So ... what have I been doing since I taught "The SCA on a Budget"? It's certainly been a while...
As we make the transition from "pandemic" to "endemic" covid-19, I have been attending both in-person and virtual events and classes. Of course, it's always more soul-satisfying to see people in three dimensions, but sometimes it's just not feasible, either because of covid-19 precautions or great distance. Let me summarize the year 2022 so far.
Early in the year, I watched the virtual court at Kingdom Twelfth Night in January and took classes online -- one at a Virtual Known World Heralds and Scribes Symposium (KWHSS), and several at a virtual session of the University of Atlantia. I skipped Bright Hills Baronial Birthday; some years I go to it and some years I don't, but I was still concerned about the "omicron variant" of our least favorite virus.
As springtime rolled around, I participated in a successful demonstration at Costume-Con 40 (more on that in a bit) and sold a bit of excess gear at "Lochmart," the flea market that the Barony of Lochmere holds at its annual April event.
The first weekend in May, I went to Spring Crown Tourney, held in the Barony of Stierbach. Nobody I asked could remember the last time, if any, that Atlantia has held a competition for the Crown indoors (our parent Kingdom, the East, does it fairly often), but because of the heavy rains that occurred before and during the event, the staff moved all the proceedings indoors to a couple of barns. (Fortunately, the event had been long scheduled for a county fairground.) The main hall was rather crowded, and only two lists could be set up instead of four, so the preliminary rounds took a lot longer than anticipated. If I recall rightly, the final round -- between a super-Duke and a Knight who had never reigned before -- happened around 3:30 or 4 p.m. (The Knight who had never reigned before became a first-time Prince.) The damp cold drove a deep chill into our bones; by the time afternoon Royal Court was over, I could hardly wait to slog out to my car in the parking lot and crank up the heater.
June brought another public demo, this time at AwesomeCon (again, more on that in a bit), and a few online classes at another virtual KWHSS, this time hosted by the brand-new Principality of Vindheim in the Kingdom of Ansteorra. In fact, two classes I took were taught by my friend in Lochac, Mistress ffride wolfsdottir, who is an extraordinary researcher.
Storvik held Novice Tourney a bit later than usual -- shortly after the Fourth of July weekend. I did not go to Pennsic this year for financial reasons. I'm a freelance science writer mundanely, and I finished up a feature article on the opening weekend of Pennsic and got paid for it at the end of Pennsic. That's actually a speedy payment in the world of freelance writing -- some poor souls have to wait months for their financial rewards -- but the timing did not work out well for Pennsic 49. Oh, well, next year is Pennsic 50, and after missing Pennsic 40, you'd better believe I am bound and determined to attend Pennsic come hell or high water or any other disaster induced by climate change.
This post is already getting pretty long, so I'll save the reports on the two public demos for the next entry.
