In praise of the meeting: bitching about and then enjoying Unevent

Saturday I attended Unevent, an event designed explicitly for meetings within the SCA so that we can avoid them at all the other events where we'd rather be playing. It was in Claremont, North Carolina, which is six long and tedious hours from my house. I only had two meetings to attend the entire day other than Curia, both of them for baronage. I was going to spend 12 hours in a car for three total hours worth of meetings. I was pretty cranky about it. In order to get there at a reasonable hour, I took a half day off of work on Friday. I drove with Oda and my mom so that I could take her to see my brother in Winston-Salem on the way. At several points along the way I texted my husband about this site in "the middle of ducking nowhere" (it's an iPhone, so it censors me). I may have typed "stupid event in Egypt", which is pretty strong language since I now have this nervous tick in anticipation of my son yelling "STUPID'S NOT A NICE WORD!" like the damn FCC.

It also didn't help that the first meeting I attended as a proxy had four people in it, all of whom were proxies like me. I was not feeling the love. I will say, though, that I got very valuable information from our kingdom officer and wrote down two pages of notes to take back to our local group. Ok, fine, it was worthwhile, but I'm sure I could have gotten that information online somewhere.

We had a lively discussion during our first baronage meeting about both the need for Unevent as well as the proposed changes for Curia. I was beginning to wonder if Drea had invented Unevent or the brick and mortar conference model based on her fervent defense of seeing everyone in person. Good points were made on all sides. Ironically, as we were discussing how important it was to have these meetings in person, we were also changing the schedule so that we could end an hour earlier and let folks get on the road to beat bad weather. As soon as we started talking about finding a better date for Unevent, it became apparent that the less desirable weekends are the ones that make the most sense for this "bitter pill of an event" as His Majesty Ragnar put it, in order to reserve more desirable days for play.

I was starting to get the vibe that not wanting to go to an event like this made me some medieval version of unpatriotic. If I took the responsibilities of my office seriously, I would budget for this trip and reserve the first weekend of December for the foreseeable future. That didn't make me very excited about the event, though, just made me feel guilty for bitching about it. What must a new local officer feel about this, if they have only one hour long meeting they are required to attend?

Things got feisty again in our second baronage meeting as someone mentioned her desire to remove Unevent all together in favor of using technology for online interactions. I'm not a fan of that plan as I use that for work and it really only goes well for one person to dole out information to a lot of people but not to have any sort of discussion. The idea of replacing meetings with Webex doesn't appeal to me. But our second round of debating led to a few other very interesting points. First, we realized that we as baronage are not communicating with each other as well as we should (oh the irony to discover that in person at Unevent!) about crash space availability. It's something that would be helpful not just for this one meeting-palooza day but for all sorts of events. We also talked about how baronage can do a better job of helping folks share rides to events.

The thing I found most helpful, though, was the discussion about other fun things we could do at Unevent. I bitched pretty much non-stop about going to this event but had a very productive and pleasant day. After having a day or so to ponder it more, I'm even more encouraged that Unevent is an opportunity to train and foster service and participation on all sorts of levels. As a new member in Black Diamond oh so many years ago, I would have benefitted so much from going to an Unevent to sit in on officer meetings of those I wanted to try one day. It certainly would beat taking a job I was woefully unprepared for or not the best candidate for and feeling like a screw up. Yesterday, I would have liked to have spent an hour in a classroom with a panel of Atlantian cooks. I would have jumped at the chance for rapier "office hours". I could have learned to naalbind while wearing a hoodie and jeans and it would have been lovely. I would have helped work on the hosting barony's random project in a corner of the cafeteria if it were available (painting banners, stenciling direction signs, etc.). I could sit in the main room and offer to braid hair and model head coverings.

So my unsolicited suggestions for the next Unevent (or any event) are ...

- Have it wherever the heck you want to. It's going to be a long ass drive for someone, so it's a moot point to me. - Have other things besides meetings that will entice both people who should already know and accept the burden of responsibility to attend as well as those who may be interested in attending. Put those activities on the schedule as well to make it easy to find them. - Make sure that information about crash space is not only listed with the event announcement but conveyed to baronage and seneschals kingdom wide. People are much more likely to accept an offer to stay than to call a stranger and ask what spaces are available. - As a kingdom, make sure that we embrace the concept of sharing rides.

There was talk of combining Unevent with February's University, but I think that might be tough to do. Do you wear garb to that? Does University become two days and then do folks just complain that they have to take off Monday to get back home? Just because it's a day of meetings doesn't mean it has to suck. Meetings can be fun and if you don't like what's happening during them you should bring more interesting things to do for everyone versus just leveling up in eye-rolling. Most things about the SCA are a ton of work (setting up the Jenga-designed list fences, schlepping thrones, scrambling to repair armor, finding loaner feast gear for Lord Sweatsocks) but we manage to make all that fun. Let's not have a measly day of meetings get the best of us.

I look forward to seeing all my friends again in our jeans next year.

(I had time to kill on Saturday, so I got my 10,000 steps in on the high school track.)

Christmas traditions

I have really enjoyed reading everyone's comments on how you celebrate Christmas from my Facebook survey. It's only fair that I share how we did things when I was a kid. First, let it be noted that my family is a pack rat family so our house was cluttered. Making a space for the Christmas tree was a challenge each year. I'm convinced this is what helped prolong my belief in Santa was that I couldn't believe how my parents could have pulled all this off themselves. Because of the clutter challenge, we usually did not get a Christmas tree until Christmas Eve. That meant we got beautiful Frasier firs for crazy discount prices because at 6pm on December 24, that dude just wants to go home.

We all decorate the tree together. Colored lights and they have to twinkle but not blink. When I was young that meant that most of the ornaments were in one space about three feet off the ground, but it was still lovely. There are no themes for our trees. I have been impressed with the specialized ornaments that Rich has collected over the years. Hockey Santas and Philadelphia Flyers and bizarre medieval knights next to storm troopers. Our ornaments as a kid weren't that sentimental but just pretty.

All of our presents came from Santa. All of them. This never seemed out of the ordinary to me because we don't do big birthday celebrations in the Powell house (both my father and brother have forgotten their own birthdays) so of course we wouldn't exchange gifts at Christmas either. There was just all this magical stuff from Santa.

Santa wraps everything. Everything. Like packages of dental floss in the stocking kind of everything. And nothing is labeled because each child has their own wrapping paper for all gifts so that the pile Christmas morning is one for each kid with their stocking on top.

Christmas morning my father would snore in front of the fire place because he was running on approximately 2 hours sleep. My mother would enthusiastically listen and comment as we three kids went through all our presents in a frenzy of paper and ribbon. Then we would spend the rest of the morning playing with our gifts while Mom made a side dish or two for dinner at Jack and Joan's or Sissy's (mom's brother and sister-in-law or mom's sister). We were usually down to the wire getting dressed and in the car to arrive on time.

As for the number of gifts, we made out pretty well. Santa was our only benefactor and he was generous, with maybe 10 to 12 gifts each. Stockings were filled with the usual dental care regimen, some candy and possibly cheap little toys. We never had oranges in the toe, but Jeremy's family did.

We would leave cookies and milk for Santa on occasion and we would get notes on occasion but not with any regularity that I recall. Also, my oldest brother is 18 years my senior, so when I was getting Snoopy snow cone machines from Santa, he was getting gift certificates for a new pair of glasses. This seemed totally reasonable to me that you could take this card to an optometrist and redeem it.

I don't ever recall my parents talking about being good to ensure Santa brought gifts. However, I was raised by wolves so we didn't have a lot of those typical reward and punishment structures. You just did good things because it was the right thing to do and once a year this magical dude would drop off gifts because he was awesome like that. We don't write thank you notes in our family either. Wolves. Kind-hearted, industrious, wolves.

We rarely had specific PJs when I was a kid (wolf pack aroooo!) so now Ian also doesn't have PJs. We have to buy him sets explicitly for when he has PJ day at his school so he will have something to wear. I think he's convinced PJs are just really soft pants you wear for special occasions at school.

Because as a kid we were always at the last minute getting our act together we stretch Christmas out as long as possible. I can remember at one point having the tree up until February. But I remember Mom always saying she couldn't play Christmas until the semester was over and she'd turned in her grades. Once that was done, she could rally to make a space for Santa to come. As an adult, I'm trying to get things done a little sooner so I can have a relaxed holiday season. I don't want to stress about gifts anymore in my life, so I am making a conscious effort to just let it go. Also, our tree can't come down until after 12th night.

I rummaged around and found some photos from Christmas of 1981. I was 4 and a half and my brother Perry was almost 11. Doug was 22 and a half. We had just moved to the new ranch house from our tiny house across the street and weren't sure what to do with all the space. I also have a totally awesome recording of that morning. You can enjoy my country twang as I shout, "LOOK WHAT HE BRANG ME!"

Christmas 1981 highlights (7 minutes of awesome in an MP3 format)

Books and snuggles make everything better

The last few days have been hard. (Didn't I just type that a few weeks ago? It's all a blur.) Thanksgiving itself was fine except for eating too much and arguing with Rich over family traditions. The next day was okay but I never got out of my pajamas and again Rich and I had misunderstandings and miscommunications. Yesterday I was in a foul mood most of the day to the point that I skipped ice skating to go to Food Lion. I actually felt downright depressed yesterday just from feeling distant from anything fun.

And oh, the whining from our child! Ian will say he wants something (an omelet with spinach and mushrooms), perceive some slight (that I didn't put mushrooms in his omelet when I did), then make a grandiose statement that hurts my feelings despite its nonsensical basis ("I don't like these eggs, Mommy. You didn't make what I wanted. I never get eggs."). He was 7/8 through his two egg omelet when he became righteously indignant about its contents. I can only sigh and walk away so many times before I want to throw his plate of eggs in the back yard.

Today was looking up, though. After a snack, Ian had his swim lesson where he didn't require me to get in the pool with him. He did well with the timeline for leaving without pitching a fit. We had brunch at Panera where Ian happily ate his soufflé and was super sweet. Ian played on the playground while Rich and I talked in the sun. Our kid who was so nervous last year did a fantastic job with our appointment to meet Santa and have pictures taken. We all enjoyed a lovely afternoon of resting while I roasted another turkey (it's a long story why I have two more turkeys in my fridge).

Even when I cut the bejeezus out of my finger washing a plate, Ian was super helpful and hugged me sympathetically. We were doing so well (fingertip not withstanding). But Ian started getting punchy from fatigue. And my finger started throbbing. And everyone got hungry. And Ian got spun up and wild like he does when he's overtired. And everything just started to unravel.

Fussy words were exchanged with Ian, then Rich went to pick up his sub while Ian sat on the couch and I nursed my pinky at the computer.

But then I remembered the Christmas books. We were supposed to be celebrating this evening by picking out books to read as we lead up to Christmas. I ran upstairs to grab the books, found some wrapping paper, brought in the giant calendar, and turned off the TV. Ian started to whine and I felt myself tense up. But I told him I had a special plan and once I told him snuggling was part of the plan, he was intrigued. I drew a Christmas tree on the 25th box and patiently watched Ian count each day ("and then this day, and then this day, and then this day") from 1 to 25. I showed him how to cross off a day when we were done with it. Then I dragged over the giant crate of books. I told him this first night we could read as many as he wanted. His eyes got wide with joy and we both started to feel a lot better.

We only made it through three books. Ian asked a million questions about "The Night Before Christmas". There are lots of strange terms in that book like kerchiefs and coursers and peddlers. We also had a lengthy discussion about who St. Nicholas is versus Santa and if Nicholas is his last name or first. Complicated stuff. For our last book, we picked out The Mitten. It is the best book ever and a favorite for us both. We'd barely gotten to the owl page before Ian's eyes were drooping and I read the last five pages with him probably asleep. Then Rich kept me company while I sorted and wrapped 23 other books for the rest of the month.

My finger still hurts. Our kid will still probably be a spaz at some point tomorrow. I still have a pot full of turkey stock to process before bed. But snuggling on the couch with Ian having him tell me that he loves reading books with me made things better. Here's to the next 23 days of anticipation and snuggling.