dragonlady7

Oh my goodness I've just had an epic weekend. We had the household meeting for Pennsic-- the pre-planning meeting, wherein we discussed many many things. We're officially merging kitchens and partly merging finances with the Wicked Monkeys, our beloved next-door neighbors. This is awesome, will save us space on the block, and will mean I get to hang out with some of my favorite people in the world even more often.
(We are NOT merging registrations; we will keep the groups administratively separate on the land agent list, because that gives us many things, including more freedom, better recognition, and an insurance policy should there wind up being a need to re-separate in future, or should any part of the group need to split off without leaving.)
We also finally hammered out some organizational details that I think will make everyone happy. With the addition of the Monkeys, we are now a household of about 30. That's crossed the line from manageable to oh my God. So we're making some changes, and I'm excited for them-- we're separating the necessary chores out into zones, and assigning heads to each zone, and requiring campers to sign up to perform tasks within those zones under the direction of their heads. Which is great, not because I'm a Nazi and love to force people to do work, but instead because I'm someone with anxiety problems and if I know there is work undone, I am utterly incapable of relaxing, which is how I went 17 days without sitting down last year. Because there was ALWAYS work, and while I insisted that some of it wasn't my job, if I knew it still wasn't getting done I got really worried, and felt obligated to go work on something I felt WAS my job, just so I wouldn't feel guilty about not doing the thing that needed doing. It was stupid and idiotic and I can't blame other people for how I feel, but if I at least know that something is under no circumstances my job, and it's on record so everyone knows that I have a job and have already done it, then I really should be able to, I don't know, take a nap? That's something I didn't do at all last year, and if this is my only vacation in a year, I should get a goddamn nap at least once during it. And maybe beyond that, I should get to sit down. That's a thing I also like to do, especially when vacationing. Getting to go Topside or take a class or go get an ice cream cone or go visit friends camping elsewhere is on the list of things I like, but let's not get too ambitious.
Anyway.
Lots of other things were discussed/proposed that were way more exciting and cheering, but I was actually most reassured/pleased by that one.

A tiny little statistic: the household, as a household, from common funds, spent about $1000 on supplies for the bar. That's a lot. Until you figure that we estimate that we served approximately 1000-1200 visitors, and many of those had more than one drink. ... I think we did pretty damn well. We can do better, but that wasn't at all a bad start.

So. What was awesome, of course, was that the Monkeys came to visit. They showed up on Friday night. So did my oldest/dearest friends Dave and Liesl.
We got ridiculously drunk, stayed up until 4:30 am talking, then got up the next morning at 9 and went to a local SCA event, the Festival of the Passing of the Ice Dragon. 15 minutes from my house. Poor Liesl was so hung-over that she slept through most of the event, lying on Eugene's armor bag behind Nikki's merchant booth.
Nez and Pete were there, and I got to talk to them. I hadn't realized how sick Nez's father still is-- he had cancer surgery last year and there's chemo now, and it seems very, very stressful-- but Nez was wonderfully herself despite it all, and healthier than she was when I saw her last. (She had horrible allergy things near-killing her last summer.)
After the event, we all adjourned to my house. I managed to cram over 15 people into my tiny living room. Kilij had brought gumbo/asa, which was phenomenal; Sue had baked bread, also phenomenal. (THERE WILL BE BREAD AT WAR. We're getting an oven. I AM EXCITE.) We got through all of the agenda items I'd worried about; people I'd thought might object and be jerks didn't and weren't (ok, not jerks, but you know; people I weren't sure were on my page AT ALL were actually entirely on my page, so that went well). And we ate like kings.

And then we drank. And talked. And stayed up until 4:30 am again. I am so sleep-deprived I'll never catch up. I managed not to hurt myself badly-- unlike Kilij, who had some sort of Doomcherry-related moonshine experience that nearly killed him, and led to him at 4am earnestly telling us about his explosives training and how he'd aced an exam by wiring up a scenario in which the baby in the carseat in the back of the car was used via a shaped charge as a projectile intended to kill the car's driver... Hence my Tweet about baby projectiles. What? Yes, very weird, but c'est la Chez Monkeys.

So I've had a little Pennsic warm-up. And I need to get my ass moving on the new tent and everything that needs.