A Tale of Pennsic: Lighting the Dream (Part 1)

Going into Tuesday of War Week, I knew that it was going to be a busy day: Slavic Interest Group meetup at noon, joining the Broken Consort for a 2:30 p.m. performance as part of the European Music Expo, Taco Night for my household dinner, and finally leading the dancing for the Blue Feather Ball and Fashion Cotillion. I had seven attendees at the meetup, and the three musical pieces the consort performed sounded great.

Later in the afternoon, as I puttered around the merchant area of Pennsic and then started heading back to camp, I began to hear a rumor that water service to the campground had been lost. Now, I've heard of camping blocks finding themselves with low water pressure for one reason or another. It happens. By the time I got back to camp, however, the official Pennsic War page on Facebook was announcing that a power outage had hit a large section of Butler County, so Cooper's Lake Campground had no electricity, and therefore no water -- because all the campground's water comes from wells that need to be pumped.

Initially, the utility company was saying that power would be restored by 7:30 p.m. That didn't seem unreasonable. In my camp we usually eat dinner at 6 p.m., so we went ahead with Taco Night on our paper plates, and the cooks just set aside the pots to be washed once the water came back. The Coopers said that the camp store was still open because of its large solar array.

Patches (Dean of European Dance) and I traded text messages about possible scenarios for the Blue Feather Ball dancing. (Gee, what did medieval people do before texting was invented??? 😏😏😏) The plan had been to teach certain dances from 8 to 9 p.m. in the dance tent, then move over to the Great Hall (along with the musicians) for the actual Blue Feather festivities. So our text messages also went to the band leaders and the fellow who organizes the Blue Feather Ball. We were all getting kind of frantic.

The consensus: we would start teaching the dancing in the dance tent at 8, and see whether the power and water came back. We turned the switch for the lights above the musicians' area into the "on" position as an indicator that the electricity was flowing again. Joshua, the Blue Feather leader, was very concerned that the Great Hall would be completely dark without electricity. He had four or five tables heaped with hors d'oeuvres and snacks all ready for consumption ... what to do with all that food? He was thinking of arranging the tables in a corridor-like setup so that people could dash in, grab food and continue socializing outside the hall. But he wasn't really happy with that format.

Meanwhile, I started the dance instruction in the tent. The musicians gamely clipped their battery-powered lights to their music stands, while we dancers made do with the ambient light coming in from the open sides of the tent. As the hour passed, that ambient light grew dimmer and dimmer. Yes, we were fortunate that sunset was still relatively late ... but we couldn't stop the Earth from turning. Finally we called it quits. We were unsure what to do next.

 (To be continued...) 

August: Pennsic Postmortem

No, not THAT kind of postmortem! I'm alive and uninjured. Not even a sunburn.

As always, I had a BLAST at Pennsic LIII (53)!! I saw folks I hadn't seen in a while, made new acquaintances and friends, and generally enjoyed all the activities in which I participated.

I didn't take any classes through Pennsic University, but I led a productive Slavic Interest Group meetup that got attendees excited about having a Slavic track of classes at next February's online session of the University of Atlantia.

I didn't play in any of the dance bands at the European Dance Tent, but I did some dancing, and I was part of the Broken Consort that performed as part of the European Music Expo. That was an excellent experience. I played soprano recorder during our performance, but I purchased a used Aulos tenor recorder from a friend in the consort. I can play five notes with the left hand, but I need to figure out how to stretch my right hand out more to cover all the holes.

I took the Pennsic bus around the lake. I hadn't seen the lake in so many years. My feet don't want to take me there anymore. Pennsic is bigger than Disneyland (but not Disney World).

I kept track of my Pennsic-related spending (well, up to the last couple of days, when things always get hectic). This will help me figure out how much it really costs to go to Pennsic, not just in terms of the preregistration fee.

This year I finished the Camino de Pennsic, and I received a very nice pair of pewter scallop shells as a thank-you gift.

People gave me other things: a battery-powered fan, a corduroy tote bag, a cereal bowl, a cot as wide as a twin bed. I've given up on my wooden IKEA twin bed, because I just don't have the spoons to assemble it after setting up my tent and lugging all my belongings inside the tent. The assembly process is VERY finicky; the bed just wasn't designed for repeated setup and takedown. These past two years I've been using a narrower cot that I bought at a discount-type store, but I've never been able to get completely comfortable on it. This year I added a narrow swimming-pool float (shaped like a mattress, of course) to my bedding stack, but that helped only minimally. At times I felt as if I was trying to sleep on a balance beam. The new-to-me wider cot will accommodate an inflatable twin mattress and I should feel more comfortable in the future.

Biggest gift of all: one of my campmates and I made a handshake deal that she will give me a double bell wedge tent that she's not using. It doesn't come with ropes, stakes or poles, but I have the first two things, and my newly retired landlord can probably help me get the proper poles. Finally, a period tent made of white canvas!!

(The kind and generous offer of a tent came up after a long discussion over one breakfast, during which I expressed my frustration about water coming into my tent because the door to the tent doesn't close properly. For reference purposes, here's what my modern canvas tent looks like: 

 

The inner screen door is supposed to zip at the bottom to hold up the lip of the vinyl floor, but after [probably] 40 years, those zippers are shot. Thus, there is a big gap between the vinyl and the canvas, and during a storm the wind pushes the canvas outer doors inward and the water drips onto the floor. I've made various attempts to try to stop this from happening:

  

Plus, I still get puddles in the far corners of the tent where I stack things in plastic bins. The stuff in the bins doesn't get wet, but those puddles are still annoying as hell when it comes time to drop the tent and take it home. I was trying to brainstorm possible solutions aloud, which led to the tent offer.)

Let's face it, I'm getting old and I may have only a few more years before I give up on Pennsic. Instead of struggling with a tent that is older than some of my friends, maybe it's time to enjoy a better pavilion.

I've already found tutorials on how to put up a double bell wedge tent and how to take the thing down and fold it up. Yep, I'm excited!

I have another good story from Pennsic, but I think I'll wrap up this entry for now. 

Late July: How am I doing on my list?

In the previous post, I made a list of all the things I need to do before I leave for Pennsic (which is happening in about 2 hours!). How am I doing?

Let's see. I'm just now invoicing for the second of the two freelance articles that I've written. I have received payment for the first one already. I'll get the money for the second one while I'm at War. (Yay for direct deposit!) Got the special Drekkar out. Mostly packed. Still did NOT write the Pennsic European Dance article.

I wish I had better executive functioning skills... 

July: Another month of two baronial newsletters

In the wee hours of Saturday the 11th, I finished the July issue of the Drekkar, the baronial newsletter. (Yes, I know I should italicize it, but I'm too lazy.) It's due between the 25th of the previous month (in this case, June) and the 5th of the current month (July), so this issue was late. However, I've been late multiple times and the Kingdom Chronicler hasn't said boo about it. (Sssh!)

Since there is no baronial business meeting this month, and therefore no meeting notes to publish, I thought I'd do a bare-bones newsletter for August and publish it on July 25, when I leave for Pennsic. However, I was just informed this weekend that the Baronial Letters of Intent NEED to be published in the Drekkar by July 25. (I guess I should heed what I've already published!)

So that's just one more thing I have to do before leaving for Pennsic ... on July 25.

Here is the "to-do" list as it currently stands:

• Write two short freelance articles for pay
• Pack everything I could possibly need for two weeks at Pennsic (which probably means drawing up a fresh packing list to keep track of all the stuff)
• Buy odds and ends that I need for Pennsic (fresh batteries, non-perishable food, etc.) 
• Sew some new garb that is in progress
• Get some stuff together for the Slavic Interest Group meetup at Pennsic
• Pay a couple of bills that can't wait until after Pennsic
• Put the August Drekkar together and send it out
• Download the music I need for either the Known World Choir or the Pennsic Broken Consort (or both!) and practice it
• Warp up my inkle loom with the next Baltic pickup pattern I want to try
• Attend one more Laydes Fayre rehearsal
• Keep the appointment with the cardiologist (who had better NOT tell me that I shouldn't go to Pennsic)
• Write a note to my editor about the freelance feature article I will be working on between August 10 and September 30
• Pick up a bin or two of stuff for the Children's Fete from our Youth Officer and bring it to Pennsic with me

Plus all the usual stuff of day-to-day living (cooking dinner, doing laundry, serving as the timer for the Greenbelt Toastmasters Club meeting, yadda yadda). 

Late June update: more sewing

Well, I had high hopes of getting lots of sewing done last Saturday ... but I left the draft pattern pieces for the apron dress at home! Drat! I was still able to be productive, though, by finishing up the hand-stitching on a late-period chemise that I started way back during the pandemic. (I think I'd intended it to be an entry in a virtual A&S competition, but I hadn't finished it in time, obviously.)

Now I'm hoping to go to town on garb work on Friday and Saturday, when Storvik has the Cheverly Community Center gym for two consecutive days. I'll finish basting the apron dress draft together, and, if it fits, I'll start getting the real dress cut out and assembled. On Saturday, my friend Laura will teach a class on making a Roman stola, another thing I've been wanting to do. I also have enough lightweight white linen to make a tunica to wear under the stola. Last year I bought some fibulae for the tunica at Pennsic. (See this link for what I'm talking about. However, I don't think I'll bother with the palla. Not in Pennsic's heat and humidity. Plus, my persona is that of a widow, so ... I'm looking!)

Yes, I know that Saturday is a special Fourth of July and Friday is the corresponding legal holiday. I have reasons for not planning other activities for those two days, but I don't want to fill this blog with mundane politics. Besides, this whole region will be baking in a heat dome over the next few days ... and the community center gym has frigid air conditioning.

June update: sewing

My mundane life has been keeping me busy this month. I'm not apologizing -- obviously I need to make money to support my enjoyable activities. I'll still try to write a second post before June ends next Tuesday.

I'm continuing my pivot from going to a bunch of SCA events to performing various activities to support my SCA life. Last weekend, I and five other friends visited Lady Mirabella's cabin in the woods of Aethelmearc (West Virginia) for a sewing weekend. Granted, with seven people in the cabin, and almost all of us needing to cut out pattern pieces or lay the pieces out to pin them together, table space was at a premium. Nevertheless, I cut out a complete set of pattern pieces for a Viking apron dress, based on my measurements of an existing hand-me-down apron dress that fits me well. (Why reinvent the wheel?)

Next, I want to baste the pieces of the new apron dress together to see how it fits. (That's the main reason why I cut the pieces out of an old bedsheet instead of nice brown linen.) Fortunately, between now and Pennsic I'll have five or six "project days" when I can work on my garb. Maybe I can have something new to wear to the War!

The end of May

Right now I'm working on the June newsletter. I've written a lot of obituaries in my life -- mostly about old people, but also about a 5-year-old with a brain tumor, a victim of Pan Am Flight 103, and an elderly couple who died 12 hours apart after 49 years of marriage. But it sucks to be writing about a longtime friend. And not for the first time since I became the baronial chronicler in August 2024.

I hate death.

On a happier note, last week I spent a couple of days at Balticon, where I hang out with some SCA friends who don't go to Gem Joust, as well as non-SCA friends. I was one of the ringers for the Renaissance dance class that my friend Patches always teaches there. It was also a "Needles, Fiber & More" weekend -- a weekend every six weeks for working on some fiber-type project and reporting the results to a Facebook group. Dame Scholastica started this during the pandemic and it's still going on. I did a bit of knitting at the con; my inkle loom is too clunky to lug along to an indoor convention. I partially warped my next band, but I have to finish that. After all, it's newsletter time.

I'm trying to decide whether I'm going to On Target, a Lochmere archery event that's taking place this coming Saturday. I think I'm likely to enjoy it, but the weather might not be the best. Then again, we're still talking a long-range forecast, so things could change.

Finally, I am planning to lead a Slavic Interest Group Meetup during Pennsic 53. It will take place on Tuesday, August 4, at noon in one of the Pennsic University tents (exact location TBA). I might teach a class on Lithuania too, but it's too late to get it into the printed program book, so interested people might not notice it.

The month of May

As I expected, SCA stuff quieted down for me once May began. I haven't been to an event this month and won't be attending one till June, at least. However, the SCA is never far from my mind.

Examples:

• I finished the baronial newsletter on May 8. A few days late, but not too bad.
• I also finished my second piece of Baltic pick-up weaving and am working on a pattern for a wider band. I intend to work my way up to more complex designs.
• I prodded a few people to agree to teach heraldry classes at the June University of Atlantia, which I won't be able to attend because I have to work long hours on both days of the event.
• Now that my sewing machine is finally running again, I'm planning the sewing projects that I'd like to tackle in June and July (i.e., before Pennsic). New garb will make me feel great.

I have several other things to do in terms of Pennsic advance planning, but I will try to list them in the next entry.

Unfortunately, sadness has returned to Storvik. Master Igor Medved, Third Territorial Baron of Storvik, passed away on May 18, four days before his 51st wedding anniversary. He was a giant of a man, not just physically, but also in terms of his personality, his hospitality, his generosity and his sense of justice. The world is poorer without him.

The second half of April

The "big news" for the second half of April was that Storvik held its annual Novice Tournament on the last weekend of the month. We've been holding it in June for quite a few years, but we always get quite a few complaints about heat, humidity and mosquitoes. Now that we have added horses and dogs to the activity mix, it behooves us to pick a date with weather that's less likely to make the critters overheat.

This year, though, we inadvertently drew a weekend on the other end of the temperature spectrum. April 2026 has seen quite a few days in the 70s and 80s, but Saturday was cool and cloudy, with the threat of rain in the afternoon and evening. Things weren't too bad in the middle of the day, and my friend Patches was in charge of the archery range, so I went out there to shoot some arrows.

After a brief refresher lesson from a marshal-in-training -- who was named the next Kingdom archery champion during afternoon court! -- I started firing off my loaner arrows with my loaner bow. And I did not suck! It wasn't long before one of my arrows found its way into the center of the target! My instructor captured the moment on my phone camera. (I seem to be having issues with uploading the actual photo.) And more arrows hit the center zone, too! I really should be doing target archery more often.

Later in the afternoon, after I'd rested my feet for a while, the wind really picked up as the temperature dropped a bit. The site that Storvik rents for outdoor events is very flat -- it was a Black-owned airport decades ago -- and it sits next to a wide part of the Patuxent River known as Jug Bay. So when the wind blows, it doesn't encounter much in the way of barriers. Also, the various weather apps on people's phones converged on 5 p.m. as the time when rain would hit.

At many events, I stay for feast, while one of my friends (who has a number of dietary issues) eats her own food and plays the hammered dulcimer for the enjoyment of feast guests. This time around, she didn't want to expose her instrument to a potential rainstorm. And, truth be told, when afternoon court ended just before 5 p.m., both she and I were chilled to the bone (again -- I should have learned my lesson last month!) and I agreed that feasting in the rain didn't sound appealing (even though I just LOVE tacos, especially when cooked by my Pennsic campmates). So my $10 for feast became a donation to the barony, and my friend and I picked up a bucket of KFC on the way to her dry, warm home.

That's my tale of Storvik Novice Tourney 2026, A.S. LX.

Speaking of which ... tomorrow is the first day of A.S. LXI. Happy New Year, and Happy 60th Birthday to the SCA!

How things stand, mid-April

I enjoyed both Spring Coronation and Night in the Port. The latter was the Barony of Lochmere's annual rapier event as well as its Baronial Investiture. Laydes Fayre performed four vocal selections before the afternoon Great Court, and five of us Laydes performed an instrumental processional for the Last Court of the outgoing Baron and Baroness.

Yesterday I finished up and sent out the April baronial newsletter -- eight days late, unfortunately, but still better than my performance in March. This time last year I fell WAY behind, but my mundane-work-for-pay schedule was different.

Before I get any further, I should probably explain that I have several different "threads" of SCA activities going on, more or less simultaneously (or ebbing and flowing).

First of all: service. I'm serving as baronial chronicler. I'm Sea Tyger Pursuivant, the deputy senior herald in charge of education (though whether or not we'll have a University of Atlantia session in June is still up in the air). Those obligations aren't going away.

Second: Lithuanian studies. Often I shove this topic onto the back burner because so much else is going on in my life. However, I have a few goals in this area: schedule another Slavic Interest Group meetup for Pennsic 53, start working on a display or class about women in the medieval Baltic region, and maybe even start a website for SCA resources about the Baltic region.

Third: dance and music. I participate in the local dance group almost every Monday, even when my feet are hurting. I would really like to get back into instrumental music, because there will come a time when I am just too old and physically messed up to dance. I play soprano recorder and am trying to learn alto recorder (different fingering). I can also contribute percussion if necessary.

Fourth: weaving. I'd put my inkle loom aside for a while, but last Pennsic I took a class in Baltic pick-up weaving, and I love it. I'm slow at it, but I don't care. For once I am doing a craft that feels authentically aligned with my persona! I'm keeping a Flickr album of my work so far. I'm hoping to get as much done on the second band (gold design on a brown background) as possible before Storvik Novice Tournament on the last weekend in April, so that I can enter it into the competition A&S display there.

Fifth: Everything else ... making garb, fixing garb, knitting, making lucet cord and kumihimo braids, wire weaving, writing pysanky (called marguciai in Lithuanian), and doing all the other things I've tried over the past two decades.