Morning after
Aug. 19th, 2007 10:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gurdymonkey
Why yes, I suppose I am smirking a bit. It's hard to be humble when you're the hottest thing at Tanabata.
Everybody loved it. Even I finally love it as it deserves to be loved. Changing in the rest room was the first time I'd gotten a really good look at myself in the thing in front of a decent sized mirror. All the fretting about painting mistakes fell away. I did that. Me. (I win.)
Ivan wanted a picture of me, so I made him take one with my camera as well.
No eating implements in MY hair, thank you very much. Not so much as a paper tasuke. I was having a damn good hair day. Not bad for an old bag of 48, huh?
I did not rip a single chopstick out of a single coiffure and stab the wearer through the eye with it. I did play Japanese granny for any and all comers who approached me and said, "Do I have this tied right?"
Nobody borrowed any of the kosode I brought, though two of my obi ended up in the kitchen because Crimson forgot one and Anna Serre used the little skinny one to tasuke her sleeves out of the way. There were some reasonable attempts, there were some unreasonable attempts, there were the usual I'm-wearing-what-I-usually-wear attendees. I even found something nice to say to Mistress I Don't Know Jack and didn't laugh out loud when she turned around. That obi was just too damn narrow and the fabric too limp for a cho cho musubi. I didn't see anybody asking her how to fix their obi. (I win.)
Emiko-hime looked adorable in a gorgeous vintage furisode that belonged to her grandmother. (She's Japanese-American and always manages to make me feel like Gojira hulking beside her.) Nyteshaed really needed an eboshi to perfect the look, but otherwise looked quite spiff in green suikan, grey kosode and eggplant hakama. Yukiko-hime in Kamakura white kosode and scarlet hakama with one layer over it looked lovely as always.
Buddha's dozing smile
Floats lambent in the dusk sky
As we below smile.
Surely heaven's lanterns shine
To bless a newfound friendship.
I suppose it's OK to mention that Some Guy was at the event for part of the day. We traded off the CDs/DVD's we'd promised to lend each other and got to chat a bit before he had to leave. He marshalled some of the rapier and as is his Modus Operandi would go hurrying off to help people carry things and so forth, but his orbit kept coming back to where I was sitting with my sewing. (I win. I think.) I cannot help wondering what wish he tied on the bamboo tree. I'm not telling what mine is either.
Good turnout for my poetry class. Good poems written by my students when I turned them loose and said, "OK, now write something." The contest was won by one of them. A waka, not a haiku. (Yay waka! Waka is classical. Waka is erudite, waka is made of win.) This is the one I wrote. Not one of my better efforts:
The seventh month moon
Watches over our merrymaking
And hears our laughter.
Weaver and Herdsman perform
Their loving dance above us.
I was coming back to my seat after reading my poem andmomstable began oohing over how my silk was fluttering as I walked. I ended up teaching her and Emma how to "kimono walk" when we went outside to get some fresh air. For the uninitiated, a lady's Japanese clothing will lie nicer if she allows her clothing to wear her. When I am in wafuku, my walk does not swing from the hip at all. I keep my thighs together and take small steps swinging from the knee, slightly flat footed. While I don't do the exaggerated pigeon-toe thing because I am not sure it's not an Edo period affectation caused by even narrower clothing, I do keep my feet close together.
WAY TOO MUCH FOOD. Anna Serre is officially insane. This was an extremely ambitious feast with a lot of small tastes of things that the average SCA feastgoer is not likely to encounter. I hope she finds a use for the pickle press I gave her. There were good pickles. I liked the fish soup thing. The savory custard was really good, but my brain was going, "It's custard. It should be sweet. This is just wrong on too many levels." The duck was lovely. The salmon was lovely. The tanuki-jiru (made with pork) absolutely rocked and I am going to go look up Takeda-dono's recipe and bookmark the sucker because I'm thinking these would make awesome bar food for my sake party. The plum wine jelly was delightful, if a little tricky to try to pick up. There were lots of things I just skipped because there was just so much food. (She wins.)
The puppet show was fun. Yukiko-hime used noh masks as her inspiration to create some really lovely hand puppets for the telling of the Tanabata story. I reminded her about bunraku at Cal in October. She would appreciate it.
Downsides:
Very long day, not helped by the fact that the directions in the Page had me driving around Manteca for a full forty minutes trying to find a freeway exit that did not exist.
Hall was quite warm during the daytime.
Acoustically it was a nightmare, prompting us to escape outside for a few breaks during the feast.
Ivan wanted a picture of me, so I made him take one with my camera as well.
No eating implements in MY hair, thank you very much. Not so much as a paper tasuke. I was having a damn good hair day. Not bad for an old bag of 48, huh?
I did not rip a single chopstick out of a single coiffure and stab the wearer through the eye with it. I did play Japanese granny for any and all comers who approached me and said, "Do I have this tied right?"
Nobody borrowed any of the kosode I brought, though two of my obi ended up in the kitchen because Crimson forgot one and Anna Serre used the little skinny one to tasuke her sleeves out of the way. There were some reasonable attempts, there were some unreasonable attempts, there were the usual I'm-wearing-what-I-usually-wear attendees. I even found something nice to say to Mistress I Don't Know Jack and didn't laugh out loud when she turned around. That obi was just too damn narrow and the fabric too limp for a cho cho musubi. I didn't see anybody asking her how to fix their obi. (I win.)
Emiko-hime looked adorable in a gorgeous vintage furisode that belonged to her grandmother. (She's Japanese-American and always manages to make me feel like Gojira hulking beside her.) Nyteshaed really needed an eboshi to perfect the look, but otherwise looked quite spiff in green suikan, grey kosode and eggplant hakama. Yukiko-hime in Kamakura white kosode and scarlet hakama with one layer over it looked lovely as always.
Buddha's dozing smile
Floats lambent in the dusk sky
As we below smile.
Surely heaven's lanterns shine
To bless a newfound friendship.
I suppose it's OK to mention that Some Guy was at the event for part of the day. We traded off the CDs/DVD's we'd promised to lend each other and got to chat a bit before he had to leave. He marshalled some of the rapier and as is his Modus Operandi would go hurrying off to help people carry things and so forth, but his orbit kept coming back to where I was sitting with my sewing. (I win. I think.) I cannot help wondering what wish he tied on the bamboo tree. I'm not telling what mine is either.
Good turnout for my poetry class. Good poems written by my students when I turned them loose and said, "OK, now write something." The contest was won by one of them. A waka, not a haiku. (Yay waka! Waka is classical. Waka is erudite, waka is made of win.) This is the one I wrote. Not one of my better efforts:
The seventh month moon
Watches over our merrymaking
And hears our laughter.
Weaver and Herdsman perform
Their loving dance above us.
I was coming back to my seat after reading my poem and
momstable began oohing over how my silk was fluttering as I walked. I ended up teaching her and Emma how to "kimono walk" when we went outside to get some fresh air. For the uninitiated, a lady's Japanese clothing will lie nicer if she allows her clothing to wear her. When I am in wafuku, my walk does not swing from the hip at all. I keep my thighs together and take small steps swinging from the knee, slightly flat footed. While I don't do the exaggerated pigeon-toe thing because I am not sure it's not an Edo period affectation caused by even narrower clothing, I do keep my feet close together. WAY TOO MUCH FOOD. Anna Serre is officially insane. This was an extremely ambitious feast with a lot of small tastes of things that the average SCA feastgoer is not likely to encounter. I hope she finds a use for the pickle press I gave her. There were good pickles. I liked the fish soup thing. The savory custard was really good, but my brain was going, "It's custard. It should be sweet. This is just wrong on too many levels." The duck was lovely. The salmon was lovely. The tanuki-jiru (made with pork) absolutely rocked and I am going to go look up Takeda-dono's recipe and bookmark the sucker because I'm thinking these would make awesome bar food for my sake party. The plum wine jelly was delightful, if a little tricky to try to pick up. There were lots of things I just skipped because there was just so much food. (She wins.)
The puppet show was fun. Yukiko-hime used noh masks as her inspiration to create some really lovely hand puppets for the telling of the Tanabata story. I reminded her about bunraku at Cal in October. She would appreciate it.
Downsides:
Very long day, not helped by the fact that the directions in the Page had me driving around Manteca for a full forty minutes trying to find a freeway exit that did not exist.
Hall was quite warm during the daytime.
Acoustically it was a nightmare, prompting us to escape outside for a few breaks during the feast.
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no subject
Date: 2007-08-19 07:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-19 07:26 pm (UTC)(48 is NOT old. I'm 41 myself. Beats the heck out of being 20-something, except for the weight-gain part.)
no subject
Date: 2007-08-19 07:33 pm (UTC)You were indeed having a good hair day, judging by the pic, and your outfit looks GORGEOUS!Don't cha just love those days when it all just WORKS?
And since I will be 44 in a couple of weeks, I hereby declare that 48 is not even close to being old.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-19 08:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-19 11:46 pm (UTC)I'm getting better
Date: 2007-08-20 12:35 am (UTC)Thank you.
Re: I'm getting better
Date: 2007-08-20 02:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-20 05:15 am (UTC)I wrote a poem (a Tanka?, I think? did I get it right?)
The path like a breeze
Setting layers aflutter
Each petal unfolds
Showing riotous colors
The flower - my kosode
Thanks again for all the help, Jehanne. Especially for taking the time out of working on your own project to get me started.
Anna, I approve of making sure everyone has enough to eat. People should leave a feast table feeling like overstuffed turkeys. Personal opinion from the Jewish Mother, no one else needs have this opinion, but I do come by it honestly.
Na'arah
no subject
Date: 2007-08-20 06:11 am (UTC)