[Major Tom is meatloafed in the cat stroller, one forepaw tucked underneath him, the other stretched out in front. His lovely amber eyes are half-open, ears and whiskers alert.]
Yes, this is still all about al-Barran Champions! Look, there’s been stuff.
Possibly Tom wore himself out with all the shouting Friday, because halfway through Saturday he settled down enough that he was willing to spend most of the afternoon in the stroller. It was very pleasant, & also MUCH quieter.
[A closer view of his handsome face. His eyes are gently closed.]
He napped a lot, even when the local pack of trans kids decided to spend the afternoon in my booth trying to set things on fire. (You know you’re the Cool Grownup when … )
I took him for a couple walks in the stroller, too, just to get him out & about some, & maybe used to all the noise & bother. He did okay, but didn’t want to go too far from the booth.
But mostly, he napped.
[Tom has flopped over to sleep on his side, head resting against the edge of the stroller.]
& best of all, we had cuddles. Tom’s rarely in the mood to hold paws for long, so this was extra-precious.
I love my great big tomcat.
[A very close view: one of Major Tom’s forepaws is resting on my finger. His toes are curled just a tiny bit, because he was holding on.]
He’s so very good. He’s the goodest.
originally posted on Patreon; support me over there to see posts a week early!
[My booth! It’s in a popup with a blue roof tucked under a big pinon pine tree, with more trees all around. There’s a table on each side, with shelves holding various products. In front on the left is a good-sized wire cat crate covered in a grey and brown patchwork wool blanket with a cat bed on top; Loiosh is curled up in the bed, and Tom is just visible in the crate. On the right is a set of shelves holding a couple of wooden boxes, and next to that is a dark blue cat stroller.]
Mom wanted pictures of the booth, so I took pictures of the booth. It looks … more or less like it usually does, which is nice; it had been so long I was worried I’d forgotten how to do the thing. But it went quick & looked just fine.
[A set of wooden shelves on a table. There are display boxes of soap in front of the shelves, and also on each shelf. Off to the right, on the white tablecloth, are a selection of pride flag pins.]
The soap! I had to mess around with the spacing on those shelves a BUNCH before I could fit the signs without blocking anything too much. Of course I’m going to be replacing them with folding shelves pretty soon, & I don’t think those are NEAR as easy to adjust as these shelves …
[A broad double set of shelves takes up the entire width of the other table. Purple display boxes hold a variety of tins, jars, and bottles. A rainbow pride flag hangs behind.]
Similar futzing here. Not sure what to do with that empty shelf, although if I’d remembered the big bottles there would have been things to go there. Next time!
I was RIGHT next to the A&S display, & that was AWESOME, I got time to actually LOOK at everything. One lady had supplies to make the easiest Turkish spindle imaginable, so now I have that, plus a tuft of wool & and a NICE little bowl for supported spinning.
[The spindle consists of a pencil-width dowel that’s been sharpened on one end, probably with a pencil sharpener, plus four colored popsicle sticks, paired off and held around the stick by tiny binder clips. Next to that sits a small white ceramic bowl holding a goodly hunk of grey wool.]
One guy had made his own composite bow, horn and wood glued together, and arrows to go with it. There was some BEAUTIFUL Turkish (I think?) garb. One lady has done a CRAPTONNE of research into Roman cosmetics AND THEN went & made a whole bunch, & was offering people makeovers. SO MUCH COOL STUFF. I wish I’d remembered to bring my phone over, but, welp.
[A flat rock, roughly a foot across, with a small pile of partly-burned twigs, matches, and pine needles. A hand holding a lit match hovers over the whole business.]
The next day was me & my accompanying band of trans kids getting bored & trying to make a tiny fire so they could smell how awesome juniper berries smell when you burn them. This would have been far more effective if anything at all had been willing to stay on fire. On the other hand, apparently there was a burn ban, so it’s probably just as well. It was, at least, hilarious.
Also due to the burn ban, I made off with all the firewood various people brought & then left. A nice little haul!
[A pile of pine firewood. It’s a couple-three armloads, if you’ve got long arms. It’s sitting on the ground next to the van.]
The fun part was fitting it into the van. Especially fitting it into the van with enough room to lay the bed flat so I had somewhere to sleep on the way home. That was pretty tricky, ngl. But I managed it!
[The view from the back of the van, looking forward. The bed is just visible at the bottom of the shot, along with part of Loiosh’s butt. Forward of that is a veritable wall of stuff — shelves, a cat crate full of stock boxes, another set of shelves with the popup precariously perched on top, a long stick, and yet another set of shelves, this on its side atop the cat crate and stuffed full of firewood.]
It didn’t all fall down, but I do not know how.
I’d planned to stay until Monday, but most everyone had left by early Sunday afternoon, so I packed up & headed north. Not the whole way home — I NEEDED a Woods Day, so aimed to stop somewhere in the Carson National Forest off of 285 on the way north. Espanola’s mall wart has a parking lot I’ve slept in before, so I slept in it again, & anything past that is a later post.
originally posted on Patreon; support me over there to see posts a week early!
[Major Tom, a big grey tabby wearing a purple harness, is laying on his side in the grass, displaying vast tracts of pale belly. His forepaws are curled, mid-knead. A hand reaches down from above, dispensing belly pets. His expression is blissful.]
Once Tom started showing himself in the booth, he didn’t want to stop. He’d come out for just about anyone, demand love, & generally receive it.
[Tom’s rolled the other way, transported in the joy of a good belly rub.]
& if the people wouldn’t come to him, he’d go to them.
… as long as he was still pretty close to the booth.
[Tom’s standing just outside the booth, between two people who are only shown from about the waist down. One of them is leaning down to pet him, bracing themself on their walking stick. His tail is caught midlash, as it often is.]
& so went the war, Tom getting love, Loiosh getting love, me selling things, CJ having a WONDERFUL time at his first event, & so it went until Friday getting on towards evening, when a friend of mine wandered past the booth walking someone else’s dog. “Oh,” she said, “it’s just there’s a bear in Corvus, so we evacuated the children and animals.”
a WHAT, WHERE,
I camped right NEXT to Corvus two years ago. They’re pretty close to the middle of site. That was … not good.
[Tom’s turned to face the camera, though his back is still arched up into the petting fingers from above. He’s aimed perfectly to walk back on the other side of the walking stick, thus wrapping his leash around the bottom of the thing.]
Things escalated quickly from there. I’d shoved the boys into their crate at the first word of bears that close, & quickly pared down everything else to two small bags I could easily toss in with them, but past that, there wasn’t a lot I could do — merchants weren’t supposed to start breaking down until 8PM, & I don’t think it was later than maybe 6.
As someone who 1) had two snack-sized mammals to keep safe, 2) was close to the edge of site — there was the whole equestrian field between the booth & the edge of the woods, but bears are FAST, & 3) had a booth full of VERY interesting-smelling stuff, I had STRONG opinions about being required to wait several more hours to be allowed to pack down my stuff & shove it into the van. Word of the bear, by now several bears, was circulating, as such things do, & while panic will multiply the number of the enemy regardless of species, some of this was coming directly from people I knew well could keep their heads in a crisis.
I’d just given up on finding the merchant coordinator to ask permission, having decided to err on the side of seeking forgiveness, & set out to get a ride to the parking lot (having asked CJ & Lyssa to shove product into boxes in the meantime — bless you both!) when there was a whole lot of shouting & pointing. Up towards the equestrian field. Where there was, just at the edge of the woods, with nothing between it & my boys but a couple hundred yards of grass — & y’all, bears are FAST — a bear. A really, really BIG bear.
Nearly immediately the cry went up — To the King! To the King!
[Tom’s walking off the left side of the shot, blurry, and trailing his leash, which is, indeed, wrapped around the bottom of the walking stick. Only the one time, fortunately, but still: he’s a problem.]
Oh good, somebody in the back of my head said, the King will send his knights to slay the monster, & all will be well.
… look. I’ve read a WHOLE LOT of fantasy fiction in the course of my life.
ANYWAY I grabbed one end of the crate, CJ grabbed the other, & we BOOKED IT. There was a whole big crowd of people already there when we arrived, & we wormed our asses to the MIDDLE of it, because why YES I’m gonna put all those people between the bears & my boys.
The King didn’t send anyone to slay anything. The King, once everyone had gathered, explained that, what with one thing & another, the least bad idea they had (in consultation with the park rangers) was to evacuate site, let the park rangers chase off the bears overnight without having to worry about all the tasty people, & come back no earlier than 8 the next morning to pack stuff up.
Wheeee! Let’s evacuate nearly a thousand people, many of whom are disabled, down a one lane dirt road, starting just around sundown, with most of the cars parked a mile or so away, bears lurking around, & no evacuation plan whatsoever! What could possibly go wrong?
… it went TERRIFYINGLY smoothly. Yeah, a bunch of people bitched about a bunch of things, I heard about one(1) shouting match, traffic was slow, & not everyone COULD leave site, but people helped people pack up what they needed to, gave each other rides to the parking lots, calmed each other down, held each other’s dogs when they got too bouncy, paused to let other cars into traffic, told horrible jokes, changed tires, gave hugs, & helped those who’d drunk too much to leave or didn’t have anywhere to go to the center of camp where they could be kept safe for the night (guarded, so I hear, by the King’s knights, or at least a bunch of squires). One person, not too far from site & in possession of a pretty big fenced-in field, offered space for all the horses & their riders. Another, no more than an hour away, someone who hadn’t even GONE to Battlemoor, housed probably upwards of a dozen people in her small home. & so on. & so on.
Y’all THIS is community. THIS is how it’s SUPPOSED to work. For those of you who know what I’m talking about, it was a little slice if Terramagne right here in this shitpile dimension we’re all stuck in. I’m sitting here crying as I type, because THIS is what ALL of us need to be doing, not just in the SCA but EVERYWHERE, & it was SO good to see it happening.
Anyway, what with one thing & another, we got everything but the tents & booth furniture into the van, got Ivar on the road, got Megan some help with packing up HER booth (& kept Alexx safely in with the boys for a while), & headed out. CJ stayed at the nearby Love’s truck stop (which I hear became basically the postrevel spot); I had to head home, because the van is still more mouse-laden than I wanted to be sleeping in.
I’d planned to head back down the next day to finish packing up, but my legs didn’t want me standing, much less moving. CJ got everything turn down & packed up, then went on to help a bunch of other people with their camps before heading him. I owe both him & Lyssa a LOT; you two rock!
& thus endeth Battlemoor Whichever Number That Was, henceforth to be known as The One With The Bears.
originally posted on Patreon; support me over there to see posts a week early!
[Major Tom, a big grey tabby, is hunkered down behind one of my display boxes in the booth. He’s got one forepaw stretched out in front of himself, and the tip of his tongue is sticking out. My hand is resting on the table in front of him, forefinger tipped slightly up in hopes of a boop.]
Towards the middle of Battlemoor Tom realized that there was room on top of the tables for a tomcat. So, of course, he started spending time on top of the tables.
The ideal spot was right behind a display box, usually, & with part of himself tucked under the bottom shelf. Perfect for petting, sheltered enough he couldn’t be grabbed.
[He’s settled, a bit, and is sniffing one of the shelf uprights, preparatory to giving it a good headrub.]
He marked everything in the vicinity, of course — with his front end; SO glad he stopped spraying when I got him fixed — & left little dirty cat pawprints on the white silk tablecloths.
[He’s turned his head, and is now rubbing his face against the price sign on the display box in front of him. A couple of dirty little pawprints are visible past him, under the table.]
Having claimed everything in sight, including me, it was, apparently, time to settle.
[He’s flopped now, both forepaws out in front of himself. He looks very pleased with his life.]
& then, it was time for a love.
[His head is stuck out, resting on one of my fingers, while the others give him a good chin scritch. One eye is wide open, the other is squinched halfway shut; his whiskers are perked forwards while his ears stick out at various angles. He is extremely happy.]
Then there were customers, which is how this goes.
originally posted on Patreon; support me over there to see posts a week early!
[Loiosh, an orange tabby, is sitting on the top layer of the double decker cat bed, which is in turn, sitting on the van’s passenger seat. He’s looking out to the front, whiskers perked.]
The boys were both SO EXCITED.
Loiosh expressed this by staring forward, then napping on my lap for hours.
Major Tom expressed this by hunkering up between the front seats & shouting a lot.
I didn’t manage to get any pictures of Tom that weren’t blurry, alas.
[Loiosh is now in the lower level of the double decker cat bed, neatly flopped, with one forepaw stretched out to rest on a five gallon jug of water sitting in the footwell. His head is dragging low and his eyes are almost closed.]
& then we arrived! Loiosh was very excited! Tom got out of the van, ate some grass, & then went back in! Loiosh & I checked in, found the merchant coordinator, failed to understand our booth layout, & discovered a great big hole in the top of one of the popups.
… okay, I did most of that. Loiosh ate some grass & then fell asleep under a popup. Major Tom stayed in the van, purring his head off & air-kneading.
Eventually, with some help from Megan of White Wolf & Phoenix, I got the hole fixed & the popups up.
After a lot MORE time, further misunderstandings of the layout, & a break to negotiate a space for Ivar, I even got the booth set up!
… yeah, I know. It’s been a hot minute. I’m working on it.
[The booth from the front. The formerly-white top of the popup is dirty, and not even uniformly so; it looks like it’s been out in the weather for a year or two. with reason. There is a rainbow flag hanging up against the back wall, which is, at least, white. Both tables are covered with white cloth, but neither piece of fabric is long enough to hide the clutter underneath. The table in the back stands at a visible angle, and the shelves atop it, holding the soap, are at a slightly different angle. My sleeping tent is just visible at the left, under the other popup, which is, also, really dirty.]
I need to take the top of both popups to the car wash & power wash em. & then I need to properly fix all the little cuts and holes, instead of just slapping tent-fixing tape over them. At least the walls are clean? But that’s only because they’re new; the original walls for both popups are in storage. Somewhere. Along with all of my garb & my really nice booth sign.
[Half of a table holds six flavors of lip balm, plus a selection of jewelry: five necklaces, a pair of earrings, and a variety of pins with pronouns and pride flag colors on them.]
Rose’s jewelry! She’s got an Etsy shop but a broader audience is never a BAD idea, & I love her work, so I set aside some space for it. It sold really well! I’m definitely hoping to keep working with her.
(I might possibly have taken one of the lapis & pearl necklaces as part of my take)
[The other half of the same table. A set of shelves holds soap in a wide variety of colors. There’s also a small pot under the bottom shelf. The shelf uprights are stained with long streaks of black … something … and the tablecloth is an unhealthy-looking shade of yellow. ]
That top shelf is too high for most people to really see what’s up there, but if I lower it at all, there won’t be space for the signs on the shelf below. I’m gonna need to redesign most of the price signs to go horizontally. It’ll be fine! Also screech!
[The other table holds two sets of shelves; together, they’re just a bit too wide to comfortably fit, so they’re bungee-corded together in the middle. Plus the table dips in the middle, so everything is at interesting angles. The display looks pretty good, though, especially as there’s a piece of black cloth with bright embroidery hung up along the back of the shelves. It does a pretty good job of hiding my sleeping tent.]
I didn’t want to connect those shelves, they’re just a bit heavy when put together, but it needs to happen. Plus the top shelf is again too high. Plus the sign problem again. Little steps! Little steps!
Given how much running around & screaming I had to do in the several months before Battlemoor, everything really looked kinda not too bad. But I can’t wait to get everything looking GREAT again.
Someday. In my copious spare time.
originally posted on Patreon; support me over there to see posts a week early!
[ Loiosh, an orange tabby wearing a green harness, is standing in front of the booth, an open can of gooshyfud in front of him. He’s staring at the camera, ears alert, as if wary of any attempt to separate him from his breakfast. ]
He was SO. HAPPY.
He forced me into a chair, occupied my chest, & PURRED for a half hour straight in the middle of setup.
He trot-trotted up to potential customers, demanding his due of LOVE & also WOULD YOU LIKE A PAIR OF EARRINGS, then pointedly stood on their shoes when they (briefly) stopped paying him the proper amount of attention.
He prevented me from working on the project of the day, by placing his entire self on top of most of it & falling asleep.
[ Loiosh is flopped on my workbench, taking up a good amount of the available space. The jewelry anvil is, however, not covered in cat. ]
I took him for a walk, during which he charmed all present members of the Salida Circus & also everyone who was in Milagros at the time. & then we headed back to _our_ booth, where he quite decoratively fell asleep on my jewelry work bag.
[ Loiosh is laying down, one forepaw draped over the edge of my jewelry work bag, head leaning against his leg. He is absolutely, comprehensively asleep. ]
Eventually gravity did what gravity does.
[ His muzzle has sunk so that it’s tucked down next to the jewelry bag, which he is, also, hugging with both forelegs. ]
He even helped with teardown, by which I mean he mostly stayed out of the way! Which is honestly pretty unusual but we’re all out of practice. It happens.
originally posted on Patreon; support me over there to see posts a week early!
[ A beat up, weathered blue popup is set up on the side of Alamosa’s Main Street. One back corner is tied to the van’s tow hitch. A table sits in the back left corner, covered with a purple and white Mexican blanket. At the front is my portable workbench, with a folding camp chair sitting behind it. ]
Jasper put a link to the show on the household discord … August 29th? I think? & the application was due September 4th. So I spent that weekend putting together a couple more faery home decor pieces & then filling out the application, of which the hardest part was, of course, the prices.
I managed that a whole day ahead of time, & then realized that I had very little idea of 1) how to DO an art show, & also 2) how this particular one was run.
Turns out it was much closer to a craft show than a gallery show, which makes sense, given that I could choose to set up a popup with my stuff. Which I did, & then asked if I could bring MORE stuff, & upon hearing that I could, decided I was just gonna bring ALL the jewelry.
… all my jewelry display stuff is in the storage unit.
So I set out, two days before the show, to remedy this, with a budget of zero dollars & zero cents. I asked the Blessed Tommaso, He Who Built Eisental Camp An Entire Kitchen On A Budget Of Zero That One Pennsic, to put in a good word for me with the Gods of I Wonder What I Can Find In This Pile Of Junk, & set about wandering around the yard to see what might be useful.
Turns out we had a couple old fridge shelves, the grid kind. Also some metal grid shelving. & I have card stock & Inkscape & am not afraid to use either.
[ A selection of metal grids, often used as fridge shelves, hang from a popup tent; each is covered with white or purple cardstock cards, each of which holds a pendant or a pair of earrings. Many of them hang at odd angles. ]
& then I attacked the stack of plywood with the circular saw, attacked the pile of old roof tarp with a pair of scissors, & joined the two with the first roll of duct tape my eyes fell upon.
[ A hunk of plywood, about two by four feet, hangs from the top of the popup wall. It’s covered in beat-up, formerly-white tarp, which has been attached with neon green duct tape. Eight faery home decor pieces hang from it. Another, similar piece, sits on the ground, leaning against the popup leg; it’s filled with earrings and pendulums. ]
Then I spent NINE THOUSAND YEARS punching holes in each of the cards, writing prices & names on em, then attaching jewelry. At one point I couldn’t find the hatpin I use to make earring holes, & almost had an entire meltdown over it, but I did my deep breathing & they turned up.
It all looks EXTREMELY JANKY & I LOVE IT.
THEN I stuck CJ’s popup in the van, along with the two plastic buckets me & Jasper used to make pell bases cos they’re heavy, & then me & Jasper & Loiosh drove into town.
It was, thank the weather deities, not windy. Loiosh was feeling VERY froggy & pinned me in my chair for a while halfway through setup, for the sole & express purpose of purring vigorously at me, but that wasn’t actually a problem, because Jasper was still busy getting all the faery home decor stuff, the necklaces, & maybe half the pendulums arranged on the plywood, then tacking them all down. I hadn’t wanted to do that at home, because I didn’t want to transport them that way, but then I was too tired to take everything back off at the end of the day so my entire jewelry inventory is still sitting in the van, hanging from hunks of plywood & metal grid things.
I’d stuck my jewelry workbag & the basket with spare wire & stuff in the van, too (my portable workbench & camp chair live there) because one of the questions on the application was ‘are you willing to demonstrate your work’ & my answer to that is HELL YEAH I WILL. I even found a nice hunk of rusty steel wire while we were getting set up, which wound up getting used in the piece I got mostly done over the course of the day.
[ My beat-up old workbench; it’s made from pallet wood. On it is an old mouse pad covered with blue fabric, various pieces of metal, a couple jewelry tools, and a small, flat jewelry anvil with a spiral piece of copper sitting on it. ]
I sat there & worked on stuff for a while, Loiosh nommed on gooshyfud & collected a lot of love from passersby, Jasper took a couple packed orders to the post office. After a while I had to move my work setup to the other side of the tent to get out of the sun. Loiosh took a nap, then woke up & was wiggly, so I stuffed him in the stroller & took him for a walk. Did you know Salida has a circus? I did not know this! Loiosh flopped in their booth for a good twenty minutes & was the happiest cat in the world. We stopped in at Milagros to grab a mixed berry smoothie & some ice & then headed back to the booth, where I ALMOST had the thing I was working on finished up when it was time to tear down. (The rest took about six minutes Monday morning.)
[ A faery home decor piece hangs against a white background; it’s roughly triangular, point down, the top of the triangle curved upward. The spiral wire from the last image is part of it, along with a number of silver-colored and purple beads. ]
Tearing down took, like, fifteen minutes, which I LOVE, because everything was just hanging on boardlike objects which could just be stuck directly in the van. I wish I could do this with the soap!
& then I drove home & went basically immediately to bed.
originally posted on Patreon; support me over there to see posts a week early!
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