Genevieve
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	The gleam in your eyes is so familiar a gleam...

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Adventures at Ice Castles
2001-01-22 - 16:09:13

Ah, socializing...

I had so missed my friends. Being sick and away on vacation has deprived me of much social contact. Now that Wayne is back from visiting Tamma in FL, oh and attending a conference, life is nigh complete. For the meantime anyway...

So, I hadn't been to an SCA event in over a month. I was going through withdrawl. Shaking in place, talking to folks needlessly on IM, looking at the hanging garb longingly... I had decided to go to Ice Castles come hell or high water, cause I needed human interaction other than my wonderful sweetie.

So, I talked to my buddies; Wen, Rob, Mel, Kevin, Sorcha etc.. We had a plan to go down to Ice. Meet up, grand reunion of sorts. Ice is my anniversary event, my first event ever was Ice 1995, yeah, I know I'm an SCA baby. It's like a homecoming. I haven't missed one yet.

So come Thursday, folks start to bail out. Oh there is going to be scary weather. Ice, rain, sleet and some snow. We'll never get out alive. Puleeze. Mel decides to stay home, catch up on sleep and bond with her new couch. Lureta backs out too, assumedly because Mel has bailed. Tara is sick and decides to screw driving 8 hours. I have yet to meet this woman despite our many shared friends. Maybe it's an omen. Wendy finally cops out on Friday afternoon, needs to catch up on her sleep, or something. Everyone's a wuss as far as I'm concerned. Alan had even decided to stay home and have a quiet weekend to himself. (He ended up working 12 hours dealing with connectivity issues on Sat. so it just shows that he should have come.) Fine, I'm used to being the one bastian of strong femininity, braving the elements to be there to give shit to the men. Someone's gotta do it.

Roland picks me up around 7 on Friday night to head down to Blacksburg. We loaded my stuff into the Tahoe in one trip. I was so proud. I thought of grabbing some CD's for tunes on the road, but try not to subject da boyz to my tastes in music, often. We head off to pick up Kev in Herndon before heading further down the road. Like a farce we pull into the driveway as Jake and Gwen are coming out to drive to dinner at the Kymber's. Gotta move the truck. Wait, why don't you just take Jake's car? Nah, no gas, I don't want to break down. I can respect that, Rob move the truck. So we gather up Kevin's stuff, shift the crap in the truck bed to make it all fit and still have a rear view... Kevin, why do you have a sleeping bag and pillows? Uh, to sleep on the hotel room floor. There are only three of us, and I'm a chick. I think between the two hotel beds in the room, we can come up with something. okay, cool.. you sure? Yeah, and it's less to pack. Let's go. (sigh) Freeeeek!

We all troop in the truck. I get relegated to the 'girl in the back seat' position while the guys sit up front and say stuff I can't hear unless I sit in the middle of the back seat and lean forward. Life is cool. We have a mostly uneventful drive down, except for the overturned tractor trailer that was really ugly that we had to sneak by the scene in one lane. However we made one critical error. You see, Wendy normally drives the Tahoe during the week since she has a shorter commute. Rob was in a hurry since the pharmacy was madness so he neglected to pack in some music he liked. I thought about it, but figured I knew better than to subject the guys to my music. I have no clue what Kevin was thinking. I guess he hoped that between Rob and I we'd have some decent music. oh dear. Luckily we had Da Vinci's Notebook which we all liked and that lasted us two hours. The rest of the CD's Wendy had kept in the storage compartment were.. um... er.. eclectic in nature and er.. not suited to long distance drives. I mean I like Lorenna McKennitt, but she just ain't great on the road when you are trying to stay awake. We were forced to listen to Elton John as background music during our conversations. We did arrive in all of our original pieces, so life was overall okay. Luckily our hotel was right off the exit and behind the Awful Waffle House, so breakfast the next morning was covered. We pile into the hotel room, take one look at the beds, and poor Roland is stuck sharing with me. Eh, we are adults, we survived. I don't think he had contact with my cold ass at night.

We wake the next morning to a rainy day. I roll over. Rob, you get the first shower. Kevin is still snoozing like a hibernating bear. We have to order more of the special exfoliating hotel towels, because under the best circumstances the three of us couldn't share two bath towels. We are finally showered and ready for breakfast. We might make it to the event by 11, sha-right! It snows during breakfast at the Waffle House where Kevin was foolish enough to order the coffee and rained by the time we loaded back into the truck to troop off to the event, which was blissfully ten minutes away, if that much.

We arrive on site and have the madness at troll. You see, we had four reserved spaces for the three of us, but only one of the original four had actually arrived. I took one person's place, Kev took the other, and the fourth was a donation to the Barony. The lady working troll was very patient with us and we finally got checked in and got our cool cast feast tokens. Time to unload, dress and start the day.

I pile my stuff into the changing room and start the dressing process. Those who thought they would get a play by play, forget it, but I did run into sweet Adriana (Drea) and we got to chatting whilst we did our business. It was so good to see friends and people. Emer came in to brush her teeth, but I refuse to curtsey to the Queen in the john when she's got a toothbrush in her mouth. Good to know she has great dental hygiene. :) I finally take my bags back out to the truck to switch and retrieve my basket and cloak. Of course the truck is locked so I have to bring my stuff back in and find the keys in the bottom of Roland's stuff. It was just one of those days, and it was back to a rainy stage of the day. Eh.

Finally it is approaching noon and I am finally dressed and bedecked and my hair is done, and sheesh, now I know why I'm not high maintence in the mundane world! I couldn't handle this much effort everyday. I walk about the hall, or perimeter of the list field since they had wisely decided to fight indoors and met all sorts of old friends to talk to. I swear I spent the entire day just hanging out and seeing old friends. I got to catch up with Shrew and ask her a leather question, and pick up a delivery for Sorcha, who decided to bail out. I got a present from Qaylah to pass off to Mel, who also bailed. I ran into Izzy and Liam and we caught up on old times/current stuff. I miss her so much, she's one crazy chicka. Izzy and Adriana and I just sat around for a good part of the day and chatted and were slightly snarky, and went to the Queen's Tea, and stayed out of the way of others, as much as possible. I also got to hang some with Eorann and the baby Olafsson, Sarah, at some parts during the day. I had a blast. Even talking with my autocrat for KA&SFest was cool, to get on the same page. He's gonna do great. I have faith.

Then came court, when Kev realized that his clean tunic was back at the hotel. Trying to recover from a cold was not going to be helped by standing around in his soaking gambeson, so Roland took him back to the hotel room to change. It's really all for the best since I got to sit beside him at feast. :) Court was a bit long, but who cares. Feast was pretty cool, with lots of meat for this reformed vegetarian. We laughed, we cried, I put my Bubbles doll on the table for the judging of the table setting competition. Chatted with Emer and her girls, ate a ton, had a great server, although his name escapes me now, and on the whole had a great time. Kevin's little sister Genevieve got up and sang for Emer before the feast was served and was rewarded with a lovely ring for her song. She's a good kid. (She's only two years younger than I, but she's still a good kid.) I had the joy of making bread balls as ammo for Emer's table trebuchet for her assult on the Caer Galin kids. Life was good.

Then the farce picked back up as Corby took the wrong feast basket home. I'm not quite sure where the boy's mind was, but he looked in the basket that was beside Roland's stuff, and wondered who put their Cherry Coke in his basket, removed the offending soda, picked up the basket and took it to the truck. On his way out he yelled at Izzy that she wasn't stealing another one of his hats and promptly left that too. Now when you look at Corby's basket it is large, unstained and inside it looks like his device has puked green and gold all over the place with the green feast gear, and a yellow with crows table runner. Sweet Roland's basket is smaller, stained and smooth, and had the feast gear packed in plastic bags, as well as the offending cherry coke. They were also in completely different places. Let's just call it a blonde moment and be done. Luckily Izzy and Liam were staying at the same place dear Corby was, so Roland exchanged info with them so they could bring his basket back to Blacksburg when they went the fighter practice on Sunday. We sat and listened to Uncle Loric's "Little Archer Buddy" story before we all pack back up, thank the other Lady Adriana for a great event, and head back to our hotel. There were the "No shit there we were stories" back at the hotel as we sprawled on the beds talking into the wee hours. I gotta love my boys.

The next morning is pretty much like the first only we need to check out and the bright sun is making us crawl back under the covers further. Bright light! Bright light!! We order more towels, we eat breakfast, Kevin avoids the waffle house coffee and after visiting the KA&SFest site with the autocrat to look over stuff, we decide to bag going to the fighter practice and get real coffee/cappuchino, Snow Monkey Plum Tea and italian soda from the coffe house-Bollo's, before meeting Genie and Jeremy in the Waffle House parking lot to retrieve Roland's feast basket from the thief and get back on the road.

This is where our lack of good music really hurts us. Normally Gen is content to babble away for 18 hours at a time, but I was wore out from the event. Too much excitement I guess. I snuggle down in the back seat buried under my cloak to snooze after contributing to the little bit of conversation. We went through the DVN CD's again and then were at a loss since none of us were talkative. Luckily Kevin found the Bryan Adams CD that was Rob's that Wendy had borrowed buried amongst the other weirdo music selection. I think we listened to it three times in a row thanks to the repeat function.

Canadian Representative: Our government has apologized for Bryan Adams on numerous occasions!

So, Bryan Adams saved us from certain death and boredom, Roland's feast basket finally made it back into his safe hands, Adriana Broussard told Izzy and I a story about Yusef's tale of 200 monkeys, feast didn't suck, and all was well.

"I like Monkeys!"--- Did you just call him a monkey?

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