kellan_the_tabby | Southern Region, and thing

Well, what with one thing and another...

I mentioned Lewis's issues with wandering the French Quarter last Tuesday after he'd checked out of the hotel...in the course of finding a mall to buy a book, he happened upon the art museum, which had a lot of really cool stuff (none of which I remember, as he told me about them that night while I tried desperately to sleep). So at least he got to hang out and look at neat things for a couple hours.

He got home around eight, I think, which was just as I was finishing the July paperwork packet. Now all we have to do is August, and the external process will be caught up.

I didn't sleep well that night, though. I'm not going to go into a lot of detail, but most of the week was spent either in the midst of, or recovering from, a huge miscommunication issue with one of my lovers. It's all resolved now, but things were Highly Exciting for a while. I'm afraid I also spent quite a while angsting at

giselle0002 who was very patient with me.

On top of which it was Swim Club Week at work and things were pretty busy. I managed to get enough done that they were okay with me taking Thursday _and_ Friday, but it was a close thing. I packed Thursday (taking most of the day, fairly deliberately, and taking the opportunity for a long relaxing lunch out) and got up to the site in the evening.

Setup went pretty quickly despite Lewis taking several event-related calls on his cell phone; we'd helped one of the Shire ladies whose name I unfortunately cannot remember to put up her tent, so she helped me out while Lewis was busy. We hung out for a while, waiting for

giselle0002 and her kids, but after she called to say they'd gotten out of the house late we went out for food with Geno and Lisa and the kids. Well..tried. Nothing was open, so we went back to the Homestead and ate pizza and Oreos instead. Oh, and I had some rum and did my Captain Jack Sparrow imitation.

Friday I was fairly useless, I'm afraid...though I did manage to help Derek out on his Friday errand-running and purchasing of more food for Sunday breakfast. Along the way Lewis called to request the purchase of 100 feet of clothesline, four S-hooks, and a 1x3x8 board. Given the people in the car, that rapidly turned into 100 feet of shoreline, four ass-hooks, and a piece of wood...

Later in the afternoon I helped a couple of merchants by walking their bored husky so he wouldn't be a complete noodge while they set up. That was pretty fun - he was sweet once he 1) realized that the person walking him was neither Momma _nor_ Daddy, and 2) worked off enough energy to actually be friendly. Dropped him off with his people just as the phone rang, and headed off to Cristoff's Tree to have a long and fairly important conversation with someone.

Friday night Lewis and I went out to the diner just to get offsite for a bit. He wound up at Troll drinking scotch with Ellesbeth, and I sat in the hall for a while listening to the musicians, then headed to Adhemar's camp, whence I failed to go to bed for several hours before finally making it that far.

Saturday...well, I guess I was really fairly useless most of the weekend *sigh*. Woke up late, showered, got breakfast from Candy. Frotzed around most of the afternoon. There were just too many people and too many things pulling me in all directions to really be able to keep up...I don't know what it is, but I'm having more and more trouble with being around a lot of people. I need to do something about that but damned if I know what.

In any case, I found distraction in a litter of seven-week-old husky puppies...they were absolutely the _cutest_ ever and I had a lot of fun snuggling them and playing with them. One of them barked at me, and was awfully surprised when I barked back. They're just learning the concept of walking on a leash (with much protestation) and I tried taking the little girl for a walk. It wound up being more of an intermittent drag, punctuated by loud and pitiful whining and me giving up and carrying her. She _did_ walk about halfway back on her own (with encouragement and much praise) but then decided that she was pooped, so I carried her the rest of the way back. She cuddles good. I want a dog.

Maybe a half-hour before court Adhemar hailed me and asked if I wanted to make loud boom-noises. *grin* He'd brought three of his handgonnes, so I helped haul things up to the big space next to the archery range and learned how to fire a handgonne. It's reasonably stupidly easy and the lack of moving parts makes me feel much more confident about those than about an arquebus. Safety is (as always with black powder) something to think about but the precautions are pretty easy to follow. I wasn't the only one learning - he let a bunch of people try it out. It was fun and apparently quite a few people were amused by me bouncing every time I shot one. :)

The last one we had time to shoot was me and Adhemar and Jonathan Carver - we tried to set them all off at once. Jonathan and I were almost spot-on and Adhemar lagged behind by no more than a second or two - it was grand.

Found Lewis just before Court with the Naproxen - he apparently took a pole shot to the back of his neck or shoulder, which tossed him into Tanaka, who wasn't hurt at all, but Lewis's back and neck were pretty bad. At least this time it wasn't a knee.

Court was long but bearable. Kelson and Genev-thingy (I can _so_ not remember how to spell her name) run a good court. Ernst, I think, was a bit crispy but made it through. A bunch of locals and other deserving people I know got awards, and only two things were given out which annoyed me.

Dinner by Candy, again, then hanging out at Adhemar's for hours with port and much laughter. Went to bed, slept reasonably.

Woke up _really_ late Sunday. Ate some breakfast. Got our stuff packed up with some help from

tiernanredwolfe and

giselle0002. Took a brief break to shoot Adhemar's last seven cartridges - got Lewis to come over and try it, which he enjoyed, and scared hell out of a couple of poor innocent Ukies. They didn't seem to mind so much once they hit the ground again so we didn't feel too bad.

Dropped the stuff off at the house with help from

tiernanredwolfe. Which freed the van up for loading it with Shire stuff once we returned - I was much more useful by then and helped a bunch with cleaning and packing. Ellesbeth and

tiernanredwolfe and I went to the Shire storage place to dump it off, and met Lewis for dinner.

Got home, stuck sheets in washer, stuck sheets in dryer. Lewis wanted to go to bed about forty-five minutes before the sheets were dry. So I covered half the futon with a blanket, which he promptly passed out on. Once the sheets were done I got to make the bed _around_ him, rolling him around as appropriate, because I just _could_ not get him to wake up. But I managed, and I think I was asleep within ten minutes of my head hitting the pillow.

Of course, one van-trip down to the storage place wasn't enough, so Beth and

tiernanredwolfe and I headed up again yesterday. I hauled a couple of sets of metal shelves out of the basement, and we picked up two sets of the big butch plastic shelves at Home Despot, and wedged as much stuff into the van as we could.

Turns out there was more to transport than we'd expected, since there was still a bunch of canvas and tent poles from a tent that Ben had given to the Shire...so we went up _again_ today. Killed most of both days and gave us all a variety of aches, but now nearly all the Shire belongings are in the storage site, and somewhat organized. One can actually now go through stuff in there without having to pull it all out first. Roseann will be getting it _really_ organized during Pennsic, so we left her a bit of a surprise which I hope she doesn't kill us for. No, nothing scary. :)

So now it's Tuesday night, the house is still full of _our_ event stuff since I haven't had time or energy to clean, and there's still lots to do...but it's a week and a half until Pennsic and I'll manage. Then I get to sit down for a while.