tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43994157424408214312024-03-05T07:12:52.137-05:00Lady Patricia of TrakaiAdventures of a Lithuanian persona in the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA)Patricia of Trakaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10749588384988572343noreply@blogger.comBlogger98125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4399415742440821431.post-82710333754839892332024-01-06T20:23:00.000-05:002024-01-06T20:23:02.916-05:00Starting a new year<p>Six days into 2024, and things are already happening, SCA-wise.</p><p>On New Year's Day my barony had a silk-banner-painting activity at a community center here in the northern part of Storvik. Our current Queen has been handing out banners painted with the word "Inspiration" at the events she attends within Atlantia, and our own Dame Emma West is in charge of the project. She did all the fabric preparation and the outlines of the design, and about 20 of us took turns coloring in the design. It's rather fun and not stressful at all. We finished painting two banners and probably could have done a third that afternoon. Here is a picture I took:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1SKmMpwTnfpdaDWkWV5qoOaQpx2HooquoLk7b6bnwHhnnJjPx7lpfr3Q1Y4n5ShQx-nUvI9OBHehZ_6Uu8nawzQSXLvBiEZNk_pmvWkjlEq0xPilCwr9dIu4uYkINxoPA6GuCongGFxOZoO4I9TW3TGEfO99fvCnw-RvVbh8yP6cm5Hc7swcnx4ciiWA/s2048/53436528104_2dba4dcb4e_k.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1SKmMpwTnfpdaDWkWV5qoOaQpx2HooquoLk7b6bnwHhnnJjPx7lpfr3Q1Y4n5ShQx-nUvI9OBHehZ_6Uu8nawzQSXLvBiEZNk_pmvWkjlEq0xPilCwr9dIu4uYkINxoPA6GuCongGFxOZoO4I9TW3TGEfO99fvCnw-RvVbh8yP6cm5Hc7swcnx4ciiWA/s320/53436528104_2dba4dcb4e_k.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: left;">That's the one I worked on.</p><p style="text-align: left;">On Wednesday I commemorated a special day in my life. It was the 20th anniversary of my very first SCA event, Storvik Yule Revel. Here's what I posted in our baronial Facebook group about it:</p><div style="text-align: left;"><div class=""><div class="x1iorvi4 x1pi30zi x1swvt13 xjkvuk6" data-ad-comet-preview="message" data-ad-preview="message" id=":r3uf:"><div class="x78zum5 xdt5ytf xz62fqu x16ldp7u"><div class="xu06os2 x1ok221b"><span class="x193iq5w xeuugli x13faqbe x1vvkbs x1xmvt09 x1lliihq x1s928wv xhkezso x1gmr53x x1cpjm7i x1fgarty x1943h6x xudqn12 x3x7a5m x6prxxf xvq8zen xo1l8bm xzsf02u x1yc453h" dir="auto"><div class="xdj266r x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs x126k92a"><p dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"><i>Twenty years ago TODAY, I went to my first-ever SCA event: Storvik Yule Revel! It was in our fighter practice hall at St. Andrew's.</i></p><p dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"><i>Outside the hall, a friendly young couple named Pedro and Devora accosted me and introduced themselves. Once we got past Tirzah at troll, Pedro and Devora introduced me to their Peers, Herveus and Megan, who explained tablet weaving to me -- I had never seen it before. Taira no Akiyo taught a class in spinning wool with a drop spindle. I watched <span></span>some people dance and sat in the audience for Baroness Johanna's court. Finally, Pedro and Devora invited me to sit at their table with their Peers for a delicious feast.</i></p><p dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"><i>I was just blown away by how welcoming everyone was to me! Obviously, I decided to stick around and get a membership and you all know the rest of the story.</i></p><p dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"><i>Sadly, not everyone who was at that Storvik Yule Revel is with us today (Dame Brenna, Sir Gauss, Pedro...). Because of that cozy little event, though, the SCA has become a big part of my life. I just want to say THANK YOU to everyone who has welcomed me along the way.</i><span class="x3nfvp2 xsgj6o6 x1kgmq87 xxymvpz"><span class="x3nfvp2 x1kgmq87 xsgj6o6"><span class="x3nfvp2"><span class=""><span></span></span></span></span></span></p></div></span></div></div></div></div></div><p>I hope I brought some warm memories to folks. Also, I hope that just maybe someday we will hold another Storvik Yule Revel in the community center. (It's been 10 years since Kingdom Twelfth Night was held in northern Atlantia ... fancy event sites are just too expensive around here.)</p><p>Incidentally, Storvik has also revived the tradition of a monthly A&S night in person. I couldn't go this week, but I hope to attend in February.<br /></p>Patricia of Trakaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10749588384988572343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4399415742440821431.post-2338749848869497702023-12-30T20:41:00.006-05:002023-12-30T20:41:45.844-05:00Wrapping up the calendar year<p>Greetings! Before the Gregorian calendar ticks up another notch, I thought I would sum up my SCA experiences for 2023.</p><p>In general, it's been a good year. By my count, I went to 11 in-person SCA events and activities, including Pennsic 50, as mentioned in the previous post. I have also attended three online/virtual events -- we're not done with those, even though the pandemic state of emergency is over. Quite honestly, most Atlantians are thankful that the Kingdom's annual business meeting, known as Unevent, is now entirely virtual, as it makes officers from the entire length of Atlantia -- some 660 miles, more or less, if you drive -- able to attend without much inconvenience.<br /></p><p>What have I done within the SCA?</p><p>In terms of arts & sciences, I'd describe the year as moderately productive. I continue to rehearse and perform with Laydes Fayre, the interbaronial all-women singing group. Mistress Arianna moved me down from second soprano to alto. I'm no soloist, but I've been learning to harmonize. Having MIDI files for home practice helps me greatly.</p><p>I continue to dance with the Three Left Feet group, and went to a few dances at Pennsic. Earlier this year I slipped on a patch of mud and wrenched my knee, which set me back a bit, but it's all better now.</p><p>A few weeks ago, I had some fun with SCA dance music. At the Dun Carraig Baronial Investiture, there was an A&S competition called "Make the Laurels Cry," which was for "best use of a modern material in an arts competition." Laydes Fayre had been considering a performance involving a modern pop song in the style of an English madrigal, but we didn't get it down well enough to sing it in front of the Queen and other Laurels. (To really make such a mash-up effective, a performance has to be <i>tight</i>.) So I wondered how I could enter the competition as an individual. I didn't really want to spend dollars and hours sewing a medieval dress out of neon-green polyester, or something like that, so I kept thinking about music. I got my old Casio keyboard out of storage and started experimenting.</p><p>Back in my teen years I used to play a two-manual-plus-pedals organ well enough to serve as a church organist, but I never quite got the single-manual style of playing. It turns out that not only does this model of electronic keyboard play major chords with a single touch of the left finger, but it also starts and stops the chords in time with the rhythm box (or whatever you call the built-in synthesized percussion sounds). So I did some experimenting. A fair number of English country dance tunes are in minor keys, but I managed to "funk up" "Sellinger's Round" and reset "Petit Riens" to a jaunty ska beat. I practiced these adaptations for a couple of days before the event ... and Her Majesty <i>loved </i>the results! I even sparked a conga line going across the floor! So I ended up winning the competition (the prize was a large multi-pack of Sharpie pens). I felt a tiny bit bad because I'm sure some of the other competitors put a lot more effort into their entries ... but I think Her Majesty was looking for humor and whimsy.</p><p>I will address the "SCA service" topic in a future entry. Happy New Year!<br /></p>Patricia of Trakaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10749588384988572343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4399415742440821431.post-67845975740100182262023-07-28T23:51:00.001-04:002023-07-28T23:51:17.358-04:00Pennsic 50 Frenzy!<p> It's starting! Today is Opening Day for <a href="https://www.pennsicwar.org/">Pennsic 50</a>! (I rather hate to call it a "War," given what has been going on in Ukraine for more than a year, and given that nobody's awarding "War Points" this year.)</p><p>And I'm going! Not right away -- today is the arrival day for land agents and merchants. But since I didn't get to go last year, and then we had a couple of years off for The Plague, I feel as if I've been away from "home" for an awfully long time. (Then again, I haven't been to my home state of Massachusetts since December 2018. My last Pennsic was #48 in 2019.)</p><p>My impending trek feels almost like a miracle. The past seven or eight months of my non-SCA life have been rough. Fortunately, good friends have been beside me with help and advice.</p><p>Now I've had to resurrect my packing list from FOUR years ago and assemble everything I'll need for this trip. I'm not used to this anymore, but it feels good.</p><p>Another way this year is different from every other year: I won't have my own car at Pennsic. (I need new wheels, but I don't want to make a hasty decision about that before my vacation.) I'm sharing a ride to Pennsic with a woman and her three kids, all newcomers to Pennsic. In a way, it'll be lovely to see everything with fresh eyes.</p>Patricia of Trakaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10749588384988572343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4399415742440821431.post-66341188886643475432023-03-11T21:48:00.006-05:002023-03-11T21:48:46.062-05:00Gains and losses, March 2023<p> Happy Day of Restoration of Independence of Lithuania! (Remember, it's the tiny little country with two "independence days.")</p><p>My personal life is still somewhat chaotic, most recently because my car was rear-ended at a stop light on March 3. It's somewhat drivable, but without the right rear taillight or turn signal. Also, the right rear wheel well is bent (bad for driving over bumps) and there's an exhaust scent that wasn't noticeable before the crash. This was the LAST thing I needed.</p><p>Fortunately, I had already made plans to drive someone else's car (with the owner inside it too) to our Kingdom Arts & Sciences Festival on the 4th. It was the first time in five years that I've been able to attend KASF. Since Laydes Fayre didn't have a scheduled performance, I was free to wander around and admire all the wonderful exhibits and gorgeous garb. Yes, I took pictures, but they're on my non-phone camera, so they haven't hit the Internet yet.</p><p>Finally, a personal sadness. Dame Brenna of Storvik was the very first person I met in the SCA. When I started considering getting involved in the SCA in the fall of 2003, I looked up my local branch and noticed that it had a weekly "sewing night" on Thursdays. Since the only requirement for attending an SCA event is making an attempt at pre-17th-century clothing, I thought I'd better show up there and get an idea of what to wear. So one chilly, damp night I knocked at her door and introduced myself and explained why I was there. Dame Brenna and her friends answered my questions and helped me figure out what was acceptable and how to start sewing it. In recent years, after her husband (and the love of her life), Sir Gauss, died, Dame Brenna attended far fewer events. I meant to catch up with her, but a few days ago she <a href="https://op.atlantia.sca.org/op_ind.php?atlantian_id=559">passed away</a>. I think she was a bit short of her 69th birthday.</p><p>Life is short. Spend time with your friends.</p>Patricia of Trakaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10749588384988572343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4399415742440821431.post-84048387660602856502023-02-16T18:45:00.001-05:002023-02-16T18:45:10.976-05:00Status report, February 2023<p>Happy Lithuanian Independence Day! At least <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Act_of_Independence_of_Lithuania">the independence that hearkens back to 1918</a>. Remember, Lithuania is the little country with two "independence days."</p><p>I apologize for not having kept up with this blog. I have <i>not </i>given up the SCA. Since the last entry here, I've been to a few local events and have regularly attended the Three Left Feet dance practice on Monday nights. (Three Left Feet is not, strictly speaking, an SCA dance troupe, but we share space with the ongoing Storvik fighter practices.) For the past year or so, I've been singing with Laydes Fayre, an interbaronial all-women group directed by the talented Mistress Arianna Morgan of Lochmere.</p><p>Never fear, I haven't given up on heraldry! I am the Sea Tyger Pursuivant, in charge of rounding up people to teach heraldry classes. (Of course, I totally forgot to register for the most recent University of Atlantia session a couple of weeks ago, so I couldn't take any of these classes. Ah, well...)</p><p>I haven't been doing much A&S stuff because I have been undergoing a lot of upheavals in my life, mostly related to my finances (my health is fine). Someday I will make myself some new garb, but this is not the time for that.</p>Patricia of Trakaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10749588384988572343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4399415742440821431.post-62986872424629280342022-08-22T16:42:00.000-04:002022-08-22T16:42:10.086-04:00Status report, August 2022<p> So ... what have I been doing since I taught "The SCA on a Budget"? It's certainly been a while...</p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p>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 <a href="http://ladypatriciaoftrakai.blogspot.com/2011/09/late-summer-and-fall-activities.html">missing Pennsic 40</a>, you'd better <i>believe </i>I am bound and determined to attend Pennsic come hell or high water or any other disaster induced by climate change.</p><p>This post is already getting pretty long, so I'll save the reports on the two public demos for the next entry.</p>Patricia of Trakaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10749588384988572343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4399415742440821431.post-89266130093182802992022-01-20T17:16:00.000-05:002022-01-20T17:16:29.967-05:00Online "SCA on a Budget" class<p>Tonight (Thursday, January 20) I will be teaching an online version of the "SCA on a Budget" class that I did at the last in-person University of Atlantia before the covid-19 plague began. (If you want the link, send me an email or something. I don't want to post the Zoom link publicly, although it is available in several Atlantia-related Facebook groups.)</p><p> The online version of my 2019 class handout is here:</p><p><a href="https://ladypatriciaoftrakai.blogspot.com/p/the-sca.html"> https://ladypatriciaoftrakai.blogspot.com/p/the-sca.html </a></p><p>One thing to note: Lady Katherine Ashewode's page on the East Kingdom Wiki has changed slightly. It is now <a href="https://wiki.eastkingdom.org/wiki/Something_to_start_with">https://wiki.eastkingdom.org/wiki/Something_to_start_with</a>. Same information, though.<br /></p><p><br /></p>Patricia of Trakaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10749588384988572343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4399415742440821431.post-19335304634533898512021-12-31T23:49:00.000-05:002021-12-31T23:49:05.557-05:00Welcomed to the Pod<p><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Georgia, Palatino, serif; font-size: 16px;">Certainly the highlight of my SCA year -- indeed, the highlight of my SCA experience since the beginning of this cruel pandemic -- took place at Storvik's Battle on the Bay on Saturday, September 25.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Georgia, Palatino, serif; font-size: 16px;">The weather was GORGEOUS, with clear blue skies and PERFECT temperatures. I arrived on site in plenty of time to set up my chair on the field in front of the Royal pavilion, where the morning courts would be held. Since the theme of the event was "Hannibal's Crossing," a.k.a. the Second Punic War, we were encouraged to dress up like Carthaginians (not that there's a lot of archaeological evidence telling us how Carthaginian women dressed), I tried to approximate what I learned in an online class. I wore my only solid-color chiton or "bog dress," the light pink one I made when Atlantia was honoring the late Duchess Arielle the Golden. I suppose I could have altered it for the event, but I ran out of steam over the last few days prior to the event and figured that I might not ever need another dress from the Second Punic War era again (it's not a common event theme in Atlantia). I did try to drape a darker pink cotton bedsheet around myself as an attempt at a himation. Patches (who gave me that sheet) said that anything I </span><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Georgia, Palatino, serif; font-size: 16px;">could do with that sheet would up my game. At least I could use it during morning court to supplement the spray-on sunscreen in protecting my arms against the morning sun.</span></p><div><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Georgia, Palatino, serif; font-size: 16px;">Also, shortly before court, Master Stefan asked me if I would be available to take some pictures with my phone during court. I said yes, but I thought that was a little weird.</span></div><div><br style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Georgia, Palatino, serif; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Georgia, Palatino, serif; font-size: 16px;">The morning featured the final court of Baron Celric and Baroness Ilaria as they stepped down from the leadership of Storvik. Their Excellencies cut fine figures as they handed out their final awards and spoke their final words. They gave back their Storvik coronets and received their personal Court Baronage awards. Then John and Graciela stepped forward to serve as the next Baron and Baroness of Storvik, and they held a brief first court to do a few items of business, such as asking Lady Sonya (Patches) to be their archery champion.</span><br style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Georgia, Palatino, serif; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Georgia, Palatino, serif; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Georgia, Palatino, serif; font-size: 16px;">Around this time, it suddenly occurred to me that Master Stefan's wife, Baroness Evelynne, was not yet a Peer. And, sure enough, at the end of all the morning court business, Evelynne was called up before Their Majesties and asked to sit vigil to contemplate joining the Order of the Laurel.</span><br style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Georgia, Palatino, serif; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Georgia, Palatino, serif; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Georgia, Palatino, serif; font-size: 16px;">I took photos as best I could from my seat, which was a row or two behind Stefan and Evelynne's seats, just far enough back that I didn't show up on the </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7i3pMjoM3dM" style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Georgia, Palatino, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">video of morning court</a><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Georgia, Palatino, serif; font-size: 16px;">. Then the candidate was led away to the vigil tent, so I hopped up and followed the procession, while trying to keep a distance from the throng of other Laurels so that I wouldn't get in their way. At first I was taking still photos, but then I got a nudge from someone (Stefan? Now I don't remember) and started taking video. (All of this was after the court video cameras were turned off.)</span><br style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Georgia, Palatino, serif; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Georgia, Palatino, serif; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Georgia, Palatino, serif; font-size: 16px;">After Evelynne was properly envigilled (is that a verb?), I went back to the Newcomers' Point day shade, as I had promised to watch it while Patches, our outgoing chatelaine (i.e., baronial officer in charge of helping newcomers) went off and did other things, such as teaching a dance class. We had a few attendees who were relatively new to the Society, and I chatted with them. Plus, we had a table of "free for the taking" stuff that anyone could paw through. (Heck, I pawed through it, but none of the clothes and accessories fit me or sparked my interest. I'm wary of bringing home things that I'm not going to use right away for a specific purpose.) I also had a chance to chat with Dame Emma West for a while. (Already a Pelican, Dame Emma was made a Laurel at morning court for her excellent painted silk banners.)</span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Georgia, Palatino, serif; font-size: 16px;">Eventually Baroness Margaret Lad, the Kingdom Chatelaine, came over to Newcomers' Point to relieve me (and cheerfully organize the pile of free garb that people had been pawing through; she does everything cheerfully). That gave me a chance to wander around and greet people and even spend a few moments with Baroness Evelynne in her vigil tent. Clan Cambion, Evelynne's household, was planning a procession into Court for her, but they invited me to join in. Once the procession got to the front of Court, those of us who are not Laurels would simply reverence the Thrones, walk off to one side and go back to our seats. Thus, when the populace was getting ready for afternoon Court, I set up my chair toward the back of the audience so that it would be less obvious that I was getting up to join the lineup for the procession. I ended up sitting next to Master Herveus, who belongs to Clan Cambion, so that I could tell when it was time to leave our seats and line up to follow Evelynne.</span><br style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Georgia, Palatino, serif; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Georgia, Palatino, serif; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Georgia, Palatino, serif; font-size: 16px;">As expected, the new Baron and Baroness of Storvik held a court and gave out several baronial awards, and then afternoon Royal Court commenced. Their Majesties gave out a number of grant-level awards, for which it is customary (at least in Atlantia) to call up fellow members of the Order into the Royal Presence to greet their newest member. People who are both Golden Dolphins (service) and Pearls (arts and sciences), like Herveus, had to keep getting up and sitting back down. He joked that it was good exercise.</span><br style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Georgia, Palatino, serif; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Georgia, Palatino, serif; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Georgia, Palatino, serif; font-size: 16px;">At some point I started to think, </span><i style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Georgia, Palatino, serif; font-size: 16px;">Hey, isn't it almost time for Evelynne's procession? Shouldn't we be lining up?</i><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Georgia, Palatino, serif; font-size: 16px;"> But then I heard the court herald call my name.</span><br style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Georgia, Palatino, serif; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Georgia, Palatino, serif; font-size: 16px;" /><i style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Georgia, Palatino, serif; font-size: 16px;">My name.</i><br style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Georgia, Palatino, serif; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Georgia, Palatino, serif; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Georgia, Palatino, serif; font-size: 16px;">So I stood up and somehow shuffled up to Their Majesties and bowed, probably less deeply than I should have. They told me it would be acceptable if I remained standing instead of kneeling on the padded stools in front of the thrones.</span><br style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Georgia, Palatino, serif; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Georgia, Palatino, serif; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Georgia, Palatino, serif; font-size: 16px;">Queen Jane started off by saying something like, "So, you have been baronial herald since 2007," and then I gently corrected Her -- I have not been baronial herald for a few years now, although my actual cutoff date is pretty mushy. So then she started praising me for staying active in heraldry and hospitality. (And I'm thinking, "Huh? I spent a couple of hours at Newcomers' Point, but...") And then the herald commanded members of the Order of the Golden Dolphin.</span><br style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Georgia, Palatino, serif; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Georgia, Palatino, serif; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Georgia, Palatino, serif; font-size: 16px;">I bowed to their Majesties again as the populace applauded and various members of the Order approached the thrones. Their Majesties said more nice things about me, asked if there was a medallion, and Dame Emma stepped forward with a shiny Golden Dolphin attached to a lovely necklace of red beads and white pearls. She said it was a legacy medallion in that she had passed it around to many members of the Order before getting it back and giving it to me. She gave me a copy of her statement after she read it.</span><br style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Georgia, Palatino, serif; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Georgia, Palatino, serif; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Georgia, Palatino, serif; font-size: 16px;">I was just so overwhelmed. As the crowd cheered and I went to "greet the order," all I could think of was ... Pedro. </span><a href="https://pedropadrao.livejournal.com/" style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Georgia, Palatino, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">Pedro</a><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Georgia, Palatino, serif; font-size: 16px;">, my heraldry teacher, my friend whose wife was so proud of his Golden Dolphin, who should have been a Pelican (the highest-level service award) ... I would have never received this award if he had not taught me so well. I wanted to tell him about it so very much.</span><br style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Georgia, Palatino, serif; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Georgia, Palatino, serif; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Georgia, Palatino, serif; font-size: 16px;">My head was spinning so much that I floated back to my chair and didn't join the procession for Evelynne's Laurel ceremony. I enjoyed watching it, though. You can watch the entirety of the afternoon court <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPFkAwd4UEI&t=3963s">here</a>.</span><br style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Georgia, Palatino, serif; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Georgia, Palatino, serif; font-size: 16px;" /><center style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Georgia, Palatino, serif; font-size: 16px;">* * * * *</center><br style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Georgia, Palatino, serif; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Georgia, Palatino, serif; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Georgia, Palatino, serif; font-size: 16px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg5F4VsuodDceh8ZWc1v44LNhBxb4oL0SvcfRnYuf-0fDmF_mWXG2oNJOEBI5GgGue2UakP_vsh3t7bXrlPDjib_Ikhxq_Wz4W0oYrUZY63Khm8iYn01mFlsPEJ4hbhqBsRN_jXqCHkzuNQ9ph46gD0lY5iEEKN5GEp8EBxeG3OJX9HpgG-rC24xt-f=s2328" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2328" data-original-width="1832" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg5F4VsuodDceh8ZWc1v44LNhBxb4oL0SvcfRnYuf-0fDmF_mWXG2oNJOEBI5GgGue2UakP_vsh3t7bXrlPDjib_Ikhxq_Wz4W0oYrUZY63Khm8iYn01mFlsPEJ4hbhqBsRN_jXqCHkzuNQ9ph46gD0lY5iEEKN5GEp8EBxeG3OJX9HpgG-rC24xt-f=s320" width="252" /></a></div><br /><br /></span></div>Patricia of Trakaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10749588384988572343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4399415742440821431.post-59107786080888657432021-09-08T21:38:00.002-04:002021-09-09T00:15:14.731-04:00Atoning for a long-ago joke<p><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Long before I joined the SCA, I was involved with a fellow with a bachelor's degree in physics. I don't want to get into details of that miserable portion of my life, but I will reveal that he would call humanities and social-science classes "basket weaving." It was his shorthand way of putting down those subjects, and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underwater_basket_weaving">I doubt he was the first to do so</a>.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Fast forward to the first week of August ... I went mundane camping with my SCA household, and <i>I made a basket</i>! And it took a fair amount of effort. I wouldn't compare it with other difficult things I've done, like taking <span>graduate-level astrophysics exams ... but still, I had to pay attention to the details of what I was doing.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">At first I'd thought I'd missed the basket weaving. One household member, known in the SCA as <span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-weight: inherit; text-align: center;">Faolán, taught the class on Sunday, August 1. However, I'd had other plans for that day and had to do some freelance work during the week, so I couldn't arrive until the morning of Thursday the 5th.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: helvetica; font-weight: inherit; text-align: center;">Nevertheless, my friend Johanna had bought a huge amount of basket-weaving supplies in preparation for camping week, and so on she asked, "Who wants to make a basket?" Even though I'd brought other crafty things to do, of course I replied, "I do!"</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: helvetica; font-weight: inherit; text-align: center;">Now, these basket-making supplies were not in the best shape anymore. After Sunday's class, somebody (unknown, but not Johanna) put Johanna's wet wood and reeds into plastic bags. Trying to be helpful, I'm sure. But the plastic-bagging allowed dark mold spots to start growing on the strips of wood. Oops! Still, we decided to press ahead and weave baskets.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: helvetica; font-weight: inherit; text-align: center;">The first step, of course, was to re-soak the basket materials in water to make them pliable. We had to repeat this step many times as we went along, because even on a humid day the wicker starts drying out after half an hour or so. The actual weaving began with a 7 x 7 grid woven to form the bottoms of our baskets. Even though the baskets were starting out square, they would end up being round on top. (Go to your local thrift store to see how many baskets are like that.)</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Some images of the progress:</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFtUU6PP1uOmn_eXPGpUFDk3n_VIG6GUxQL_TOapU2ccUcUooI_tsPdy8UahUa6WoONJF6pWARNdRjGKSC_FRnkKfAri1-utEO1bCP4HGw9bFA0Y-YzjtAQi2vKAEGDvk9XK682P2V-p4/s800/51365075615_b4b9f88d20_c.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFtUU6PP1uOmn_eXPGpUFDk3n_VIG6GUxQL_TOapU2ccUcUooI_tsPdy8UahUa6WoONJF6pWARNdRjGKSC_FRnkKfAri1-utEO1bCP4HGw9bFA0Y-YzjtAQi2vKAEGDvk9XK682P2V-p4/s320/51365075615_b4b9f88d20_c.jpg" width="240" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg27jV4Kbht3ncfdH-U1s0HkLzlMpNyWCX2uv9vwFalFKARZM5kMRfHeaWZ2YBwDSUqWuY0G6vC7qLgcfIV_8UfidEPQpD7ESgtY-E-JHdamOSwNOflVDYVQXZdI7IVph8JDoNi-eWBOL8/s800/51364280638_604711e362_c.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg27jV4Kbht3ncfdH-U1s0HkLzlMpNyWCX2uv9vwFalFKARZM5kMRfHeaWZ2YBwDSUqWuY0G6vC7qLgcfIV_8UfidEPQpD7ESgtY-E-JHdamOSwNOflVDYVQXZdI7IVph8JDoNi-eWBOL8/s320/51364280638_604711e362_c.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaYiIMsGnQKfx0JKgWAemgjyTRA86Fzuyz-DWhLovhwiphe1GOreq7qmRgvcVqW9iZbibJv6XRC9HeXNDvQ6zfZEK9gCLL3MiZ3BbSq6ZZKRcWj_CLyZQ1ka45ItxbnJcmoUP-hua6kUQ/s800/51364061486_efc9f8053e_c.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaYiIMsGnQKfx0JKgWAemgjyTRA86Fzuyz-DWhLovhwiphe1GOreq7qmRgvcVqW9iZbibJv6XRC9HeXNDvQ6zfZEK9gCLL3MiZ3BbSq6ZZKRcWj_CLyZQ1ka45ItxbnJcmoUP-hua6kUQ/s320/51364061486_efc9f8053e_c.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjosssBo4vvM0H5PGh_wEJaeE5P7ZBcQxa1nziY1plwS9uMC5xGE8hyphenhyphen6MNfUniMYUw9GsWqRux76X5AQO3zEyDq_oUTT6lqX8PD26nIMgygM6_RqhMUGfPn_OME6Fr2709GZTSi5nrGIgM/s800/51364280698_10a12900be_c.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjosssBo4vvM0H5PGh_wEJaeE5P7ZBcQxa1nziY1plwS9uMC5xGE8hyphenhyphen6MNfUniMYUw9GsWqRux76X5AQO3zEyDq_oUTT6lqX8PD26nIMgygM6_RqhMUGfPn_OME6Fr2709GZTSi5nrGIgM/s320/51364280698_10a12900be_c.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br /></span><p style="text-align: left;"><span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: helvetica; font-weight: inherit; text-align: center;">I was amazed at the amount of work that it took to make the basket. Not exhausting work, not filthy dirty work, not intellectually daunting work -- just a lot of attention to the details of what I was doing. Johanna emphasized that we had to keep pushing down the woven strips as we went around and around, and that took some hand strength. At times I had to pause to deal with muscle cramps in my hands -- that doesn't often happen to me. Yet Johanna's advice turned out to be correct and greatly improved the look of my basket.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: helvetica; font-weight: inherit; text-align: center;">When I began the basket, I thought it would take just the one afternoon of the middle day (I camped for three days and two nights). But dinnertime came, and we were still nowhere near done. The next morning, I wanted to prioritize packing up my stuff so that my canvas tent could be dry when I dropped it -- I didn't trust the cloudy skies. And, lo and behold, I missed the rain and mostly the rain missed us too. But it still took from just after lunch to just after dinner to finish up everything. And finally we had our baskets!!</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtNy0pP8EhNyUg7o7vETl3WRBdCtQM-9TSluwG5XCTSMuZnQ6lLwrY8n4WKai2wf8yA3QQP8ec8cHPCmX9HaI1lhu-9OSWJv66DQw5osZMCFuFdoEIA8QCM0E1g-cff_JHIkKb7GxGn3s/s800/51364799049_41e9f202af_c.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtNy0pP8EhNyUg7o7vETl3WRBdCtQM-9TSluwG5XCTSMuZnQ6lLwrY8n4WKai2wf8yA3QQP8ec8cHPCmX9HaI1lhu-9OSWJv66DQw5osZMCFuFdoEIA8QCM0E1g-cff_JHIkKb7GxGn3s/s320/51364799049_41e9f202af_c.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: helvetica;">In this image, my basket is on the left, Tirzah's is on the right, and Johanna's is in the middle.</span><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">The next day, once I was home, I left the basket to dry in the sun. Then I soaked it in a 1:10 solution of bleach and water. That killed the mold spores and lightened the mold stains, which are still there, but much less noticeable. I may apply some sort of finish to my basket, but I haven't decided yet.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">So, there you have it, my first basket! In case you are interested, I found a short history of medieval and Renaissance baskets <a href="https://youtu.be/Z5PttnxrB0I">on YouTube</a>.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">A few years ago, my friend Teleri gave me a copy of the book <i>Plaited Basketry with Birch Bark</i> by Vladimir Yarish, Flo Hoppe, and Jim Widess (Sterling Publishing, 2009). Apparently, basket weaving with birch bark is very much a Russian thing. I don't really have a source of birch bark, since such trees are less common in Maryland than they are in my native New England, and buying the stuff online would get expensive. Perhaps I could start experimenting with heavy paper or something like that.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">At any rate, I have added one more type of craft to the List of A&S Things I Have Tried Since 2004. And never again will I make one of those physics-student "basket weaving" jokes.</span></p>Patricia of Trakaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10749588384988572343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4399415742440821431.post-28304518546077720752021-06-27T19:54:00.001-04:002021-06-27T19:54:15.322-04:00A true NOVICE event!<p>The Barony of Storvik's signature annual event is the Novice and Unbelt Tourney, generally held in June or early July (but not Independence Day weekend). In many years (but not all, depending on when we can rent the site), Novice is the last event at which new fighters can authorize for Pennsic. ("Authorizing" is like passing your driver's licensing test, except for SCA fighting.)</p><p>Once again this year, Pennsic isn't being held because of the covid-19 plague, so we didn't have any pressure to get authorizations done, but we <i>did </i>want to have an in-person event after all these months! And June 5 was the very first Saturday after the SCA's North America-wide ban on in-person events expired on May 31.</p><p>To get ready for Novice, we did everything the way the SCA higher-ups said we had to: pre-registration only, limited attendance (but bumped up from 50 people to 150 in the last week prior to Novice, yay!), face masks on everyone, no shared food or drink, no feast, no camping, nobody under the age of 18. (I think I've listed all the major restrictions.)</p><p>As the day grew closer, I grew more excited to see friends who had been just video images on my laptop's screen for more than a year. Maybe my Baron and Baroness would hold court, although the Baroness had been looking mighty pregnant at the last business meeting. In addition, some folks I know just weren't interested in Zoom-based meetings and were holding off on Virtual Atlantia in favor of the promise of real-life activities. At any rate, I felt sufficiently worried that I would forget something that I staged my gear -- accessories, mugs, chair and cover, whatnot -- on the dining-room table.</p><p>Finally, the appointed day (June 5) began and I headed out on the familiar route to the site. For some reason, a section of Croom Station Road was marked "closed." I wasn't sure if it was for paving work or for replacement of a bridge, so I just got on U.S. Route 301 down to Croom Road (normally I take Croom Station Road all the way to the end at Croom Road and then take a left onto Croom Airport Road -- and, yes, the road names are way too similar). When I arrived at the park, my site token (a fancy ribbon strip) was awaiting me in an envelope with my name on it.</p><p>But ... no Baron and Baroness. It didn't take long for me to learn why. Apparently the Baron showed up at the start of the event, dropped off all the baronial gear (day shades, the baronial thrones, all sorts of things) and then announced that he was heading to the hospital. Later in the morning he changed the cover photo of his Facebook page to an image of a sign saying, "Welcome to Labor & Delivery Check-In."</p><p>So ... naturally many of the attendees of the event spent the day in happy anticipation of the baby boy's arrival (Their Excellencies had revealed the baby's sex/gender a couple of months ago). Many of us were hoping that some sort of dramatic announcement would happen at Royal Court. However, while Their Majesties Anton and Luned noted the absence of Their representatives who hold the Storvik lands, They had no further information on the impending birth. If you want to see what They <i>did</i> do in court, Atlantia has the video: </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/a-rZxRFSUOA" width="320" youtube-src-id="a-rZxRFSUOA"></iframe></div><br /><p></p><p>The event broke up a bit early because of the hot weather (duh, this is Maryland in June). I tried to help some with the breaking down and packing up. As I went toward the restroom trailer for a last pit stop before heading home, I heard a few voices yelling, "Vivat! Vivat! Vivat!" The Baron had just posted on Facebook that the Baroness had given birth successfully to a fine and healthy boy, well over 8 pounds. The newest resident of the Barony of Storvik!</p><p>The baby photos are not mine to publish -- I am always cautious about putting pictures of other people's children on social media. But the little fellow, who was named Ari, looks adorable, and his older brothers, Connor and Braeden, seem extremely pleased to be big siblings. (Notice the naming pattern?) Of course I am thrilled for all of them!</p>Patricia of Trakaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10749588384988572343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4399415742440821431.post-36438528912801038982021-04-19T16:11:00.000-04:002021-04-19T16:11:01.144-04:00Decisions, decisions<p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">A few of us Storvik residents have formed a small support group to work on the Atlantian Persona Pentathlon for next year.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">What, you may ask, is the Persona Pentathlon? It's totally a challenge: create five items that all could have been used, worn, performed, or eaten by a person out of a single time and place within the SCA. But wait -- if you're really good at something, like tablet weaving (for instance), you can't just make five tablet-woven bands and enter the competition. Oh, no! You have to make/bake/perform items from at least three different categories:</span></p><ul class="n8H08c UVNKR" style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style-type: square; margin: 6px 0px 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 20px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><li class="TYR86d zfr3Q" id="h.p_ID_36" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #212121; font-style: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: none; line-height: 1.6667; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding-top: 0px; position: relative; text-decoration: inherit;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Category 1: <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Manuscript & Fine Arts</em></span> (bookbinding, calligraphy, drawing, illumination, painting, papermaking, pigments & inks, sculpture)</span></li><li class="TYR86d zfr3Q" id="h.p_ID_38" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #212121; font-style: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: none; line-height: 1.6667; margin: 6px 0px 0px; outline: none; position: relative; text-decoration: inherit;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Category 2:</span> <em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Garb & Fiber Arts</span></em> (beadwork, clothing accessories (including belts, pouches, and fans), clothing/costume, hats, knitting, nalbinding, knotted work, lacemaking, needlework (counted thread or free form))</span></li><li class="TYR86d zfr3Q" id="h.p_ID_40" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #212121; font-style: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: none; line-height: 1.6667; margin: 6px 0px 0px; outline: none; position: relative; text-decoration: inherit;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Category 3: <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Glass & Pottery</em> </span>(ceramics, enameling, glass blowing, lamp working, lapidary, mosaic, pottery, stained glass)</span></li><li class="TYR86d zfr3Q" id="h.p_ID_42" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #212121; font-style: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: none; line-height: 1.6667; margin: 6px 0px 0px; outline: none; position: relative; text-decoration: inherit;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Category 4: <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Medieval Life</em> </span>(basket weaving, brewing & vintning, cooking, dyeing, furniture making, herb craft, soap making, spinning, toys & games, weaving (full-sized fabrics or narrow bands))</span></li><li class="TYR86d zfr3Q" id="h.p_ID_44" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #212121; font-style: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: none; line-height: 1.6667; margin: 6px 0px 0px; outline: none; position: relative; text-decoration: inherit;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Category 5: <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Performance-Related and Writing</em></span> (lyric composition, masks, music composition, performance (vocal, instrumental, poetry, storytelling), poetry, prose, dance performance and composition, martial arts performance, research paper)</span></li><li class="TYR86d zfr3Q" id="h.p_ID_46" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #212121; font-style: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: none; line-height: 1.6667; margin: 6px 0px 0px; outline: none; position: relative; text-decoration: inherit;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Category 6: <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Metal, Leather, Wood & Other 'Hard' Arts</em> </span>(armor, chain mail, blacksmithing, jewelry smithing, iron work, tool making, casting, leather work, wood carving and construction, making musical instruments)</span></li><li class="TYR86d zfr3Q" id="h.p_ID_48" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #212121; font-style: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: none; line-height: 1.6667; margin: 6px 0px 0px; outline: none; padding-bottom: 0px; position: relative; text-decoration: inherit;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Category 7: <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Miscellaneous</em> </span>(heraldic display, horse barding, subtleties, and anything else that just doesn't seem to fit into the other categories)</span></li></ul><div><span style="color: #212121; font-family: trebuchet;"><span style="font-variant-ligatures: none; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="color: #212121; font-family: trebuchet;"><span style="font-variant-ligatures: none; white-space: pre-wrap;">(<a href="https://sites.google.com/site/atlantianascompetitions/other/persona-pentathlon?authuser=0">Source for the above list</a>.)</span></span></div><div><span style="color: #212121; font-family: trebuchet;"><span style="font-variant-ligatures: none; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="color: #212121; font-family: trebuchet;"><span style="font-variant-ligatures: none; white-space: pre-wrap;">One might think that, as a dabbler in many different A&S activities over the 17 years of my SCA adventures, I would find this competition easy as pie. Heck, no! Remember, I <i>dabble</i>, not excel, at many things. I take a class, learn some new method, use that method to make a couple of things, then move on. (I probably have ADHD, though I've never been formally diagnosed.)</span></span></div><div><span style="color: #212121; font-family: trebuchet;"><span style="font-variant-ligatures: none; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="color: #212121; font-family: trebuchet;"><span style="font-variant-ligatures: none; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now, I'm crazy about the history of Lithuania, as you probably know. But to figure out five things to do related to Lithuania? Early period (like the experimental archaeologists at Kernave) or late period (like Bona Sforza and her descendants)? What to do, what to do?</span></span></div><div><span style="color: #212121; font-family: trebuchet;"><span style="font-variant-ligatures: none; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="color: #212121; font-family: trebuchet;"><span style="font-variant-ligatures: none; white-space: pre-wrap;">Don't worry, I shall let you all know what I decide.</span></span></div>Patricia of Trakaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10749588384988572343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4399415742440821431.post-53951979802740960762021-03-19T14:36:00.000-04:002021-03-19T14:36:10.098-04:00Your First SCA War<p>That was a <b>day</b>!! My Kingdom of Atlantia hosted a HUGE Virtual University on February 13th!! Our Virtual Universities have grown so big that we have to have seven class sessions, not just six, to accommodate them all.</p><p>I taught "Your First SCA War" for the first time in 10 years. The 2011 version happened in person, of course, so I just brought to the classroom a large plastic bin full of things related to Pennsic: the program book, copies of the <i>Pennsic Independent</i>, event medallions, and other artifacts of "home." This time around, I figured that I could show some photos of Pennsic without worrying about whether the classroom was equipped with a digital projector for PowerPoint slides (which isn't a very medieval thing to do anyhow!).</p><p>Unfortunately, I spent so much time looking up my photos (not all of which are online or otherwise organized) that I didn't get to embed them in a PowerPoint presentation. No biggie, I thought, I would just share them straight on my screen. But Zoom didn't like what I was doing, and at some points I was just showing a blank screen. Oops! Twenty-first-century problems, indeed. So I just went back to teaching in front of the live camera. I think my 30 or so students were pretty well engaged anyway. I fell a bit behind in terms of time, but I made sure everyone got the handout (updated from the decade-old version) afterward.</p><p>In case you would like to see that handout, here it is (on Google Docs): <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1q-8ZzWjxbTP3vx5Ki7wt6MY-6w9RY38u/view">https://drive.google.com/file/d/1q-8ZzWjxbTP3vx5Ki7wt6MY-6w9RY38u/view</a>. Comments and suggestions welcome -- I'm sure I'll teach it again one of these years.</p><p>Even though the SCA's ban on in-person events is scheduled to expire at the end of May, the June 12 session of the University of Atlantia will be held virtually -- and concurrently with the (also virtual) Known World Sciences Symposium, which originally was supposed to take place in one of the western Kingdoms.</p>Patricia of Trakaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10749588384988572343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4399415742440821431.post-62559342433108450392021-02-11T15:11:00.001-05:002021-02-11T15:11:59.447-05:00Early 2021 (but still in A.S. LV)<p>One of the disadvantages of updating this blog so infrequently is that I need to pack a lot of information into each post. After all, despite the surging pandemic, the virtual SCA world, and especially my Kingdom of Atlantia, is still going strong.</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Twelfth Night</h3><p>The weekend of January 9th was Kingdom Twelfth Night, which was the first one I've "attended" (for some value of "attendance") since 2014, when my barony, Storvik, hosted the event. I got out of bed and dressed in time to see a wonderful ceremony in which one of my friends, Mistress Teleri Barod, took another of my friends, Lady Sonya Flicker, as her apprentice. Afterward they had a nice Zoom chat with us guests, including some I haven't seen online much since the pandemic lockdown began.</p><p>Their Royal Majesties, Anton and Luned, held morning and evening courts. At the former, They awarded supporters in the shape of a narwhal to 50 gentles who have been helping to keep the Kingdom afloat during these plague times. At the latter, They gave out a number of awards and recognized a new Laurel.</p><p>My partner (he's not in the SCA) made some tapas-style dishes for dinner, which was offline. (Yes, it might have been nice to figure out a way to dine "together" via Zoom, but who wants to watch other people chewing?) Finally, we had an evening ball via Zoom, which was not recorded, so we could truly "dance like no one is watching."</p><p>I wore garb all day so I would feel as if I actually was attending the event. With a nod to the overall Spanish theme of the event, which features lots of sideless surcoats for women, here's what I chose to wear:</p><p><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/34356022@N03/50933413626/in/dateposted/" title="IMG_20210109_12thNight"><img alt="IMG_20210109_12thNight" height="1024" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50933413626_5992e31687_b.jpg" width="679" /></a></p>
Mistress Teleri bequeathed the wool surcoat to me some years ago. I should lengthen it, because I'm a few inches taller than she is, but I haven't yet found the right fabric to complement the existing garment.<div><br /></div><div>On top of my head in that picture is a frilled fillet cap (styled as in the Manesse Codex) that I created after taking a class on the subject at last September's Virtual University of Atlantia. I made it out of an old (and quite softened) cotton bedsheet, so I applied quite a bit of spray starch to the final product. I fully intend to make another one out of linen.</div><div><br /></div><div><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/34356022@N03/50818582746/in/album-72157717906600362/" title="20210109_155254"><img alt="20210109_155254" height="640" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50818582746_e8cdcc9061_z.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><p><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script></p>
By the way, I took the surcoat off when it came time to dance.<div><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">University of Atlantia</h3><div>Speaking of Virtual University ... we have another session coming up on Saturday the 13th. Once again, SO many people submitted class proposals that this session will have seven class periods instead of six. Atlantians love teaching and learning!</div><div><br /></div><div>This time around I'll be teaching "Your First SCA War." I taught <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/planetpat/home/yourfirstwar">this class a decade ago</a>, but I will update information as necessary and I will also stress that I have no inside knowledge of how the current pandemic will change large SCA events in future months or years or whenever we can have them again.</div>Patricia of Trakaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10749588384988572343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4399415742440821431.post-68725979571715125242020-10-16T21:08:00.000-04:002020-10-16T21:08:05.199-04:00The "Before Times" and the "New Normal"Despite my last post, I have not spent the past few months in sackcloth and ashes. Yes, we are still in the novel coronavirus pandemic. No, we will not have any in-person SCA events until the end of January 2021 at the earliest. However, I am plugging along.<div><br /></div><div>Since I've been self-employed at home for the past decade, I am quite used to the concept of spending many hours alone at my desk. However, I "get out" quite a bit, thanks to Zoom (and the occasional Google Hangout or Facebook Live). Pretty much all my social outlets -- not just the SCA, but also my church, my professional organizations, and my Toastmasters club -- have moved online. I can "go out" in the evening and not worry about driving in the rain or catching the Metro train home.</div><div><br /></div><div>If Virtual Atlantia had seams, it would be exploding at them. Check out the <a href="https://virtual.atlantia.sca.org/calendar.php">Activity Calendar</a> for starters. Is that calendar packed or what? Not all the activities shown there are from Atlantia -- a few are from other Kingdoms. And some baronies don't always put their own activities in the Kingdom's calendar, so there are even <i>more </i>online goings-on than Virtual Atlantia would have you know.</div><div><br /></div><div>Plus, so many online classes! Early in the pandemic I took several classes at an online university in the Kingdom of Atenveldt, mundanely Arizona. In our Kingdom we had two virtual University of Atlantia sessions, one in June and one in September. At the former, I taught a "Medieval Lithuania" class via Zoom -- and I had attendees from six Kingdoms! Two from as far away as Lochac (Australia)! In September I didn't teach anything, but I learned that my June effort had earned me a "Masters of SCA Studies" degree from the University. (Totally unaccredited from a mundane standpoint, but still a nice feather in my cap for all the work I've put in since 2004.)</div><div><br /></div><div>Thanks to Zoom, I also had the chance to attend some classes at the Known World Heraldic and Scribal Symposium (KWHSS). This was only the second KWHSS I've been able to attend -- the first was the one that took place in Atlantia's Barony of Sacred Stone in 2011. For me, KWHSS involves expensive travel and hotel arrangements. This year the symposium would have been in Lochac, specifically the Barony of Stormhold, and there was no way I could have afforded that kind of trip. But thanks to the Web, I could even hear the voice of a Stormhold friend, Mistress ffride, with whom I've been corresponding for years.</div><div><br /></div><div>Their Majesties have been recording nearly weekly messages to the Atlantian populace, and they have also started holding virtual courts to hand out actual awards. This past weekend, They traveled all the way up here to Storvik. Our barony rented a tiny live-theater space in downtown Silver Spring, and the only people permitted to attend Their Majesties and Their Excellencies in person were the herald (Duke Ragnarr) and a couple of tech-crew members. Two poignant moments took place. One was the tribute that Baron Celric and Baroness Ilania paid to the late Baron Rorik, in the presence of Rorik's faithful companion, Fred the goose.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4TF6oNYz23EQFBpWM6idKuz1tn3vSl468-4QC2-bmH3eFICGV5wMG9ATf78K7kjo8ObtPIorkpMkkwMr-IBOkTrnISAGAIhch80d7NT2WACM6qAbAbWTSzH5Q9Ovqo7MHTHnaVILUKzg/s1920/2020-10-10+%25281%2529.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4TF6oNYz23EQFBpWM6idKuz1tn3vSl468-4QC2-bmH3eFICGV5wMG9ATf78K7kjo8ObtPIorkpMkkwMr-IBOkTrnISAGAIhch80d7NT2WACM6qAbAbWTSzH5Q9Ovqo7MHTHnaVILUKzg/s320/2020-10-10+%25281%2529.png" width="320" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>In the other poignant moment, Their Majesties called Duke Ragnarr in front of them to present him with his long-delayed Award of Arms (AoA) scroll from way back when, before he was a Knight or a King or a Duke. Their Majesties pointed out that Ragnarr was always more concerned about other people getting their AoA scrolls than getting his own. What made this moment especially poignant was that the Royals who awarded him his Arms in 1993, Kane and Muirgen, were killed in a car accident a few years later.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE2w-PWHBwpli2pSyJ3vyFr0q4yxnsJRNZyPif8LMgrH1RoY2uA2P7RiA1oXKx1vVOeFAAK68kA8MAcLahTP3WFhzeqa8rkaD-070KLK1WbN_EE2Wfr-dtd5AzFes5CEoQgntjM3nIxPI/s1920/2020-10-10+%252814%2529.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE2w-PWHBwpli2pSyJ3vyFr0q4yxnsJRNZyPif8LMgrH1RoY2uA2P7RiA1oXKx1vVOeFAAK68kA8MAcLahTP3WFhzeqa8rkaD-070KLK1WbN_EE2Wfr-dtd5AzFes5CEoQgntjM3nIxPI/s320/2020-10-10+%252814%2529.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div>These virtual courts are the only ones we're likely to see for a while still. Official SCA events in North America are banned through the end of January 2021, as the pandemic continues to rage. We didn't have Pennsic this year. Atlantia is not having War of the Wings this week.</div><div><br /></div><div>This is the "New Normal," as opposed to the "Before Times" (I am not the only person using this terminology).</div><div><br /></div><div>Some people don't like participating in online SCA classes and courts. I get that. I have a Toastmasters friend who spends so much time in videoconferences while working from home that she just cannot bear to sit through another 90 minutes of a club meeting in the evening. That's understandable.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm just glad that we Atlantians have <i>some </i>sort of online presence for those people who say, "Hey, I was thinking of getting involved in the SCA once the pandemic is over," or who are curious, or who are super-interested in online learning. We may even try some court video recording after the pandemic, so that people who have a hard time joining us in person because of health issues can still see what's going on. It may seem odd at first, but no more so than internet communications seemed to SCAdians of 20 or 25 years ago.</div>Patricia of Trakaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10749588384988572343noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4399415742440821431.post-40366136677739521412020-06-08T20:31:00.001-04:002020-06-08T20:31:46.788-04:00LossesEven though I haven't been to an SCA event in person since February, I've been keeping quite busy and social within the Society. However, my reports on that will have to wait, because of the heavy losses we have incurred.<br />
<br />
First, Baron Rorik Fredericsson, eighth Baron of Storvik. During these last few years, he had been looking increasingly tired, and he suffered from various health problems. At one point, he fell at home and broke eight ribs all at once. Ow. That set him back for a while. He'd also had some problems with slow-healing leg wounds and a tiny spot of a tumor on his liver. When I saw him at the Bright Hills birthday event in February, I asked him how he was doing, and he replied, "Surviving." In one of his last Facebook posts, he said he actually tested *negative* for the novel coronavirus. He needed the test before some surgical procedure (something to do with his stomach).<br />
<br />
He went into the hospital for surgery on April 27, and something went south, and he died that day. I believe he was 73 years old.<div><br /></div><div>His Excellency was well known throughout our barony and kingdom and fought in SCA battles for many years. Decades, even. I think he finally gave it up around age 60 when he got his bell rung pretty hard on the Pennsic battlefield. He also enjoyed the gentler art of playing cribbage, an ancient card game. He was also a huge science fiction fan. the first time I ever saw him was at the Millennium Philcon Worldcon in 2001, more than two years before I joined the SCA. He was wearing a <i>Babylon 5 </i>character's costume and was carrying his gray goose puppet, Fred, the one with the studded leather collar. When I did eventually join the SCA, I recognized him and thought, "Oh, that's the guy with the goose from the Millennium Philcon."</div><div><br /></div><div>Baron Rorik was also that fellow who looked so much like George R.R. Martin that some <i>Game of Thrones</i> fans actually asked him (Rorik) for his autograph. (But Rorik was taller than George.)</div><div><br /></div><div>Baron Rorik was very happily married to Mistress Janina for 40-plus years and they had a grown daughter and son (who adored him) and many "friends who are like family." My heart has been grieving with them. I often thought that if I could have told my father (who died in 1982) about the SCA, I would have introduced him to Baron Rorik, who could have explained all the different pieces of armor to my Dad (who was a professional welder) and then sat down and played a good game of cribbage together.<br />
<br style="color: #d1c8b0; font-family: "franklin gothic book", sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" />Here is a photo of Baron Rorik from the 2015 Storvik Novice Tourney:</div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIlAiHeRCQqN1uQJkaaW6KQws9Ju3mS-HNG8lMI0uquqBdRmNHIHFM1cTArbDoqdD4PjxvKJN9AvOMHUHBBANEYF9WvnSX3xrj6Lbj8ZBYXjgfijHd0uzW01ZRw3GI18V3Ac1VwLOGJ2Y/s1006/Rorik+at+Storvik+Novice+2015+cropped.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1006" data-original-width="944" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIlAiHeRCQqN1uQJkaaW6KQws9Ju3mS-HNG8lMI0uquqBdRmNHIHFM1cTArbDoqdD4PjxvKJN9AvOMHUHBBANEYF9WvnSX3xrj6Lbj8ZBYXjgfijHd0uzW01ZRw3GI18V3Ac1VwLOGJ2Y/s320/Rorik+at+Storvik+Novice+2015+cropped.png" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>It's not the best photo of him, but it was the first one of him I found among my photos when I heard he had died.</div><div><br /></div><div>Lest you think that my SCA circles had escaped covid-19 ... in late April the family of Master Liam St. Liam of the East Kingdom said that he was in the ICU with the pandemic disease. I kept checking his Facebook page for updates on his progress, but there weren't any.</div><div><br /></div><div>Who was Master Liam to me? By one measure, he was the first SCAdian I ever met, although neither he nor I had joined the Society way back then. When he and I were both juniors at our respective high schools -- me in central Massachusetts and him in southern Rhode Island -- our schools' bands and choruses did two "exchange concerts," one in our town in April and the other in their town in May. I honestly don't remember as much about the concerts as I probably should, because my grandmother was ill in April and passed away just before the May weekend (and my mother made me go along on the weekend trip, because "Grammy would have wanted it," but I wasn't in a good mood for it).</div><div><br /></div><div>Many years later, when LiveJournal was still going strong in the United States and I took an interest in the SCA, I started looking up the journals of people who were posting in the SCA-related communities, <a href="https://liamstliam.livejournal.com/">Liam</a> posted that he'd graduated from a certain high school in a certain year. I inquired ... and, yes, he'd been part of the same band-chorus exchange! So we "friended" each other in cyberspace, first on LiveJournal and later on Facebook. He was a high school history teacher who went back to his first love, journalism, in upstate New York. He married his second wife, who served a reign as queen of the East, and his grown daughters became Peers, one a Laurel and the other a Pelican.</div><div><br /></div><div>I met Master Liam in person (in the SCA, not high school) only a couple of times at Pennsic, because he was so busy teaching and writing for the <i>Pennsic Independent</i> and doing a lot of other things. But he always remembered exactly who I was and how we'd gotten to know each other.</div><div><br /></div><div>A couple of years ago, Master Liam suffered a major stroke and had to give up working as a newspaper reporter. He moved to a rehab facility in Massachusetts and still kept on posting on Facebook as well as he could under his own power. Usually his posts were short exhortations to be well and do good. He didn't go back to Pennsic, but he did get a chance to attend the East Kingdom 50th Anniversary celebration in 2018, albeit in a wheelchair.</div><div><br /></div><div>So he wasn't posting for a while, and then we waited for news ... and then on May 13, his daughters wrote that, while listening to the Dropkick Murphys and his other favorite Celtic punk bands, he passed away. He was 61.</div><div><br /></div><div>Tributes poured out from all corners of the electronic Known World. One of his daughters wrote an <a href="https://eastkingdomgazette.org/2020/05/15/in-memoriam-liam-saint-liam/">SCA-specific obituary</a> (I was a bit surprised to learn that his registered name was actually NOT Liam St. Liam), and one of his former newspaper colleagues wrote a <a href="https://www.theday.com/sports-columns/20200521/day-never-had-better-reporter-than-bill-toscano">very nice tribute</a> to him. Other comments pointed out his tireless efforts to support causes ranging from the Special Olympics to high school gay-straight alliances. Someone praised him for his "radical inclusivity."</div><div><br /></div><div>We in the SCA have had other losses. The first Triton Principal Herald whom I worked under, Baron Eogan mac Alpein, passed away in late May. I hadn't seen him for quite some time, but I think he was in his mid-60s. Then a woman who was on the winning team at last year's Revenge of the Stitch died of complications from an aneurysm. I didn't really know her, but she was apprenticed to one of our Atlantian Duchesses, and she was young enough to have three school-age children.</div><div><br /></div><div>The only good way I can end this post is to note that on Friday, May 29, the Dropkick Murphys played a live concert (without an audience) at Fenway Park. The band members even socially distanced themselves around the diamond as they played their greatest hits. I drank a beer, logged into a Facebook "watch party" hosted by Master Liam's daughters, and agreed with everyone that it was the best "virtual wake" we could have had during the pandemic.</div>Patricia of Trakaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10749588384988572343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4399415742440821431.post-29958647280455099112020-04-05T20:48:00.000-04:002020-04-05T20:48:56.091-04:00Virtual AtlantiaThere's a reason why I haven't been to an SCA event since February 8, when I attended Bright Hills Baronial Birthday. One of the members of my household was awarded the Pearl, which is the Grant of Arms-level award for arts and sciences in Atlantia, so I wanted to be there (plus, our outgoing submissions herald received the Golden Dolphin award -- with the late Pedro's medallion).<br />
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My attitude toward the SCA hasn't changed. But the world has, with this COVID-19 pandemic we're currently experiencing.<br />
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It was if society packed up their toys and went home around mid-March. SCA events left and right were canceled. One minute the staff of Gulf Wars XXIX in the Kingdom of Gleann Abhann (southern Mississippi) said that the event was still on, and people should use hand sanitizer; the next minute it was canceled, even though people were starting to arrive on site and many more people were en route.<br />
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Overnight, it seemed, most of the rest of the March events on Atlantia's schedule were postponed or canceled, followed by virtually all of the April events.<br />
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Except Coronation. But how could Coronation go on if gatherings of more than 10 people were strictly prohibited? The outgoing King is a lawyer and, as an officer of the court (as, I think, all members of the bar are), he can't be found disobeying the law.<br />
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So yesterday we had a Virtual Coronation, live-streamed on YouTube from the back yard of the incoming King and Queen:<br />
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<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/1Sn1fCJMEdc" width="560"></iframe><br />
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The woman who was elevated to Laurel was supposed to have been elevated at Gulf Wars (but see above). The outgoing Majesties wanted to make sure she received her due recognition before she and her husband moved out of Kingdom for mundane reasons and she had to make a whole new set of acquaintances. There were also a few other pieces of business that were supposed to have been transacted during March.<br />
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As you can see, it was a nice enough day in North Carolina that the "event" could be held outside. A woman in Storvik, Dame Emma West, made the beautiful silk banners hanging on either side of the tent.<br />
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So, now the next big Kingdom events are supposed to be Spring Crown Tourney and Ruby Joust, both in May. However, both are scheduled to take place in Virginia, where the stay-at-home order does not expire until June 10. The new King and Queen did not announce anything about these events, particularly Crown, yesterday. Probably they are working behind the scenes, and communicating with the SCA Board of Directors, to figure out how to handle the situation.<br />
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I haven't surveyed all of the SCA kingdoms -- there are 19 of them besides Atlantia -- but I do know that the East Kingdom has postponed both Coronation and Crown and combined them with another big East Kingdom event on Memorial Day weekend. That won't quite work for us, because our Memorial Day weekend event, Ruby Joust, is still technically prohibited in Virginia. I don't think the Kingdom of Aethelmearc has yet postponed its Spring Crown Tourney, which is supposed to be held the same day as ours (first Saturday in May). I am less familiar with other kingdoms.<br />
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So far, Pennsic 49 is still a go. The Mayor of Pennsic 49 decided to nip rumors in the bud by putting out an emphatic statement that Pennsic 49 <a href="http://www.pennsicwar.org/sites/default/files/inline-files/Pennsic%20War%2049%20-%20Covid%2019%20Lette.pdf">will be held unless HE says it is canceled</a> (link goes to a PDF). I suspect that the Pennsic executive staff uses the annual Aethelmearc War Practice event (held the weekend before Memorial Day weekend) as its big planning meeting, because the Mayor said the meeting would be held virtually if War Practice has been canceled in person. (Update even as I continue to write this: Today the Sylvan Kingdom announced that <a href="https://aethelmearcgazette.com/2020/04/05/war-practice-xxxi-cancelled/">Aethelmearc War Practice has been canceled</a>.)<br />
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I don't want to start any rumors, and I do NOT speak for the Pennsic staff, but I can't help thinking that the go/no-go decision needs to be made no later than late May. At least the decision *by* the Pennsic staff (obviously, if the state government shuts down fairs and festivals, it's not the choice of the Pennsic staff). The deadline for paid, online pre-registration for Pennsic 49 falls on June 16, and that is also the deadline for refunds. Yet some other SCA branches have offered refunds after the cancellation of their events (Pennsic is a different beast altogether, though, because of its sheer size -- it's kind of a partnership between the SCA and Cooper's Lake Campground). I don't think the Coopers want to give back huge amounts of refunds, and I <i>really </i>don't think people will be happy if they can't get refunds from a canceled Pennsic. So ... we shall see.<br />
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Anyhow. Back to my own Kingdom of Atlantia.<br />
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Just since this crisis began, Duchess Adelhait and the Kingdom Web Minister have put together a page called <a href="https://virtual.atlantia.sca.org/">Virtual Atlantia</a>, a central location where online gatherings and classes can be posted. People can even get <a href="http://university.atlantia.sca.org/">University of Atlantia</a> credit for teaching or attending classes!<br />
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One of the first online Kingdom-wide happenings was a Saturday afternoon in which the participants in a Zoom meeting started to read aloud <i>The Decameron</i> by Boccaccio. Reading aloud a book of stories "told" by people stuck on an island during a huge plague -- what a medieval thing to do! There were about 15 or 16 of us, including a few bardic Laurels, and we managed to get through the introduction and all ten of the stories from Day One in about three hours. It was enjoyable, but I have no idea when we will take up Day Two.Patricia of Trakaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10749588384988572343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4399415742440821431.post-87755631349306775072020-02-29T11:12:00.000-05:002020-02-29T11:12:17.947-05:00The SCA on a Budget -- The Handout!<div>
Finally, here is the link to the handout from my recent <a href="http://university.atlantia.sca.org/">University of Atlantia</a> class titled "The SCA on a Budget":</div>
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<a href="https://ladypatriciaoftrakai.blogspot.com/p/the-sca.html"></a><br /></div>
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<a href="https://ladypatriciaoftrakai.blogspot.com/p/the-sca.html">https://ladypatriciaoftrakai.blogspot.com/p/the-sca.html</a></div>
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I got frustrated with trying to post the PDF of the handout, so I just did a cut-and-paste into Blogger and made a page. Then I had trouble displaying the handout page on my main blog page, so that's why I'm creating this post.</div>
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Grrrr.... Is it just me or is Blogger really that much clunkier than Wordpress.com, which I use for my non-SCA blog?</div>
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I may try a new layout/design for this blog in the near future. This template is the closest thing to "something Lithuanian" that I could find originally, but it seems quite dated. If you return to this site after an absence and it looks radically different, please don't freak out.</div>
Patricia of Trakaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10749588384988572343noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4399415742440821431.post-5849692139669358762020-02-06T17:47:00.001-05:002020-02-06T17:47:11.559-05:00Another year in the SCAHappy New Year! Yes, I know that the New Year's holiday was a month ago already. At least we can all agree on that. (Whether the new decade starts at the beginning of 2020 or the end of 2020 is still fodder for debate.)<br />
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I know I haven't posted here in a while, so let me catch up.<br />
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In 2019 I attended more than twice as many SCA events as I did in 2018. Nice side benefit of having a more reliable vehicle (even though it's still pretty old)! And some of the events came my way -- like Fall Coronation, hosted by my Barony of Storvik.<br />
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The incoming Royals, Cuan and Signy, let it be known that They wished Their coronation and Their reign to have a late-period German theme. Many, though certainly not all, attendees decided to wear their best German garb -- think Landsknecht, Cranach gowns, and the like. I personally did not have a German dress, but based on the little I know about late-period Lithuanian and Polish women, I figured that making a German dress would be a good place to start learning how to sew late-period clothing.<br />
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So, with the help of a few friends, I drew up a bodice pattern and, based on various images I collected on Pinterest, I managed to put together what I call the "base" of a German Renaissance dress. It doesn't have sleeves yet -- I'm going to make some detachable sleeves, because I hate boiling under multiple layers in the summertime. It doesn't have guards (the contrasting horizontal stripes around the bottom of the skirt). It doesn't have a proper hat yet. But it looked plausibly German enough to wear to Coronation.<br />
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I really, really want to do a "dress diary" type of entry with photos and such, but in the meantime, here is a link to a photo of me at the event: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/34356022@N03/48855928906/in/album-72157710604512416/">https://www.flickr.com/photos/34356022@N03/48855928906/in/album-72157710604512416/</a>. (I had to "kilt up" the skirt because it stretched while hanging overnight and it was suddenly too long. That's what happens when you hem garb the night before the event!)<br />
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University of Atlantia</h3>
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This past weekend my Kingdom held a session of the University of Atlantia, where I taught a class called "The SCA on a Budget." I had some enthusiastic students who made suggestions of their own. Overall, a good experience.<br />
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I know I said I'd have a copy of the handout on my blog … I'm still trying to figure out the best way to get it up here, though. My professional Wordpress-based blog handles PDF uploads just fine, but I can't figure out how to do a similar upload here in Blogger. *grumble*<br />
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I'll have it up here as soon as I can, honest.Patricia of Trakaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10749588384988572343noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4399415742440821431.post-87116181559680167452019-09-05T20:14:00.000-04:002019-09-05T20:14:01.184-04:00From Pennsic, Onward (the year so far, part 3)This year I dithered about attending Pennsic, but I ended up going for the second week of Pennsic 48. It was the 15th anniversary of my first Pennsic (2004), but only my 12th Pennsic because I've missed a few. It was a tight squeeze to get a week of War fitted in among my freelance writing assignments, but I'm starting to realize that I won't live forever, so I might as well go to Pennsic while I am still "young" and healthy enough to walk around and do things.<br />
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This year I did not take a single class at <a href="http://thing.pennsicuniversity.org/">Pennsic University</a>, though I had taken a full day of classes in mid-June at the most recent session of the <a href="http://university.atlantia.sca.org/">University of Atlantia</a>. Some Pennsic classes tempted me, but ... I had chores and shopping and chatting with friends who don't live near me in the "real world." Also, I did something I've sadly neglected doing for some years: I volunteered one afternoon at Heralds' Point. I colored device and badge submissions in the art tent and got some free ice cream for my troubles.<br />
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<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/34356022@N03/48504473517/in/album-72157710428865692/" title="20190806_142800"><img alt="20190806_142800" height="640" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48504473517_ac8671bb3f_z.jpg" width="360" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script><br />
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I went to a couple of evening balls, although I felt rather awkward at the first one -- not because of the particular dances, but because one of my camp chores was to refill the tiki torches, and my hands continued to smell of kerosene, no matter how much I washed them. I don't <i>think</i> anyone particularly avoided me, though.<br />
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<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/34356022@N03/48504473167/in/album-72157710428865692/" title="20190805_230412"><img alt="20190805_230412" height="360" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48504473167_2994fb4a41_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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The second ball I attended was Lady Sonya Flicker's "Reduction Ball," which started with dances for sets of large numbers of couples and ended up with dances for individual couples. Sonya, also known as Patches, made a new dress for herself, and she also brought along the "BEAR-on" and "BEAR-oness" of Storvik. (The real baronage were unable to attend Pennsic this year.)<br />
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<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/34356022@N03/48505995562/in/album-72157710428865692/" title="Dance mistress of the Reduction Ball! 20190808_230648"><img alt="Dance mistress of the Reduction Ball! 20190808_230648" height="640" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48505995562_d09a0488f5_z.jpg" width="360" /></a> <a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/34356022@N03/48505995437/in/album-72157710428865692/" title="The Bear-on and Bear-oness of Storvik at the Reduction Ball. 20190808_204053"><img alt="The Bear-on and Bear-oness of Storvik at the Reduction Ball. 20190808_204053" height="640" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48505995437_cf3755f0a8_z.jpg" width="360" /></a><br />
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While I was packing up my gear at the end of War, I felt rather wiped out. Once I got home (or started my "50-week town run"), I realized I had that kind of chest cold known as the "con crud." I hardly ever get sick, so I wanted to sit around and mope, but I had freelance writing to do.<br />
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Now that another Pennsic War is in the books, I'm looking forward to a few fall events. I'm even making a new dress for the next Coronation, which Storvik is hosting. (The dress will be the subject of at least one other post here.)<br />
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To kick off the season, Storvik had its first-ever information booth at the Greenbelt Labor Day Festival (which is rather like an old-fashioned fair). Lady Sonya was in charge of our booth, and she did a great job -- we won second place!<br />
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<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/34356022@N03/48685344368/in/dateposted/" title="20190831_130502"><img alt="20190831_130502" height="640" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48685344368_648ff2d109_z.jpg" width="360" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script>Patricia of Trakaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10749588384988572343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4399415742440821431.post-25122075048683441202019-06-04T14:07:00.000-04:002019-06-04T14:08:43.139-04:00Two events, one site (the year so far, part 2)In late April and early May I attended two very different events at the same site in the Shire of Spiaggia Levantina, mundanely known as the Eastern Shore of Maryland.<br />
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The first was the Shire's own event, <a href="http://atlantia.sca.org/137-events/167-event-flyer?event_id=c3c8f9df">Revenge of the Stitch</a>, which is now in its sixth iteration, making it a truly annual event in my book. Some people, I know, would <i>not</i> find staying up almost all night to hand-sew linen very enjoyable, but it gets my competitive juices flowing, and I always learn some aspect of garb-making that had previously eluded me. This year -- my fourth such challenge -- I helped Meisterin Johanna's team make a houppelande with undertunics and hood for Master Richard Wyn in his heraldic colors. I was rather tired after the competition, but I did manage this "action shot" of Master Richard posing in his new duds:<br />
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<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/34356022@N03/33850898118/in/album-72157658804455924/" title="20190427_171229"><img alt="20190427_171229" height="640" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/33850898118_bfbf162839_z.jpg" width="360" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script><br />
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Notice the leather shoes -- they were made during the competition by one of our six team members. I think we were the only team that made footwear this year. We didn't win, but I think Wyn (as he is usually called) looks spiffy in his new outfit.<br />
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Half a fortnight later, I was crossing the Chesapeake Bay again for Spring Crown Tournament. The rain held off, the competitors fought fiercely and cleanly, and Duke Cuan won his eighth reign. He and his consort will step up to the throne at Fall Coronation, to be held in Our Glorious Barony of Storvik. My friend Lady Kunigunde will be the autocrat/steward of Fall Coronation, which will have a 16th-century German theme, and I feel highly motivated to make myself a suitable dress for the occasion.<br />
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My friend Lady Meleri was the head cook for both of the Spiaggia Levantina feasts, and were they ever good! I could barely finish the last couple of courses at each meal. Meleri dedicated the Revenge of the Stitch feast to one of her schoolteacher colleagues who had operated a catering business on the side ... and who had just passed away from cancer, at a much-too-young age.<br />
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Just this past weekend, I attended the 30th edition of Highland River Melees, the signature event of the Barony of Highland Foorde, which encompasses the westernmost counties of Maryland (and is surrounded on three sides by the Kingdom of Aethelmearc). Two of my friends were "retiring" after serving as Highland Foorde's Baron and Baroness for the past five years. I talked with one woman who came all the way from Massachusetts to attend the event because she is a good friend of the new Baroness of Highland Foorde. I have a lot of experience driving between Massachusetts and Maryland, so I know what a haul that is!<br />
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During the afternoon, I took a class in using wire to make jewelry that <i>isn't</i> Viking-wire-knitted. Here are my results:<br />
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<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/34356022@N03/48001900463" title="20190603_171329"><img alt="20190603_171329" height="640" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48001900463_bc7db2d957_z.jpg" width="499" /></a><br />
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I posed these pins in the order in which I made them from top to bottom. Not a bad start, I'd say. :-) The bottom fibula had three beads at first -- a red bead between the two blue beads -- but the red one must have had a crack in it, because it fell off and got lost. Ah, well.Patricia of Trakaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10749588384988572343noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4399415742440821431.post-33717854386825087312019-04-23T23:43:00.000-04:002019-04-23T23:43:50.489-04:00Only in Lithuania...Some things about modern Lithuania just make me shake my head and smile. (Imagine the reaction people without any Lithuanian ancestry must have....)<br />
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For example, <i>šaltibarščiai</i>, or cold beet soup. I can take it in small doses, because I wasn't exposed to it while I was growing up in the USA, but real Lithuanians really, really love the stuff. In case you're wondering ... it consists of beets and dairy (buttermilk or cream), looks like Pepto-Bismol, and tastes like ... well, beets and milk. It's usually garnished with hard-boiled eggs and dill. You can find a recipe <a href="https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/215037/lithuanian-saltibarsciai-cold-beet-soup/">here</a> or on many other websites.<br />
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So, imagine my jaw dropping when I stumbled upon a photo of <i>these</i> men's briefs on Facebook:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb996fu2JPby199kDJIoH6wToFAKdtEse0oa58ZB-_pel342F-TQFZa-I-sjOYRb__458cuR801fLrsiAPhTXTCsAZJfLVtSqNuVdD_sZfQNk064l9loQfpjKl451FT21fif1Akqw3tn4/s1600/saltrusai.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="592" data-original-width="720" height="263" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb996fu2JPby199kDJIoH6wToFAKdtEse0oa58ZB-_pel342F-TQFZa-I-sjOYRb__458cuR801fLrsiAPhTXTCsAZJfLVtSqNuVdD_sZfQNk064l9loQfpjKl451FT21fif1Akqw3tn4/s320/saltrusai.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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As George Takai might say: <i>Ohhhh, myyyyy!!</i> Especially note the strategic placement of the hard-boiled-egg slices. You cannot unsee that.<br />
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Even more amusing is Google Translate's English version of the product description:<br />
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<i>Men's underwear with colds "Horseshoe". For real fanfare fans who are not afraid that the girl will want to eat them from the body. </i>😂<br />
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Apparently there's a whole website called <a href="http://foodroobai.lt/">Foodroobai.lt</a> that sells a full line of men's and women's clothing made with this kind of cloth that's printed to look like an endless supply of cold beet soup. (More details on the underpants: "The underwear is made of an elastic microfiber that is pleasing to the body and absorbs moisture and prevents skin contact. Such underwear will be irreplaceable on hot summer days, workouts at the sports club or just if you tend to get more sweaty.") You can get sweatpants, leggings, T-shirts, swimwear ... all in <i>šaltibarščiai </i>cloth that will make you (apparently) look like a cool, delicious summer treat.<br />
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<i>Skanaus</i>, indeed!Patricia of Trakaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10749588384988572343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4399415742440821431.post-4878434672262026632019-04-15T13:23:00.000-04:002019-04-15T13:23:37.736-04:00This year so far, part 1We're now more than three months into 2019. So far I've been to a a couple of baronial business meetings and a few SCA events in other Maryland baronies (Lochmere and Bright Hills, specifically). At the end of March I attended an unofficial event, Storvik Performers' Revel, which is intended to be by and for performers to show off their skills in a relaxed setting (and to eat the food produced by a couple of talented chefs).<br />
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At the beginning of January, I marked the 15th anniversary of my first SCA event: Storvik Yule Revel 2004. That day I met so many people for the first time ... and, strangely enough, quite a few of them are still in my life today. I am definitely grateful for how those people have enriched my life.<br />
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This has been another one of those seasons in which Their Majesties Atlantia have seen fit to bestow some long-delayed Peerages and Orders of High Merit (Grant of Arms level) on people who should have received those awards in the past, but didn't for whatever reason. My friend Janina Krakowska, one of our former Baronesses of Storvik, received her well-deserved Laurel for embroidery; my friend Sonya Flicker, who organized the <a href="http://kwds.org/index.php?kwds=12">2017 Known World Dance and Music Symposium</a>, was inducted into the Order of the Golden Dolphin for service; and another longtime Storvik and Southwind friend, Tirzah MacCrudden, was elevated to Laurel at Ymir in February.<br />
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Also, Baron Stefan of the Barony of Black Diamond became a Laurel in dance, Baroness Wynne became a Pelican, and a longtime scribe, Baroness Daniela, became a Laurel for calligraphy and illumination. I could go on and on....<br />
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On the personal front, I've been plugging away as a freelance writer, so I'm not rich by any means, but this year may end up a bit more remunerative than the last. (*crosses fingers*)<br />
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In the news I've found a couple of items of interest to the Baltic region. First of all, <a href="https://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.com/2019/04/a-5000-year-old-barley-grain-discovered.html#dVczElduA9GEi3qZ.97">a 5,000-year-old barley grain was found in what is now Finland</a>. So people were doing at least some rudimentary farming in that area back in that time, not just killing and eating seals and fish.<br />
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The other news item garnered more press coverage than the little detail about ancient barley. The Smithsonian Channel showed an hour-long documentary on scientists <a href="https://www.smithsonianchannel.com/shows/americas-hidden-stories/the-general-was-female/1005729/3469173">who studied Casimir Pulaski's bones and concluded that he may have been an intersex person</a>. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casimir_Pulaski">Casimir Pulaski</a> was, of course, the Polish nobleman who crossed the ocean, proved his cavalry skills to George Washington, got promoted to brigadier general, and was killed in Savannah, Georgia. (Pulaski's birthplace, Warsaw, was still part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth when he was born in 1745, so Lithuanians could theoretically claim him as well.) Pulaski has long been a hero to Polish Americans; when I was a kid, my neighborhood in my Massachusetts hometown had a Pulaski Playground, though I didn't learn about the origin of that appellation until I was a bit too old for the playground equipment.<br />
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Apparently, when Pulaski's bones were disinterred so that his memorial could be rebuilt, anthropologists found that his skull and pelvis were shaped more like a woman's than a man's. It took a while, but finally the bones were confirmed to be Pulaski's through a mitochondrial DNA match with his grand-niece. His baptismal record suggests he was "debilitated" (or something like that in Latin), so he may have had <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congenital_adrenal_hyperplasia">congenital adrenal hyperplasia</a> (CAH), which would have made his body produce excessive androgens despite female chromosomes. (I'm using male pronouns because he was raised as a male and probably considered himself completely male. Given the relative status of the genders for most of European history, it's not surprising that he was designated male, even though he might not have looked like a "regular" baby boy inside his diaper.)<br />
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In addition to the Smithsonian Channel show, the research was covered in the <i><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/04/08/revolutionary-war-hero-who-served-alongside-washington-may-have-been-intersex/">Washington Post</a></i> and the <i><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/apr/06/casimir-pulaski-polish-general-woman-intersex">Guardian</a></i>, among other media outlets.<br />
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One final note: Thanks in part to a post in the Kingdom of Atlantia's unofficial Facebook group, I've been finding a lot more SCA-related blogs, so that they don't all fit in the Blogroll anymore. I'm going to start a separate page for lists of blogs and other interesting websites. That will be a work in progress, so please don't expect it to look organized right away.<br />
<br />Patricia of Trakaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10749588384988572343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4399415742440821431.post-73947228654587338972019-03-11T18:24:00.001-04:002019-03-11T18:24:20.222-04:00Another "Restoration of Independence" DayI've said before on this blog that Lithuania is the little country with two independence days. Today is the second -- the 29th anniversary of Lithuania's historic declaration of its independence from the Soviet Union (which ceased to exist less than two years later anyway).<br />
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Recently I read an online essay about <a href="https://www.15min.lt/en/article/culture-society/11-march-1990-lithuania-declares-independence-from-the-ussr-528-202557?fbclid=IwAR0nnDfw3lkze_ThZrk-1zsQqzSRo0veFQ1Hce9kZxBr8w6AzoyiQQVuvpE">what the Lithuanian revolution/restoration of March 1990 was <i>really </i>like</a>. Heady days indeed -- and sharing the experience on television must have seemed extraordinarily amazing to viewers who were accustomed to nothing but Soviet TV.<br />
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I want to write an update-type post on my SCA activities, but that will have to wait until I finish my current crop of articles-for-pay.Patricia of Trakaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10749588384988572343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4399415742440821431.post-52696480455341421642018-12-22T19:01:00.000-05:002018-12-22T19:01:40.770-05:00Cookies! Or ... ?Those of you who have been following my blog for a while have probably noticed that I don't do much actual medieval cooking in the SCA. True, I pitch in with the household dinner plan at Pennsic, but we don't cook period recipes. (Yeah, sometimes I would like to try to cook from medieval recipes at Pennsic, but it's easier to please everyone's palate by declaring "taco night" or "spaghetti night" or "grilled chicken night.")<br />
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But then our current Baron and Baroness of Storvik decided to entice more people to come to the December baronial business meeting by declaring a cookie contest, with actual prizes. And my competitive instincts kicked in: Whoa, just let me make some genuine medieval cookies!!<br />
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The only problem: Real medieval people didn't leave behind a lot of recipes for "cookies" in the sense of Keebler and Nabisco products. They had some sort of gingerbread, but not much else. I couldn't help thinking, "Gee, if <i>everyone </i>brings gingerbread, it's not going to be much of a competition, is it?"<br />
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Fortunately, even though "period" was one of the prize categories, it was not mandatory for every entry. (Probably because of that dearth of extant recipes.) So I started to think ... my persona is Lithuanian ... maybe I should look for something that is considered "traditional" Lithuanian, even though "traditional" usually means 18th- or 19th-century stuff.<br />
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So ... I thought of ... <i>grybai!</i> The word translates to "mushrooms," which is one of the five basic Lithuanian food groups, along with fatty pork, cabbage, potatoes, and sour cream. :-) But it also refers to mushroom-shaped cookies.<br />
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A couple of years ago, one of my friends from the Lithuanian Hall in Baltimore made <i>grybai </i>and posted about it on Facebook. Her cookies had dark brown caps and white stems, like <a href="https://ltfresh.wordpress.com/2014/01/05/mamas-mushroom-shape-cookies/">these over here</a>. I thought they looked adorable, although she averred that large quantities of vodka needed to be consumed to make them come out right. :-)<br />
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Anyhow, I latched on to the notion of making my own <i>grybai</i>, because even though the recipe isn't from the SCA period, the idea of making a "sottelty" or "subtlety" -- a sugary concoction that looks like something that isn't edible, like a castle or a ship, or something that is edible but not sugary, like a rooster -- is perfectly medieval.<br />
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What recipe? I quickly found three: one in my hardcover copy of <i>Art of Lithuanian Cooking</i> by Maria Gieysztor de Gorgey, one in the "Our Moms' Lithuanian Recipes" group on Facebook, and one on a blog site called <a href="http://theculinarycellar.com/the-mushroom-cookie-master/">The Culinary Cellar</a> (a reprint of a recipe from a 1972 magazine called <i>Sphere</i>). I ended up using the last of the three, just because I figured I'd better pick one, any one, since they had essentially the same ingredients in different proportions. (Baking relies a bit more on chemistry than other types of cooking, so I didn't want to end up with inedible lumps by using mix-and-match proportions.)<br />
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Making the <i>grybai </i>wasn't terribly difficult, just a lengthy process. Here's what the dough looked like before I kneaded it for a bit:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVZyjLd3WARVKcjz5kUvyaaPmifDD-Ou6mhNUr_iOm7G5T8mivv6z0UCmo-cKTqmjbskKoeKI2BNAiID3-u5EJ3J7PyVuxprXo33cWFxZ2Hh-DrDYaN714FQgNZSjED8vmkaK0GmNBy-M/s1600/20181213_203925.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVZyjLd3WARVKcjz5kUvyaaPmifDD-Ou6mhNUr_iOm7G5T8mivv6z0UCmo-cKTqmjbskKoeKI2BNAiID3-u5EJ3J7PyVuxprXo33cWFxZ2Hh-DrDYaN714FQgNZSjED8vmkaK0GmNBy-M/s320/20181213_203925.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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I posted this to Instagram just as a teaser -- to keep everyone's competitive juices flowing. *grin*</div>
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I had to bake the stems and caps separately, then glue them together with icing (confectioner's sugar and water). Then I let them dry overnight. THEN I mixed up more icing -- some left white, some with added cocoa -- and dipped the cookies in the icing and sprinkled them with poppy seeds and shavings from a dark-chocolate bar to look like "dirt."</div>
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Did they actually look like mushrooms? You tell me:</div>
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As things turned out, my <i>grybai </i>were one of 22 entries in the cookie competition! It was a tough contest. I didn't win, but it was close, and I received lots of compliments on what was supposed to be a "test batch" but ended up being my entry.<br />
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When I posted all this to Facebook, my friend and neighbor Tina asked me to make some for her Solstice Party on Friday night (yesterday, as I write this). So I made a second batch. I was conscious that the first batch seemed a little dry, so I made sure I put the full half-cup of honey into this second one (I may have shorted the honey on the first). I also lowered the oven temperature slightly. The cookies turned out a smidgen softer, especially the caps, but they were easier to stick together that way. And the non-SCA folks at the party loved these <i>grybai </i>just as much! I brought home an empty container.<br />
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If Storvik makes this cookie competition an annual affair ... for next year, I am thinking of making another Lithuanian "cookie subtlety" that will be <i>much </i>easier to make. Just saying.Patricia of Trakaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10749588384988572343noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4399415742440821431.post-42078544023201983062018-08-31T23:13:00.002-04:002018-08-31T23:17:14.657-04:00Letter from Pennsic 47<i>(In the style of the #pennsicletters hashtag, which follows the style set by the #secondcivilwarletters trend a few weeks or months ago...)</i><br />
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Dearest friends, I have much news to relate to you. My journey to and from the <a href="http://www.pennsicwar.org/penn47/">Pennsic War</a> was eventful, with many twists and turns.<br />
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Before I departed home, my place among the warmongers was far from certain. Several days before my journey was to begin, my elderly steed, Draco, came down with a frightful fever. To prevent a fatal wound to his vital organs, he had to be carted home on a special wagon. Fortunately, after four days the pyrexia broke, and he contentedly let me load him with the bedding, clothing, and other necessities of travel.<br />
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Upon my arrival at the front lines, the members of the household known as Southwind welcomed me to their dinner feast, and a young man named Treavor, who was making his very first pilgrimage to the lands of War, provided me with kind assistance in setting up my shelter and furnishings. His helping hands enabled me to be prompt about setting Draco loose in the large paddock to be with others of his kind while I attended the War.<br />
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My goal during this year's travels was to pace myself with leisure. I took no more than one Pennsic University class per day. One of my most interesting lessons was in Chinese heraldry, about which I have been queried on numerous occasions, with not much knowledge to provide to my questioners. I also learned about archaeological excavation reports and the long-armed cross stitch, and I sat in on a history lecture taught by a fellow named Igor, originally from Ukraine.<br />
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For the first time, I attended the event known as the SCA Medieval Barter Town, in which I relieved myself of two articles that I no longer use. In return, I gained two pairs of handmade earrings and a "coiling gizmo" that I plan to use to recreate accoutrements from the ancient Baltic lands.<br />
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The second day of my sojourn ushered in a brutal wave of heat, so that several of my campmates departed to spend their evenings in a distant, and apparently marvelous, building where a "condition" is applied to the air to remove the heat and humidity from it. However, I remained in my tent, which I affectionately dubbed the "Green Monster."<br />
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At the end of the week, I found Draco to be reluctant to leave the bucolic, hilly pasture in which I had left him. He needed several prods to get moving again. In return, I took him on a nice long ride out to Ohio, where I procured a moderately delicious dinner from the estate of His Royal Majesty the King of Burgers.<br />
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My journey homeward was uneventful, and I made no side excursions. I shall always cherish my memories.Patricia of Trakaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10749588384988572343noreply@blogger.com0