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2001-08-21 - 1:41 p.m. Water, Chocolate Milk, the Great Pumpkin, and Tough Love I�ve passed the halfway point in both laundry and email, so Pennsic is officially over. The worst thing about this War was the weather the first week. 115 degree plus heat index the first week made for a very low energy War. It began on land grab day when Emma passed our encampment (which consisted of one tiny dayshade at that point) pleading "Water! For the love of God, give me water! then disappeared to N21/The French Quarter not to be seen again for four days/until her camp showers were functional. The heat made communal naps very popular. [The low energy kind, not the kinky group things like Bob�s 50th birthday. Sorry � it was waaaayyy too hot to touch.] We spent much of the first week passed out in the common tent trying to feel a breeze. Gen slept on the table, laid out like the main attraction at a wake; Roland and I slept on a blanket under the table hoping the cold ground would suck the heat out of us; and Alan, in an incredible feat of balance that must be a Provost skill, slept on the benches. I found my new superpower as �Towelhead�. A towel soaked in freezing cold cooler water wrapped around the head. Ahhh�. I know it was hot, because when I asked Alan if he wanted the colorful terry-cloth, Aztec-print, cold towel to wrap around his head, Alan�s reply was: "Are you insane? Of course I want the cold towel." [Visualize Alan with colorful terry print on his head] Our encampment, �Vair and Ermine� was on the way everywhere this War because so many of the larger Atlantian groups got exiled out Battle Road. We were the halfway point between the far flung Atlantian Enclave of N23 and Pennsic town. Because of the heat and the Pennsic geography, we became the Atlantian Watering Point. Genevieve put extra mugs, ice and water on the sideboard in our gathering tent and we were very popular. And Padriaga was very proud of us. Sir Vladimir is an angel. He kept stopping in for (big shock) water and shade on his way from the parking lot encampment to Pennsic town. We all fell asleep in the middle of one of his visits. Vlad, finally accepting that all his hosts have fallen asleep mid-sentence: Well, I�m going to head on into Pennsic town. Silence from the sleeping Genevieve, Alan, Roland and Theodora. Vlad: Did you need anything? Theodora, very sleepily: Chocolate milk. Roll over on the ground and fall asleep. The next thing I know, I awaken to Vlad standing over me, his waist length hair like an off-kilter halo, holding a bottle of chocolate milk just out of my reach. He silently places the milk in my half awake hands and ghosts out of the common tent like a visiting angel. Vlad loves me. At least he loves me more than Roland, cause he just dropped Roland�s bottle on his sleeping head. I crack the bottle and Gen, scenting chocolate milk, rolls over on the table and peers over the edge. She blinks herself awake and silently reaches for the second half of the bottle. The next morning, we just gave Vlad a twenty and said he could bring us milk whenever he wanted. He even brought our delivery to troll one day when Gen and I were on shift. Our encampment was just lovely. We�re a low drag, high ambience, gee everyone takes our the trash without being told kind of encampment. Siegfreid and Gwenyth, our camp artificers extra-ordainre, continue to improve our splendid camp showers. This year, they painted them, built permanent pallets and secured a new camp sink. They took the stained canvas from last year�s shower and had the paint store match the color. Yes, our showers were painted �Pennsic rust� which is a neat ochre-gold and much nicer on wood than in water. We have great showers. Next year planned improvements are (a) a better valve system to provide more temperature control and (b) painted panels for decoration. Strangely, everyone�s okay with naked woman pictures on the showers. Thjora bought us Power Puff Girl kitchen magnets to put up in the common tent cause she�s so not a stuffy Laurel. Our neighbors � Lochmere and Stierbach were, as usual, a pleasure to share the block with. Everyone got hideously shorted on space, but they were very gracious about letting us bend boundaries when we need to make things work smoothly. And Lochmere comes with Reynard and his perfectly reliable weather report. He�s never been wrong yet, but I guess when you sail around the world alone you learn to read the weather for yourself. Then, there was the Great Pumpkin. We wanted light for the common tent and we didn�t have candelabra�s and we didn�t want to stare at the evil coleman light, so we invented the Great Pumpkin. Roland and Theodora go to buy stage gels � which was an adventure in finding Kinetic Aristry of Takoma Park because they�ve moved from where the Yellow Pages says they are. Theodora to lighting expert: "So here�s probably your weirdest request of the week�" By the way, never say that to SCAdians or theatre people. Lighting Guy: Oh no, we had someone trying to rent breakaway bottles for stage fighting and they couldn�t understand why we won�t take the broken ones in return for their money back Blink. Theodora: "Well, okay then. Have you ever been camping? Basically we have a Coleman lantern � that evil white light thing�" L.G. "Actually, it�s not pure white, it�s a blue-white, cause there�s no such thing as pure white light in nature, but go on�" Lighting geeks � they�re like metal geeks � white, blue-white, ball-pin, straight-pin. Sigh. Theo: "Okay � we want to make the blue-white light look like a big candle." L.G. hands Roland and I a book of plastic stage gel samples, each attached to a lighting frequency spectrum showing what light wavelengths it passes and what wavelengths it blocks. I think L.G. was disappointed we understood that bit. The upshot was we left with two sheets of screaming Halloween orange plastic. Alan, Gen, and Roland crafted a box and managed to staple the plastic to it. Gen, being an artsy, decorative type girl, had doubts, cause you can still see the ugly lantern through the clear orange plastic. Gen during the test run in their garage: "How bad is it if we ditch the orange box?" Alan shrugs and pulls the lantern out of the light filtering containment. Screamingly painful bright light floods the room. Gen: "Arghhhh�. Put it back, put it back!" So the Great Pumpkin worked splendidly � like one big candle. Stierbach had their showers behind our common tent and they said if we lit the Pumpkin they didn�t need any candles to take showers at night. We�ll staple some parchment paper (which is not an item obtainable near Cooper�s Lake campground) to the outside to cover the orange plastic and declare victory. Sunday night Gen and I did our security shift, 11 pm to 2 am. First, let me say it took them 45 minutes to affect a shift change. Also, we (along with half our shift) showed up on the wrong night because their sign up sheet were stupid. The date the sheets was meant to be associated with the 2 am part of the shift, not the 11 pm start time. And after two returns to security based, they still didn�t set our radio correctly � wehad to ask the autocrat for the security channel. And they didn�t have any maps � they had to send up to Troll get maps. Can we all say, not impressed? No wonder they were short on volunteers. Gen drove the cart and drove very sedately, which disappointed/shocked me. Pennsic was very quiet this year, even down in the Bog. We tried to stop the firebreathing at Pandora�s Box only to be shown their fire extinguishers, safety precautions and notes from the fire marshal. People at the Box were sober at 1:30 am � very odd. We chased down a pick up truck full of partyers only to find it was someone from the top of Mount Aislinn giving some tipsy friends a ride home to the bog to save them the thirty minute walk. Somewhere along the Great Eastern Highway, we found a big crowd in the road watching a guy locked in a pair of stocks, being whipped. Screech � turn the cart around. Theodora: Is this consensual? The crowd: Oh, yeah! Theo: I�d really rather have the guy tied up in the stocks tell me that. Guy climbs out of the stocks � they weren�t even locked, and begins kissing the lady with a whip. Gen: Well, okay then. Theo: Looks consensual to me � Umm � try to clear the road, could you? Only at Pennsic. Tomorrow � the story of my fluffy ponytail. 117 email messages to go... � � Scribble to Theo previous - next �