A seething mass of turgid drama.

Saturday morning we got a last-minute invitation from Trish; she and Rachael were heading up to SF to celebrate Trish's birthday. We've been friends with Trish for a very long time. (She gave me my PoG, which means even more to me because she was the one who bestowed it.) So even though we had plans around the house, we scrapped those and took the bus to the other side of the city to do touristy things.

We met them at Ghirardelli and had tasty ice cream sundaes. (I think Mr. & Mrs. Miscellaneous is much better, but Ghirardelli is good mainstream ice cream.) Then we walked to Pier 39 for crab sandwiches (again, tasty) and through the Musee Mechanique, which I had never been to. Being a Saturday it was too loud and crowded to actually hear Laughing Sal. Oh well. One of the machines titled "Song of the Prairie" showed a few guys with a Conestoga wagon sitting around a campfire. It had a prominent warning - "Do not play if easily offended." So of course we had to try it. We were all wondering what the offensive bits would be; I thought there would be a "savage Indian raid" or something.

Nope. Massive farting noises as the seated figures rocked back and forth on their chairs. We dissolved in laughter.

After that we walked to a bar at Fort Mason, The Interval. It's got a library/coffeeshop vibe but it has seriously good cocktails. (They have a limited program where if you donate $1500 to the Long Now foundation, you get a bulb of custom bourbon, single malt, or gin hung for you from the ceiling. Cool but way out of my price range, obviously.) After that we walked over to the Marina for dinner. The wife and I headed home and the others kept going. We were glad we spent time with Trish and helped her have a good day, but I was pretty done.

Sunday I had to drive a couple hours each way to deal with gate at an SCA equestrian event. I threw on a tunic over my jeans and sneakers (I really wasn't making any effort, because why bother much when I wasn't participating), did my job, and drove back home.

It was our turn for the homeowners' meeting and knowing that I had a long drive, I had scheduled easy dinner: pasta all'amatriciana. But once home I just couldn't. I was out of... well, everything. I told the neighbors I had to cancel and I just stayed in the bedroom and read for the rest of the evening. I didn't want any socializing, company, or any braining whatsoever. The wife was very understanding about this.

There's probably a burnout lesson here that I need to heed for the next eight months. My tolerance is lower than I realized. Either of the two days would have been fine, but both was too much to accomplish anything else.

Yesterday I drove to Auburn and back. 274.4 miles, woo.
I had some nice chattage with some of the usual suspects, took care of some regrettably necessary paperwork, did the job requirement. I also ate a tasty pork burrito at a casual Caribbean cafe, because why not.

But I left the house before 8 AM and got back just after 9 PM. Some time in the middle of the night the upstairs neighbors accidentally hit their car panic button, and the car went off. In the garage, right under our bedroom. For a minute or so; we were about to pound on their door to get them to shut it up. I did not get back to sleep quickly after that. Ah, the joys of shared living.

Today's pancake breakfast was really good, at least.

I needed that immensely.
I did some things around the house, slept in on Sunday, did a lot of reading and some SCA exchequery. But mostly, I did not go anywhere significant. The only people I saw outside our house were when we went to the market Saturday.

So relaxing after the sprint of the last month.

Home after a weekend in Milpitas. At the exchequer symposium.
This sounds soul-crushing but it was fine. I learned some things, made connections, got Renee at Corporate to eliminate a bit of pointless bureaucracy.

It's good to be home.

In very short: I had a lot of fun and was briefly re-energized.

In less short: This is one of my favorite events, for tolerably obvious reasons. It's my main area of interest. I've taught sausages every year for ...um, seven? And there are always some classes where I learn something unexpectedly fascinating.

I've been more involved with the backroom prep, partly because it was our year to host and I had to be as the money guy, mostly because the wife was in charge. This led to some frustration on my part as while she is a good organizer, she is even more introverted than I am and didn't publicize early or often enough. This led to a lower turnout than we should have had, although there were also other reasons. (Neither of the other two principals covered themselves in glory with their attendance.)

Anyway, most of the classes I took were good. The keynote speaker was fabulous - a scholar on Renaissance Spain who is working on a book about a 1612(?) cookbook. It was aimed right at our happy place and while she was a bit nervous to begin with, once she realized we were engaged and actively listening she opened up. (Everyone wants to try the spit-roasted butter!)

My class was moved to Sunday morning, which wasn't ideal but worked out fine. It was called "Grounds for Comparison" - take a pork and fennel sausage, make it three (or four) different ways involving commercially ground meat, home-ground meat, and hand-chopped meat. Both fresh and cured. I felt a bit guilty for not having prepared as much as I would have liked. Exchequer time + loss of inspiration = just get it done. Still, people seemed to appreciate it and there was very good turnout. I had originally limited my numbers but then realized I had seven pounds of meat, so it wasn't going to be an issue.

The cooks did an amazing job with the food all weekend. Everything I tried was at least good. (Since it was 13th c. Syrian, there were a number of things involving eggplant and such that I was not going to try. That's on me, not them.) The only complaint I heard was that label cards would have been nice. True, but a minor issue in the grand scheme. There was lots of food, lots of variety, and it was mostly on time. They got a fair amount of help by planning classes as kitchen help, so they weren't as overwhelmed as they might have been.

Good socialization Saturday night as well. The competitive egg-spitting we had planned didn't happen; I was afraid that would be the case, since a couple people we had asked to help run it didn't show. Without a charismatic/pushy person to get it going, it didn't. We didn't try to force it; we just went to bed.

People pitched in readily to help clean up Sunday and we would have gotten off site well before the deadline had one of the people not locked her keys in her car. So we waited until the service guy showed up. Because that's what friends do.

I was very glad Monday was a holiday, though. I needed the downtime since my weekend really had none.

Just made a two-hour round trip to get on a bank signature card... and the bank is now closed on Saturdays.
(Vaguely annoyed at the circumstances, not the people involved. Well, maybe the bank people.)

Friday night (really, Saturday morning) was not a good night. (Morning.) I felt like I was awake from about 1 AM onwards, with a mild sinus headache. It was like a light hangover that didn't end, complete with bonus 7:30 AM mild puking.

So I gave myself yesterday off. I baked bread (meh, tasty but didn't really rise enough) and pizza for dinner (meh, ditto on both - but good with house-made bacon sausage). Otherwise, I flopped in bed all day. Occasionally with the cat. I re-read a couple Bujold books to keep occupied without taxing my brain. By dinnertime I felt better, but I avoided having a beer with the pizza just in case.

I feel fine today. So for my sins - well, for my sense of duty - I am going to drive two hours each way to an SCA event I don't care about, solely so I can reconcile gate and take the money. I will throw on a tunic but I may stay in tennis shoes, and I don't actually plan to sign in and pay. I don't feel bad about that, either.

(Said in Family Guy voice)
Good weekend, but exhausting. We had the GSP picnic to decide our annual show; I'm happy with what we chose, although it means some work upfront for me. (Which I volunteered for.)
Then socializing with Hirsch and Aldith, crashing at their place before the Sunday officers' meeting. The latter went as well as could be expected.

Tired now; I kind of want a rinse-off shower and an early night. And then a weekend to make up for not having one.

I took Friday off. Originally it was so that we could go to A&S. But around Tuesday the wife and I looked at each other and said "Idonwanna." Instead of spending Wednesday cooking, Thursday packing, Friday driving and setting up, then Sunday breaking camp, packing, driving, and unpacking - I did not much of anything Friday. It was kind of glorious.

The downside was that we still had to go to the event. It's a Kingdom-level event, and that's part of the current set of responsibilities. We day-tripped which made for a very long day. We left the house at 7 AM and got back around 9:30 PM. But we did get to spend the night in our own bed...

It's disturbing how much work piles up when I'm off for a day. Back to it.

Nine months of reminding, helping, nagging, and occasionally threatening have paid off.
I got a completed Domesday report from every active mainland West Kingdom branch. This allowed me to finish the consolidated workbook and submit it up the chain before the March 15 deadline.

From the tax deputy: "WOW! I have to commend you from your kingdom being one of the last ones to submit the Consolidated Report to being one of the first, WAY TO GO!"

It took a lot of effort by a lot of people, and I went out on FB to thank them. Not for my ego, but because this is a significant accomplishment and I wanted to acknowledge it publicly. Like most exchequery things, if it's going well most people don't see it happening.