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Veteran's Day and an Etiquette Question
2002-07-28 - 4:14 a.m.
Absolute Last Chance
This story needs assistive aids in the form of pictures... there's quite a few of them.. I hope no one minds...
This is how it all started... I was a duck, swimming in my pond without a care in the world, all the fish and what have you that I could want, and then the gods intervened... what hateful spiteful beings that they are.....
The day started like a typical Saturday in July in Petersburg, hot. I mean really hot... like 97 degrees with a head index of 101 hot, with about 1000% humidity but it wasn't quite raining. It was SO humid, you could SEE the air. Not good.
I did my impression of a duck and thanks to the professionalism and hard work of the event staff, I looked damn good.
We all made it through the first 17 authorizations without a hitch, we had enough people on site to make the event, and in spite of the heat, everyone seemed to be having a good time.
Towards the middle of the day, the humidity died down and it was just hot, rather than hot and humid. That was a bonus.
We had a couple of people from one local newspaper show up one to do an interview and take a few pictures and one just to take pictures. Both were very impressed with the SCA in general and I'm sure the pictures will be nothing short of incredible.
While the heavy fighters had abandoned the large field due to ufb's (unidentified flying bugs); once the authorizations were done, they were back on the field a few hours later when someone discovered they were just very large japanese beetles looking for a little "fun in the sun"... evidently, they were long overdue for a little lust in the dust and we were getting in their way. Once we decided to peacefully co-exist with the june bugs, life got simpler. Well, sort of.
As I said, everything was going along swimmingly.... and then.. it happened.
It rained. It was just a short summer rain, hard enough to get everyone good and wet, but nothing we weren't happy to get. No one seemed to be bothered by it in the slightest, which I think offended some God or Goddess somewhere, that can be the only explanation.
Folks hung around through the little storm, talking and rehashing some of the fighting on the large field, and decided to resume the fighting once the rain had stopped (by then the June bugs were less of a problem too, thanks to the rain)....but noooooooo, the gods weren't quite finished with us yet. We were lulled into a false sense of security, since a small rainstorm wasn't enough to discourage us...The Gods and Goddesses hadn't had the last laugh, not by a long shot.
Oh, long about 4:00, people decided to start packing it in; can't say I blame them, most everyone was wet in one fashion or another; but to my own personal joy, both pavilions came through the little summer storm without a problem.. They were damp on the outside and dry as a bone on the inside. I was PROUD of myself. The job we had done on them was just awesome. Throughout the day, I had several compliments on both of them. Many people were flabbergasted that they were not purchased, but were made at home on our dining room table. It was SO cool. Memo to myself, don't ever let the gods see you proud of your accomplishments... it must really honk them off something fierce
I made my way to the MOL table and found that since it was in the lowest spot, all of the water from the previous small storm had collected there, and she sat there, surrounded by water, just working on her paperwork, really non-bothered by the whole process. We dubbed her the Lady of the Lake...someone even made mention of the Lady of The Lake rising her hand out of the silvery waters, holding an authorization card for some lucky individual... it was a very interesting image to say the least.
As we're putting things away, I notice the sky turning a shade of dark that I hadn't seen in a while. I made a comment that it looks like we're about to get more rain and someone cut me off, stating emphatically that it would not rain anymore. I shrugged my shoulders and then the rain started...
Just sprinkles at first, and very relaxing to say the least. We load up the truck with everything we brought to the event, except the pavilions and our gear that I had stowed along the fence...once the rain started, I headed for the personal stuff along the fence, thinking the pavilions would stay up til tomorrow, to give them a chance to dry out... seemed reasonable to me... and thankfully, most of the folks attending the event, had left. Then I heard this really strange sound, like children shuffling through leaves in the fall... I couldn't place it at first, until I looked to my right and noticed the tree tops swaying in more than a slight breeze, they were swaying back in forth in almost 90 degree angles... to say there was wind was an understatement.
I was heading towards the pavilion and saw the wind lapping around the canvas of our large pavilion. I got a nervous knot in the pit of my stomach, then the I realized why... the walls had come off the stakes and were whipping around freely in the wind... that shouldn't happen... such a very bad plan.. and I was on the other side of the fence in the middle of the parking lot. I knew there was no way in hell I'd get close enough fast enough to do anything to keep it up.... I didn't want to see what I knew was coming.. I turned my back to it, and covered my face from the wind and the steadily increasing rain. I turned back around a few minutes later, to watch the pavilion take a giant leap UP and a heave to the right. Down it went, spokes, canvas and all. I yelled the only word that came to mind (it rhymes with "duck" but isn't), fortunately, my words were drowned out in the monsoon that just just washed across the event site. People were scrambling to get dayshades down and paperwork covered when they saw my pitiful attempt at running to get to the pavilino... suddenly, it was like the cavalry... Everyone started running towards the pavilions.
Before I could say thank you, the one that blew down was released from the center pole, and people were busily trying to get the canvas and poles in some semblance of order, and the minilino was taken down faster that I could blink. While one group wrestled with the wind, the rain and the canvas of the pavilino, another group managed to laugh in the face of the wind, the rain and the canvas.. while we were lucky to get the pavilino canvas in the truck without seriously injuring IT or anyone who helped, the rest of the cavalry was busy folding the canvas of the minilino like it was sunny day and we weren't all soaked to the bone and in a torrential rain and wind storm. My love backed the truck up to the fence, and we handed over the completely soaked pavilino... someone commented that it looked like a body ready for medflight... it was pretty close, that's for sure.. and then they handed over this really neat and tidy little bundle of canvas that was the minilino, all neatly folded to perfection.
We drove the two miles to our house with the rest of our household in a van behind us. They helped us unload everything but the tables (they were underneath everything.. of course, and had to be returned.)
We got to the house and got everything but the tables unloaded when some of the cavalry showed up in search of towels. That seemed like a reasonable request, so we invited everyone inside....to a dark house.... I don't mean we had left the lights off dark, I mean the lights had gone out dark.
I fumbled around and found some towels for them all to use to dry off and change into dry clothes. While my love changed clothes, he called the co-op and got a fast busy, telling us the power outage wasn't because of a clerical error(they've done it before); but due to something weather related.
It was raining so hard at one point, that I swear I saw animals pairing up and people were looking for gopherwood. It wasn't as bad as Kingdom 20 year, but it was competitive.
Folks got dry, my love and I got dry, and then we conned the cavalry into following us back to the Red Cross to bring them their tables.
We unloaded the tables and then the cavalry went their separate ways, their good deeds done and everything back to "normal," the household and my love and I went out to dinner (Pizza Hut); rehashed the day and then we went home to our dark dark house.
We finally managed to get in touch with the co-op and were told that there was a massive outage, because a "phase 3 transformer pole 'broke' during the storm." We were assured we'd have power "sometime" tonight. I was so tired by then, I just didn't care.
I found my way to the bedroom, picked up the puppy (she was very whiny and in pain... I think the damp and cold gives her aches), all three of us snuggled under the warm inviting covers and I think we were asleep before we even knew what hit us (and this was like 7:30).
Around 11:30 or so, the lights came back on, we woke up, blinked, noticed, turned off lights and went back to sleep, to sleep the sleep of the just and truly exhausted.
Of course, it's now 5:00AM and I'm wide awake, but that's okay.
Several people made it a point to tell me they enjoyed themselves and that the event was a good idea. We even made a tiny profit, which is always good for an event.
In short, it was a good day, hotter than the hinges of hell in July at one point, and wetter than most ducks enjoy on a normal day, but all in all, it was good. There were people there I hadn't seen in months (%%puck-eater%% for one, who was part of the cavalry), so I'd say the event was a success. That's great! I had a great event staff, and they all did their jobs so incredibly well, all I had to do was enjoy the event and accept the compliments and positive thoughts.... and I found time to do a little shopping.. I bought three items to be included in my pennsic wardrobe.
For those who came... Thank you. You helped make the event another success.
To those who helped... and even bigger thank you. The event would not have been as wonderful as it was without your assistance... in short, I couldn't have done it without all of you.
To my love: In short, you ROCK.
To the members of my household: Thank you for showing me what being in a household is really like. I didn't have a want the entire day that wasn't taken care of immediately. I felt like royalty. You all are the picture of absolute perfection! I adore you all. I'm going back to sleep now.... my weather bug just announced another heat advisory for today, about temperatures in the 101 degree mark, telling folks to stay indoors. We *have* to get them up to dry out, so hopefull we can get started on that by like 9, then we'll be done by 10 or 11, if we can get the larger one up, (it weighs a ton.. they had to let it drain on the back of the tailgate when we got it home, because it was so wet, water was pouring off.
Please don't forget to answer my survey... it's research for a small business idea... all comments appreciated, no reasonable offer refused!!! It won't take five minutes, I PROMISE!
