flashback
November 30, 2011
Running to get into a low, rumbling muscle car after buying a couple of 40-ouncers felt just like being a teenager again.
Our friend has been working for years on rebuilding his 1971 Road Runner, and while it’s still a work in progress, it’s finally back on the road. Just look at that gorgeous front end. I kind of want to marry it.
Posted by jodi on November 30, 2011 at 7.43am
labour day weekend at pinery provincial park
September 6, 2011
Obligatory beach/sunset photos:
Posted by jodi on September 6, 2011 at 9.43am
the good idea book (pennsic edition)
August 18, 2011
I have a habit of carrying more than one notebook at once, writing down important reminders or excellent ideas and then forgetting where they are, eventually forgetting they ever existed at all. While queued at Troll to get into Pennsic, I pulled one such notebook out of my purse in hopes of finding our trailer’s license plate number written there, as we needed to provide it, have completely failed to memorize it, and had left the trailer behind at the hotel. The number was there right on the first page along with other notes about things in Windsor I wanted to go back and photograph, dated July 24 2009 (whoops, are those things still there, I wonder?).
Further page-flipping revealed a forgotten to-do list for Pennsic XXXIX (that’s 2010, for the non-nerds), detailed notes on F-stops and whatnot for a roll of film shot in 2009 that is still sitting unprocessed in the fridge, recipes I have yet to try, and various other small shames. None of which, of course, stopped us from filling up a few more pages with new ideas we came up with this year. Let’s see if putting them here will make the difference in whether any of them come to fruition (no, I won’t be looking back through this journal for forgotten ideas, because yes of course it’s full of them. Thinking is faster than doing).
Since we had SO MANY GOOD IDEAS (hah), today is just for Pennsic related good ideas: improvements to our camp setup, silly Pennsic projects and at least one absurdly huge life-changing dream project.
-Okay, right off the bat, good idea #1 is not necessarily Pennsic related, but: in the event that our dear friend Ghita were to become queen of the Middle Kingdom, we’d need to find silly ways to celebrate that in style, and there’s always a chance it could happen at Pennsic. So: Midrealm Royal Grilled Cheese Party. Wherein we will create hot irons in the shape of a dragon (Middle Kingdom badge) and a jaguar spot (emblem of Gh.’s consort, Ix) with which to stamp our sandwiches, which will be cut in four because that’s classy, yo. If it never comes to pass that our dear Gh. gets to bask in the royal attention she so richly deserves, well then, we’ll just have a grilled cheese party in celebration of something else, because the sandwich branding thing is obviously going to be amazing.
-Bog Bingo: bingo cards containing common sights and sounds of our neighbourhood (The Bog, obviously). Things like men walking by shirtless in SHORT kilts (Catholic schoolgirl short), a whole raft of fake accents (English, Scots, and Pirate being probably the most common), Scotland the Brave played on bagpipes, people running around warning of tornadoes that never materialize, references to famous people who are rumoured to be part of the Great Dark Horde, people walking around in nothing but their underpants. Et cetera.
-a Scrabble board embroidered on fabric that we could roll up for travel. This is actually one of those forgotten ideas from about 15 years ago that we resurrected for this year’s list. I will probably sew this on the machine rather than by hand to ensure another 15 years don’t go by before we can play.
-this one is very important: get a shower cap so that my delicate curly hair never, ever has to touch the horribly iron-rich Cooper water ever again. After 18 years at Pennsic I’ve finally figured out that I could save myself a lot of grief and frizz and just wash in bottled drinking water.
-start using oil lamps on the dining table instead of candles, to avoid the wax mess everywhere. We’ve already started implementing this one by purchasing a lovely ceramic oil lamp from a Pennsic merchant.
-further to the oil lamps idea: build a small folding table the same height and width as a picnic table that can be set at one end and hold all of the candelabra, which we still want for ambiance even though we’re tired of the mess. This table can get waxy as all get-out, we don’t care. I might add a shelf below to hold the spare candles as well as all of the decks of playing cards we like to keep out but which clutter up the dining area. For reference: the picnic table we used this year was 84cm (33″) high, 71cm (28″) wide.
-from last year’s list of abandoned projects, I still want to produce a broadside that we can distribute as a fun alternative to the Pennsic newspaper; called The Bog Standard. This might not happen because of our next idea, which is HUGE:
-create a Pennsic-based environment for a Zelda-like game. Yup, huge. This is one of those ideas that is fun to get totally into planning while on vacation but doesn’t fit practically into real life afterwards, but serendipity and networking are already on our side. Peter, Claire and I spent many hours working with one of our campmates on ideas for this, so stay tuned. Provided it doesn’t fizzle, I’ll create a separate category for updates on this project. Right now all we have are pages and pages of notes and a line on some software. Also: in our game the Pennsic newspaper will be called The Bog Standard.
-Peter needs a white linen hood with a cowl that he can throw on to protect his neck from the sun on hot days. I will make that hood this year and next Pennsic will be mostly overcast and cool because that is how things work.
-we need to put a few stitches in the decorative dagging around the edge of our pavilion roof to prevent them from flipping upside down so often. This one will get done on Labour Day weekend while the pavilion is set up at Pinery Provincial Park (because we want to camp in ostentatious style even when it’s only for three days, folks).
-also for the pavilion, we want to find some onion dome shaped wooden finials we can put on top of all of the wall poles.
-some notable items missing from our kitchen kit: spatula, measuring cups and spoons, lemon juicer, wire strainer, potato masher. This is pretty far from wilderness camping, in case you didn’t figure that out already.
-for next year, a reminder: after crossing the border, if we stop in the Kroger in Detroit and pick up some groceries then we can wait until the first rest stop on the Ohio Turnpike to eat a healthy lunch of whatever we want instead of stopping like we usually do at the Iron Skillet (ugh) near Toledo, where the only thing on the menu I can eat is a baked potato. Holy crap you guys, I’m really looking forward to not eating that baked potato already.
Posted by jodi on August 18, 2011 at 8.41pm
hoss’s buffalo chicken macaroni and cheese
August 17, 2011
It’s exactly as good, or as bad, as it sounds.
Posted by jodi on August 17, 2011 at 7.01am
saturday
August 14, 2011
This is the day when vacation gets dismantled, packed away in trailers and driven home.
Posted by jodi on August 14, 2011 at 12.31pm
new from old
August 12, 2011
If you know me at all then you’ll know just how wacky this is right here: I went to Pennsic for fifteen days and did not bring along any knitting or sewing projects. I KNOW! Okay, that little orange sock with the two broken bamboo needles was in my satchel, but that was for in the car only (okay, also for waiting in line at Herald’s Point that one time and also for during a class Peter and I attended on making mustards, because those times are Idle Hands Times which are in no way the same as Projects Times, right?). Also I did not bring anything to read other than the WFTDA rule book (ugh. . . does there really need to be an entire section on Blocking With The Head detailing all the ways in which it is not okay to block with the head at all, when it could just say “Blocking With The Head: DON’T”?).
So, what did I bring to occupy my time, most of which is spent in camp since I’m too lazy to go anywhere and do anything at Pennsic? Drawings. Lots and lots of drawings, of which I worked on a good few, one in particular which may finally be about to turn the corner from AWFUL to FINISHED. I’m not going to show you those yet, because they’re still awful. But here’s the other thing I worked on: two of the drawings were stapled onto plywood boards so that they can be worked with multiple layers of wet drawing materials and still remain flat. One of those boards was the back side of a block from that ill-fated larger-than-life self portrait I started way back in my first semester of graduate school. Because drawing is a solitary activity for me and one cannot spend one’s entire vacation sitting inside the tent drawing while one’s friends are outside having social times, I also brought along a set of knives so that I could flip the drawing over and cut on the block while chilling around the camp dining room with my House Redhair homies.
This 24 x 36″ block has been cut into and printed quite a few times, and at the moment consists of a section of a figure completely covered with thin chatter lines, with rougher chatter marks in the background. I’m cutting away all but a grid of 1″ circles, so that what little will remain of the existing image can be printed as polka-dots on fabric.
The wood is the cheapest, most difficult to cut plywood you can get, either pine or fir, because that’s all I could afford in my first year of grad school. Now I dream of Shina and buy birch, which is still hard to cut but not nearly as split-tastic as the pine. But because I can’t waste old work, I’m dulling my blades on this old block one last time, taking the wood right down to the middle layer so it’ll print nice and clean (hah! like I ever print anything cleanly).
These are going to be some janky-assed polka dots.
Posted by jodi on August 12, 2011 at 7.26am
XXXX XL
August 10, 2011
Every year the Pennsic number is mowed into the slope of Mount Eislinn. This year, the 40th Pennsic, someone mowed “XXXX” into the hillside and then had to go back later and correct it to “XL”. Oops.
Posted by jodi on August 10, 2011 at 12.09pm
on the road
August 3, 2011
Near Toledo.
Posted by jodi on August 3, 2011 at 5.52am
summer holiday
July 30, 2011
Yesterday was the first test run of scheduling posts for future publication in wordpress; today is the second. If you’re seeing this and you saw the Chicken Lady yesterday, then all is good!
The picture above is a wholly inaccurate illustration of what goes on the first Saturday of Pennsic War. How the day actually goes is something like this:
-arrive at The Barn at 8am and grab a cup of watery coffee;
-stand around in the already hot sun scanning the growing crowd for the Land Agents of the other groups camping in our block (about six or seven groups this year);
-marvel at how the same people as always are there, some of them wearing the same wacky uniform they always wear (I should get a photo for y’all sometime of the lady who dresses head to toe in about seventeen different colours of camouflage);
-wait a Very Long Time for the last Land Agent to show up (I’m not saying who that is but it’s usually the same person every year who is late);
-draw campsite boundaries on seven copies of a map of the block of land we’re sharing with these groups, based on the square footage allotment given us according to how many have pre-registered to camp with our group
-sign every map (but not before arguing a bit about whether we’re supposed to use our Real Name or Fake Name) (no I’m serious);
-crowd around the barn opening at 9:00 in order to be lectured in a condescending manner by people who think we are stupid;
-run in a group to try and get to the front of a confusingly roped off queue that snakes through the barn in a different pattern each year just to keep us all guessing;
-make it to the front of the line, hand over our maps, receive cards and stickers and temporary parking passes which will allow us to bring our vehicles off of the Battlefield and down the hill to our campsites;
-leave the line and then realize that someone in our group doesn’t have enough parking passes for all of their cars, and bumble around in confusion asking for more passes, counting and re-counting everyone’s cars until it’s all sorted;
-make haste to the Battlefield, pile into cars (for some this means breaking camp as well, as many people sleep on the Battlefield next to their cars on Friday night) (we, having done this for too many bloody years already, have taken to spending Friday night in a hotel so as not to be kept awake all night by obnoxious revelers) (oh, just saying that makes me feel SO OLD and also like a fuddy-duddy);
-spend up to an hour waiting in a bottleneck of cars all trying to get off the Battlefield and into camp proper;
-drive down the hill to our block, where we now have to measure and mark off for real those boundaries we drew on our maps;
-talk for an hour about how to configure our camp;
-unload vehicles, set up pavilions, set up carport tents for the kitchen and dining room, perform the magic that transforms our campmate’s trailer into a shower platform, set up the shower, set up the kitchen, set up set up everything, all of course contingent on how quickly the neighbouring group unloads their storage trailer, which remains on site year round and in which we rent space for our kitchen and dining tents and our things always seem to be the most buried in their trailer because of course they are;
-get everything to the point where we can throw tarps over whatever isn’t finished, usually sometime after what would be our normal suppertime, then leave it all and drive into Grove City;
-traditional family supper at Hoss’s Steak and Sea, which for my family means struggling to get enough protein off the quality of salad bar you’d expect to find at a place called “Hoss’s”;
-get back to camp after dark, realize we don’t know where any of the candles are and didn’t set up the tiki torches, fumble for lights;
-rest, take off shoes, open a can of Guinness (if you are Thorvald), Mountain Dew (if you are Tarl), or bottle of water (if you are Peter, Claire and I).
Sunday:
-build a wall of 2x2s and rope and sheets;
-assemble our gate (another, slightly nicer carport tent), hang our sign and our heraldry;
-drive into Lyndora for food and supplies which also includes the first of many lunches at Rey Azteca, the only good Mexican restaurant anywhere near Pennsic;
-return to camp, put away groceries, finish setting up kitchen, finish setting up whatever else isn’t done yet, be too tired to make supper;
-while away the evening discussing all of the work that still needs to be done.
Monday:
-start having a holiday. But only if there’s no more work to do (realistically, we usually don’t actually build the wall or put up the gate until Monday; doing it on Sunday is just always my ambition).
Posted by jodi on July 30, 2011 at 3.03pm
yet another riveting video
May 31, 2011
In which we take our new car (whose name is Keisuke! because it’s a Honda! get it?) through a car wash for the first time. This was shot with the Harinezumi digital in Atlanta, Georgia, February 2011.
If you crank up the sound you can hear Peter chatting in the front seat with The ESC about the joys of going through a car wash with a dog in the car. Also, please note the stickers on the wall on the way out of the car wash: Keep Christ in Christmas, and Alabama Crimson Tide. Can I get a hell yeah?
Posted by jodi on May 31, 2011 at 2.35pm
