Pirate Party Night

Well, it was time. The Sea Chameleon hadn't had a good piratey party in a long time. We got together Friday night, one thing led to another, and we ended up with a night of Drunken Midnight(R) Croquet. "Drunken Midnight ... " (R) has become rather a pasttime for us. Last year it was Drunken Midnight Archery. At least croquet is a little safer ... or it should be, but ...



... when the Captain chooses to play croquet with an ax, one can't help but wonder. As usual, there were scuffles amongst the officers.

But in the end everyone made up.

It was a pretty fun night. I don't think I'll be doing that again for awhile!! (this staying up till 4:00 a.m. crap isn't cutting it anymore). On too little sleep, today we took advantage of the mostly good weather to finally clean up our Pennsic stuff that had been living in the yard for several weeks - unpacked everything, dried it out, and repacked it all ready to go to the storage unit. It should have made it there today, too, but it didn't quite. Probably tomorrow.

And with that, I'm tired, and probably heading for an early bed tonight.

Well, I'm back.

Reporting live from my new laptop. I was unfunctional for a week because some piece of poop inbred IQ deficient excuse for a human being stole my laptop computer last Saturday night. It pretty well sent me 'round the bend for a few days ... not only that on top of a bad vacation on top of everything else, but the incredible amount of irreplaceable stuff I lost on that little conversion. I had documents and pictures on that laptop that I can't ever replace - and of course I was too stupid to have had them backed up. Guess what lesson I learned this week. This sucker's getting backed up often, maybe every freaking day.

So what do I need to tell you to catch up? My vacation pretty well sucked. It rained, and rained, and rained some more. Saturday I spent 10 hours packing up - something I wasn't supposed to have to do at all, since I'd made that deal with my campmates about dinners and all. Well, one of said campmates decided to be a slackass Saturday, and barely did anything. I could have sat on my ass and not done anything either, but that wouldn't have gotten me home, which was the goal. So I ended up doing half the work myself (the Dread Reverend did more than his share, so my complaint is not with him!). Finally got home late Saturday night. Woke up Sunday morning to discover my laptop gone. We (the Dread Reverend and I) have left our laptops on the porch continually since early spring ... we spend all our time out here, from the time we get up in the morning till the time we go to bed at night, so there was no reason not to, and for months it was fine, no problems. Till this one asinine slug-brained moron had to ruin it all. And oh yes, I know who you are ... maybe not proof enough for the cops, but proof enough for me. You'll pay. Some day, later, when you're not expecting it.

So I sat around for a week in a state of semi-collapse, and only just this morning finally roused myself up to go out and get a new computer. I already knew what I'd wanted ... I'd been eyeing this little Toshiba for a couple months, since I'd first seen one in Circuit City when we were there for something else. I loved it because it was small, and well, yes, dammit, cute. Fortunately for me, I was in a financial position to be able to go buy a new laptop without too much hardship, what with the money from the sale of dad's house and all. This is the Toshiba U305-S5107, in case you're wondering. And so far, I love it. It took hours to get it set up, but you'll have that with any new computer - not just to get it to run, but the whole personalizing and all that crap.

After a few days I reconciled myself to the losses from the other laptop ... the book I spent a year writing, numerous irreplaceable pictures of Tyler, my dad, and our vacation, my private journal, songs I'd spent enormous amounts of time recording and editing, songs my dad recorded the year before he died that were recorded no where else ... yeah, I hope you develop leprosy, you stupid schmoo.

But ... life is often about loss, and you can't keep anything forever. I had to accept it and move on, and I have. But I'll be damned if anyone's ever getting their hands on this laptop. For starters, since it's small and petite, it's never leaving my side ... I plan to carry it around in my always-present tote from now on. Secondly, I plan to back up everything often and incessantly, so at least if something happens to the computer, I'll still have my stuff.

I can't post any pictures from Pennsic yet, because I also lost my photo editing software that let me scale down the file size to something appropriate for posting on the web. I don't know what I'm going to do about that yet - I don't know if the company will be able to find my records and let me replace that free of charge, or if I'm going to have to buy a new version ... and I don't even know if the software will work on this computer - it's got the new Windows Vista, and I've heard a lot about compatibility issues with this, since it's so new. I'll find out. Eventually I'll get picture-posting capabilities back.

Meanwhile, everyone send your best curses to the scum-bag who stole my laptop right off my porch ... it's okay if you don't know who he is, I'm sure the sentiment will still work. Me? Forgive and forget? I can forgive and forget stupidity, but not malicious cruelty. Not, at least, until I've had my revenge.

Pennsic: Some Good Things

Despite my wet and bedraggled grumbling, there were some very cool things at Pennsic this year. Here are a few.

Watching a glass-blower making a bottle.

The Casa Bardicci mead-tasting. (I don't like mead generally, only particular kinds, but my boyfriend was a judge, so I hung out ... and got to sample the ones he knew I'd like ... mmmm).

The "How To Put On A Great Kilt" class hosted by my campmate, whose name I am embarrassingly unable to spell, so won't butcher trying. (He's the one in the middle). Really interesting! (and not just because they all three completed the entire process in nothing but their shirt, till the kilt was on ... and no, they don't wear anything under it if they're being authentic).

One morning there was just a kick-back, tie-one-on day. I woke up to this scene (this picture doesn't include the several other people lounging around in chairs or on the ground in this little corner of debauchery in our shade fly). Well ... some days, you'll just have that.

My favorite pirate Captain.

The Captain and Berg going up to shoot archery.

That's all the pictures I really have so far. Maybe I'll get some more in this last night of War. It's the end-of-War "Eat It / Drink It / Burn It" meat-on-a-stick, Tequila tasting party. Yeah - ought to be photo-worthy.

The weather forecast claims that it's suppose to clear up by about 2:00 p.m. today, and then no more rain tonight or tomorrow. That would be awesome. I discovered last night that the one storm that blew through yesterday afternoon spawned a tornado warning in a county just south of us, and although there was no official tornado touchdown, people reported seeing a funnel cloud, and there was a lot of wind damage in some areas. At least we avoided that ... rain in a camp is one bad thing, but high winds are a whole 'nother story.

But ... for now, I have to do something to start feeling better before I can contemplate heading out there again. I was so sore and stiff when I first woke up I could barely walk. Then I discovered we had nothing but decaf coffee in the house. And I still have to unload that truck. Hopefully I'll perk up and work the kinks out here pretty soon.

War: Arks are period, right?

Damn. I hate to come back from a vacation and grumble about what a lousy time I had, but ... there's not much good to say about this Pennsic. Out of 10 potential days there, so far I had probably about one really good day - and that wasn't all at once, like one whole day. It was like, a few hours here, a few hours there, that maybe added up to one whole day.

The first three days were hotter than hell, and I could barely rouse myself from my air mattress, much less from the camp. Finally on Sunday it cooled down due to a light drizzle, and I went out and enjoyed a few hours of shopping.

Unfortunately, that was the tip of the iceberg, as it were. It rained steadily for the next several days. By Wednesday night all my garb was filthy and wet, my sleeping bag and pillow were wet, and I had a large puddle in my tent, right in front of the door. I considered going home, but wanted to hang tough ... I really didn't think it would keep on raining, and that any minute it would clear up and be nice the rest of War.

Ha. Wednesday night I went to bed totally exhausted about 1:00-ish, and at 4:30 a.m. was still tossing and turning, having only dozed fitfully off and on, because I was sleeping in damp clothes in damp bedding on a damp pillow. I was miserable. I decided to come home, at least briefly.

Today (Thursday) after a brief thunderstorm in the morning, it cleared for a bit, and my boyfriend and I went for a walk up to the merchants, where I picked up some last minute things I wanted, and had lunch in the food court. That was a nice time. We went back to camp, and I began the tedious process of packing up wet, dirty things from my tent to come home. Then it started raining again. I took a break, but it didn't look like letting up, so I finished my packing up in the rain.

My disgusting tent is one of the reasons I couldn't stay there anymore. It had gotten wet. It smelled mildewy and just plain bad. And it was full of the creepiest, alien-looking bugs I've ever seen. I couldn't spend another night in there for any amount of money.

After I packed up, it cleared up and got nice for awhile, so I decided to go ahead and make camp dinner (my trade for not having to do set-up or tear-down). We ate, I did the dishes, and it was still quite nice, and I actually considered not leaving. But we had garbage bags of wet clothes packed in my truck which needed washed, and had I not gone, neither me, my boyfriend, nor his two kids would have had anything clean or dry to wear the rest of War. (Lest you think I'm a mere laundry wench, originally my boyfriend was going to make the trip home today with me, and do laundry, but there were several things taking place today he wanted to participate in, and which he would have missed had he come home; since I was more than ready for a break, I offered to do his laundry for him, so he could stay and do the stuff he wanted to do. Whatta girlfriend.)

So I went ahead and left ... and 10 minutes from the site ran into one of the worst storms I ever drove through. I could barely see the road in front of me. To make matters worse (of course, I always can), I'd decided to go home a different way than usual, and had no idea where I was, and couldn't read the road signs. I knew that storm was headed for the campground, and considering that it took me an hour and a half to get home (west and a little north of the campground, ergo, whatever it's doing here it'll soon be doing there) and it was still raining for an hour after I got home ... they had quite a long-lived downpour this evening. It made me glad I'd left when I did.

So I made it home okay. The rain finally stopped, temporarily at least. I dragged all the wet clothes out on the porch and am in the process of washing and drying laundry while I sit here and play on the computer and drink rum and diet Coke.

I had mixed emotions when I got home ... to my empty house. I considered swinging by my brother's to pick up Tyler tonight, but had I done that, I would definitely not have been able to spend tomorrow night at War. I'd have had to drive out tomorrow to drop off laundry and come home, then drive back Saturday to haul back half the camp.

So I opted to leave Tyler where he is for now (though I miss him horribly - this is the longest I've ever been on vacation without him, and I doubt I'll ever try this again). So no one was here ... no boyfriend, no dog, just me. I felt a little depressed.

Yet at the same time, I felt pretty damned relieved to be able to take a hot bath, sleep in a dry, warm bed in dry, warm clothes, and have dry clean clothes to put on in the morning. Yeah ... coming home was a good thing, just then.

I have to go back tomorrow, regardless of whether it's for an hour or two, or another night ... I have to take the clean, dry clothes back to my boyfriend (who will be soooo grateful!). Whether or not I stay will depend entirely on the weather. I checked the weather forecast ... as of now, it's supposed to clear tomorrow, and be clear through the weekend. IF that's true, then I will probably spend one last night tomorrow night ... and I hope I can. Tomorrow night will be a blast if it doesn't do the "R" thing again. It's the last Friday night at War, always a big party night. First, our camp will have it's own "Eat It / Drink It / Burn It" party (eating up all the food that's left, drinking up all the drinks that are left, and burning anything we can that we're not taking home). And, the Chalkman Pub is open, and there will be an all-night-long session of great music (which I can join in, playing the fiddle; I did that one other night this War, and had a great time; one of those couple hours' long fragments that were good).

My plan for now is to make sure I pack at least one (and maybe two) clean, dry changes of clothing in the truck - where they can't get wet; and to dry out my sleeping bag (by stopping at a laundromat tomorrow if need be) and setting up a bed in the back of my truck (which will be empty once I unpack it tomorrow). That way, even if it rains, I have a clean, warm, dry place to sleep and clean, dry clothes to put on before bed. With that, I should be able to stay, even if it rains.

So ... hope for clear skies tomorrow and Saturday, that's all I ask for.

I didn't take many pictures so far this year. I'll post a few tomorrow before I leave if I have time. If not, when I come back, it'll be Pennsic Recap Week.