Blathering

Thursday, Jul. 24, 2003
12:14 PM

The great big stupid display board is finally done. Well, OK, the gluing is all done - now I'm waiting for it to dry enough for me to grout. I should really be waiting 24 hours for the glue to cure, but I really want to clean that sucker up and get it out of here tomorrow. I'm pretty pleased with how the middle part came out - it's my business logo done in vitreous glass. I may feel differently when it's grouted, but I'm OK with it for now. I might grout that part in white and do the rest of the board in grey, but we'll see how industrious I'm feeling.

Now I'm celebrating the end of this project (OK, the impending end) by goofing off a little. Just reading diaries and email for a while, chilling out and not making glass chips fly around the basement. I think I should sweep down there pretty soon, it's getting kind of crunchy underfoot.

Anyway, now that the major project is mostly out of the way, I can start really concentrating on getting ready for Pennsic. Now that it's getting close, I'm thinking of all the things that I usually do at Pennsic, taking classes, shopping, indulging in chocolate milk... I have to admit, it's going to be weird this year. I'm not looking forward to spending the majority of my time there without Kevin. I have NEVER been to Pennsic without him. I'm really glad that he'll be there for at least a few days, but I know I'll be racking up roaming charges on my cell phone every night. It's just not going to be the same.

I started writing a whole long diatribe about the new law requiring fighters to cover their plastic armor and how I don't understand why some people are all up in arms about it (no pun intended, really) but then I just realized that I don't especially want to go there. I don't have the energy to get all worked up over something that doesn't directly affect me. Indirectly, that's a different matter, but I don't have the energy for that either. I do find unfortunate the attitude that says, "If I wanted high level authenticity, I'd go play with an ECW/ACW/La Belle* type group, but I don't, so I'll stick with the SCA." (This is not an attack on any one person! I have just seen and heard that sentiment expressed and I am posting my view of it.) There is nothing wrong with trying to up the standards for the SCA. That's all I have to say about that.

I keep debating with myself about whether I should write about the other thing that's bugging me a lot right now. It's very personal and I'm not sure how comfortable I am putting it out on a public web page. It's not actually about me, it's about my sister. Some of you know that she's been going through a very tough time lately. I will just say that the situation's not really getting much better yet and that I'm very worried about her. And if anyone hurts her or my niece, I will go out and flatten him... I mean, them.

Sigh.

I need to go spend some more time with my two ILL books before they have to go back. One is The Italian Renaissance Interior 1400-1600, which is very nice and has tons of pictures and good info. A few pics I'd never seen before plus diagrams of room layouts and furniture and stuff. Very cool. The other is Levi-Pisetzki's Storia del Costume in Italia, vol. II. It covers the 14th and 15th centuries and has many, many pictures I've never seen. It's the source where Jacqueline Herald got a lot of her information. I have to give it back in a week and I'm very sad about that. They may have to pry it out of my hands. My prrrreciousssss... So, I can't read it yet, what's your point? (It's in Italian.) I did a search on alibris.com for a used copy - found the whole set of five volumes for a mere $3700, give or take a few bucks. Found Vol. I for around $500. Eep. I have been known to indulge an expensive book habit, but that was out of my range even when I had steady employment.

I think I'm going to go do something else reasonably productive today.

Ciao!

*English Civil War/American Civil War/La Belle Companie, a 14th century group.