Out of Avalon

August 12th, 2009 by Ascelyn

I’m home from Pennsic.  Obviously.  Now I’m at the stage where people keep asking me how it was and what I did.  The answer is simple.

It was great.  I took lots of naps and ate large quantities of wonderful food that I didn’t have to cook for myself.  I spent a week with a large percentage of my favoritest people in the world.  Also, there were warm apple dumplings with ice cream.  Mmm.

And then people ask, “But what did you do?”  I dislike repeating myself because other people aren’t listening.  I mean, sure, I repeat myself all the time because I forget that I’ve said something already.  But that’s because I’m mentally deficient, not because people aren’t listening.  And so I have to give them the whole spiel all over again.

Naps.  Food.  Friends.  Not necessarily in that order.

Because really, that’s what I did this year.  I took no classes.  I watched no battles.  I went to no parties (big surprise there, right?).  I didn’t wander around Pennsic looking at all the pretties and taking pictures.  I never even made it farther south than the Historic Enterprises booth.  Mostly, I would slowly wander from my tent to the Vortex of Evil booth, talk or maybe attempt to sew, slowly wander back to camp for lunch, take a nap, and repeat until dinner.  I don’t think I stayed up past midnight a single night, and that was a special exception for Midnight Madness.

It wasn’t my usual Pennsic plan, but it was what I needed.  Time away from work and the soul-sucking drama thereof, time to sleep and eat and recover my energy before the third trimester hit me full blast.  Which it now has.  I really, really miss those naps and relatively balanced meals.

Sadly, the boots I ordered from Armlann last year didn’t end up fitting.  It wasn’t even a pregnancy issue in the end; I have an absurdly high instep, which causes issues when buying modern shoes as well.  It took several minutes and a shoehorn to get one of the boots on, and after all that it still hurt where the seam came across the annoying bone in the top of my foot.  He was very kind, though, and put them out for regular sale instead of making me take them.  I hope someone bought them.  They were really very lovely and looked like they would’ve been marvelously comfortable.  I’ll try again someday and make sure he leaves lots of extra room.

Instead, I spent the money on an awl from Spanish Peacock, a silver ring set with a small piece of coral from By My Hand that ought to vet for La Belle, a belt knife that will hopefully also vet, a pair of tapestry needles for lacing my gown and a felted hedgehog pin cushion, several books (Textiles and Clothing, Dress Accessories, and The Medieval Garden), and birthday gifts for my father.

Also, ice cream.  Did I mention ice cream?

By the end of the week, though, I was missing Jason and strongly considering coming home on Friday even if the camp didn’t end up packing up a day early like it did.  I got home around 10:00 Friday evening, which gave me the next day to hang around at home and do nothing more taxing than eventually drive the fifteen minutes to my parents’ house to order some major pieces of baby equipment (car seat, pack & play, breast pump, diaper bag).  On Sunday, we spent some time with J’s mom and sister, then drove to Hagerstown to buy me a dress for his sister’s wedding next month and meet that same sister and her fiance for dinner, where she complained that it was too cold and I complained that I was too hot and we both decided that the other was crazy.  Also, I blew some cash at Toys R Us waiting for them to make it into town for dinner, so the kid now has a few more sets of basic clothing.  But really, that has nothing to do with Pennsic.

One final note.  My tent rocks.  I need to set it up this weekend and clean the dust off, then let it dry again before repacking.  First, though, I need to make a new pole for one of the sides, since several of my original ones broke during a storm the first week.  The canvas held up well, though, and only sustained a minor tear along a seam on the door flap that I’ll be able to sew while it’s up.  It should never have an issue with leakage there, so I’m content.  It was a good size for two people with the partition up, and I think it will work marvelously if J and the baby come to an event, as well.

And that’s all there is to say about that.

May 27th, 2009 by Ascelyn

It’s official.  I’ll be at Pennsic for war week.  The boss has agreed, the money has been sent in, and unless I’m under doctor’s orders to stay at home in bed, I’ll be living in a canvas house at Cooper’s Lake for the first week of August.  (I can’t really call that camping.  I’ll have an actual bed and won’t be eating hot dogs and s’mores every day.)

Obviously, I need to get around to making tent poles for the Duplex Wall Tent of Doom.  And if I intend to physically be able to get out of bed in the morning, I need to build a bed that will be up off the ground rather than just relying on my trusty little camp cot.  But beyond that, one would think that I wouldn’t have much prep work to do.  After all, I’ve been there two years now, so I obviously have everything together.  Right?

Wrong.  I was there for two years that I was either not pregnant or not knowingly so.  I had a cotehardie, a sideless surcoat, and an armload of tunics last year, and I was quite happy with that.  Unfortunately, the cote no longer buttons, and I need to try on the tunics and see which ones currently fit.  Some won’t now, and others won’t as of Pennsic.  We’ll see.

As of this weekend, thanks to Eadric’s mom (thank you!), I have one front-lacing gown with long sleeves.  I think the sleeves are tight enough that my cotton/linen blend tunics won’t fit underneath comfortably, so I need to actually get off my rear and make a proper lightweight linen shift.  As of this moment, I’m somewhat uncertain how to go about doing that, but emails have been sent and I’m hoping that I’m right in my suspicions and it’s not too difficult.  I want to make another front-laced dress of this linen, which will be short-sleeved.  If I make 4 shifts to go under them, depending on how many of my tunics still fit, and do laundry once during the week, I might be okay.  I’ll also have two sidelesses (the linen one with Eadric’s household colors and a wool one that needs to be hemmed) and possibly my blue Norman tunic.  There’s no way my brown and red tunic or ren fair-ish garb will fit at all.

In other words, I have a lot of sewing and woodworking to do.  Much of which I’ll need help with.  Ugh.

Just over eight weeks ’til Pennsic!

December 19th, 2008 by Ascelyn

Now I just have to figure out how to get a 75 lb. box of canvas outside and into the Jeep with getting soaked.  Or, you know, falling over.

December 1st, 2008 by Ascelyn

It’s over.  Hooray!  (Thanksgiving, that is.)

But it gets better.  Wait for it…

     …

          …  The tent is on order!  I just handed over my credit card info, so now I have only to sit back and wait for it to show up so I can figure out poles.  At least in theory–Tentsmiths, fo course, didn’t quite work like that.  Pennsic can’t come soon enough.

My Christmas shopping is drawing to a close, as well.  I have to pick up gifts for my parents, figure out what company to use to have a photo calendar printed up, and print up a certificate for my brother promising him a Vivi costume.

Yes, my (giant) kid brother.  Dressed kinda sorta as Vivi from FFIV.  All ~6′ and 250-300 lbs. of him.  Tell me how that makes sense.

While you’re at it, tell me what I’m supposed to get for J’s parents, who seem to want nothing to do with us.  If we get them something, we’ll be figuratively (and possibly literally) spat upon.  If we don’t, it will come up in a year or so after F-i-L’s psycho brain swings back toward enforced peace and then onto the warpath again.  Kind of like how he’s currently irate that he “threw a whole party just for me” that I didn’t even have the courtesy to attend.  Now, I share a birthday with his beloved, gun-toting son-in-law, around whose schedule this whole massive party (read:  dinner at their house and maybe a cake) was planned.  I wasn’t even informed of it until after the fact, since they only set the date three days prior.  It was the Saturday of Sapphire Joust.  I was out of town and had planned to be for over a year.  I missed a different party with friends the year before because they insisted on having a “birthday lunch” at exactly that time with a day’s notice.  This year, again, it wasn’t even on my birthday, and they still celebrated the other guy’s.  Yeah, I’m truly evil.

Happy thoughts!  Um…I had Thai curry today.  Tasty, and I have leftovers for tonight!

There’s a LaBelle meeting coming up, and now that I’ve sorted out my email I see all the posts to their mailing list about it.  Now, I’m confused….  Do I send something to the list (scary!  terrifying!  new people!!) saying I’m going to come with Sam and only need enough space on the floor for my cot or sleeping bag Saturday night?  Do I just email Charlotte privately since the list seems to have moved on?  Do new people actually send out an email to everybody, even though most people haven’t met them?  Do I bring food?  Oh, the humanity!

I could really use some sleep.  And someone to clean my house.  And an idea of what to send to a guy stationed in Iraq for Christmas.  I’m already sending good coffee (as opposed to the pretty-good-but-not-awesome stuff I usually send him), candy canes, baking homemade cookies and brownies, and sewing a neckwarmer/gaiter.  Hmm….

October 16th, 2008 by Ascelyn

I had a pretty awesome revelation this morning.  (You know, when I probably should have been working on safety presentations and LO/TO procedures.)  Wall tents, it would seem, only need ropes on two sides rather than all four.

I can potentially get a 10×16 (160 sq. ft. interior) wall tent that takes up less of a footprint (240 sq. ft., assuming 5′ needed in each direction for ropes) than a 12×12′ marquee (144 interior, but 289 footprint).  I can also get the walls raised by a foot, making them 5′ tall before they meet the roof and in no way an impediment to my 5′3″ self.  If I have them add a removable partition 8′ down the tent, I’ll have the option of having one big tent, two rooms and sharing with someone else who needs the space (suddenly much nicer than in one open space, especially since there are doors on both ends), or even having one sleeping/changing/storage area and one living/hanging out area.  With the door on that end left open and the partition door tied off, it’s basically a semi-enclosed porch.

For a 10′x16′ tent with 5′ walls/9′ peak, sod cloth, and partition, I would pay $827.  That’s with the 10 oz. Sunforger with flame retardant.  A 12×12′ center pole marquee of the same fabric with no sod cloth is $895.  I feel like I’m getting a lot more tent for my money with the wall tent set up as above.  It seems like a lot more than what I really need, but at the same time, I think it’s by far the best deal for my money that I’m going to get while sticking with Panther and their reputation and warranty.  It also seems like the most economical use of my Pennsic allotment.

I can also save the shipping cost by driving down and picking it up myself, which would be fun, especially if a few friends go and we pick a park that we haven’t visited yet for a day hike.

Now I just need to figure out how to get the thing where I need it to go once I start buying poles….

October 15th, 2008 by Ascelyn

Now that it appears I’ll be attending Pennsic after all, and especially now that I’m not panicking over double amounts of kid stuff on one income, I’m back in the market for a tent.

Rule #1 for this latest attempt:  Thou shalt not deal with Tentsmiths.  It’s bad for my blood pressure.

After being pretty confident in what I wanted during the spring, I’m wandering back into the uncertainty of what I’m going to need.  The main problem is that, unlike most pavilion-owning people I know in the SCA, my situation is likely to change in the relatively near future.  I’m not sure when that change will occur or even when it will stop.  That leads me to my first conundrum:  just how much tent do I need?

The original plan was for a 10′x10′ tent, plenty big enough for me with enough room to share.  When I realized that we were going to have twins and my wonderful husband even offered to come to Pennsic with me so I could attend, I suddenly had images of two adults and two or more children in 100 square feet of space.  It was scary.

Easy enough, one might think.  Just buy a bigger tent, and you’ll be set.

The problem there is that events like Pennsic only give you 250 sq. ft. of space, and you’re required to give up some of that space for your encampment’s common area.  When you factor in roughly 5′ in both directions for ropes, a 10′ square tent suddenly takes up 225 sq. ft.  Any bigger and I’m doomed if I go alone.  Even bumping it up to a 10′x12′ puts me over the 250 mark.

I think I have a solution for this as long as my Pennsic land agent realizes that you pretty much can’t get a canvas tent smaller than 10′x10′.  That solution is…

A dining fly.  Use the actual tent for sleeping and storage, and attach a dining fly at events when everyone’s attending for the eating/playing/living space.  As a bonus, the fly can be acquired in a few years and doesn’t have to be up at smaller events or if I’m the only one.  To save floor space inside the tent, any eventual kids’ beds can be pallets or trundles that slide under the main bed during the day.  Score!

 

The second problem is tent style.  I was originally intending on getting a wall tent due to the price.  I believe both J and I are coming to an agreement that I can get a tent and a laptop if he gets a tractor, and since he’s still coming out way ahead on that deal, I figure I can get a nicer tent if I want to.  After all, it’s my bonus from a hard year at work.

Anyway, I’m back to deciding between a wall tent, a center-pole marquee, and now a regent pavilion from Panther.

Wall tents are cheap.  That was definitely the initial draw.  They also don’t have a pole in the center like some marquees and all rounds do, and it would be nice not to have to work around that.  However, they don’t have the same spiff factor as a more “medieval” tent, and depending on how high the particular company makes the walls (seemingly between 3-5′), the slanting roof could get to be annoying.

Center-pole marquees (CPMs, for short) come highly recommended by two friends who own and merchant out of them.  (Hi, peoples!)  Their big draw seems to be the ease of set-up.  Supposedly it only takes a single person, but I’m relatively unsure that I could do it myself.  It seems to assume that one is of a certain height, at least over 5′3″.  I have trouble attaching/unattaching the sides from the CPMs I’ve been in.  Of course, I couldn’t set up a wall tent or regent by myself either, so it’s not like I’m really losing anything in that regard.

The coolest thing about these tents is that a) they look really wicked awesome, and b) you can take down and rearrange the sides.  Unfortunately, as the name indicates, there’s a center pole.  While this doesn’t seem to be much of an issue in larger tents, I would need something bigger than a 10′x10′ to accomodate a full-size bed neatly (4.5′ wide mattress).  They also cost almost twice as much.  Is the coolness factor really worth hundreds of dollars extra?

Regent pavilions weren’t even really under consideration until today.  Panther boasts that they’re “fabulous for an average sized family with gear.”  The roof is square, while the base of the walls is octagonal.  While I can picture the arrangement, it’s hard to imagine how it would work out since I’ve never actually been inside one.  I’m afraid it would have the same sloping wall issues a wall tent would, just with a little more height in the center.  It only requires four poles, one of which is a center pole.  The one I’m looking at is 12′x12′x10′H, with 8′x8′ eaves.  The sides don’t come off, but there are two doors to allow for a breeze.  I would save about $300 and probably eight side poles if I got this instead of a 12′x12′ CPM.  Pros:  higher spiff factor than a wall tent while being cheaper than a CPM.  Cons:  has the downfalls of both the wall tents and CPMs for a higher price than a wall tent.  it seems like you get the best and the worst of both worlds.

 

Finally, I need to pick a manufacturer. 

Tentsmiths is out; end of story. 

Panther is the obvious choice.  They’ve been highly recommended by the same people above who live and merchant out of them for a living, and they seem to be pretty much the source for SCA pavilions.  They’re also located in WV, so I could drive down and pick it up, saving on shipping.  Their warranty is great, and their worksmanship means I hopefully wouldn’t have to deal with the warranty at all.  I guess you get what you pay for.  Unfortunately, you pay for what you get.  They’re the most expensive option.

Several people I know have pavilions from Midwest Tents and like them very much.  The round I stayed in last Pennsic was from Midwest, in fact.  Our camp slumlord and our baron actually commented while helping me set up just how incredibly well-made it was.  They currently have 14′x14′ square marquees on their site, and supposedly they’re also selling 10.5′ squares.  Their prices are great.  I’ve contacted them via the web form on their site for more information on the smaller square marquees.  The sides aren’t detachable, which can have its good points (build-in sunshade/porch) and its bad points (can’t rearrange or use without sides).

I found Fall Creek Sutlery while doing some searches online.  People on several fora/forums were raving about them, and they have a 12′x10.5′x7′ wall tent for $250.  I worry that I’ve never actually seen one of their tents, though, and that the posts were from a few years ago.  After all, Tentsmiths also came highly recommended by various sites several years old.  It’s really a nice price, though….

 

A lot of it comes down to cost.  I’d probably get a marquee if cost weren’t a factor.  Really, the only other reason not to is the center pole, and that can be dealt with by getting a 12′x12′ and hoping the land agent is forgiving.  I think the VoE’s camp is likely to be moreso than Highland Foorde’s, which has less space to play around with overall.

A 10′x10′ wall tent from Panther is $475; a 10′x12′ is $545.  A 10′x12′ from Fall Creek is $250.

A 10′x10′ center pole marquee from Panther is $880; a 12′x12′ is $970.  A 14′x14′ square from Midwest is $592, so the smaller ones are presumably cheaper.

A 12′x12′/8′x8′ eaves regent from Panther is $685.

 

Hmm….

June 24th, 2008 by Ascelyn

…for the time being.

I’ll be borrowing a fellow Highland Foorde member’s pavilion for Pennsic.  It just so happens to be a 10.5′ round from Midwest Tents, so I’ll get a chance to see how I like it before I make any orders.

Yay tent!

June 19th, 2008 by Ascelyn

Unless I find someone else willing to make me a tent in the next month, I will be borrowing one for Pennsic.

Tentsmiths, I have a passionate dislike for you.  All my friends are soon to know that you guys are major jerks.  Dishonorable jerks.  And you know what?  I have a feeling what you did is illegal anyway.

Grr….

June 11th, 2008 by Ascelyn

It has been a trying week so far.

I’m not pregnant, but nor did I expect that I was.  There’s something to be said for pessimism.  However, now I get to suffer all the consequences.  Much as I didn’t like some of the side affects of the pills, by all that is good and holy, this hurts.  I almost can’t wait to get back on them again.

I finished The Silver Chair last night, which means I’ve reread all the Narnia books except The Last Battle.  One girl at church has already tried to trick me by watching the movie instead of reading the book, but I caught her easily with the questions they had to answer to get the points.  Sorry, M, but there were no windows broken in the book.  Rather than go straight onto The Last Battle last night, I started Magic Kingdom for Sale–Sold! by Terry Brooks, who I love.  I’ve been wanting to read it for ages after seeing it in the back of the Shannara books, but I just found it in a box of sci-fi and fantasy given to me by a fellow Freecycler.  By the second page, you find that not only did the protagonist’s wife die a few years before, but that she was three months pregnant at the time.  I stared at it for a moment, then threw the book at the floor and started crying.  Yes, I’m a hormonal sack of crazy wussiness.  Jason, sitting three feet away checking to see how well I’d stuck to my budget in previous months, stared at me for a moment and said not a word.  A few moments later he asked me whether a particular purchase at Lowe’s was for the house, the church, or an SCA project.  It was my turn to stare at him, blurry-eyed, in disbelief.  I love my husband with all my heart, but have a little sensitivity.

I abhor the country station more than usual lately.  Not only does the music generally make me want to puncture my own eardrums, but every. freaking. song. is about pregnancy, children, or death.  Give me some variation of acoustic instrumentals, screaming metal and punk, or driving electric and drums, please.  Preferably baby-free.

I’m having a rough time with the company building my tent.  More on that later.  Suffice it to say that I have gone from being quite hopeful to extremely displeased.

I’m beginning to lose my patience with Obnoxious New Guy and Annoying Intern.  Sleepy Intern has been reduced in status to merely juvenile and amazing in his unflinching refusal to abide by typical corporate protocols.  You know, the ones like “don’t prop your feet up on the conference room table and sleep through your first day in the office.”  Work stories, however, deserve their very own post.

KG’s pain has worsened again.  I’ve been forced to give her another “get help for yourself or I’ll get it for you” ultimatum, but have not yet set a date.  That will be discussed after church tomorrow evening.

I will likely be driving a Scadian lady new to our area down to Highland River Melees this weekend.  This means that I probably won’t be able to head down early and visit Steve, who leaves for good on Saturday.  I’ve met this particular lady exactly once, for about half an hour, and she makes me nervous.  Not in an “I’m going to stab you” sort of way, but in a typical Cumberland sort of way.  Also, she likes to talk about herself, to the extent that she talked at me for about half an hour on the phone while I was in Lowe’s the other day.  Just repeating the same things over and over–much like KG, actually, only an adult.  I couldn’t get a word in edgewise, nor convince her that I really had to go.  And yes, she knew I was in a store and that my phone battery was dying.  While I “talk” a lot when writing–my entries here and my emails will certainly attest to that–I try to be more courteous in actual conversation.  I’m also very bad at interrupting after spending my formative years being constantly interrupted by my father, who would tell me quite plainly that “[my] opinion doesn’t matter, so shut up about it.”  This is actually to the extent of being a fault, especially when it comes to the kids talking to me and needing to take control over the conversation so that we can continue with the lesson.  Needless to say, I’m not looking forward to the ride down.

The following whine might sound callous and selfish, but pray don’t take it that way.  It is simply an observation of what I’m finding about my inner self, which is essentially what this journal is meant to be:  records and observations.  So here it is:  I’ve never had a friend die before.  Oh, I’ve been around death, even the death of people with whom I was close or of younger people, but it’s always been older relatves or people I didn’t know all that well and with whom I had no real connection.  With Adam, it’s been hard.  I knew he was sick, but while I knew in my head that death is always a possibility even for the healthiest of people, I never really believed in my heart that it would come to that.  He was like a light in the room that is our world–you can’t really imagine it being gone.  Dimmed for a while, maybe, but not gone.  Now whenever I allow myself to come out of that mode of impartial observer, I find my eyes burning.  I can’t imagine him not being at HRM, or leading the Hagerstown group as it forms the canton, or waiting for the other gamers when I go to the community room to sew.  I hadn’t seen him in a while anyway, but I can’t seem to convince myself that I never will again.  I miss him.  And you know what?  It’s nothing like missing a grandmother who’s not been “herself” for some time, or a person you knew long ago but never really liked much.  I’m 22.  I’m not supposed to be losing friends yet.

So in other words, the week itself has kind of sucked.  But take heart! for the weekend was far better.  No, before you ask, I didn’t even touch a needle and thread.  As the pain in my abdomen seems to be less curl-up-in-a-ball-and-scream intense today, I hope to get some done tonight.  That leaves tomorrow after church and Friday morning for the mini pineapple upside-down cakes for the bakesale.

What I did accomplish was filling my new herb garden most of the way with dirt.  Very lovely dirt, actually, rich and black with an abundance of worms.  Unfortunately, also an abundance of ants (thousands! millions!), but they’ve settled down over the last few days.  Better yet, it was all free.  Most of it was dug up when Randy helped us level the site for the shed.  I’m not sure where it came from, considering that the rest of the cleared property is a massive shale bed, but I’m grateful for it.  We’ll top off the last inch or so with bought topsoil, I’ll work in organic fertilizer (basically chicken droppings) and corn gluten meal (keeps weed seeds from sprouting by impeding the growth of the first roots that emerge from them), and I’ll transplant my poor little herbs.  About half have died since taking them outside, and the rest get watered twice a day and still dry out in between.  The weather’s been up in the 90s for days.

I also hung the hammock I bought in Honduras over the weekend.  I heart my hammock.  Too bad it took about a year to the day to get it up.  It’s heaven made from fibers, hanging in my own yard.  We even found the perfect place for it, though I didn’t think there would be one.

I made strawberry daiquiris, sans alcohol.  I’m working on perfecting my own mix so I can avoid the glut of corn syrup present in the cans of frozen daiquiri goo from the grocery store.

I bought a quart of fresh strawberries from the farmer’s market yesterday.  The ones on the bottom were half rotten.  No worries; there were three other people selling them.  I’ll go elsewhere with my $3.50 next time.

I made meatloaf for the first time in my life and chicken cattiatore.

This has become long enough already, so the rambling will stop here.  I need to go make some phone calls anyway.

June 5th, 2008 by Ascelyn

I just placed an order for a 8′6″ x 11′3″ x 8′ wall tent from Tentsmiths.  I got the extra door option to help keep things cool and am looking forward to being able to sleep past sunrise at Pennsic without messing with heat exhaustion like last year.

I. Am. So. Excited!