find Lady Esperanza, the organizer of the gift baskets, so I found someone else who was helping out at A&S Point, and she said to leave it on the table of prizes with a note. So I did.

I didn't get a chance to see much of the A&S competition, but I did check out a couple of the "History of Atlantia" tents (there were three). I went over to the Storvik encampment to see how the tents fared during the storm, and I got into a discussion of newcomer/chatelaine issues, followed by the arrival of a guy named Paul who is totally new to the SCA and needed help putting his brand-new pop-up tent together. Thus I arrived at the big populace pavilion just at the start of Royal Great Court, instead of prior to the court, so I wasn't able to herald Baroness Sorcha into court as Her Excellency of Storvik. :-( Darn, I really should have been able to do that.

Court itself was fairly long, and I couldn't hear everything from where I was sitting, but I did note that shalandara's husband was elevated into the ranks of the Order of the Pelican, and narniarose became a Companion of the Pearl. Congratulations to both! At the end, Their Majesties called out the handful of attendees who were around Atlantia during the Principality period more than 30 years ago, so we newer folks could all see who they are.

To be continued some more....