The Week That Was

So much has happened in the past week. We had our first session of D&D with a new group last Wednesday. We were planning on having a 4 person group and it turned out to be more like 7. Not complaining. More people means more interaction between characters and more opportunity for crazy, story-worthy situations. Bear with me for a moment whilst I delve into a bit of geekdom. Yes, I'm going to tell you about my character. Deal with it. I actually took a departure from my normal mage or rogue tendencies and decided to play a cleric. Not an easy thing for me, for various reasons, but I wanted a challenge. Since we are playing in the Forgotten Realms, I decided to be a cleric of Akadi, Lady of the Winds. My dear little priest is a human from a nomadic tribe very similar to the Mongols and he's not "book smart" but is very wise. Should be interesting.

Saturday was SCA stuff. We helped the Shire of Crimson River by running the rapier fighting for their Spring War College event. Since I'm the General of the Rapier Militia it was kind of expected, since the whole thing was geared toward war melees. We ran some neat scenarios and got some spiffy new bruises. It was a good day. Oh, and kudos to the cooks responsible for the cook-out style lunch. Simple, but very well done.

Sunday was a bit frustrating and we didn't get to go see the new Indiana Jones movie like we had planned. Kind of irritating. The less said about that the better. The highlight of the day was accidentally bashing Ysabel in the knee with a rapier while trying to do a draw cut and her (again accidentally) bruising the crap out of my elbow and tearing the skin open with a quillion while trying a draw cut of her own. Neither one of us was having a particularly good rapier practice that day.

Monday was Memorial Day, which dawned hot and sunny. We slept in a bit (huzzah!) and then headed off to visit the local Renaissance Faire with the kids. We watched a comedy chess match with some so-so stage fighting and then a jousting tourney. One of the jousters took a nasty spill off his horse. He landed on a post and looked pretty shaken up when they finally managed to get him on his feet again. The crowd loved it, of course. From there we went shopping and picked up some stuff for the kids. It was about this time that the dark clouds that had been moving in from the west decided to vent their fury upon our foolish heads. We huddled under a tent for quite a while with some people we had run into that we actually knew. Outside thunder and lightening raged, wind howled and rain pummeled anyone foolish enough to walk around in it. It did eventually slack off a little, but we still got drenched in cold, nasty rain before we managed to finish our shopping and leave. Ysabel and I both got very nice silver medallions for our trouble. Pure, antiqued silver stamped with designs of our choosing on both sides. Not cheap, but worth the expense. Hers is a sun on one side and a phoenix on the other (a recreation of a bronze one that made her skin turn green) and mine was a pentacle and a Native American symbol signifying the Four Winds. It seemed appropriate.

After the Ren Faire we grabbed some supper and hit the local Kmart for some dry t-shirts. Yes, by that time we were sick of being cold and damp. Ysabel managed to find a couple of matching shirts in our sizes that had the "Killer Bunny" from Monty Python and the Holy Grail on them. Too cool! Once garbed in our newly acquired finery we went to the theater to see "Prince Caspian", the new Narnia movie. It was just awesome, by the way. Much darker and more adult-oriented than you might think for a supposed kid's movie. Ysabel didn't like it as much as the first one, but I thought it was better. But then I like my fantasy a little more grown up, I guess.

And that is... the Week that Was.

R.I.P., Robert Asprin

I was saddened to hear of the passing of another literary great. Robert Asprin was the mind behind the Myth Adventures series of novels that I read when I was a teen. His was a fresh take on fantasy, blending silly humor with cutting social commentary. Ok, mostly silly humor, but still a good read. He is also responsible for the (much darker) Thieves World series. While not a huge fan of Mr. Asprin's work, I still feel the loss of one of modern fantasy's more influential figures.

The Courts of Chaos

Anarchy seems to be the order of the day lately. Let me explain... no, there is too much. Let me sum up.

We've been running around trying to juggle work, SCA, my step-son's baseball *and* early football practice schedules. We are trying (thus far unsuccessfully) to get the red tape cleared up for adding on to our house. Ysabel and I have both been under the weather off and on. Megan had a birthday (she's 8 now) a few days before Mother's Day. Needless to say, I'm pretty much broke at this point. We had a demo on Saturday for a martial arts dojo that ended up having 2 kids show up. They watched for a couple minutes and then went and did katas. Complete waste of time. Not anyone's fault, really, just didn't come together well. My job has been interesting, to put a good spin on it. A water heater in our office exploded last Monday. It flooded the lobby, the server room and leaked through the floor into the businesses beneath us. Chaos ensued. Looks like we may be moving to a newer building in a couple months. Got my fingers crossed. To top that off, I was on call all last week and it was freakin' nuts! I don't know about anyone else, but I tend to be cranky when I get woken up at 3am to fix someone else's screw up.

In the midst of all the bad was some good, though. We went and saw Iron Man, which rocked. I read a graphic novel (which is unusual for me) that a friend recommended called The Watchmen. It was incredibly good, I must say. Disturbing, but engrossing. I hear they are making a movie of it, too. Should be interesting. We should be getting our stimulus check from the government any day now and can finally clear up a few outstanding debts, which will be nice. So, in general, life goes on in all it's messy, itchy, glorious, unabashed splendor. It's proving to be quite a ride.

Oh, and snaps to anyone who can tell me where the title of this post came from.