Eeep.

Been a while since I've updated.

Went off to Lilies' again.

Didn't get to stay as long. So I don't have the thirty-plus pages that I did last year.

On Sunday night, Greg got in. He called at 10 or 10:30 or so to say that the manager had asked him to work as some people hadn't shown up, so he wouldn't be able to leave till midnight. Putting him here at nearly three.

Hold on... my dad just got home, I have to go pick up my mom.

5:05 p.m.

Okay, so that took longer than I'd expected.

Anyway, Greg told me to call him at a little after midnight so I could see where he was.

We talked for a while, and he claimed to have no idea where he was because he was sort of zoning into the drive. He said there were lights ahead, and I should call in twenty minutes or so.

I came back up here and fiddled around online, reading diaries or checking email - who knows? I can't remember.

So I go back down to the kitchen, because my phone was unplugged, and call him again. He said that he really needed a hot tub soak, and so would I go outside and check on it for him to make sure it's working?

I start to go outside, and I hear a noise from the hot tub area.

I started to startle and then realized as he hung up that it was Greg.

At about ten till one.

Because he'd lied and actually gotten off work at about 10 pm.

But that's okay, because he's allowed to lie as long as it's a good surprise. :)

So we spent the next two hours or so snuggled up against each other, along with about ten or twenty minutes in the hot tub.

Then we went to sleep.

And it was good.

Monday

We woke up a little later than we'd planned; we'd stayed up talking too late, so go figure.

We eventually hit the road.

It was really hot.

Greg's car lacks the A/C.

So we had several frozen bottles of water, but it was still freakin' hot especially since it was sunny and we were both wearing black t-shirts.

We made it up to the site without getting lost, which is possibly a miracle.

While at Troll, however, we ran into a snag - my medical waiver, while it had Mom's signature, was not notarized.

Meaning that I could not be allowed on site, for legal reasons.

So I was all sorts of upset, and pretty much said "Fuck it, I don't care at all, just do whatever and I'll mope and feel bad and shit."

So Greg starts driving back to the nearest civilization to find a fax machine, and we pass the marina on Smithville Lake.

Greg gets the bright idea of asking at the marina if they had a fax machine, because he figured they would so they could check licenses and things like that. I wasn't paying a terrible lot of attention at this point, as I was still crying a little bit.

Anyway, I call Mom on Greg's cell phone to let her know the situation, and try to find the waiver online so she can fill it out and send it to us - wherever we end up being.

Sure enough, the marina has a fax machine. Yay for Greg, my brilliant love. :)

Mom can't find the form online, so we try to send the original signed form to her so she can go sign it again. Or whatever.

The fax won't go through.

Mom has called back, however, and she found the waiver online; she needs the fax number at the marina.

I call her back and let her know the number; eventually it gets faxed there.

In the meantime, Greg and I spent a buck fifty on fish food to mindfuck the fish at the dock.

Fat bastards, the lot of them. Lots of fun to throw in a single pellet at a time and see how many fish come "running"... or to try to feed a particular fish (I got pretty good at that by the end of the third bag).

I think I also got a very minor sunburn from that. So that sucked.

Anyway, we get back to site about an hour, maybe an hour and a half later.

All forms filled out and properly signed, this time; check-in proceeds as normal.

We drive up to Bardic, unload, set up, get dressed, and the fun begins.

Monday Afternoon and Evening

The Bardic Encampment was fairly quiet when we hit them. There were a few people there who recognized me and everything, so that was good.

There again this year after last: Vortimir, Isobel (who now is just Mom, as her name got shot off in the War), Jerek, Asbjorn/Jericho, his sister whose name I can never remember, Jacob the Singer, Uncle Master Mikal the Ram, and a few others.

There's chili. It was pretty good chili. They made about two gallons of it, so everybody got as much as they wanted, including Greg. This did not stay as a good thing for him, sadly, but I get ahead of myself.

Monday night at Bardic is pretty much geared toward one thing and one thing only:

VIKING MARDI GRAS!

Yeah, scary. That's the point. *grins*

This year's theme was "Pinky and the Skald."

(cue theme music, courtesy of "Animaniacs�"):

"Pinky and the Skald
Pinky and the Skald
One's an evil genius
The other's quite bald..."

(Note: Skald is the Norse word for bard. Considering it was Viking Mardi Gras, hosted by the bards, it makes way too much sense...)

I had been drafted to serve as the list mistress for the Bardheight (sp) tourney.

Pretty much, as a fighter, you get to stand in a tiny square with big fucking weapons and beat the crap out of each other. We're bards. We like bloodshed. Just not our own. Which is why we're not fighting. :)

Very interesting tourney; round-robin, with originally seven and eventually eight fighters, although it took till the very end to get the last guy - Xandre - in. So he got to fight seven fights at once. He also lost six of them. *wince*

To be fair, by then it was quite dark and it was very hard to see the outlines for the "hide" you had to stay on.

After that, the drinking and flashing began; Greg and I went to the beach, and actually went to bed about eleven with the party going on around us. Fell asleep anyway.

I woke up at three with a need to pee and found out that while the party had died down, it was still going - several of the bards were still awake in the pavilion.

I also remembered just how damn sharp and painful the freakin' gravel is. My single Welsh curse came in very handy just then. I really wish I knew what it meant. Or how to spell it. Something.

When I came back, everybody'd finally gone to bed. So did I.

Tuesday Morning

Woke up fairly late, around 9:30 or so. Already fairly hot out; in fact, I woke up sweating. I did not care for that, and went to take a shower.

I'd also forgotten just how damn cold those showers are. It sucked. But it sure as hell cooled me off... for a good ten minutes after I'd gotten back to camp, too.

Then Greg left to take his shower. I did not warn him about the water. I can't remember if I'd meant to or not. ;)

I went over to the pavilion, where there were many bagels for breakfast. Most of the bards were willing to admit to hangovers, it seemed. Silly bards. *grin*

At this point, I discovered that one of the regular bards, whose name I cannot at this moment remember, was not able to attend this year; therefore, the rest of the bards were making a scrapbook for her to have the highlights of the event. Taken out of context, of course... *grins* They were damn funny, too.

Greg and I wandered around and looked at the stuff on Merchant Row, but the only thing he bought was a hat on the other side of the site. I didn't buy anything.

Well, he also bought me lunch at the Green Rice Bowl. That place kicks ass. The guy who owns and runs it is a big Pratchett fan, so that's just even better. :)

Tuesday Afternoon

Meet the SUPERBARDS!

That's right, because regular bards just weren't crazy enough!

But you'll have to ask me if you want details. Or come to Lilies next summer. *grins*

I will, however, say that I have been dubbed Wacky Girl, and Greg is (perhaps too aptly) named Apathy Boy.

There's also Dark Lord Gizmo, the Dome, UberThrall, the Mominator, DirtyOLD Man and his three assistants - Candy Sprinkles, Chocolate Sauce, and Whipped Cream - who ride to battle evil on the Ice Cream Cart of Naughty Joy, Liquid Refreshment Lad and his sidekick Cabana Boy, the Librarian, Speed Reader, Heraldry Girl, Dr LoveStrange and/or Dr Strangelover...

Of course, that was just at the end of Tuesday evening. By the end of the war, who knows how many there will be? The Filking Bastage Virus knows no bounds...

Anyway, Asbjorn and Mikal are probably going to start up a webcomic with this. When they do, when I get the link, I'll post it here so you can have your brain hurt. Yay!

Tuesday Night

Tuesday night was Tor Party. Which had good food. And Greg tried a few more things to drink. Mostly we went for the food, although a few of the SuperBards met up again. Just for a chat.

There was also discussion of Corwyn's idea of the Rumormongers. (If you'd like to start a rumor, please see the rumormongers with twenty-five cents. If you'd like to stop a rumor, please see the rumormongers with twenty-five dollars. All proceeds go to the Rumormonger Widow and Orphan fund, because if you catch us, you're probably gonna try to kill us.)

Then we got bored, since we were full and didn't feel like drinking all that much, and so we started to head back to the camp.

At this point, the chili strikes its revenge upon Greg; he gets to suffer the wrath of the Port-A-Castles at this point. (Read: Stinky.)

I continue to camp, and when I get there Vortimir teases me that I've abandoned Apathy Boy at some point. I explain the situation, and we are introduced to Speed Reader, as well as learning just how we all got our SuperBard powers.

I do not know my own powers, unfortunately, because only Apathy Boy knows them, and he doesn't care to tell me.

I have now gotten into the dangerous cycle of putting emoticons actively into my diary.

Oh horrors.

We went to bed soon after that... actually Greg went to bed earlier than I did.

Wednesday

Woke up in the evil early morning - like, a little after 6 - with a desperate need to pee. As in, I'd sort of needed to pee before I went to sleep at midnight but I was too tired to walk all the way there and back. And falling asleep at the portas was not an option.

And yet, I really didn't want to be awake yet.

So I didn't.

And I was late to class.

And I didn't really care.

There were also donuts.

And I went to class still in garb.

And there's more to tell, but Mom wants to take me to the YMCA and I've been at least somewhat writing this for two hours.

I'll finish up sometime later.