Friday:
I taught my first class at Symantec. I’m apparently the hot-shot Cocoa Guru now. Originally, my class was supposed to be a complete Cocoa overview in 90 minutes. After failing to cut my notes down at all I opted to go in the opposite direction and make it a series of classes. (Must remember to post the notes from the first class) Taught the fundamentals of Objective-C (Messaging, Classes, Class Objects, Obj-C polymorphism, and touched Categories and Protocols)

Out of work a little early. shaska and I met up at her place and I took her for dinner and light shopping down in L’il Tokyo. I was very exited because I’d gone on a cleaning binge this week. For those I haven’t told: my Saturn is absolutely clean. I took everything out of it. After that I took it in to get detailed What this means is that they shampoo the carpets, wash the leather and vinyl, and make the car look good as new. They managed to make it look better than it did when I bought it. So I was proud to take her out in my car 🙂

We went to the shopping plaza in Li’l Tokyo and managed to get there while a few stores were still open. I picked up some Soy Sauce dishes and a Sake set that has sushi all over the cups and sake server. (term!??!?) After that we went to Oomasa. It’s a nice, quiet little sushi place we like.

Granted, this had been a long day to end a long week. :-/ I was a bit tired on the drive back. Well, I was fighting to stay awake on the drive home. I really need to make a conscious effort to realize when it’s time to pass the wheel to someone else.

Saturday:
Plans for today included: Shinai shopping and the L.A. Ren Faire.
Slept in a bit to recover from the grand need of sleep. Headed out around 11 for the Martial Arts store. Interesting place. very friendly folk. I picked up a ’36’ shinai. shaska and I were thinking of shinai sparring to get out our mutual double Aries frustrations. The owner said that despite appearances you can do some horrendous damage with a shinai. He pulled out a bo staff that had been broken in two by a shinai blow. We looked around the store and found a little, electronic hamster in robes with a bandanna holding a pair of ‘chucks. When you squeezed his paw he sang “Kung-fu fighting” (ala chipmunks) twirled the ‘chucks and made a couple of swi[ing motions. Shaska found this far too cute. So I got her one 😉

The guy showed us around the store and explained how he could sell what appeared to be blatantly illegal merchandise. (Can be sold as artwork or props to licensed individuals and can be displayed. Among the toys were butterfly knives, throwing stars, and my favourite, lipstick containers that had 1/2 inch blades in them. I commented that I was in the SCA and the one worker figured it’d be good to show off his battle axe. Wow. All I can say is Wow.

We got into a talk about honourable weapons. I feel the sword is much more honourable than a gin. The owner is an ex-marine so he ‘agreed to disagree.’ None-the-less a really nice and helpful guy. I may have to frequent the store more often.

Stopped by the apartment to clean up and get ready for the Ren Faire. The faire is about 80 minutes/miles away in BFE. I think the town is called Devore.

We got there about 2ish. I hadn’t eaten very well that day, so my stomach was a bit off. The fair was quite nice. I had to turn off my SCA gene that kept screaming in the back of my head, “NOT RIGHT! NOT RIGHT!” We saw some dancers near a may pole. they were doing something that looked familiar. But there was a lot of switching place. I thought at first it was St. Martens (sp?). Then I realized that the place switching was their version of siding and that the dance was in fact Heart’s Ease. Someone called that the next dance would be Sellinger’s Round. Shaska asked if I knew this one. I commented that there are about 10 different ways to do it because there are so many different variations of what to do for ‘verses’. I started to comment that it was a dance for a circle rather than a line or set when my nightmare occurred from behind me.

“Well it depends on the group. There are many different verses. See it’s danced in a circ-”
“My lord would you care to dance?”

I cupped my hand over my mouth having already tipped my hand concerning my knowledge.

A note: I haven’t danced seriously in a few years for a couple of reasons (I told Shaska later)
0: No, Shaska, it is not a lack of innate rhythm 🙂
1: My knees have gotten bad over the years and some dances can leave me in a bit of pain
2: I am only getting back into shape now, so I get winded after something like Sellinger’s
3: Dance isn’t as fun anymore. (I’ll post on that in a moment after this one is done and then link it here.)

But none the less, I let myself be dragged in. I tried to drag in Shaska, but she opted to watch.

A note on Rennie ECD. (the mind screams, “NOT RIGHT! NOT RIGHT!”) {Note: non-sca-dance types can ignore this ;}
Siding is passing left shoulders to your partner’s place and immediately back again. You repeat it on the same shoulder.
Arming is Square-dancing crook of the elbow linking and tugging around full. (Yes, of course they clap on arming)
Slipping is skipping to the side.
Set and turn means “Step right, step left, turn in place”
Sellinger’s sashay step on the chorus is a walking double.
It’s a ren faire, inevitably there will be a grand right and left.

But being an apprentice dance-master in the SCA means
1) You know most dances, you just don’t remember them by name
2) You are equipped to pick up variations on the fly
3) In a worse case scenario you can gracefully point, push, and shove people back into play.

So, I walked through Sellinger’s in my t-shirt and slacks. I didn’t seem interested. Mainly, because the people teaching the dance seemed to be just too damned perky about it. I also have a horrible habit (from theatre) of marking in rehearsal and then powering up for performance. The musicians were good. the SCAdian in me wanted to poach them for music guild in L.A. (Different barony) The music started. It took only one verse for my partner to say, “My lord! Thou hast done this before. Thy dancing is great!” (I won’t even bother with my rant about speaking forsoothly in the SCA let alone a Ren atmosphere. I tried to enjoy the dance. My partner was busily trying to make sure she was doing the steps correctly, looking at friends in the circle, and casting a parental eye over the other customers that had been dragged into the circle. Please note # 3 above. The grand right and left ended with partners being switched. My new partner also trudged through the chorus with attentions elsewhere. After the dance she turned and smiled broadly at me and took a deep reverence. Coldly, I could only think of the 70’s movie Westworld as she bowed pleasantly to me as if cued to now smile at the guest. I smiled and went back to Shaska who’d been enjoying my display.

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