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Recent News... Just for Pope Gregory... |
2001-10-24 - 9:37 a.m. Can't sleep, Kane will find me Q made me bawl like a baby with his post on Kane. God took home one of his finest men that day. No one ever sees me loose it at work - I design, test and launch multi-million dollar satellites. I diagnose spacecraft emergencies. I regularly defend my work in professional reviews in front of 50 - 300 senior engineers. It's hard to shake me at the office. I completely lost it when the news of the accident reached my email box that day just over five years ago. Shaking and bawling like a child. It took me an hour to calm down enough to go submit a leave slip for the funeral. My boss explained and explained since they weren't family, I couldn't use sick leave per the family leave act. He made me contact personnel who danced around the issue of 'close personal friend' and applicable leave policy. I'm white and shaking and barely holding it together through these professional hoops - inside I'm screaming 'He was part of the family I chose. Part of the family I was fortunate enough to find' as I talk to a variety of personnel staff. My boss comes down to my office and explains at me for ten minutes that he can't grant the funeral leave request. However, he suggests I put in a leave request and not specify the reason and he could pretend he didn't know it was a gray area. All the words came from far away and sounded like Charlie Brown's teacher yammering. I looked at him and screamed 'I don't give a f*ck what you charge it to. Dock my vacation. Dock my pay. I'm going to that funeral,' and ran out in tears and hysterics, home to some very strong Irish whisky. It completely freaked my co-workers. My boss apologized for weeks for being an insensitive clod. Even now, finding a picture of Kane will make me a little wistful. I found several while searching for Cuan blackmail pictures to show Padraiga last weekend. Black Kane O'Shannon. Did you know Kane is the Hawaiian god of war? It was so appropriate. The hardest thing I ever saw Cuan do was sing "Born on the List Field" over Kane and Muirgen's grave. After the funeral service, about two hundred people, mostly SCAdians, moved from the chapel area to the open grave. The cemetery crew had never seen anything like it. We wouldn't let them use the normal crew and power equipment to bury our friends. The shovel was passed down the line as each person took a turn placing dirt in the grave. I couldn't even speak. I don't know how Cuan managed to sing so beautifully, but I can still hear his voice echoing through the clear Carolina afternoon. I served Kane and Muirgen as a lady-in-waiting during their reign, which was an immense amount of fun. Poor Martin. He was always the one sent to fetch Kane from the field to prepare for court. Kane figured this out quickly and would simply forbid Martin to speak. But Muirgen had forbidden him to return without Kane, so Martin just paced silently hoping to eventually drag Kane away. During their time as Heirs, there was the Ice Castle where the snow was so bad, the event got cancelled. I was living in Blacksburg/Black Diamond. My Chinese food arrived about 7 pm Friday night with a fortunate cookie proclaiming "Your life will be filled with interesting people." Syr Christen arrived about 8ish, mostly exhausted, and laid around on my living room floor using Mr. Snow, the huge white bear, as a pillow. He would doze off, then sit bolt upright saying 'Can't sleep, can't let Kane find me asleep on the bear.' Eventually, Christen kept himself awake with artistic endeavors - using crayons and computer paper to make Kane a 'Mantee nesting area' banner which he strung across my patio door. About 3 am Kane, Muirgen, Janos, Christen and Godfrey and his lady tumbled in the door and stuffed themselves into the living room of my one bedroom townhouse. I was asleep and stumbled down the stairs from the bedroom, (appartently wearing very little juding by the comments the next morning) and said, 'Hi Kane, Hi Muirgen, Hi whomever you are. Sleep in the living room. Don't trip over Christen,' and went back upstairs to bed. As I tried to doze off, I hear Kane begin some sort of 'yip-yip-yip' noise designed to annoy the crap out of Christen. Christen and Kane were at it for half an hour, tormenting each other, punctuated by Muirgen or Janos yelling at them. I lay upstairs giggling into my pillow. By morning, it was clear the event was in trouble. Highways were closed, the corner gas station roof had collapsed, the road to the site was impassable. The event was cancelled. Janos's Jeep Cherokee was one of the few vehicles moving in this snow. He loved it - no need to follow the roads or rules - you couldn't find them anyway. Janos drove over curbs, embankments, anything - proving the shortest point between two lines truly was a straight path. Janos, Godfrey and I went on a wild ride to the local grocery store. I, being a practical Southern woman thinking of the guests crowded into my small apartment, head for the produce section to pick up fruit and veggie munchies, thinking apples and bagels � Oh, no. Janos carries me out of the produce section (passing several people I knew and making quite a spectacle - which was a heck of an explanation the following week) to the beer and ice cream area where we procure supplies more to his liking. Back at the apartment, we are completely out of fridge space, but there's all this snow so no problem. The gallons of ice cream were stacked behind the bushes next to my front door. The beer was stored in the six feet tall drift against my patio door. Since we'd had a hard freeze, you slid open the patio to a hard wall of frozen snow, perfect for icing beer. The entire place was way too crowded, so Janos began the 'move furniture to the attic to make more room' project. We were down to a sofa, chair, and bookcase when he was done. Cuan calls. (Cuan and Arianwen were King and Queen.) He and Aria are trapped on the far outskirts of town with two of our more � interesting members. Kane lays on the floor and taunts Cuan unmercifully because he's having a great time and Cuan is snowbound with very, um, unique company. Very cruel of Kane, because he knew Cuan couldn't say anything back from his end. The event was eventually moved to the Marriott. Janos and Liam spent the day using their jeeps to collect people from snowbound locations around Blacksburg. They fought in the parking lot of the Marriott with a blizzard so fierce you couldn't even see the swords. The snow was so high, you couldn't even fall down just sort of lean to the side. We had a very small, very short afternoon event followed by a post revel at/near my place (chambord on cheap ice cream and snow cones). Since my townhouse was near several other SCAdian townhouses, the party kind of drifted up and down the townhouse row. Sunday morning, if I remember correctly, we took about sixty people to Macado's (local sandwich shop) in more Janos and Jeremy jeep realys. We scared the staff to death. One waiter and sixty people. We assured him we had HOURS to kill. Sat in the warm restaurant across from the Kroger parking lot watching them plow snow. The snow mound at the parking lot edge reached almost three stories. And you know what that means. Outsides we went outside to play 'King of the Mountain' while the kitchen panicked about producing that much food with three workers on site. Three guesses who held the top of the hill. The event was something of a flop with the weather boggarting the site, but we had a blast. I found a case of beer when the snow melted off my patio � which leads to the story of the beer bunnies and other Easter hoppiness, a tale for another day. Kane was an unusual man. Perceptive and sensitive, he had a heart as big as a mountain. He had a way of making you put aside the noise of the maddening crowd and see the better part of our natures. � � � 
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