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.

More unexpected change

A couple of days after I finished writing the previous entry, I woke up to a message from a friend (our barony's social media minister) saying something like, can you please call me when you get up? (It was a Saturday.) I also had an email from another friend (our barony's seneschal) with the subject line "Sad news." Half asleep, I thought that some elderly person who had stopped playing in the SCA decades ago had passed on.

That was NOT the news.

Our CURRENT Baroness had died, most unexpectedly. She was only 53.

At first our social media minister wanted to keep the news off social media, to give the family some space to spread the news among themselves. But by the late morning, Baroness Gracia's Peer (to whom she'd been apprenticed before she became a Peer in her own right) and his wife (also a Peer) posted their heartfelt tribute to her on Facebook, and then the online floodgates opened.

I felt gutted, of course, but I also realized that I had to pull together some sort of tribute for the Drekkar, which is the Barony of Storvik's newsletter. I sent out word that I really wanted some contributions in memory of Her Excellency, and people responded with photos and a recipe. You can read that issue here.

Because Gracie knew so many people throughout the Kingdom of Atlantia, two celebrations of life were organized: one "up north," here in Maryland, and one "down south" at War of the Wings in central North Carolina. The two events bracketed the weekend when her birthday would have taken place. I went to the Maryland service, which was held in modern clothing at a local church. There I met Gracie's older sister and her mother-in-law; the latter is a first cousin of one of my high school classmates up in central Massachusetts. How small this planet truly is!

For the cover image of the November issue, I used Baroness Cassair Warwick's photo of the central table at the War of the Wings celebration of life. The table was decorated with flowers, photos, and an urn (probably Gracie's). But I ended up realizing that if I was to get the issue out in November, I couldn't accommodate all the other photos in my stash. So I decided that I will put out a "special issue" about Gracie early next year and keep the monthly Drekkar focused on current happenings, like next month's Yule Revel here in Storvik.

* * * * * * *

Incidentally, my elderly cat, Julia, passed away less than 48 hours after I'd learned of the death of our Baroness. Julia was at least 17 years old and she had been going downhill quite rapidly. To be honest, I think she had been grieving the loss of Nick since last Christmas. She may or may not have known exactly why he went away and never came back, but she certainly missed his presence. And now I miss her presence, as well as Nick's.

* * * * * * *

My lack of posting this year has not escaped my notice. I'm certainly not ignoring the SCA -- so far, in 2025, I've been to 14 in-person events (including Pennsic), two demos, and two virtual events. I've learned a new-to-me type of weaving, and I've explored more music and dance.

Perhaps next year, which will mark the 60th anniversary of the SCA, I should post something weekly, even if it's brief. Even if I just say something like, "This week I attended dance practice and finished editing this month's Drekkar." Knowing that I need to post something might help me get off my duff and do more projects, like making new garb.

 

2025: The year of unexpected change

Many a time I've started off a blog post by apologizing for not having posted for a long time. This time I make no apologies. I want to assure everyone that I'm still in the SCA, but as for other changes in my life ... I didn't ask for them.

Last Christmas -- December 25, 2024 -- I had a really nice day with my partner, Nick. We opened our presents, watched the Disney Christmas parade on TV, and had three great meals, including his family's traditional roast beef dinner with blue cheese sauce. Nick cooked it all. Then, after dinner, he started feeling lousy and ... long story short, he died in the emergency room. He had a sudden large hemorrhage in his abdomen (not his aorta, but another major artery).

Needless to say, his death flipped my world upside down. My SCA friends, from my landlord and landlady (whom I met at my very first SCA event in January 2004) to recent acquaintances, have been completely kind and supportive as I process everything that has happened.

Although Nick and I met at Pennsic in 2005, he stopped playing in the SCA in 2006, if I recall correctly. He was just more interested in watching science fiction on TV. However, he never stopped me from going out to SCA events and activities and having a good time with my pals. Since this blog is supposed to be about my medieval activities, I'll focus on that topic.

In my last post I mentioned a posh, all-day feast called Highland Hearthglow. It was a smashing success, with four well-documented courses of extravagant French dishes from venison to eel pie. (In case you're wondering, the latter tasted like fresh-water fish.) Candles on the tables and a gaming room downstairs added to the medieval ambiance. If you're wondering what the event looked like, go to this page for a slideshow, the menu, etc.

I've kept up with all the SCA events and activities I would have attended had Nick not passed away. I still dance with Three Left Feet and sing with Laydes Fayre. I learned, way back when I was a young adult, about the power of social activities to elevate one's mood during times of struggle. I had been laid off from my first post-college professional job, and I spent the wintertime weeks between that employment and my next job getting involved in the local community theater group, which was staging A Man for All Seasons. I was the "stage secretary," meaning that I made the rehearsal coffee, phoned people who didn't show up for rehearsal, and occasionally stood in for missing cast members. These mundane tasks nevertheless brightened up what would have been otherwise a dreary, depressing time of my life.

Anyhow... Since Nick died, I've been to a baker's dozen SCA events and demos, including Hearthglow, AwesomeCon (the "comic con" for Our Nation's Capital), and Pennsic War 52. I've had to make adjustments, such as sharing a paid pet sitter with my landlord and landlady for the two-plus weeks of Pennsic. (Nick used to stay home and take care of all the cats.) Certainly I didn't sew all the garb I had hoped to create during the winter. The fabric from Dame Brenna's stash is still in my storage unit, and the other fabric I bought during Joann's going-out-of-business sale is still sitting in a large bag under my kitchen table.

At Pennsic this year, I had a generally positive experience. Now, the first week ("Peace Week") was stupidly hot and humid. I mean, the temperature hovered above 80 degrees (F) at 11 p.m. However, I wasn't there for the entire week; I had to drive back to Maryland for a three-day seminar called "Quantum Information for Science Communicators." Why, yes, I really do lead an interesting life! Then I returned "Forward Into the Past" (an old SCA catchphrase) to find that the weather up in Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania, had changed. It was NICE! Lower 80s during the day, 60s at night, and MUCH lower humidity. And, unlike last year, no rain! Huzzah!

Through Pennsic University I taught a class on "circle dances," as I had done in 2024, because my friend Patches asked me to teach something. And when the Dean of European Dance asks you to do something, you do it. 😀 Also at her request, I led the dance portion of the Blue Feather Ball. It's the big social event for Clan Blue Feather at Pennsic. We didn't have too many people showing up for dance practice at the dance tent, but participation was more enthusiastic once we moved the dancing to the Great Hall. The ball organizers didn't have a wireless microphone, so it was a bit hard for me to make myself heard among the general din reflecting off the concrete floor, but I think people had a good time anyway. It helped that I had a good turnout of musicians, too.

On another day, I led a "meetup" (scheduled as a Pennsic University class) of people interested in the Slavic Interest Group. The group was founded at Pennsic in 1995, when the former Soviet Union states were still getting the hang of being separate countries and people in Western nations were just trying out this World Wide Web thing. The group's founder doesn't really play in the SCA anymore, so I would like to try to keep the group going. About a dozen people attended, although one fellow of Ukrainian descent dominated the conversation.

The highlight of my War: my friend Patches was elevated to the Order of the Pelican at Atlantian Great Court on the second Wednesday of Pennsic. The ceremony was outstanding and I am so proud of my friend. Vivat to Magistra Sonya Flicker called Patches!!!

Gains and losses, March 2023

 Happy Day of Restoration of Independence of Lithuania! (Remember, it's the tiny little country with two "independence days.")

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.

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.

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 passed away. I think she was a bit short of her 69th birthday.

Life is short. Spend time with your friends.

Losses

Even 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.

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).

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.

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 Babylon 5 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."

Baron Rorik was also that fellow who looked so much like George R.R. Martin that some Game of Thrones fans actually asked him (Rorik) for his autograph. (But Rorik was taller than George.)

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.

Here is a photo of Baron Rorik from the 2015 Storvik Novice Tourney:

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.

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.

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).

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, Liam 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.

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 Pennsic Independent and doing a lot of other things. But he always remembered exactly who I was and how we'd gotten to know each other.

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.

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.

Tributes poured out from all corners of the electronic Known World. One of his daughters wrote an SCA-specific obituary (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 very nice tribute 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."

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.

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.