luscious_purple: women's rights (Default)
1. I'm writing this post on Nick's new laptop, which is now mine, of course. I wonder if I'll ever feel as if it's completely "mine." His name pops up when I go to sign in, and I enter his password (thank goodness he used the one from his previous computer, because I didn't have time to ask him about All The Things before he died). I wonder if I should try out his LOTR Online game....

2. I really should pay DW a bit of money so that I can have some new icons.

3. I want some of those icons to reflect the current political situation, but I will not use the face of a certain dictator whom I hate. I don't want to see his face on DW.

4. It's the middle of May. I should really dig out the rest of my spring clothes (and start sorting out Nick's). However, I am also really far behind on the baronial newsletter.

5. I also have about a month to figure out whether I can go to Pennsic. More about that in another post.
luscious_purple: women's rights (rights)
I finally finished my writeup of Pennsic 51. If you want to subscribe to the feed, here it is: https://patricia-trakai-feed.dreamwidth.org. I promise it will NOT clog up your reading page.

I suppose it looks really bad to be posting about a couple of inches in a camp kitchen when there is apocalyptic flooding in parts of the Carolinas due to the storm named Helene. Hey, I started writing that piece in August. But of course we are all caught up in the climate crisis.

More later.
luscious_purple: women's rights (rights)
... and I forget to update DW. My apologies.

Church is ... about as polarized as the nation at large, I guess. Only the issue is selling the church property. We had our special congregational meeting, followed by a vote, and I worked long and hard on that electronic ballot. The only question was "support" or "do not support" the trustees' decision to sell the property. Well, the "support" side won, 62 percent to 38 percent. But the losing side is still really, really struggling.

The SCA is ... great, when I have time for it. I haven't done a lot of A&S lately, except for working on the inkle loom I bought at Pennsic. I'm making an orange and black strap or piece of trim or whatever you want to call it. Just for practice.

Other things: Just after Pennsic, the husband of the leader of my SCA-related singing group had a massive heart attack, followed by a quintuple bypass, followed by a whole host of complications. He's still in the hospital, but slowly improving. Then I found out a friend who had esophageal cancer -- not the "heavy drinking/smoking" kind, but the "middle-aged man with a few extra pounds" kind -- died at the end of August. I think my last phone conversation with him was in May, maybe June.

Finally, I found out through an online search that the ex who abused me back in the 1980s has died at the age of 66. I'm not crying. I actually feel a bit relieved that I can wander around my old haunts in eastern Massachusetts without the chance of running into him. I'm also glad that he did not try to ruin my science-writing career. Btu still, it feels a tiny bit weird too.
luscious_purple: "avoid heralds" (avoid heralds)
OK, cut me some slack here, because I went to Pennsic and I don't mess around with DW on my phone. I write better when I can type with all my fingers.

So, yes, I got to Pennsic after all! Splitting the cost of the trailer with my new minivan-driving friend worked awesomely well. I had an absolute blast!

I still have not replaced the Hyundai Tucson. Church stuff has gotten in the way again. While I was at Pennsic, some people who do not want the Board to sell the church property amassed enough petition signatures to call a special congregational meeting to debate the issue for the umpteenth time. And we are having a congregation-wide vote on the matter, even though our lawyer has opined that the vote cannot be binding under the laws of the state of Maryland. Can you tell I'm getting tired of this issue already?

As much as I want to write more about Pennsic, my sudden need for sleep is getting in the way. Sucks to get old.

Code push

Jul. 31st, 2023 04:23 pm
luscious_purple: scribal blot (scribal icon)
The Dreamwidth people had some sort of "code push" over the weekend, so I thought I'd check to make sure everything still works around here. Apparently it does.

Anyhow. Yesterday I was thinking, "Hm, there was one Pennsic when I didn't bring my tent, but I can't remember why." So I went through my DW entries with "pennsic" tags. Turns out that was in 2017 and the only way I could register was as someone's "ghost," so I ended up in a borrowed mundane tent with a slightly smaller footprint than my own. Obviously the experience did not kill me. In fact, I had a blast, because that was the year that Wyn and Yaakov were elevated to Laurel.

Looking up past Pennsics and remembering the issues I had with the 1993 Honda Accord also reminded me that I'm glad I didn't have that vehicle for an extended period of time.

The packing is getting ramped up. So many things got put into different locations during the move. I just extracted a bunch of mundane necklaces and other doodads I don't want to bring to Pennsic from my "treasure box," a wooden box with a hinged mirror folded into the lid. I bought it years ago at a Pennsic shop called Tancred's Tangled Woods. I'm pretty sure the shop owner passed away before the next Pennsic took place, sadly.

And speaking of death, a friend whom I never met in person, but knew through LJ at first and later through Facebook, passed away a few days ago due to complications from heart surgery last month. He was at https://davidkevin.livejournal.com/ but hadn't updated that blog since the 50th anniversary of Star Trek's premiere in 2016, and I don't think he ever joined DW. His beloved wife Nila died of cancer several years ago, and one of his two grown sons kept everyone up to date on his condition via FB. Ad astra, David.

EDITED TO ADD: Tributes to David here (item #9 in the July 27 entry) and here.

Late July

Jul. 29th, 2023 10:30 pm
luscious_purple: Snagged on LJ (great news)
First of all, Happy Birthday, [personal profile] wookiemonster!!

I'm going to Pennsic! I wrote about it last night on my Lady Patricia blog (http://ladypatriciaoftrakai.blogspot.com/2023/07/pennsic-50-frenzy.html). The writing is not the best because I finished it rather late at night, after the boy toy made me some sort of coconut cocktail.

I also didn't go into detail about my latest vehicular travails. Remember that 2008 Hyundai Tucson I bought to replace my totaled Corolla? When I first got it, I immediately started using it to move into the new apartment/cottage, but of course that was more of a process than an event. And at first I didn't have the money to get it inspected. (If you buy a used car that doesn't already have a Maryland inspection certificate, you get a 30-day temporary registration, but you must get that certificate to acquire the permanent registration.) Finally, at the end of June, I had the money to get the work done and I found an inspection station about a mile from where I now live. The proprietor of that garage, however, informed me that the Tucson's undercarriage was way too rusted out to ever pass Maryland inspection, and that I shouldn't have bought a vehicle with 189K miles on it to begin with. (As if I wouldn't have bought something better if I could have afforded it at the time!) Fortunately, the tag-and-title place gave me a "7" month sticker instead of a "6," so, even though the registration expired on June 11, it looks as if it's registered until the end of July.

Obviously, I am *not* driving this rig to Pennsic, partly because I don't want to drive an unregistered car out of state and partly because I'm going to hit a bump or hole while the thing is fully loaded and really mess up the vehicle. Fortunately, I made alternate plans. I put a call out on Facebook and got a couple of responses and selected one. One of Patches' neighbors is taking her three kids to Pennsic -- first time for all four of them -- so we made arrangements to rent a trailer for her minivan and split the cost.

This will be my 13th Pennsic, but the first to which I am not driving. Should be interesting....
luscious_purple: women's rights (rights)
I just realized I've been a very bad Dreamwidther (is that a word?).

Busy month. It began, really, in late May with Balticon. Once again, I roomed (platonically) with Mike T., who is still doing pretty well despite his Parkinson's diagnosis. I had not seen him in person since the previous Balticon, so we had plenty to talk about. I was there from Friday afternoon to late Sunday afternoon, because I took the MARC commuter train between New Carrollton and Baltimore. The fare only $8 one-way, so it's cheaper than parking in downtown Baltimore, plus the arrangement let the boy toy have the Tucson for the weekend. I didn't hang out with R. much. R. was very focused on helping his friend Ira sell his used books in the dealer's room. So I didn't have to contend much with R.'s reactionary views.

The following weekend was Storvik Novice Tourney. For the first time in a long time (duh, pandemic), I camped at an event. And ... I had forgotten what a BEAR that wooden IKEA twin bed is to assemble. Ugh, ugh, ugh. I will bring it to Pennsic, if indeed I go (and that is a story for another night because it's getting late), but for weekend events, I definitely need a folding camping cot. The comfort of a wood-framed bed is great for Pennsic, but I just don't have the energy to put into assembling it for 36 hours of eventing.

The weekend after Novice was the Baltimore Lithuanian Festival. One of my high school classmates, the one who lives on the north side of Wilmington, drove down with family members and we had a GREAT time together. My classmate presented me with an insulated water bottle inscribed with our high school emblem, a souvenir of that 45th class reunion I missed last October.

And then we had our church's annual meeting and elections ... but that is a big can-o'-worms that I don't want to open tonight. Need some sleep.
luscious_purple: women's rights (rights)
This part of the month is "Pennsic Without Pennsic." The War is happening, but I'm not there. My feature article is finished, and all I am doing now is waiting for the check to hit my bank account, which will probably be on the 12th (i.e., just when Pennsic-goers start packing up to go home). The boy toy and I have painfully little money till then, so still no A/C.

Today I'm feeling a little blue because another member of the church Board of Trustees quit the Board before her term is up. She says she feels bad about comments she made at a special Board meeting on Thursday night and was "out of covenant" with our group. I try to stick to the covenant myself, obviously, but I didn't think her comments were *that* bad as long as she stopped making them when she realized what she said. I left her a phone message to that effect. Now we have to find *another* person to fill a vacant term on the Board (we just did that after someone else quit). I'm starting to feel as if our "bench" is really thin. What does a congregation do when there's no one left to lead?

Another thing that gives me a funny feeling: A late-night internet search led me to the discovery that my oldest first cousin, George, died earlier this year (May, I think). He was 83. (Yes, he was nearly 21 when I was born, but his father was one of my mother's older brothers.) I have not been in touch with him since 1997, the year Mom died. George tried to convince me to keep Uncle Rene's house in the family, but I just didn't have the money to fix it up to be inhabitable. I think George was secretly pissed off that HE didn't inherit the house. Sorry, George, that's not how Uncle Rene wrote his will.

Sometimes it feels weird, even skeevy, that when I was a child, "family" was mostly my mother's side of the family. But now I am completely out of touch with all of my mother's nieces and nephews and the family members that I do correspond with are on my father's side. It's not my fault that my mother's niece Janet never lists her phone number. And I looked up her cousin Donna on Facebook and, from the tenor of her posts, she's a true Trump lover. Sorry, if she thinks that people who believe as I do are the scum of the Earth, I'm not going to send her a friend request.
luscious_purple: Boston STRONG! (Boston Strong)
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.
luscious_purple: Boston STRONG! (Boston Strong)
No further news on the Discon/Worldcon situation, except that the Hugo Award nominations will be out on April 13. But I know of two other midsummer events that won't be held in 2021. A science-fiction convention in Pittsburgh, Confluence, has been canceled, and the Lithuanian folk dance festival that was originally supposed to be held in July 2020 and was moved to the first Sunday in August 2021 has been rescheduled to July 3, 2022. Hey, at least that would have been my parents' wedding anniversary.

The Pennsic mayor has stated that he will be announcing the fate of the next Pennsic at the end of May, but I am not holding my breath that it will happen in person. And even it does happen in person, I don't think it will attract the usual crowd.

Today I became eligible for a covid-19 vaccine here in Maryland. I have already pre-registered on the state's Web portal, but I probably should be signing up in more places. I have an annual checkup with my doctor on Thursday, so I'll ask him. I would hope he knows more about the vaccine situation than the average guy on the street. (I've been seeing this doctor for more than 20 years now. He bears a strange resemblance to that Dr. Romano character on ER, but he is considerably nicer.)

I have a friend here on DW whose spouse has been in the hospital with serious non-covid issues, and this weekend one of my high school classmates -- the one who lives in northern Delaware -- got into a horrific car accident. Totally NOT her fault. She was driving to work at her job in the county's 911 call center. Meanwhile, some woman jumps out of a Jeep where the male driver is smoking crack and screams that the guy is trying to kidnap her. Cops come, crack smoker drives off at a high rate of speed, police chase him, crash happens, crack smoker smashes an officer in the face before they cuff him. Meanwhile, my classmate is in the hospital with something like 15 broken bones. I can't even imagine the pain....

Over and out.
luscious_purple: Baby blasting milk carton with death-ray vision (death-ray baby)
Now it's the summertime events' turn to go away.

Pennsic fell on Thursday. It wasn't a surprise, really, but still, a number of my SCA friends reported (through Facebook) that they cried. Pennsic 49 will now take place in 2021 and there will be a year-long gap in the numbering of the wars. I wasn't even sure if I was going to go this year, but still, it feels like a big gap in the year.

A local (well, Maryland) media convention called Shore Leave, which is normally held in the summer, has been canceled for the year. The big Lithuanian dance festival, Sokiu Svente, that is held once every four years? That has been postponed for one year, until 2021.

No word on when baseball will resume, or when the NBA and NHL playoffs will take place, or anything like that.

Protesters call for the economy to resume, but the "curve" of cases and deaths is still on the way up. Maryland just had its worst day in terms of deaths from COVID-19. We're NOT ready to reopen yet.

So much sadness.
luscious_purple: i'm in ur fizx lab, testin ur string therry (string therry)
Happy Birthday, [personal profile] wookiemonster!!! The guy who remembers everyone else's LJ/DW birthday deserves some reciprocation!!!

Today I felt weirdly sad for some reason. Maybe it had to do with last night's shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival. Maybe I just felt overwhelmed. (I wish I didn't have so many big bills due right before Pennsic.) Last night I *had* been planning to mention the Red Sox vs. Yankees series, but the Gilroy news cleared the decks of my mind, so to speak.

The boy toy picked up five new stakes for my tent, plus a new air pump ... but the pump takes C batteries, and the only C batteries I had were labeled "Best Used By 2006." Uh. He's going to Harbor Freight tomorrow.
luscious_purple: Boston STRONG! (Boston Strong)
Soooo ... I'm trying, really trying, to write as much of my feature article (due August 15) as I can before my Pennsic trip (August 2 to 9). Wish me luck.

I know that many people (including Yves, based on our conversations of a few years ago) think that if I just write 10 percent of the article each day, the article will be done in 10 days. Er, it doesn't quite work that way, at least not with my thought processes. Usually I select one chunk and try to chew on it and organize it the best I can, and later tie all the chunks together with some smooth connecting words. At least the last feature I wrote had an obvious framework -- it was a retrospective on a speech given 60 years ago -- so I could start by describing the speech and then hanging comments from my interviewees on the framework, like ornaments on a Christmas tree. This one has a basic outline, but I still have to create everything from scratch.

Anyhow. This year I wrote up a Pennsic packing list as a Google Docs document and shared it with the boy toy. That way, he can help me a bit. Today he unearthed my stakes and air pump and he was just testing out my air mattress. I need more stakes and probably another air pump; he's going to shop for both tomorrow.

(Incidentally, my least favorite part of camping is inflating the air mattress. Just saying.)

Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention ... I'm not going to Pennsic with T.V.P. after all. Last Thursday she told me she decided not to go to Pennsic this year because she wants/needs to spend more time with her new boyfriend, whose father is dying in Florida. So I said OK, because ... what else am I going to say? I don't think she is as emotionally invested in SCA-land as I am. Maybe she thought Pennsic was more like a Pagan festival. She's still my neighbor and friend, of course, and I reassured her that she's still welcome at Monday night dance practice.

I had hoped a little that I would be able to leave my car with the boy toy so he won't be so antsy to get out of the house after a week of no wheels. But we live on a bus line, so he'll just have to deal. And I won't have to worry that T.V.P. will want to leave before I'm ready to leave.

AAAnnnndddd... the news of the shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival is breaking on CNN. Boy toy went to high school in Morgan Hill, maybe 10 miles north of Gilroy, so he's told me all about the Garlic Festival. Thank goodness he's not there now. And, yeah, I do NOT need extra worries whether the local chuckleheads are going to lob something more dangerous than water balloons over the Pennsic fence....
luscious_purple: Boston STRONG! (Boston Strong)
Jeez, I should visit here a little more often....

For a couple of months, the boy toy and I had been discussing the possibility of going on a little "weekend adventure" around the time of his birthday (June 25). Last year we spent one night in a mom-and-pop motel he found on Travelocity/Expedia/something like that. This time around, I noticed that there would be an SCA event (University of Atlantia) in Lynchburg, a region of Virginia that's part of the Barony of Black Diamond. Never mind that my friends who are Baron and Baroness of Black Diamond would be away at the Known World Dance and Music Symposium in Texas. I figured that we could drive down to Lynchburg on Friday, the boy toy could toodle around Lynchburg on Saturday during my event, and then we could take a leisurely sightseeing drive back to Maryland on Sunday. So that's just what we did.

The boy toy suggested joining Airbnb because his parents have had some good experiences with it. They like having access to a kitchen so that they don't have to eat in restaurants all the time. So I signed up and found a cute little finished basement and kitchenette on a cul-de-sac right in Lynchburg. Two nights, even with the cleaning and administrative fees, came to less than $120.

I should probably write up the details for my Lady Patricia of Trakai blog, but I just wanted to say that at one time between the early-afternoon classes, I was heading to the bathroom when I passed by a woman in a purple dress. She looked familiar ... and it took me a few steps to realize that I had just passed [personal profile] zhelana, who of course lives in a different SCA kingdom from me, so we've never met in person before. I could have met her! But by the time I made my recognition and turned around, she and I were separated by the crowd in the hallway. I looked for her afterward, but I didn't find her, so I missed my one big chance. Darn....

In other SCA news, tonight I bit the bullet and pre-registered for Pennsic (today's the last day for doing so). I still don't know whether I can actually go because of impending freelance work, but I want to preserve my options.
luscious_purple: "avoid heralds" (avoid heralds)
Today makes two years since my grad-school adviser died and 100 years since the solar eclipse that provided the first big test of Einstein's theory of general relativity. Monday also made six years since Pedro died.

This year I enjoyed the first two days of Balticon, then spent time with the boy toy on Sunday and Monday. These days, science fiction conventions seem so expensive compared with SCA events, because of those darned hotels. I grumbled about going, but eventually I dragged myself there and then I was fine. I think I struck a suitable balance between hanging out with the "old gang" (R., Mike and Phil) and the "new gang" (people I know through the SCA and Balticon itself). I really wish R. could mingle with my newer friends, but sometimes I think he doesn't know how. I worry about him as he ages (he's 67).

I have three more weeks to decide whether I will go to Pennsic this year. My editor has dangled a plum feature assignment in front of me ... due August 15, which is right *after* Pennsic. There is also the possibility of some work from another freelance employer, and again, it's in the mid-July to mid-August range. *sigh* I really need money. But I also don't know whether I would be going to Pennsic in 2020, because it's a Sokiu Svente (Lithuanian dance festival) year. But it's not guaranteed that I'll be dancing in the festival, either. *sigh again* (More on that in a future entry.)

Plus, my 60th birthday is looming ever larger ... who knows how long I'll have the energy to go to long SCA camping events? At what point will my flesh become too weak for my willing spirit?

Anyhow ...

At least I have been watching some interesting TV. While the rest of the world was obsessing over Game of Thrones, I followed The Red Line, a fascinating drama about the spreading aftermath of the fictional shooting of an unarmed black man by a white Chicago cop. It touched on practically all the major issues of today, from same-sex marriage to coming of age, racial identity, adoptive families, women in politics, casual racism, youth activism, dysfunctional families ... I could go on and on. Tonight I just finished watching the dramatization of The Hot Zone, which as a book fascinated and repelled me back in the 1990s. By the time I'd finished reading it, I honestly thought that I'd rather die of cancer than Ebola....
luscious_purple: Snagged on LJ (great news)
... I finished my Pennsic 47 story: http://ladypatriciaoftrakai.blogspot.com/2018/08/letter-from-pennsic-47.html.

Lots more stuff happening; will try to update again soonish.
luscious_purple: Lithuanian map and flag -- "Proud to Be Lithuanian" (lithuanian map and flag)
One: I finally finished writing my "letter from Pennsic."

Two: Today was the 101th anniversary of the birth (and 36th anniversary of the funeral) of my father. Here is a photo of me and my parents when I was in college. The quality of the photo isn't that great, but it's a nice memory.

SCAN0242 -- family photo
luscious_purple: women's rights (Titivillius)
The car had a thermostat problem or something like that. Fixed now. But the engine needs to be switched on every couple of days or else.

I left for Pennsic on Aug. 3 and came back on the 11th. The week was a hot one. Some of my campmates actually decamped to hotels. I soldiered on.

At some point I will probably write up the story of my trip in the style of the FB (and Twitter?) hashtag #pennsicletters, which is based on #secondcivilwarletters. But right now I just want to jot down a few notes for last year, before I finish all the unpacking and laundry and the memories fade away.
  • Next year, bring some of that rubber shelf liner stuff so that the plastic floor mat doesn't slip on the vinyl tent floor.
  • Need stool softener for those hot days. 'Nuff said.
  • My walking stick might help on muddy roads. Hey, I'm not getting any younger.
  • Continue to edit the small, incidental things I bring to Pennsic. If I haven't started a craft project before Pennsic, I'm not going to start it during the war.
  • Don't forget the solar lights and/or candle lanterns.
  • Need a clamp to keep the door flaps closer to the front support pole.
Don't get me wrong -- I had a great time! I just wanted to write these few things down before I forget.

luscious_purple: women's rights (Titivillius)
From [community profile] thefridayfive. Wow, it's been a long while....

1. What plans did you have for this summer?
After much waffling, I said, "Yes! I'm going to Pennsic!"

2. Have you accomplished them or is it still a work in progress?
Given that Pennsic hasn't started yet ... I'm making my preparations.

3. What would make this summer much better for you?
A sufficient amount of money in my bank account.

4. When did you go back to school from summer break when you were a kid?
Always the Wednesday after Labor Day.

5. Is anyone else as shocked as I am that July and most of the summer is nearly over?
Uhhhh ... it's not nearly over for ME!!

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