Month: July 2005

Tom called off fencing today because it is all rainy and yecch out. He’s at home watching movies. I’m at work, working. That’s all for now.

The demo was interesting. Danielle was the only person from our group who I managed to connect with in time to bring. Sir Andras and Mistress F’uil did loan us a big bin of cool show and tell stuff. None of the Canton of Charlesbury Crossing made it, either, but Asza from Balefire Dunn and Mistress Susanna from Aire Faucon did come with Dulcimer and recorder and spinning and weaving set-up respectively. I did a group participation version of Hamlet with the kids, then we played “drop glove” a medieval version of duck, duck, goose and we danced a tangle bransle and the Maltese bransle. The kids liked those. Then 15-20 minutes of show and tell, and off they went. There were probably 75-100 people, kids and adults. The library gave us a donation of $50 as well. The weather was warm, but the site was shady. All things considered, a good demo given our extremely restricted participation.

The weather finally broke on Thursday night. It rained like crazy with lots of thunder and lightning. Tom was thrilled. Now it’s humid and overcast in the mid 80’s.

Yesterday I worked on a blue dress in the style of the 14th century fitted kirtles. I’m having some sleeve problems which I think I can fix with deeper underarm gussets. Sleeves are always my falling down point. After this, I promised Tom some fencing hoods for the loaner gear, then I’m going to make him a doublet that will hopefully fit him.

Never a dull moment around here.

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Lots of meetings today. I’m currently on the semi-weekly Conference Call for the Army’s Integrated Library system. Later we have the Process Action Team meeting for Fort Bragg. Busy busy day. I’m conflicted about meetings. I feel like they are necessary, but I always feel like I should be doing something else while they are going on.

The demos over the weeekend went pretty well. Tom had fun fencing. We wound up driving up and back both days, but I did go to Whole Foods and got some kale and sausage for a homemade version of the Olive Garden’s Zuppa Toscana. It turned out very well, but I ate too much of it last night and now I’m a little sick of it. That will pass. We have another demo tomorrow, in Hamlet, NC which is halfway between us and the next Barony to the west. Thursday is a terrible day for our group. A lot of people are working and can’t take the day off. I’m hoping people from the other group (Canton of Charlesbury Crossing) will be able to come.

We’re up for another busy weekend. I’m off, so Tom and I are going up to Raleigh to help with some demoes there for the SCA. They’re inside, which will be good. I hope to get to look around Raleigh a bit, too. We’ve been living here for almost 3 years now, and I don’t know too much about the surrounding area. Maybe we’ll even get up to Whole Foods. *yum* *yum*

Brad at CPAC (The Civilian Personnel Center)[Read “Human Resources”] called me a little while ago to let me know I have been selected as the permanent appointee for the Supervisory Librarian position at my library. *yay* It’s the job I’m currently doing, but now it’s for the long term.

The previous holder of this job has the right to come back into this job after a year. He left to take a position in Korea and has return rights. We don’t think he’s going to do it, but the option remains open. If he does come back, I can move back into the job I was doing, or look for something else. Tom and I will talk about it quite a bit, I’m sure.

I’m glad about the increase in salary, of course. And I’m looking forward to steering the library through the upcoming changes with our new library catalog and budget structure. I’m a little nervous about continuting to manage the staff. I expect I’m going to have a few power struggles now that I’m the offical manager of the facility.

It’s never dull, at least.

More car drama today. We dropped Tom off at work and I stopped in at McD’s to check my bank account balance and get a McGriddle. When I came back out to start the car, it didn’t start. Not even a “click” which is at least what it did when the battery ran down last time. (and remember, it had just been running) Even the clock was blank. I fiddled a bit, opened the hood and looked at the fuses, but nothing looked or smelled wrong. So I called the Saturn dealer, then Tom, then State Farm, then work. Tom came down and jumped the car, which it did fine. Then we drove over to Saturn and I waited while he went back to work.

Diagnosis: Loose Battery Cables–$40 for labor. *sigh*

I guess it’s worth the $40 for the peace of mind, but *grrr*.

Now to work. Good thing I worked extra on the weekend, makes up for coming in late now.

I’m filing the mountain of papers on my desk today. There was only one out-of-date item and it wasn’t that bad. The previous people in this office were big on making multiple copies, so frequently it’s just a matter of figuring out which thing to keep and which to throw out. It’s a good feeling, having a cleared off desktop. Very energizing.

On another note, Scotty from Star Trek died today. I expect he’ll be running that big Transporter in the sky from here on out. Charon of the Federation.

I was up until 3:15 finishing HBP last night. No spoilers. I promise. But I am looking forward to having people to talk about it with soon.

Now I’ll go back and read it out loud to Mr. Tom. It’s bonding time.

It’s been a hard day on the ‘ol nose. The new conditioner I’m using up right now smells to me like rotten flowers (and it doesn’t do such a great job of conditioning the hair), so that’s what I’m smelling all the way in to work. (Reminder, don’t buy the Fantastic Sam’s brand again.)
Then on the way to work, I stopped at the gas station and filled up the car. The auto shutoff thing on the pump didn’t work, so I splashed some gas around before I got it turned off, so now my car and shoes smell like unleaded.
Then, to top it all off, the admin assistant at the library has put mothballs in her plants to keep away our resident mouse, and my office is right by her desk. So my office and the entire admin area smells of mothballs.
So I have a pretty good nauseous headache right now. *blecch*

On the upside, I got about 180 pages into HBP last night. I’m reading aloud to Tom, mostly so I don’t have to share the book, but he fell asleep in chapter seven, and I kept reading. I’ll go back and catch him up tonight. We don’t have any new movies in the house anyway.

The story is darker, but it’s not quite as unremittingly grim as Order of the Phoenix. She’s kept a lot of the humor and there is a wonderful scene at Fred and George’s new joke shop.

This is not exactly a spoiler, but I did laugh aloud when I read about “U-No-Poo”. I want an icon with the text from the ad.