That will be all. Thank you.

Geoffrey and I went to the Portland-area NaNoWriMo meet at Powell’s Books yesterday evening for a couple hours’ worth of writers talking about writing. Of the dozen or so folks crowded around the long table, I was one of only two people present who were successful NaNo 2002 participants returning for another try at fame and fortune.

Between talk of lesbian vampire cabbages and plot ninjas and crazy dreams and two guys at the door with guns, the group managed to share a decent amount of encouragement, words to the wise and snippets of useful technique. I came away from the meeting sure in the knowledge that I’m at least not the only crazy masochistic wannabe-writer in the city.

Hey, we take what comfort we can in these dark times, right? Right!
NaNoWriMo

Has it been ten years already? Apparently it has. What started out as the “baby girl whose time had come” has grown into a precocious, pretty, caring girl who today celebrates one full decade among us.

Of course, now we’re coming up on the really fun part of her childhood.

(And by “fun” I mean, of course, “intensely scary and challenging.” Whee!)

Happy Birthday, Erica. You are the sunshine in all our lives.

After months of discussion, planning and apprehension, I was packed off to the wilds of somewhere-in-Washington for a four-day SCA event called Autumn War.

Lilith, Lyse and I arrived after sundown Thursday evening. The event site greeted us by unleashing a swarm of yellowjackets. You see, the place Lil’ had selected for her tent turned out to be right over an underground nest. Oops. She took several stings, including one right on the top of her head… and Lyse took a sting under the fingernail for having to go in after that persistent little critter. Me, I just took one at the waistline. (Turns out I’m not allergic. Who knew?)

The rain and the fact that it was dark calmed the nasty flying things down after a short while and we found a better place to set up camp. Falling asleep to the sound of rain on your tent is an experience I’ve almost missed, from back in the days of going to school in Concrete, WA from a campground while we waited for the house we’d bought to finally be available. But I digress.

Thursday night (minus the bees) and Friday morning (minus the bees) was much fun.

Friday evening, the event really kicked off. You see, most people didn’t specifically take time off from work, so the vast bulk of attendees started streaming in around nightfall Friday. I was sort of looking forward to some rest, so I headed off to the tent at what I guess to be around nine or ten o’clock.

I didn’t get any sleep. You see, apparently there are these drums. And the drums are loud, damned loud. And they’re in use all damned night. Every night. What the hell? And since the clouds had gone away, the temperature dropped way down to around 40 degrees… so by the time the drums stopped at about 4am, it was bitterly damned cold, and I was curled up shivering.

In other words, I didn’t pack nearly enough Warm Stuff To Cover Up With. Thank heavens for my Columbia Sportswear coat liner and that lovely wool cloak I was borrowing.

Since I don’t want to be at this all morning (I have to get to work eventually, sad to say) I’ll try to sum up the rest of the event:

• I never went hungry, and the food was dee-lish.
  
• I’ll probably never play tablero.
  
• I met and shot the breeze with an amazing assortment of clever, fun, naughty-minded folk who I wouldn’t mind hanging out and shooting the breeze with again, any time. Not one of them, I tell you, rubbed me the wrong way… nor was I ever under the impression I was somehow unwelcome. That’s just damned cool.
  
• Massive thank-yous are due to Lyse, Dalemar and Vlad, and some others whose names I don’t remember. They took care of me when I was feeling a bit lost or out of sorts, and they took the time every so often to check in on me to make sure I was doing alright. Thank you!
  
• I figured out what my problem is with hanging out around people who are doing an “accomplished” amount of drinking. No, I’m not going to go into it here, but suffice to say it’s an old childhood trauma that I’m probably not going to be able to shake easily. And honestly, I’m not going to try all that hard. I don’t drink, and if you don’t drink there’s not much to do when you’re hanging out with a group that’s composed entirely of drinkers.
  
• I’ve taken great strides in learning to control one of my other longstanding issues; I no longer run to the other end of the field when something buzzes in my ear. Four solid days surrounded by yellowjackets will do amazing things for your ability to relax and tolerate.

I’m not entirely sure I’ll do another SCA event. The answer to that question is going to depend on conversations yet to be had about things I’m not going to go into in this particular venue. But… for all that the nights were bitterly cold, I only accumulated four hours’ sleep between Friday morning and Sunday evening, the bees, and the other issues… I still managed to have a good time now and then. It wasn’t all good, but it wasn’t all bad.

Let me describe a nearly perfect dining day to you.

Morning: Bowl of chocolatey cold cereal, such as Cocoa Puffs. (This is the “nearly” perfect part. Ordinarily I’d prefer a hot cereal, like cream o’ wheat, with milk and brown sugar. Yum!)

Lunchtime: Three-egg bacon and cheese omelette, with hash browns on the side and a couple slices of toast with jam. (Sometimes I’ll have ham instead of bacon. Cheese, however, is non-optional!)

Dinner: French toast with butter, peanut butter and maple syrup. (Bacon and/or sausage links on the side make it that much more perfecter!)

I’ll grant you that a dietician would heartily (pun intended) disagree with this sort of menu. What can I say? I’m all about the comfort foods and there’s nothing more comforting than a nice breakfast.

Thanks to Lyse for treating me to a nifty lunch, and thanks to Wendi for having the bright idea of dining on french toast this evening. Mmmmm.

Two years ago on this date my paternal grandmother, Hjordis Kerezman, passed away. She was a smart, caring, capable woman who survived her husband by two decades… primarily by getting out of New York, I suspect. She never knew what happened that morning in her former city of residence, and I count that as a blessing.

While the rest of America remembers events of greater import, I’ll be over here remembering what a neat lady my Grandma Hjordis was. I leave it to better minds than mine to decide if that makes me unpatriotic or what…