Flashback Blog Tuesday – Who GNeW?

Yes, I just made up Flashback Blog Tuesday for this occasion. I just discovered this post from right after GNeW 2013. It was still sitting here as a draft. Now I’m preparing for my third GNeW, my little Battlefield Bakery 2 cookshop has morphed into Solivagi’s Public House. Last year I created a household and created a badge for the house. This year I am making that badge into banners and duct taping it on every piece of stuff that’s coming to GNeW.

In this picture I am happily showing off my wares (a lot of shortbread and some mint drink) in the extreme heat. The next day my forearms were so blistered I had to shut down the shop through the most lucrative hours of the weekend because I was too sun-damaged to function. The following year I brought a 10 x 10 shelter for my kitchen and a 10 x 20 shade tent to offer as a ‘food court common area.’ This year, I will repeat the set up with expanded menu and services, a lot of household colors flying, a small staff of householders helping me shine and finding their own ways to shine as well. Sydney proved a VERY helpful addition to the family and is now brewing mead for sharing with friends this year with an eye to bigger bolder brewing plans which might lead to our own household label on fine mead and wines down the road!

So, all in all, a lot of progress since this picture of a hot, burning, over-sun-exposed woman with a lot of shortbread. (Looking more like my mother every day!) I think this photo shows a transition, like a certain stage in catepillar to butterfly metamorphosis. Here I am expressing my mother’s style while searching for my own. Last year I began to morph into my own way. And this year? I’ll be showing my new colors, flapping my wings and soaring up, establishing my own style! Very very happy and full of gratitude to be here and now. As of today, most of the cooking prep is behind me and I have a week or two of hard core garb production to tackle. I have catering jobs or planned events/happenings almost every weekend from now to GNeW. Wow. What an interesting and strange trip these last two years have been. What follows is the original post from 2013:

So I’ve returned from the Great Northeastern War (GNeW). I sold out of everything I made ahead and everything I made on site! That felt good! I went through the process of re-connecting with SCA which is something I’ve been avoiding or putting off for many years.

I had a really good time! I enjoyed being a merchant in my own right and I really really enjoyed getting to know other merchants. I very much want to do this again next year. Oh, yeah!! I am even considering going to some non-merchant-opportunity events. I want to go to summer camping events and then see what happens.

So I’ve pencilled in Harper’s Retreat, Stonemarche (New Durham, NH) Aug 31 – Sept 3. No vending, except possibly tarot readings for tips.

Then I’ll be camping and vending at Eastport Pirate Fest Sept 6, 7 & 8. Menu: Pirate Hat Cookies or Black Jack Davy Tashen (chocolate hammentashen); Shortbread Planks in Plain, Almond & Gingerbread (same as I just sold $250 of at GNeW); Treasure Chest mini-loaf-cakes (zucchini bread). Drinks: Persian Mint Drink (Sekanjiban) and a Ginger version of same. That’s it. No kitchen, no pasties, no cooking on site. (Except for what I bring to eat and share at camp.)

Also penciling in Coronation in Bridge on Oct 4-6.

Winter Plan, work LL Bean or whatever work comes along and refine and revise menu, practice, practice, practice. Improve website, create logo, and generally prepare for Spring 2014

February 2014: Get myself to California, obtain use of Honda 450cc and take my Dad for a ride in the desert. Possibly get up to Seattle and see Bonnie and maybe Caera, too.

Then get back home in March and rock the bakery biz!

Okay, that was the OP and here’s a postscript reality check:

I did work LL Bean for awhile, then after the seasonal work ended I walked out of my living situation and went camping in the snow. I sold my Honda Rebel 250 but never acquired a 450. I have yet to get out to CA to see my Dad. It is still on my list of things to do this coming fall/winter or next. I didn’t make it to any other SCA events.

The ‘bakery biz’ took a hit with the homelessness. I lost all the baking gear I had been accumulating — maybe $1,000 or so of sheet pans, muffin tins and loaf pans. Also a mixer (yes, a Kitchen Aid, damn it. Sabotaged by the bad house guest and tablet thief. Never even got to use it before he cut the power cord off under the base. Grrr.), a blender, a lot of tea service gear and linens and paper goods.

Also I lost the use of the tablet I’d bought and had stolen by a homeless house guest. He later went to jail and I claimed my tablet which was in his personal belongings locker. I had the paperwork showing it was mine and the lovely jail staff retrieved and returned it to me. Sadly, the bozo had added security and passwords so that Verizon, various geeky folk and I could not manage to remove it. Therefore it was useless to me. I gave it back to Verizon and went on with managing my own homelessness.

Still got to GNeW last year in my truck/home. This year I will need to be ferried to the site but once arrived I feel confident about feeding people and having a fine public house experience. Thanks, GNeW for being my anchor in this recent and very chaotic phase of life! Hooray, it’s GNeW time again!

Solivagi’s Public House at GNeW 2015 – Menu, etc!

Solivagi’s Public House (was Battlefield Bakery 2) will be serving stews, drinks, shortbread and spinach pies.

We will be providing lightly supervised child care at very reasonable rates ($5/hr/family – BeST* practices in this, too.) We will also be encouraging performers to hang out under our shade tent (the Merchant Row Food Court) to entertain and pass their hats. Gillian’s puppet stage will be available for any and all to present shows, be they pre-planned or spontaneous. Tarot readings available when custom allows us time. Meals include a goodly portion of today’s stew plus Bread & Butter for $6, or add a couple drinks & dessert and/or savory side for $8.

New this year: Campsite Delivery! First, reserve ahead. Then, send a runner with money to us. We will follow your runner back to your camp towing a family meal packed in a wagon. Pitcher of Drink, Enough Stew, Sides as available, Loaf of Bread & plenty of butter, AND Dessert! All this unpacked and Served up to your hungry campers by our delivery staff, only $10/person, (3 person minimum for delivery). Price is per number of people over 10 years old (kids under 10 in your camp will get fed, trust me! Just let me know how many mouths need tending.) Talk to me early – like Friday before noon – to reserve both a delivery time and our tasty treats. For best results, book early!) Please feel free to tip our delivery person or ask me to include gratuity ahead (If you ask, It will be $5/camp delivery – for BeST*, talk to her directly.)

Rent A Mug  – Flat fee for All you can drink for the weekend! Tie matching personal ribbons, one to your wrist and to one of our mugs, and boom! Your drinks are already paid for! Price $10/person/War or offer something as BeST* Practices. If you loan a person your ribbon, they will be allowed to drink from your mug! Nice way to treat a friend to some cool refreshment! We’re just serving syrup drinks so no issues with minors, etc. Next year may be a different story! 😉 Stay Tuned!

Courtly Confections! Our charming staff will be circulating through the populace during All the Hours of Court! – Drinks, special desserts & a savory snack on offer. (Campsite meal delivery not available during Court. We have only the one staff person and one wagon!)

Same as ever only better: BeST* Practices Breakfasts Fri & Sat

Learned from our Brothers in Baconalia, BeST* breakfast means you bring your eggs and any other food offerings over to Solivagi’s Public House. I cook your eggs to order and do whatever occurs to me with the other food you contribute. All these contributions are then available to all breakfast customers. In other words, it works just like Baconalia only with the basic food being eggs. Last year the breakfast spread was awesome and included bratwurst, hashbrowns and pop-tarts. Let’s see what happens THIS year!!

Midday Meals will be available Friday & Saturday, Evening Meals available hopefully Thurs through Sat. Sunday is sell off any leftovers day and LOTS of packing and goodbyeing. *sniffle, tears*

MENU for GNeW 2015  (Everything subject to change, chaos and Divine Intervention):

Thursday, once set up: Shortbread, Drinks, Spinach pies. These items will always be available – while they last! Possibly the Chicken/Leek stew, maybe.

Friday:

Morning: BeST* Breakfast

Afternoon, After First Big Battle (late Lunch): Pork/apple/honey/pepper stew.

Evening (Early to whenever we run out. Dinner/Supper): Choice of: Beef Stew – Beef, Carrots, Onions, Beer  – OR  – Chicken/Leek/Fennel stew – Basically a kicked-up Cockaleekie!

Saturday:

Morning: BeST* Breakfast.

After Battle, Late Lunch through Evening: Traveler’s Truth Stew All Day.

Traveler’s Truth: If a wild animal wanders into your campsite and dies, you may skin it and cook it and eat it. NO poaching of any kind whatsoever is involved in this stew!! (And if you believe that. I have a bridge to sell you…)** Basically it’s a gypsy “hunter stew.” Contains: Sweet Italian Sausage, Chicken breast,  AND Roast Pork, all cooked up with fennel, sage, leek and  good spices! YUM!!

Sunday: We will sell off remaining drink syrups (if we have any) and we will offer bagged lunches for the road, if we have any food left! Huzzah! See you next year!

*BeST Practices (Barter, else Swap/Trade)

**Some truth-stretching and bending here. Ha, ha!

June! And the Season is Upon Us!! Itinerary for Summer, so far!

Celebrate Rite! Itinerary as it stands today, subject to change, chaos and divine intervention:

Sat., June 13: Wicked Proud! – Boston Pride Parade. I’ll be there with my dog, tarot cards, possibly also mandolin and busking kit. Maybe. I’ll be fabulous in any case, and so will my little dog, too!

Sunday, June 14, 11:30am – 2pm: Hong Kong Restaurant, Harvard Square, Our Fair City, MA. Carolingians of a Certain Age – Re-Unite!!! Bring your photos and memories and stories and join us. See the folks you’ve missed these last few decades. Just show up, ask for “Barony Carolingia” party and join us. We’ll be at the big table in back. Please RSVP through FB event page of the same name or through FB Gillian Solivagi. Or email me. Or just show up.

Sunday, June 21: Bagheera’s Birthday Bash! A Downton Abbey themed Summer Solstice Brunch served up on a grassy field at Menotomy Rocks Park, Arlington, MA. From 8am – 9:30am at the Jason St. entrance I will be serving tea, coffee, cocoa and dainty sandwiches, soup, muffins, scones, petit-fours or stuff like that – whatever tickles my fancy as I make preparations. Dogs and their owners are encouraged to wear a bit of tweed or other Downton Abbey inspired dress. (I’m leaving dog treats up to dog owners, but I will have a few extra balls for fetching.)

July 4th: My younger daughter is having her baby shower at her lovely home in Windham, ME. Elder daughter will be putting on the party and all the extended family and large clan of ex-in-laws will be there. I intend to either drop by for a bit and then skedaddle, or possibly take a miss and see the lovely mother-to-be another time.

Thursday, July 9th – Sunday, July 12th: Great Northeastern War, Hebron, ME. This is the BIG ONE!! This will be my third year attending GNeW and I am super excited! Menu for Solivagi’s Public House will be posted soon!

Friday, August 7, Beaufort, NC: Beaufort Pirate Invasion. A good time to be had wherever Dark Rose Crew might invade, teach, or entertain. Awesome Pirate folk! What more do you need? Arrrggghhh! Probably mostly Tarot reading at this event, assuming I find a way to get there at all.

Spring hath Sprung and the Sap is Running!

With the return of Spring, I too am back!

Now operating as “Celebrate Rite!” (an umbrella covering all my picnic, gift basket, puppetry, tarot-reading, and tea buffet endeavors), my Spring/Summer itinerary is filling right up! Events I am attending will be posted on the calendar at FB Celebrate Rite and on my timeline at FB Gillian Solivagi.

Kick-off event for the season is May 1st – Remembrance Brunch

Around 7am-ish I will be setting up a tea/brunch buffet spread by Marian’s memorial bench.

To honor Marian and Caleb Hanson, particularly, there will be tea, quiche, bagels and fixin’s, pork dumpling soup, petit-fours and more!

Please bring a portable chair, water, and remembrances. There will be a “donations” can — totally voluntary. You may bring food to share, beverages, games. All my food will contain eggs, dairy and/or wheat. Please plan accordingly.

You are invited if: you knew Marian or Caleb; you are a Morris dancer, or you are a traveler. (If you are connected with SCA, Revels, Inc., or historical cosplay, you will fit right in.)

Cambridge Parks & Recreation rules apply. Naturally, “Let’s Leave the Place Cleaner/Better Than We Found It!” My dog will be there — please bring your dogs, too!

Bunch will probably go til 11-ish. If you dance up to Holyoke Plaza, join us after!

Let us dance in the May and remember those who have danced themselves out, so cannot be with us. Let us eat, sip daintily, and dearly love our friends! Welcome, May!!

…And We’re BACK!!

Greetings! Well, it’s been quite a journey since I kissed my sweet ’86 Honda Rebel 250 “Bes” goodbye as she went into winter storage. Here it is, three seasons later. The condensed update:

Whilst Bes enjoyed her warm winter quarters blissfully unawares, I had to leave my domestic situation – long story, SO past! – and go camping in the woods of Greater Portland. This started on Super Bowl Sunday, also Candlemas and Imbolc, Feb 2, 2014. After months of camping, squatting, couch-surfing, learning the ropes of this new and improved(?) sort of homelessness — Voila! 

I am now set up in a winter-almost-ready campsite in the Greater Portland area. My business plans were set back a year but are on course for realization in 2015.

Bes has been sold!! (Oh, horrors!!) However, I’m glad to report that the guy who bought her is a friend, we made a pretty sweet deal, and suffice it to say she’s in good hands. (Thanks, Dan Rubinoff, owner of Back Cove BBQ and Grill on Ocean Ave., Portland, Maine. Folks, he makes a fabulous pulled pork sandwich out of the slow-smoked pork he cooks up himself right in the smoker set up in front of the place! —- mmm MMM!!)

From late March to late August I owned a truck. A fine truck! And I suppose I still own it though it is no longer a form of transportation and it is not serving as my residence. (Oh the times we had! SO much learning, growing, testing and being tested, meeting fine people on the road and ultimately, arriving home and knowing the place for the first time!)

So. Moving on! I will pick up the tale from the Great North-Eastern War, affectionately known here in Malagentia as GNEW, which I attended in July, for the second year running, and at which I established some pretty significant stuff. 

First, “Battlefield Bakery 2” morphed into “Solivagi’s Public House” and was successful enough that I will certainly do it again. In fact, I’m making GNEW the first of the Regular Annual Progress stops.

Second, and dear to my heart, I formed my own ‘household’ and established a badge, colors, and invited a core of five founding members! I realized that since my household of origin (House du Chat Gris, Barony Carolingia) disbanded some years back, I was free to establish my own! So, when you find yourself coming back to SCA after a 15-year intense relationship followed by a 25-year virtual hiatus, well, it is nice to establish some new ground rules and find your proper ‘place’ in this Thing of Ours. My ‘place’ turns out to be on Merchant’s Row.

Enter Gillian Solivagi, her Public House and – TA DA!!! – Solivagi Crew!

I put ‘household’ in quotes because we define Solivagi Crew as “a loose affiliation of folks who congregate at SCA events and elsewhere as any or all may choose.” We are each of us solitary wanderers, gypsies, shifters, travelers, and by nature we herd up less willingly than cats! But we are all artistic, creative, intelligent, funny and hard working (when we are in the mood). We have not even all met each other yet because one couldn’t make it to GNEW and two were so busy – one running a booth and one attending all possible parties – that even the four of us who were THERE didn’t occupy the same space at the same time! NONETHELESS, I feel a connection and that’s what matters! SO THERE!

Now – on to future plans and How YOU can Help Dreams Come True!!!!!

It is now September 7, 2014. I REALLY want to attend the event in Walpole, MA, on September 13th (just one week away!!). This event includes the Bardic Championship. Also, I have already informed the Coronation Kitchen Autocrat that I am totally down with being put to work at Coronation on September 27th. So she gave me ‘Running Service of the Day Board’ and I said OKAY! This was just before the truck died but also just after I found out I can indeed ride Amtrak with my Service Dog. SO….

Please consider this blog a crowd-sourcing campaign, a begging bowl, a point of charitable contribution and also a way to Help a Hippie out, man!

This is a chance to participate in the Fulfillment of Dreams! An opportunity to help fund the return (full-circle) of an itinerant puppeteer back to her Carolingian roots!

Help me get back to helping Run the Pass at a feast! Please, won’t you consider helping an Oldy, Moldy, WAY Antique Carolingian travel from her new-found Malagentian stomping grounds to her — well, her Baronial Alma Mater, if you will.

I really want to travel back to the Place that Made Me Who I Am Today and be Among the People Who Guided My Way and especially back in the Company of Old and Dear Friends!! I want to take advantage of this chance to show off and Let You All See How I Turned Out After All!

Also I kind of want to blow everyone away with a puppet show of my own devising. It bears a remarkable resemblance to a puppet show I last performed in Carolingia back when I wrote it in its original version about 35 years ago! It was a hit back then, it’s been a hit at various random events over the years, and it has a certain timeless poignancy.

(AND I still have the original proscenium of my very first puppet stage! It was built for me by Sir Patri du Chat Gris back when I was age 12 and he was still a college student!

I had just written my first puppet play, the musical “Sir Rychard du Rychus,” and my Lady Mother said, “Say, Patri, could you whip up a stage so the kiddo can wow ’em with some puppetry?” and Patri said, “Hmm… let me see, I think I have some 2 x 4’s hanging around here someplace. Could you hand me that pencil and a measure, please? We’ll just do this right here in the living room. Shouldn’t take but a moment. Who wants to order pizza?”)

The play I really want to reprise next weekend in Walpole is called: “Punch & Judy vs Shakespeare” and features our intrepid friends, Punch & Judy trying their level best to “grow as actors” and embrace the classics – with mixed results, and if I may say so myself, hilarity ensues! Suffice it to say, the  Romeo & Juliet balcony scene has never been *quite* like THIS before!!!

So, if I can line up crash space, get some help to pay for the train ticket, arrange a ride from train to event and back again, and find a sitter for the dog (which may be possible right here in Portland –which would certainly simplify things), then I could make the Pilgrimage of the Prodigal Daughter and maybe even have some laughs, long overdue, with some of the coolest people I have ever known! (You KNOW who you are!!!) 

Please contact me through this blog, by email, picnicitrix@gmail.com or text me at 207 747-9203 if there is any way you could help me attend either Bardic Championship or Coronation. (And wouldn’t you know it, I really MUST be in Portland in between those events for a Very Important Appointment Which Cannot be Easily Rescheduled – Grr!)

Next post will be all about the FUN FUN FUN plans for 2015,  to wit:

(Second Sunday of May) TAHNTAY! All People All Creatures Spring Parade and Festival!! Eastern Prom, Portland, Maine 

(Summer Solstice weekend) Downton Abbey Daze in Deering Oaks Park, Portland Maine

(GNEW in July) Solivagi’s Public House and children’s day-play area on Merchant’s Row, Hebron, Maine

(Labor Day weekend – probably) Game of Thrones Daze in Baxter Woods, Portland, Maine

(Columbus Day weekend) Victorian Daze, Riverton Trolley Park, Portland, Maine — This is the Big One!! For three days, it’s circa 1900 by the Presumpscot.River!

Attendees, ALL Merchants, Wares, Food Vendors & Entertainers plus watercraft such as pleasure barges will provide 1900-appropriate wares in 1900-appropriate style. Midway, Petting Zoo, Kayak & canoe rentals, roving entertainers plus bigger Stage Acts in the Natural Amphitheater by the water. PLUS: Steampunk Day (Saturday) and an Evening Entertainment portion bringing on Vaudeville, Burlesque and otherwise 18+ Racy Good Fun! Possible Side Show, even!

Also planned, a ‘Journey through Time’ exhibit so we can showcase all other re-enactment folk doing their own fave eras and display the ‘Evolution of Arms and Armament from Ancient Rome to the Modern Era (1900)!”

(First Sunday Series: Oct 2015 – Apr 2016) Tea & Jam Sessions to be held at various venues, but certainly sometimes at Deering Grange Hall, across from Northgate Plaza, Portland, Maine.

I put out a 4-hour on-going English Buffet Tea from 2pm-6pm. Musicians Who Jam eat free. Forfeits, charades, card and board games are available for Those Who Take Tea. At the mid-point a 20-min informational segment will feature a Speaker on An Issue of Import, A Short Lecture on Something Amusing, or a CD Release Live Set by a Featured Local Band or Singing Group. IF it comes to pass, a theater company providing short vignettes may occupy the 20-min mid-point presentation slot.

STAY TUNED!!!!!!!!

Help create Ebune 2014!

Ebune~ All Peoples, All Creatures Spring Parade & Celebration, Portland!

Hi folks!

It’s that time again to begin planning for this years celebration of Spring and Diversity in Portland, Maine! This year Amanda Parkhurst is picking up the torch to help get this event off the ground. Many volunteers are needing to help make this community event come to life.

Please visit the Ebune ~ All Peoples, All Creatures Spring Parade and Celebration facebook page for a listing of suggested positions to be filled and to contact Amanda!

Blessings and gratitude

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Today is the day. It’s been a great ride!

I have about an hour left of work. Then I’m going home, getting on my bike – my sweet Bes – on this lovely warm beautiful just-past-peak-foliage autumn day and riding up to Tri-Sports Honda in Topsham. My honey will be following me in the car.

Because today is the day I put BES in the barn for the winter. *sniff, pout* Tri-Sports will keep her warm and tend to her needs and next Spring I will be reunited with my sweet ride! Between now and then, I go back to being a cager. Only before this summer I did not know that ‘cager’ is what bikers call people who drive cars. Now I know. And life will never be the same again! Thank Bes!!

Lotsa Love to all who have bothered to read this, I’m sure I personally know all but one or two of you.  Thanks to wordpress for this really really user-friendly blog hosting site!! I have not even begun to understand all the cool stuff that can be done here, but I get that this is a GREAT place to learn!! There are support groups for wordpress users right here in Portland. I haven’t made it to a meeting yet because they hold them on Thursday evening and that’s choir rehearsal night. But somehow, someway, I’m going to learn my way around this blogging stuff and start writing for real!

THANKS to my kids and my best buddies in Arlington/Cambridge/Boston for the surprise party and the hot air balloon trip!!!

Thanks also to Mark, David and even John (who probably started the fire that burned up almost all my stuff and made my brother have to leave his super-fab apt RIGHT THERE in Cambridge near MIT). You all have helped make me who I am today and for that I am oddly grateful, regardless of how you influenced my life. The point is, you influenced my life. So thanks for that!

And thanks to my very patient and understanding chosen brother who still gets me and has forgiven me for the fire that put him out of Cambridge. I’m still sorry about that, bro.

Have a good winter, Bes. I’ll be busy putting the business in order so that in Spring we can start delivering picnics in Portland. I can’t wait!!!

*closes the barn door gently, walks away bravely…. singing “I’m not cryyyyyyying”*

23rd post. Hail Eris! Fnord!

Very recent letter to my tattoo artist –

I’m still gazing at the designs and pondering…I was kind of attached to the rainbow serpent. Yet I love the snake you’ve done. One change I would definitely like to make – the apple on the tree should be gold – or golden or even a very gold/red – and should have a letter K on it. This is a reference to a myth. This myth:

The goddess Eris – goddess of Chaos – was not invited to a wedding, for obvious reasons, so She came up to the wedding hall and rolled a golden apple under the door. The apple was etched with the work “Kalliesti” which apparently means ‘To the most beautiful one.’ Athena, Hera and Aphrodite fought over which one of them the apple was meant for. They decided the half-man/half-god Paris should judge which of them deserved the prize.

Athena whispered to Paris, ‘If you choose me, you will always be successful in battle.’  Hera confided, ‘If you choose me your marriage will be long and happy!’ But Aphrodite, the goddess of Love told him, ‘If you choose me, you will fall in love with the most beautiful woman on earth!’ Paris chose Aphrodite. And he promptly fell in love with Helen of Troy — who was married to someone else. So he had to start the Trojan War.

He kidnapped Helen, brought her to Troy and was then besieged by her people. The Trojan Horse was employed. Everyone in Paris’ family was brought to ruin during the siege of Troy. Cassandra went crazy because she fore-saw (correctly) the ruin of Troy but nobody believed her because nobody wants to be on the losing side. After a whole lot of time, trouble, death and privation, Troy fell.

Lesson:  Don’t mess with Chaos – or the Goddess of Love, for that matter.

And: If three powerful women ask you to choose one of them as the Best, probably a good idea to make some vague excuse to back out and NOT get sucked into THAT cat fight!!

Hail Eris! Fnord!    http://www.principiadiscordia.com/book/10.php

And on a similar theme http://www.jhuger.com/kissing-hanks-ass

Final Note… My dear motorcycle, Bes, will be put into winter storage later this week at Tri-Sports Honda in Topsham, Maine *sniff, pout, tear*   I will insist that she get plenty of fresh hay on a regular basis and an extra scoop of oats just for being the best.

Since I bought her in June, I’ve put 3.100 miles on her, she’s had a new chain put on and an initial tune-up after I dumped her the first time. I’m pretty sure my longest trip was almost exactly 100 miles.

I’ve dumped her twice, once on loose  gravel and once on a grassy median bordering a parking lot. She lost a mirror and every one of her turn lights is held to the stem with duct tape and electrical tape. She may be needing a brake light as well. She gets  around 150 miles to the tank (2.2 gallons) and once I did push her 161 miles on one tank of gas. I’ve ridden in rain, from slightly misty to holy crap downpours, I’ve got two helmets, two pair of gloves, been through a few pairs of sunglasses and clear glasses/goggles. I have acquired two leather jackets and a collection of scarves.

I have carried a max of about 80 pounds of groceries in one trip, but usually load up around 30-50 lbs. of groceries in a typical trip. I have carried a passenger for about 10 blocks and was WELL aware that this over-taxed Bes. I have bruised my legs and knees rather impressively during the dumping episodes. On the gravel swerve-dump I was thrown clear of the bike. On the parking lot meridian dump the bike fell on me and I could not get my leg out from under her without the assistance of passers-by (4 guys in 4 different vehicles) who stopped to help.

I have been truly amazed and awed by the ‘family’ of bikers, their care and concern, good tips, complete acceptance and understanding and cheerful camaraderie. Also, they have been without exception frank and honest about every aspect of riding, maintenance, and road lore. They have made me feel confident and comfortable and never intimidated me or made me feel left out or klutzy or new. They are, as a group, very accepting of the inevitability of death and injury and carry themselves in a manner of comfortable balance – we take risks, we accept risks, we prefer these risks to the alternatives; we are content with our choices.

My experiences over this season have given me a new level of confidence and even a bit of maturity as I too learn how much risk I can tolerate, tend to choose, and carry with contentment.

I very much look forward to riding again come Spring. Vroom! Vroom!

In Honor of National Coming Out Day

This piece was previously posted in response to a call for coming out stories on a LGBT forum.

I was sure I was bi at age 16. But I was 33 before I mentioned this out loud to another human being.

I am 51. I have a lovely partner. He cries when he hears sad songs, becomes verklempt when a pet dies – anybody’s pet. He has a wardrobe which reflects his many moods and contains dresses and caftans as well as suits and a tuxedo. He has zero sense of direction, can only just barely change the batteries in a remote and thinks every time youtube or gmail changes its look that they have somehow stolen all his playlists and the good email from his brother. Yoikes!

I often sing to him, “It must be the woman in you, that brings out the man in me!”

He is frustrating at times but we have a lot of the same sensibilities. We like to sit on the porch and talk about everything under the sun and we like to play billiards a couple doors down from the laundromat while the laundry is in the dryer.

When we throw one of our fabulous dinner parties one of us may wear a dress. We never know who it will be. I love the guy. He loves how I look in leather on my motorbike. He prefers getting around by car but admires my two-wheeled bravado. I LOVE my 1986 Honda Rebel 250 and am sad that it is getting too cold in the mornings to continue commuting by bike. He now drives me to work. We are happy. We are weird. We like each other’s coolness and style. We both have tattoos but mine are bigger and bolder, while his are more subtle and dainty. I’m about to get another; he’s thinking about his next one and plans to take a few years deciding….. on a really tiny thing that might be a feather or a bird or maybe a cartoon character. I’m getting big icons of my strange faith and my own spiritual practice.

I have no idea how to classify either of us on the straight/bi/gay scale. We just don’t bother. We enjoy gender confusion in ourselves and others. We just don’t care what labels might be slapped on us. We are happy together and we are content to be the ‘characters’ in the neighborhood. So be it.

My grown children have accepted me as bi since they were in grade school. Now they are all out of college and they like my partner and accept him as is. They think we are very odd, but it is a familiar sort of odd. After all, they did some of their growing up with me and my considerably weirder mother.

When my son was a cub-scout with hair long enough for a ponytail, he suffered the accusations and teasing taunts, “You’re a girl!!” for just so long and then said, “Fine, I’m a girl,” and turned to the nearest cub scout and kissed him on the cheek. “Ewwwww,” whined all the cub scouts as they turned and ran away.

The adult leader came to me and said (be sitting down for this, please), “Well, that behavior may be okay here in the tight-knit community of scouting [What the !*#$%&@!!, I’m thinking while I listen politely], but you might want to tell your son that in the big world out there, boys don’t kiss boys. I said, “Thanks for letting me know,” but I was thinking that in OUR real world everyone kisses everyone eventually.

To my young son I said, “Show your true colors. Some will run away from you but that is okay. If you try to be what you are not, the people who are like you will not be able to find you. Be who you really are, whatever that is, so that the people who are like you can find you and you can find them.”

Or as Mr. Wizard said on the Saturday morning cartoons of my childhood: “Be vhat you iz, not vhat you iz not! Zem dat to zis is de happiest lot!”

So Happy Coming Out Day and Gods Bless Us, Everyone!

This pretty much concludes this blog, though I’ll have to have one more post to make it a nice Discordian 23 posts!!

Postscript – A year of bucket list focus

I started this blog because of the gift of a hot air balloon ride on my last birthday. I started ticking off other items on my busket list.  So, a year on, here’s how THIS birthday weekend went:

Wed Oct 9 – Fri Oct 11,  I worked 15 hr days (2 jobs) so I was VERY ready for the weekend! Also, it has gotten too cold to ride my motorbike to work so Bill has been driving me to work all week!

 

Saturday we slept in, lounged around all morning, did a few errands and talked. Perfect. Then Saturday night Bill took me to see the Blue Man Group here in Portland! A terrific show! First time seeing the show for both of us. If you have not heard of it, this show became a phenom shortly after it opened which was in Boston a FEW years ago. (I was in high school when the Blue Man Group got started.) I have wanted to see this show for well over 20 years! My 21-year-old son has seen Blue Man Group 3 times over the last decade or so. I just saw it Saturday night!

 

I asked the pair of young ladies sitting next to me if they had seen it before. They said ‘Many times!!’ Turns out they are friends with a couple of the Blue Men so they’ve been following them for the portion of this tour that is in New England. One of them texted her Blue friend to say ‘The lady next to me has been waiting 20 years to see the show.’ He texted back, ‘Tell her we’ve been waiting 20 years to play for her!’  Awwww. Too sweet. Those Blue Men! (Of course none of the Blue Men in the several companies of the show now were in the original cast, but so what – the blue runs deep!)

 

We had excellent seats (Row 11, center) and in the finale when white paper streamers come out of the ceiling and fall on the audience, a huge load of the stuff landed right on us!! But even though streamers fell on at least 50 or so people, we were the only ones WEARING our streamers, exactly how they fell on us, as we all exited the theater after the show. We thought other people were weird NOT to keep wearing their streamers, but we acknowledged that we were probably being seen as the weird ones. Whatever.

 

We proudly wore our gifts of streamers though no one else did. We got to feel weird and conspicuous but also superior in our participatory bent. Others probably saw a couple of happy whack jobs. But what Really Matters is that we were on the same page with each other. We’re the same kind of weirdo. This is a very important bond between us. We see creative expression and art and music in quite similar ways and we feel that we are (that everyone is) meant to be a part of all the art and artistry around us.

 

Then on my birthday Sunday, we walked the dog in the morning, ending up inviting another dog-walker back to our place to talk and join us for breakfast. Bill’s brother Glenn came to visit as well so we had 2 guest humans and 2 guest dogs. I got to cook for a small crowd and that always makes me happy.

 

Then I went to church but didn’t sing with choir because I’d missed rehearsals due to that 2nd job! Still, the service was delightful – all about bird song and dawn chorus and what we can learn from the birds and how to act so as not to disturb the birds when we come across them in the wild. A very useful sermon. And I had an appropriate occasion to squeeze my stuffed crow that  sings in real (recorded, natch) crow.

 

After-service schmoozing and networking is always the REAL stuff of church and there was plenty of good work to be done there! I’m being invited onto several committees and trying hard not to over-extend myself, but it’s nice to feel wanted and needed and useful. I sing in choir, I use the church kitchen for my own baking business and there are two other businesses who use the kitchen facility so we are going to become a committee of sorts. I need to work up a proposal for us to collectively buy a used chest freezer.

 

Then there’s the history committee – a fun thing but I don’t want to have to put much time into it. All three of the current committee members want to retire from the committee – I believe they are all in their 90’s and running out of steam for church committee work! Sally Breen, an amazing woman who was a serious activist back in the day, who is now coping with three kinds of cancer and not going to recover her full health in this lifetime, is still a mover and shaker in church AND the head of the history committee – whew!! She invited me to have dinner at her place tonight to visit the church’s historical archives which apparently reside in her house!

 

Church service was 11-11:45 and coffee time usually goes to noon or noon:15 but I didn’t get out of there til 1 pm. The minister and I were the last ones there and I wanted to ask her about some music ideas for upcoming services. I really enjoy being involved in this particular congregation. This is probably my sixth UU church and this one suits me much better than all the earlier ones.

 

So,  around 1 pm I went over to my former roommate’s house which is very near the church. I did a little sacred grove maintenance – my sacred circle is just behind her backyard in what is officially city property. I swept and tended the altar, I did MY church there at the base of a big red oak which is a copse with 5 10″ – 12″ diameter ‘trunks’ and a lovely flat hollow about the size of a standard chess board in the hollow. This is the altar, the oak is the heart of the circle and the circle (about 12′ across) is my sacred space. So I tended my altar, raked fallen leaves out of the sacred space and generally tidied up, made an offering of flowers, meditated and figured out some stuff and then I left to go meet Bill.

 

We got some organizing done in the back yard, starting setting out his extremely abundant Halloween decorations, I made a were-wolf headed ‘scarecrow’ that is now sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch, along with a motion-sensor 3′ tall witch. When anyone walks up the front stairs, the witch will say things and make a lot of bubbling cauldron, screaming cat and generally eerie sound effects. It’s a lot of fun!

 

Then Bill, his visiting brother Glenn and I went to a local restaurant/pub and watched a football game along with the other patrons. The food was great, the beer was nice local microbrew and I even got a cannoli with a birthday candle stuck in it. We made friends with other patrons and had a great time, alternately cheering and yelling at the tv screens as the Patriots – Saints game went along. We left, got home around 6:30pm and Glenn promptly went upstairs to watch ANOTHER football game (Washington – Dallas I think) while Bill & I decided a long nap was in order.

 

A great birthday!!

 

I’m on a rol!! Last year I got a surprise birthday party from my kids and by best friends in Boston with the gift of a hot air balloon ride!!

 

This year I saw the Blue Man Group with my very own special weirdo who is weird just like me, PLUS an impromptu brunch with a neighbor and guest family AND Sunday pub football! WOW – I’m a very happy camper! (Only I didn’t get my room cleaned up which was a birthday weekend goal. Oh well. Fun trumped getting organized this time, but I think I’ll still get it done over the course of this week. )

 

Whilst trying to get organized I ran across an old carousel slide holder that had slides of Marian’s. Mostly they are close-ups of manuscript illuminations, some are pics of half-timbered homes in England and a few are of museum examples of Elizabethan and Tudor clothing.

 

ALSO, I recently saw Gary Dryfoos (at Eliza’s graduation party) and he had found a box labelled “Jill’s stuff” in his storage unit. This means it was stuff that survived the apt. fire in 2000, which was actually Gary’s apt. So… inside the mystery box was a tin box (thank goodness for that! The box was sooty and black but the contents had been preserved intact!) and inside the box were my copies of the slides from Ian’s trip to Pakistan with me and Flora to see Basil back in Summer 1976. So now all I need is to find a way to rent a slide projector that will take that carousel and then, for the first time since 1976, actually have a look at slides from our trip to Pakistan! Woohoo!!

 

Hopefully I can manage to find such a projector sometime this winter and we’ll have a ‘Look at my vacation slides!’ dinner party. Maybe Bill can throw together a sampling of pics from his ‘skiing the Italian Alps’ vacations that he used to do on a fairly regular basis up until a couple years ago. Compare and contrast: Athletic guy in expensive ski gear enjoying the Alps – 13-year old girl looking much larger than her host family in Rehman’s backyard… or up in Swat… or checking out Mohenjo-Daro with Basil and Flora and Ian… and then, just for random fun, a few slides of Marian’s trip to visit old manuscripts in England or a few dresses she saw in a museum. We’ll just call it “Family Vacation” and keep the viewers guessing how all these scenes happen to be related! FUN Fun fun!!