The place where lost socks go...

Back from Brushwood now, tanned and relaxed after a week of festival. I just pulled into the Event Horizon, finishing the 502 mile drive in 7 hr 25 min[*] -- possibly record time!

Although I have been going to Brushwood for Starwood (and, last year, Summerfest) since 1998, this was my first Sirius Rising. Twas fun! A decent crowd of approximately 1200 attended, and the weather was absolutely perfect -- the best that I have ever seen in a week at Brushwood! Clear skies and warmth with virtually no rain all week! This also made for some spectacular views of the moon, which was full on Friday (more on that in a bit).

Not surprisingly, my favourite parts of the festival were the site and the people. It seems that, after sampling the new Summerfest in 2010, many of the former Starwood crowd decided to try out Sirius this year. Excellent! I frequently enjoyed the company of the Lansing Pagans & Co. I got to spend some delightful time with the adorable tawneypup and the lovely livetbd. And, of course, I had the pleasure of seeing many old friends who I only meet once a year.

Being a water elemental, I also indulged at least once per day in the "sacred rite" of jacuzzi-pool-jacuzzi-pool-jacuzzi! And almost every night saw me dancing to the drums by the Roundhouse fire. The main sequence of rituals was a bit light, but there were some elements[**] that worked rather well; I may make notes to incorporate some in future ritual design.

Speaking of ritual design: On Wednesday, some of us noticed that there was no full moon ritual on the programme... so we designed and ran our own on Friday night at the Earth Shrine by the North Pavilion. It went well, particularly for such quick work, and we brought in about fifty people. I was particularly touched on Saturday by a few comments that I received from some of the ritual attendees. Apparently, it had been rather meaningful to them -- twas gratifying to hear, as making a positive impact on others is the whole reason that I put effort into such things! The grassroots Friday night ritual may become a tradition; apparently another is being put together for Friday of Summerfest. The idea is to rotate the HP and HPS to give many the opportunity for leadership; I was asked to run the next ritual and would have accepted were I staying for Summerfest! Ah well, there is always next year (more on that in a bit).

Other events worth noting were a rather intensive Lakota sweat lodge on Friday... and, of course, the final night bonfire on Saturday! The wood for the final fire was piled about twenty feet high, with the effigy of a fire dragon on top. Although significantly smaller than the Starwood bonfires of yesteryear, the Brushwood bonfires are still the largest of any that I have encountered.

Overall, everything that was there was excellent! However, I could not help but noticing what was missing. Ever since ACE and Starwood left, after 2009, the energy at Brushwood has been much more mellow. I miss the old intensity. I miss the midnight rituals... I miss mud wrestling and human bowling... I miss the "Meet, Beat, and Greet"... I miss "Party Like A Rockstar" and the "Rumble in the Jungle"... I miss the Pufferdome and the Time Machine. Heck, I even miss the so-called "Faildome" of 2009, if for no other reason than it made for great jokes! Brushwood after midnight used to feel alive and pulsing with energy; now all there is at that hour is the Roundhouse. Much as I do love drumming and dancing about the Roundhouse fire, it is a loss that the other options are all gone.

With that in mind, I spent a goodly part of the long drive home thinking about what I want to do in the future for Summer festivals. It seems that this is a time of considerable flux for festivals in the NorthEastern quadrant of the United States -- Starwood is now at Wisteria, in Ohio; Summerfest came into being last year; Pagan Spirit Gathering has moved very close to my house, the Event Horizon, in Chicagoland. Tis not obvious what my choice of festival should be in 2012. However, tis late now, so these musings should be the topic of a later post.

I hope that everyone has been having a wonderful week! I look forward to sifting back through my f-list to read about what y'all have been up to!

---

[*] Including one short fueling stop.

[**] No pun intended.

Greetings, gentle readers! As I write this, the first Chicago visit on the Summer 2010 Nomad US Tour is coming to a close. After posting, I will hop into Lucretia II -- my trusty steed on this side of the pond -- and begin the five hundred mile drive East to Brushwood to attend their first SummerFest festival.[*] As such, I will be completely out of touch for one week -- back in the so-called "real" world one week from today. If I suddenly seem out of contact, know you know why. With no cell phone and no internet, there really will be no way to get in touch with me... short of coming on down to the gathering yourself![**] In effect, I am vanishing from this world for a week and going to visit another... and I cannot adequately tell you how much I am, as always, looking forward to it! Fire, drums, ritual, music, dancing, and more lovely people than you can shake a stick at -- here I come!!

For those who have been asking, I have finally sorted out my travel plans for the rest of the Summer Tour. It took some time... but now the truth can be told![***] In case anyone in interested, here they are:

• Mon Jul 19 - Sun Jul 25: In upstate NY for Brushwood SummerFest
  
• Sun Jul 25 - Mon Jul 26: In Ohio for a date with the lovely livetbd
  
• Mon Jul 26 - Sun Aug 01: In NYC, visiting parents and friends[****]
  
• Mon Aug 02 - Mon Aug 02: Drive from NYC to Chicago
  
• Tue Aug 03 - Mon Aug 09: Back at the Event Horizon
  
• Mon Aug 09 - Tue Aug 10: Return to Merry Olde England

One last thing before I vanish from the grid for a week! The question of who is the subject of England's greatest legend still needs to be resolved! Round one of the voting has finished... making it time for a run-off poll! Two polls, in fact -- one to decide the winner and runner-up, the other to decide who walks away with the bronze! Entries are from the first poll, listed on the ballot in the order that they placed there. Here goes:

[Poll #1594176]

The fate of England's legends is in your hands, dear friends! As Uncle Ben says, with great power... you know the rest. Use your power well and wisely!

---

[*] Name brought to you by the Department of Redundancy Department.

[**] A plan that I can heartily recommend!

[***] Cue maniacal laughter.

[****] Interested in seeing me whilst I am there? If we have not already made plans, leave a comment or send me e-mail and we can arrange something when I get back from Brushwood!

Looking back at previous years, it seems that I rarely blog about the Decemberween[1] celebrations. I suppose that this is not too shocking -- I spend most of Decemberween on the go, and away from a computer. By the time that the holidays are over, too much has elapsed to try to chronicle it all.

This year's attempt to do a holiday write-up is perhaps an illustrative example; it is now late January and I am still not quite finished with my report! I realise that no one else much cares at this point what I was doing one month ago. Indeed, since my holiday in the States ended, I have come back to England, left England for Japan, and returned to England yet again[2]. Obviously, I am well behind in my blogging and it would make good sense to simply give up. However, I am not known for my common sense... and it would feel wrong to leave my travelogue unfinished. Thus, I resume telling my story.

Tuesday December 30^th: Woke up at Mom's place again[3], gathered my belongings, and headed out with cheshcat. Mom was very happy to have had our company, but was obviously quite broken up to see up go. I will try to bring her to England for a week in 2009; I think it would be good for her.

The plan had been to drop cheshcat off with resourceress at squeektoy42's house, then drive four hundred miles to Ohio by the evening to have a date with the lovely livetbd. Well, we all know what Robbie Burns has to say about plans, don't we?

Just after we arrived in Jersey City, right before I was about to bid farewell to my beloved cheshcat, we received a phone call from C&M, who were back in Oxford. Apparently, Giles -- our seven month old tiger kitten -- had gone missing. Oh, crap! We had a series of friends looking in on our Oxford kitties whilst we were away. In addition to feeding and watering them, we asked our friends to make sure that the cats were okay. This was added to the cat care request after last December, when we returned home to find our poor Totoro at Death's door from kidney failure.

But I digress from a very important point: Oh, crap! Giles had last been seen on Boxing Day -- four days earlier. When T had gone to the [as yet unnamed] flat on Dec 28, there was no sign of Giles. Now C&M were there, and he was still missing. At first, I assumed that Giles, being a cat, had simply found a good place to hide. We spent nearly an hour on the phone with C, guiding him about the flat and suggesting places to search. It began with known hiding locations, then progressed to any possible spot that we could conceive of that Giles might get into. We had poor C moving furniture about and climbing on top of things. Still no Giles.

Oh, crap! After searching every conceivable location in the flat, it began to become clear that somebody had accidentally let our cat out. Which means that he was likely lost to us. I had been reluctant to believe this; for one thing, it seemed quite improbably. Yet, as Sherlock Holmes said, when one eliminates all the other options, then what remains, however improbable, must be true. I was also painfully aware that this was one year, to the day, since we returned home to find Totoro nearly dead. Needless to say, both cheshcat and I were becoming very upset.

We kicked into emergency mode. We asked C&M to check with the neighbours to see if they had noticed a tiger kitten about. We called T to see if there was any chance that he had let Giles out. Although that had been my original suspicion, he managed to convince us that he was not at fault. We alerted local cat shelters. Then we called the company that manages our flat to see if they had sent over any repairmen to work on the flat in recent days. After all, there are only a limited number of keys to our flat. T has one and C&M have one; both convinced us that they had not let Giles out. Neither cheshcat nor I had done so, of course, since we were on another continent. It is possible that Darelle or dr_jen could have done so... but since both were out of Oxford, it seemed unlikely. The sole remaining key belonged to the company that managed the flat.

It was out of hours, so we called their emergency number. The woman who answered said that if I called back in an hour, when she was near a computer, she would check for me. However, she also said that they do not normally do repair work between Christmas and New Years. Hurm.

So maybe no one could have let Giles out. Perhaps he was in the flat after all? But... where? He likes to hide from people who are not cheshcat or anarchist_nomad, but where could he be hiding? I came up with a cunning plan. We asked T to go to the flat and remove the cat food. Leave plenty of water, but no food. Then, when C&M returned on the following day, Giles would be quite hungry. In such a case, he would likely come out when anyone -- even a stranger -- rattled the food bag.

With all these plans in place, I finally departed from Jersey City, several hours later than planned.

Total Miles Driven: 1509

Shortly after leaving on my journey, I got a phone call from C. Apparently, T had gone back to the flat and, before he got inside, noticed Giles lazily washing himself in the front window.

That little $H!+!!!!!!!!!!

I was relieved, incredulous, and furious at the same time! Where they hell could that little terror have been hiding? To this day, I still do not know his secret spot! While covering away in it, however, he managed to scare, upset or disrupt a large number of people: There was T, his wife and mother (who he brought on Dec 28 to help search the flat for Giles), C&M, dr_jen (who T had called on Dec 28), Darelle (who dr_jen had called), me, cheshcat, squeektoy42 and A (whose home we turned into Command Central for our emergency operations), resourceress, plus livetbd (who I was now hours late in meeting) and her husband D. How could one little kitten cause so much trouble??!

Anyway, I phoned cheshcat and let her know that all was well. I then continued making my way to Youngstown, Ohio.

I arrived at livetbd's house at 11pm -- far later than planned, and much to late to have a proper date. I am grateful that both she and her husband, D, were understanding. As cat people themselves, they understood, and have been in similar situations themselves. Still, I felt somewhat guilty and promised to make it up to livetbd with a theatre date in Chicago the next time that I am in the States. She did not turn down this offer of penance.

After the three of us spent some time together catching up, D went out to midnight karaoke with friends. That left livetbd and I to have some quality alone time together. Priorities are important: We started off with her giving me a tour of back porch. There sits the new hot tub that they had installed since the last time that I visited. A full appreciation of the installation work required closer inspection, which I was happy to engage in. Nothing quite like soaking in a hot tub in the middle of a cold winter night! Especially when one has some rather delightful company and a distinct lack of clothing!

I am quite grateful that livetbd, like myself, is a night person. Despite my late arrival, we spent quite a few hours -- inside the hot tub and out -- deliciously enjoying each others' company!

Total Miles Driven: 1914



Wednesday December 31^st: I wish that I could say that Wednesday began as well as Tuesday had ended. Alas, this was not to be the case. I awoke -- with far too little sleep -- around 10am to the sound of livetbd crying. Even before I pulled on clothing and rushed downstairs, I feared that I knew what had upset her. I was not mistaken. During the night, one of their cats -- who had been very sick -- had passed away.

Like cheshcat and I before moving to England, livetbd and D had had six cats living under one roof. Since my previous visit, one had escaped, so they were down to five. Now it was four. My calendar sense was tingling -- two cat crises in less than twenty-four hours... plus, they lost their kitty on New Years Eve -- just as we had lost Totoro on New Years Eve the year before.

Both livetbd and D were, understandably, rather upset. My heart went out to them; I could feel their pain. I gave both sympathy and advice on options for dealing with the body. When D decided to bury their furry friend in the backyard, I helped to dig the grave. I stayed with them for a few hours longer than I had originally intended, because I could sense that my presence was appreciated and doing some good.

Eventually, however, I did leave to finish the return to Chicago and the Event Horizon. Neither livetbd nor D were going to go out to celebrate New Years Eve. Who could blame them? How could they? Who can lose a loved one, then immediately go out to party? The previous New Years Eve, when Totoro passed into the Summerlands, gyades and cheshcat and I cancelled our plans to party into 2008 in London. However, I had party plans and very much needed to keep them. I could not spend two consecutive New Years Eves in a row mourning for dead cats. In a very real sense, I needed a New Years party to help me bring about closure for my dear Totoro.

Thus, slightly before 1pm, I said my goodbyes, hopped into Lucretia II, began the four hundred forty-one mile drive back to Chicagoland. The trip was uneventful. Six hours and fifteen minutes later, I pulled into the driveway at the Event Horizon.

Total Miles Driven: 2355

I arrived home just minutes before 2009 began in the United Kingdom, putting an end to my "Christmas on Wheels" adventure! I texted Darelle one more time, hoping to be the last text that she received in the old year. Then I waited to a short while past midnight -- giving her time to celebrate the changing of the year properly with those that she was actually with -- before calling her up. It was rather amusing to have a phone call spanning the years! And, of course, it was absolutely wonderful to hear my beloved's voice once again!

After a nice conversation with Darelle, it was back into overdrive. Unpack, shower, eat -- all as quickly as possible, so that gyades and I could get to the O'hana New Years party as early as we could! We arrived around 8pm and spent the rest of the evening enjoying good company, good food... as well as a pool and a hot tub! Hot tubbing two days in a row? What an excellent way to end the year! Indeed, I could easily make a habit of it!

I will not write too much more about the New Years party, as it already has its own LiveJournal entry. Suffice to say that, at a few minutes before 11pm, I got out of the hot tub and phoned cheshcat -- who was in Connecticut with resourceress, TinMan 2.0, LaForza, and others at the Treehouse New Years party -- to welcome her into 2009 in my home time zone. To mark the occasion, I turned the telly onto the same station that they were viewing at the Treehouse so that we could watch the ball drop together. Then it was back in the hot tub for me! At midnight, Chicago time, we all celebrated the local onset of 2009!

---

[1] "Decemberween" is the term that I use to refer to the period from December 12^th to January 1^st. Those three weeks contain cheshcat's birthday (Dec 12), resourceress's birthday (Dec 20), Yule (Dec 21), Christmas Eve, Christmas, New Year's Eve, and New Year's Day. As such, the entirety of those three weeks gets merged together into a single long holiday; one that involves an enormous amount of travel and visiting and celebration.

[2] Not strictly true, as I am writing this in Narita Airport as I wait to board my flight. However, by the time I am able to post it, I will be back in England -- most likely on the airline bus to Oxford.

[3] Still not surprising, as this is where I went to sleep again.

Just got back to the Event Horizon, putting an end to four state tour that comprised the second part of my holiday adventures[*]. In the past ten days -- the last ten of 2008 -- I have driven 2355 miles. Indeed, today alone, I drove 441 miles to get from the Ohio home of the lovely livetbd back to the Event Horizon!

My little "Christkrieg"[**] was fantastic! An excellent balance of friends, family, and adventures. I would love to write about it in more detail, but I need to hop in the shower and then be off to the Ohana clan's New Years Eve party! With any luck, I will find time[***] to write about it all soon, at least in summary!

Meanwhile, today's drive went quite well. I covered the 441 miles in six hours and fifteen minutes -- counting two stops for fuel. Along the drive, I listened to CDs that I had been given for Yule and Christmas -- an awesometacular three-disc mix that the charming perspicacious had made for me and a bootleg recording, courtesy of The Kiddo, of the Last Play at Shea concert that I had been to in July.

As a side note, I should say that a hidden advantage of driving through the plains of Eastern Indiana is that you can see the whole orb of the sun in the sky... even at a quarter past five in December!

2008 certainly ended much better than it began. As my last words in LJ for this year, I leave y'all with the following lyrics:

A picture postcard
A folded stub
A program of the play
File away your photographs
Of your holiday

And your mementos
Will turn to dust
But that's the price you pay
For every year's a souvenir
That slowly fades away

---

[*] The first part took place in England: The two pantos, the Yule ritual, dawn at Stonehenge, et cetera. The second part was "Christmas-on-wheels", and covered New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, and Ohio. The third, and final part, will take place here in Chicagoland... starting now!

[**] In my horrendous fake German, this means "Lightning Christmas"... which was my 2007 name for what I am now calling "Christmas-on-wheels".

[***] Speaking of time, I should say that I have not read my e-mail or LiveJournal in over a week. My Christmas-on-wheels simply did not allow for time spent in the virtual world. So if I have seemed out of touch, don't take it personally. I will try to catch up on all communication sometime in the not-TOO-distant future.

Friday / Saturday: Thanksgiving Party
Friday evening, cheshcat and I hopped into Peter, our trusty steed, and drove to SouthEast London to visit with our friends D&J. D&J are fellow Yanks -- brother and sister-in-law to the breathtakingly beautiful pomoloco -- who moved to London just three months before we moved to Oxford. Although we didn't know each other well when we all lived in Lawn Guyland, pomoloco wisely put the four of us in touch soon after we moved.

Since then, it has become tradition for D&J to host a Thanksgiving party each November, on one of the two Saturdays closest to the actual holiday[**], and to invite all of their expatriate friends. This year was the third in the tradition[***]. We went out on Friday to remove the stress of travelling out from Oxford on the day of the party... and also to get a little extra time with D&J, who we had not seen since their housewarming party back in September.

The party was good fun: We got to see people that we don't often spend time with, I have an invitation to go boating down the Thames next Spring with the St. Pancras harbormaster, and the food was excellent! In total, there were twelve of us there -- nine expatriated US-ians and three Brits who came along as partners of the expats. Given the demographics, D&J's flat became a temporarily extension of US soil. In particular, somebody decided to forbid the use of British English -- anyone using "top up" or "queue" or "zed" or "bloody" would be penalized by having to take a drink. It was an amusing suggestion... though I am not certain that it is directly responsible for most people ending the evening quite tipsy!


Sunday:
Sunday was a busy day, filled with a variety of activity -- some social, some productive, some fun! Just the sort of day that I like!

We stayed over at D&J's placeon Saturday night as well and had a nice lay in on Sunday. As if making an enormous Thanksgiving dinner wasn't enough, J prepared a lovely breakfast spread on Sunday at around noon -- fruit, pancakes (with real maple syrup), bacon (for the meat eaters), cheese, scrambled eggs, tea, juice! Yum!

After breakfast, cheshcat and I headed out. Before leaving London, we swung by Imperial College and I showed her the building and office where I now work. Then it was back into London traffic as we made our return to Oxford.

Upon returning to Oxford, I headed to St. Giles Church and rang bells for Sunday evening services. Nothing terribly noteworthy here.

When services ended, I met up with cheshcat at Skullcrusher Mountain. On Tuesday, we had moved the last of our belongings into the [as yet unnamed] new flat. However, before leaving SCM for good, we wanted to do a thorough cleaning and perform ritual to release any of our energy -- or that of our kitties -- that still lingered. It took a couple of hours, but we managed to accomplish this. When we left SCM, it was for the final time. Interestingly enough, I think that this is the first time cheshcat and I have moved house without any help from anyone else or a moving van! We did it all ourselves, using Peter as the only transport vehicle. Admittedly, we moved from a furnished flat to another furnished flat, but still...

Next, I dropped cheshcat (and our cleaning supplies) off at home, picked up my new ice skates, and made my way out to the evening session at the Oxford Ice Rink. There, I debuted my new skates. I learned two things: (1) The blades are so obviously superior to anything that I have previously skated on, and (2) The new skates hurt. A lot. My feet were killing me, and it was all I could do to do some basic forward skating all the way around the rink without stopping! I am not entirely surprised -- the lovely danaeris once warned me that new skates feel like that until you break them in. Still... ouch! It was a bit disappointing to not be able to do much on the ice; still the only way to break them in is to wear the things!

When I got home from the rink, cheshcat and I got takeaway Chinese food for dinner. I walked five minutes to pick it up -- I do enjoy living in a much more active area than we previously did!

Finally, it was getting late so I tucked cheshcat into bed, then wound down my own evening with a phone date with the adorable livetbd. It is always nice to hear her voice and it was good to catch up on each others' lives. We made plans to see each other when I am in the States next month; I am definitely looking forward to spending time with her again in the not too distant future! We also need to find a way to see a Broadway musical together, as we are both huge theatre geeks![****]

As I said -- the sort of active and varied Sunday that I like! When my head finally hit the pillow, I was thoroughly ready for it... and asleep almost immediately!

---

[*] One hundred points to the first person that identifies the source of my subject line!

[**] As none of us actually get Thanksgiving Day off here!

[***] Interestingly enough, each year they are living in a different flat from the previous November!

[****] Unless you compare to the spectacular squeektoy42, who is the Queen of Musical Theatre. Even if she cannot identify Into The Woods quotes.