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I think it took me almost two hours between exiting my truck and actually paying my site fee at Twelfth Night because I kept getting waylaid by people. This event is not about being medieval. It's about shmoozing. If it were not about shmoozing, there would be no need for it to require three days in a hotel.

I wore the kariginu ensemble most of the day. Go here for a better look. The eboshi is a scootch too snug with my hair up. I need to ease the band a bit. However, it maintained its starchy structural integrity, making me almost, but not quite as tall as Ivan Ivanovich Streltsov, which is saying something. Given the size of the hotel and convention center, there's something to be said for being able to cover distances like a man in hakama too. (Said hakama were originally made for my  hitatare kamishimo ensemble.


I attended Last Court and got to see Wilhelm inducted into the Order of the Pelican. He sure as hell earned his bird. I almost cried when he showed me his scroll afterwards. Hobbit had done a series of illuminations showing Wilhelm doing herald duties - in one frame where he was field heralding for two fighters, one was in a black surcote bearing Gaius' shield. (Hobbit is also the artist responsible for the scroll my default icon comes from).

Must envy[info]acanthusleaf - I'd never seen her hair down and hadn't realized just how long and gorgeous it is. Did get a brief hello from callistotoni who was looking genteel and pretty in colors that I can't wear. Managed a nice visit with Jaida for a few minutes, and another with Edward who was fascinated with the construction of The Smackity Fan.

[personal profile] bovil and [personal profile] kproche are made completely of win. You may or may not recall them as the OMGWTFKataginu! Guys from the Mikado Ball back in September. They'd been planning to attend Twelfth Night with the specific aim of hosting a party to promote Costume Con 26. They wanted to do Japanese since it combined well with other current costuming projects of theirs. They wanted me in on it. Girls and boys, I like the West for a great many reasons, but the fact is, you have no idea how NICE it is to have people to play with locally who want to do Japanese things!  Because the play ran late - gee, like that NEVER happens - it meant missing Coronation and First Court, but I'd promised. Ah, giri!

Every year SOMEONE comes up with the Obligatory Monkey Themed Twelfth Night gift. This year it turned out to be [personal profile] marymont and [personal profile] aeddie with a most excellent tee shirt with ninja monkeys on it.  

Anyway, back to The Guys. I am made of fail - I got a picture of Andy, but never remembered to collar Kevin and get one of him. They did a great job on their kataginu ensembles. (Handsome men in wafuku - it just does not get better than this. Sigh!) Go here for a better look.
 

Even if I hadn't brought a scroll and the brocade futon cover to add to the ambiance, they had the situation, Big Hotel Furniture and decor under control, right up to a gagaku album on the iPod playing at a low volume continuous loop, paper lanterns and tea lights glimmering everywhere, an assortment of sweet and savory Japanese munchies and a nice assortment of very good sake on ice in the sink. I ditched the eboshi and washed off my make-up so I could relax a bit. I got to chat textile porn with their friend Carol - turns out she collects vintage kimono and does the kind of dyeing things I'd love to learn, so we've exchanged contact info.

Theia lured us down the hall to check out some vintage kimono and obi she'd brought to sell. As is usually the case, the motifs and styles were pretty much too modern for SCA period and most of it was too small for me. I didn't have enough cash on me, but she set aside for me a pretty black haori with cobalt blue butterflies and a cute hitoe kimono with a fun windowpane check that is long enough and can be let out and we will settle up at March Crown.

While we never got mobbed, we did get a fairly steady, mellow stream of visitors in the sort of relaxed, low key environment I can actually enjoy. We broke for dinner around six, trooped down to the hotel's sushi bar in our finery. Andy and Kevin insisted on treating me. I ordered some nigiri a la carte and bogarted the occasional bit of roll from the geta. Yummy stuff.

We then took a turn around the convention center, passing out cards and invites to their party, then went back upstairs. Got to chat with [personal profile] sarahbellem and meet some of her friends. There was a noisy jello shot party going on down the hall, but we got some folks passing through from there who were interested in Costume Con, or at least in enjoying some sake or umeshu. Still naively believing I would drive home at some point, I dutifully switched to tea for awhile. Heh. Right. We outlasted the jello shot people.

The guys decided to shut down and go roaming because there were still a couple of parties going on. It was finally agreed - after an appropriately Japanese exchange of polite refusals, insistences, warnings about snoring on my part countered with warnings about snoring on their part - that I would crash with them for the night and we would take the rest of the sake to the other parties and try to make it go away.

We stopped briefly at the party where TRM were. They looked very happy and I felt less bad about missing their step-up, but we left after an outbreak of bad singing coming from one corner of the room and decided to check out the wine and cheese party upstairs. Despite the fact that crowds make me twitch and hearing loss in my right ear reduces me pretty quickly to nodding and smiling stupidly, I did visit with Katherine, Valgard and Flidais for a bit. It was probably about 3 AM when we went back down to the room and I was able to put the ninja monkeys to good use as a night shirt.

I helped [personal profile] bovil and [personal profile] kproche pack out and repaid them for their many courtesies by treating them to lunch at a great little Greek place they led me to in Willow Glen.

Oh, and yes, I am going to CostumeCon 26.

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