gurdymonkey | GWW: the short form (Reply)

As ever, the most painful part of any road trip involving I-5 is the bit from I-880 until you get to the downhill side of the Altamont Pass and exit 580 to I-5.

Achmere saved me a spot fronting on the road because he saw my post to SCA-West about the sake tasting. For some reason, much of the West Kingdom allocation never really filled in. I was up on the road next to a Caidan group called the Myrmidons and there was no one behind me until much farther down the slope. Dun Tyr, also Caidan, was directly across the road from me.

Did the cotehardie and hurdy gurdy patrol on Friday. As a result of my cacophonous perambulations at various events, it seems like I spend an awful lot of time visiting friends who merchant:

acanthusleaf and the Reannag Teine ladies and Aurelia and Bennett and Eirny and Henry and the guy from Redwolf and Uncle Aziz who sells the baskets and of course Cristobal and

sasha_khan and the rest of the Cok Guzel crew. This is no bad thing as I am always offered shade, I can guard the store if someone needs a dash for the privy, admire the latest products and even score a slice of Eirny's birthday cake. The gurdy is also a good locator device - if folks who know me hear it, they'll come find me and say hi. Lastly, it's a total people magnet, for adults and kids alike, so I get to meet plenty of new people, distract small children while their mom is trying to buy a soft drink and so on.

Cristobal had my new Mongolian boots, ordered back at Estrella and well worth the wait. Green shafts, black curly trim on the insteps, traditional turquoise piping, they are gorgeous and an excellent fit. While I hadn't really planned on much shopping, Pastiche had a remnant of a red geometric jacquard of Dubious Fiber Content that I think I can get a nice pair of hakama out of. And I fell for a piece of Mercy's raku pottery. Not food safe in the slightest, the lovely little bowl ended up with a votive candle in it for the sake party. (Her period-style European potteries ARE foodsafe, it's just the raku fired pieces that aren't.)

Saturday was Japanese day. Not surprisingly, the A&S collegium appeared to continue to resemble a cat rodeo in real time as it had during my pre-event correspondence with them. I checked in with a rather harried Mouren, was informed that the memorial for Duchess Kolfinna was supposed to be at 2PM and would I be interested in teaching in a different time slot so people could actually attend? I agreed to bump to 4 PM. I was shown a spot beneath a tree, down the row a bit from the rest of the A&S area (and an easy walk on the same road where I was camped) and pronounced it perfect. Of course, when I returned a couple hours later with my wagonful of drums, the Queen of the West and her entourage had had the nerve to be sitting under my tree!!!! Harumph. I moved to another tree closer to the playground and set up there.

Taiko ended up just being me and Katayama-dono, who had taken it at Collegium Caidis. Mouren turned up about fifteen minutes into the session with a six pack of bottled water and a couple of bags of Sun Chips for us, which was really nice to have. I ran him through "Renshu" and most of Three Line Drill, then taught him the "Don, Don, Don, ka-ra ka-ra" for "Matsuri Daiko." I was rather gratified when one of the guys from Far West (Vail never DID tell me his friend's name!) came off the battlefield in his gorgeous samurai kit and pronounced our rather rough assault on "Matsuri Daiko" as"very good." Katayama-dono, his lady Jane and a gentleman named Dafydd (?) who apparently has just moved to the West from Aethelmearc took the pre-17th c. Japanese clothing class at 4, which was pretty free-form.

Next year, I think the HOCM will move the sake tasting to Friday - all the people I actually know who intended to come and made a point of finding my location in broad daylight so they could find it at night didn't make it for one reason or another. (I know there were a bunch of vigils and all sorts of other things going on Saturday evening.) However, I did get a manageable number of walk-ins in response to the posters I'd placed at a couple of the rest rooms: given limits on entertaining space and my budget, I only posted announcements in a few places. I got people who were genuinely interested, ranging from sake fans who wanted to see what I had to complete neophytes who wanted to find out what sake was like. Johann von Drachenfels came by for a bit as well and he and I had a nice visit. There are some leftovers (Jinyu, some Choya plum liqueur, some of the nigori and almost a whole bottle of the Hana Awaka) which will probably come to Mists and/or Cynagua Coronet to be made to go away one way or another. I also got a lot of oohing and ahhing from passers by througout the weekend about my set-up, particularly when the lanterns were lit at night. (I need to drag a tripod out and get some better night shots at a future event.)

Did a last lap of Merchant's Row with the gurdy this morning, collected some farewell hugs and tore down and headed home.