Recently in Friends Category

Here is the photo of all of us from the murder mystery birthday party for Erin this past Saturday. Good times!

With today officially being meeting hell, I thought that I might be irritated or grouchy after 3 meetings right in a row.It was actually a very uplifting day! The picnic meeting went very well. When I walked in to Presque Isle Gallery Coffeehouse playing music as part of a peace and justice event. The meeting went well, and there was a lot of good energy and ideas generated. At one point, I heard the guitarist play  “The Times, They are Changin’”, which I have recently been obsessively playing. Hearing it in the background as I was at the meeting was transcendently blissful. It sounds like the fundraising activity for the picnic that we are adding this year is going along well.

After that, 2 of the folks who had been at the picnic meeting came to another meeting about fighting against an anti-gay marriage amendment in Pennsylvania. It was fairly productive. It got done quickly enough to go home and help Deb with some computer stuff.

The Drenched Fur meeting also went fairly well, and I am glad at how things are coming together.

So, for having all kinds of good people around me, and the chance to be involved in my community, I am deeply grateful.

My friend Erin had a lovely birthday party that was a murder mystery game. I hadn’t done anything like that before, but it was a fun experience to try. As it ended up, my character was the killer.

It was a great mix of people. Some of them were folks I already knew and some were new. I was chatting with the people who hosted the party. As it turns out, they are active in the Shire of Stormsport, the local chapter of the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA.) The wife taught dance within the group, which I did years ago, although she is more into the Italian Renaissance dances, and I preferred English Country Dance.

At one point, I referred to my friend Frog, and she mentioned that they had camped with Frog and Lillian at Pennsic at Moot Point. I inwardly beamed, because it was so rare to bump into someone who would be aware of that informal name for that part of the campground, and even rarer that someone else would produce it. I am not 100% sure, but I think it was actually me that came up with the term (about 20 years ago. Gad, I’m old!)

Tomorrow is officially meeting day from Hell: Starting at 2 PM, I have 3 in a row. We will see how it goes. I scurried around today doing all of the usual domestic stuff to get it out of the way.

This past Saturday was fairly busy. I had dinner with friends at Serafini’s, then I went to the Insanity Ball at Craze Night Club, which was the premiere for Sanctuary Fusion Dance. there were quite a few other belly dance performers there, and also some drag performers.

We had some absolutely kick-ass volunteers at folding for Erie Gay News tonight. I am so grateful for all of the wonderful people who help us. We got done relatively early, quite possibly earlier than we have ever completed before. The hosts for tonight had yummy snacks on hand, which was very thoughtful of them.

As a delightful bonus, there was frolicking this evening. We do so love that.

Okay, so I am in a good mood right now. About to turn in.

Last night, I went to see FACE, the drag show at the Zone Dance Club that happens the 3rd Sunday of the month. It was Michelle Michaels birthday, so I hurried completing the newsletter and dashed off. My friend Season was acting as stage director with a clipboard and a riding crop. We thought that it made for a good photo, so I snapped that with some others.

Co-editor Deb was over today to fix photos that we had previously taken. However, the tool in Photoshop that lets one specify a particular area and then remove everything out of it was forcing all the selections to be square, which limited how much she could get done.

I did some research and called her. It turns out that she had the photo of Season with the riding crop on the screen. Deb figured out what we needed after I started, and we both noted that it was incredibly apropos to crop a photo that included a crop.

I was at a meeting yesterday for planning Drenched Fur, which is going fairly well. We were discussing what to serve at the after hours party for Friday and Saturday.

While we were debating, someone referred to making sandwiches and referred to the brand name “Boar’s Head.”

My ears perked up. I had never heard of the food company, but my first thought was of the traditional Christmas carol from England. (Which I can pretty much sing from memory, and I even have a few versions of it on my iPod. Yeah. Big time geeky nerd here.)

I think that I first heard the song at an SCA event in Pittsburgh AKA the Barony Marche of the Debatable Lands.

Oddly enough, the gentleman sitting next to me at the meeting was English and had never heard of the carol before.

Overall, it was a good meeting and I am glad to be working with the folks that are on the committee.

Today, I went to the viewing of Mary Ellen, whom I knew years ago as Rannveigr when I was in the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA). She was a deeply kind and calm person. I can’t remember ever hear her say a harsh word. She was also very dedicated to helping others.

This is a very old photo. Her children have grown into talented and wonderful adults. (Oddly enough, the man kneeling at the right is now my brother-in-law.) Even earlier, I remember sitting on the floor of the armory in Buffalo at Ice Dragon when she was pregnant with the twins. When her husband, Alexander, won Coronet Tourney (Aethelmearc was only a Principality then, whereas it is now a Kingdom), I remember that her daughter asked her, “Mommy, are you going to be Queen now?”, she responded with “No, Mommy is just going to be Princess. And she can just barely deal with that.” It had been kind of a long day, and I think she was kind of tired.  It was good-natured. Several friends of ours got to be in their retinue at court, and that was a very great honor.

This is how I would like to remember her – smiling and surrounded by her family and people who cared about her. She was truly a class act.

Because of her service to the Society, she was made a Companion of the Order of the Pelican. For a brief time, I was her protege. (Knights have squires, Laurels – awarded for excellence in the arts and sciences – have apprentices and Pelicans have proteges.) At the time, I was Chronicler (newsletter editor) for the Shire of Stormsport and later for the Principality of Aethelmearc. This newsletter thing seems to be a very long-standing tradition for me.;) It might be getting close to half my lifetime now for doing a newsletter or being involved with some kind of periodical.

After I drifted away from the SCA, I bumped her into again when she was on the board of the AIDS Council of Erie County. Mary Ellen was a very skilled and compassionate doctor. She touched many lives in important ways and was unfailingly gracious and serene.

When I stopped at her coffin to pay my last respects, I thanked her for having been kind, for having been a shining example of service to others. Even though we hadn’t been in close contact for years, I felt that the experience of having known her added something important to my life that I hope I can pass along to others.

May she rest in peace and hopefully she knows how much folks appreciate her giving and selfless nature.

Don’t tell me I don’t know how to multi-task! I was home for lunch on Monday and was trying to get the envelopes and labels generated and set up for the folding of Erie Gay News this Thursday. (And I got notice earlier today that the order has shipped, so it looks like we are on time. Yay!)

I had run out of a prescription, and we also changed insurance providers. So, while I am printing labels and envelopes and sticking the former onto the latter, I am juggling phone calls to the doctor’s office and the insurance provider, since it seems that the prescription isn’t covered by the new provider. Fortunately, there is an equivalent, so things are cool.

After work, I headed over to the Erie Mondays at Matthew’s at Matthew’s Trattoria. It was okay. I mostly chatted with religious study faculty from Mercyhurst.

After that, I went home to grab some dinner and let the dogs out. Then I popped over to Nelson’s tavern to the going away party for my friends Jo and Josh, who just got married and are relocating to Oregon after stopping off in to visit Florida. (Okay, not the most linear travel path, but sounds like fun.)

I also stopped in at Craze to confirm that we are on for the GLBT Legislation Advocacy meeting on February 18 at 7 PM. I then went home and finished some geek tasks.

Tonight was pretty much a “I think I need to be in a coma for a little bit”, although I did get some geek stuff taken care of.

Tomorrow is the State of the Union Address Watch Party at Matthew’s Trattoria and Thursday is folding at the Zone Dance Club.

I was going through rather a whirlwind of posting and geek stuff tonight, when I got an email from a friend. She informed me that someone I knew fairly well years ago, but with whom I have lost touch, has been diagnosed with a very serious illness, and things do not look well for her at all. I feel bad for her and her entire family. It sounds like they would prefer privacy, so I am just wishing them the best at a very difficult time.