War of the Wings VIII

This may be boring for others but it's too long for a Facebook status update. It's my blog and I'll ramble if I want to. If you just want to look at a few random photos, you can browse the set on Flickr. This weekend was War of the Wings in Boonville, NC. We didn't go last year since we were prepping for Rich's surgery so this was our first WoW camping with Marinus. It was also my third event fighting rapier.

We had a rough start getting to site. We expected to get up Thursday morning, pack the car and be on the road by 10. Losing power over and over starting Wednesday night, torrential rain the entire time we packed the van and a hole in one of the tires really slowed us down. We left at 2:30pm and headed to a hotel versus site. My husband should have a giant silk banner that says "I HATE SETTING UP IN THE DARK." French or Latin would make that sound better, I'm sure. Ian was stoked to jump on a hotel bed and I was stoked to finally shower for the day by 9pm.

Friday was my day to fight rapier while Rich braved Walmart and caring for Ian. Since it was my only chance to fight all weekend I was unapologetically pushy about rallying folks for the melee tourney. Everyone seemed content to sit and talk and do an occasional pick up fight and I was all "GO TEAM!!" and "Hooray, Benjamin! Let's do a clinic!" I am pleased that a three man melee bear pit with four teams is enough to raise my heart rate. I think endurance and cardio may be my two finest fighting skills at the moment. It must be hard to kill someone when you're gasping for breath.

After spending the afternoon being that little dog that hops all over the bulldog saying, "c'mon Spike!" I retired to our camp for dinner. Oda had spent the entire day crafting a feast in period fashion. As Kit said walking by, we had a high table set up in our camp which was pretty classy. We were able to invite Adilina and Alexandria to dine with us as they are soon moving to Florida. And as a special treat we had Ross and Shrew (Master Snaeulf and Mistress Rosatrude the Shrew) join us! I stopped by their merchant booth and asked Ross what they were doing for dinner and he said, "enh, we'll probably heat up some hot dogs." Dinner at our place was a much better plan.

Oda made chickens on the spit, beet and cheese pie, turnips with cheese, greens over "sops", meatballs, fresh bread, fresh churned butter (made by Adilina that day!), pears in red wine and applesauce that had a fancier name I can't remember. As the sun set across from us, it cut through the pavilions like a laser but within a few minutes we had a lovely sunset to view.

Saturday was Rich's turn to fight. Ian and I wandered around and went shopping for a bit. He was hilarious in the fabric merchant picking out the fabrics he wanted for his new clothes. He of course grabbed everything remotely orange.

After lunch Ian was getting tired but he said he wanted to shower at the bath house. I should have known better because it was very hard to get him to walk down there. Once we got clean he insisted on putting on the ninja turtle undies he'd already been wearing for two days. I have low parenting standards but I just couldn't do that. So I carried a naked sobbing 52lb child a mile up the hill back to camp. I may have burned more calories than if I had actually fought that day. If any other rapier fighters would like to use my training techniques, I can loan Ian to you around 2pm on the second day of any event. BYO-turtle undies.

He sobbed in the pavilion while his eyes rolled back in fatigue. And then he slept from 3-6:45pm. He slept through evening court (so Rich stayed with him while I went solo). He slept through trick or treating. He almost missed dinner. But Catalina saved the day and took our son out to dinner at the merchants while we attended a grown up state dinner with Their Majesties and our cousins. She also took him back to the fabric merchant and acquired more green linen to make him ninja turtle garb. He is STOKED!

My excitement for the evening was finding a little girl crying because she had lost her mom when she made a wrong turn out of the porta potty. After her initial tears, she was great as we trekked across site looking for a walkie talkie or herald. I asked her what her mom's name was and she said, "I call her Mom but I think her name is Danielle." Haley and I finally found a radio but all the words were worn off so we had no idea how to work it. When we found a radio operator, Gise was describing the girl and said her mom's name is Danielle. The girl whispered in my ear, "She's really skinny too." When I told her we were going to announce over the radio that we had found the best little girl at the event she said, "I don't think that's true. I think you're exaggerating." I reminded her that her mom must think so, so it would help her know we had the right little girl. She then told me, "my mom will probably like that I said she was skinny."

I was happy to reunite with my own clever kid after all that too. After his Nap of Doom that afternoon, I assumed he would be up until 1am but we all happily turned in around 11pm. Sunday was rain (curses!) and packing out. We were able to have a brief visit with my brother Doug on our way home. Ian was convinced Doug's basement was a ninja turtle lair and was very impressed that Doug has a pet turtle named Mr. T. Also, Doug's dog Cider does a circus trick of balancing on the weight bench.

So it's been an incredibly long few days. I'm on the fence as to the work fun ratio but overall I call it a success. I'm looking forward to using Monday to recover.