Anecdotal Pennsic

[mightyjesse]

I gave eithni and ego_id_non_feci soaps last night. Hopefully they like them. This afternoon, I'm going to put cute paper labels on some other soaps and mail them out to Mom and the Sisters.

Pennsic was somewhat "blah" this year, but I did get a number of amusing anecdotes out of it. I'll relate a few of them here for those of you who haven't heard me tell them all 4 times all ready.

One of the most amusing mental pictures that I got all war was the one caused by Zartan's birthday surprise. This year, Zartan's birthday fell during Pennsic, and we decided that we were going to decorate his bachelor digs and make them suitable for inviting guests in to uh... well... "view the etchings." Everyone brought a few wall hangings, a small side table, or a lamp to contribute and then all we had to do was to get Zartan to leave site for long enough to transform his pavilion.

Dang that man is stubborn. We ended up having to be MEAN to him to get him off site. (He wanted to stay on site because it was his birthday and he was going to be slack all day. We told him he was going to grill us ribs for his birthday and that was that. He finally complied and left site feeling extremely put upon.)

Then it was magic time! We put his matress up on a bed frame and threw some nice quilts on it. We hung some "tapestries" on the walls and created a "dressing area" (to hide his mountain of garb, cooler, and any other glaringly non-period or less-than-tidy items in his tent) hung a chandelier and scattered lamps and candles around the tent in aesthetically pleasing a manner as possible.

It was all a delightful conspiracy which we ended up calling the "Pimp Zartan's Tent" project. The odd mental pictures came in when we were contemplating names for the project based on TV shows with similar goals. We experimented with "Queer Eye for the Fighter Guy" and "Trading Spaces, Vlad's Edition." In memory of Zartan's now destroyed Pimp Hat, we opted to call the project "Pimping Zartan's Tent" but that confused a couple of people who were familiar with the show "Pimp My Ride." I ended up with the strange mental picture of a bunch of Vlad's Minions hiding out in the shrubbery with a burlap bag and a belly dancing outfit, waiting for hapless young ladies to flounce by - whereupon we would jump out, kidnap them, cover them in bling, and present them to Zartan for his birthday.

*ahem*

So... Yeah... These mental pictures amuse ME at any rate, even if my inner feminist objects. Zartan cried when he saw his beautiful new tent-home. It was as good an ending as any episode of "Trading Spaces" that I've ever seen, and even cooler because it was something nice for someone we love!

"Pimp My Ride," indeed... *giggle-snort*

Comments

[without-within.livejournal.com]

I ended up with the strange mental picture of a bunch of Vlad's Minions hiding out in the shrubbery with a burlap bag and a belly dancing outfit, waiting for hapless young ladies to flounce by - whereupon we would jump out, kidnap them, cover them in bling, and present them to Zartan for his birthday

I shall giggle-snort with you.

So what did he think of his tent up grade?

[mightyjesse.livejournal.com]

Imagine a fire-plug of a black man sobbing into a canvas tent flap alternately admonishing us for making him cry and hamming it up with comments like, "They love me! They really, really love me!"... It made most of the rest of us cry too.

[without-within.livejournal.com]

D'aaawww!

[mightyjesse.livejournal.com]

Hee... What was the MOST funny was that he didn't want to mess up our hard work for DAYS, so he would take chicks back to his tent, show them around, and then insist they go back to her place, because NO ONE was gonna mess up his pretty tent....

He briefly considered putting a velvet rope across the door of his tent, like a museum... But by second week he did confess that he had slept in the bed a time or two.

[lazygarden.livejournal.com]

He briefly considered putting a velvet rope across the door of his tent, like a museum...

This made me snort just now...

[valkyr8.livejournal.com]

That is so awesome!!! I've wanted to do that, but I've never figured out a way to make it work. A group collaboration sounds like the way to go. Sweet!

How about "Peer Eye for the New Guy"?

[mightyjesse.livejournal.com]

"Peer Eye for the New Guy" is catchy but not suitable for this specific application. None of us were peers (OK, Gunther and Zig are knights, but they were only peripherally involved in the "decorating" phase of the plan. They were mostly in on the "distraction" portion of the plan...), and Zartan has been around for over a decade which makes him somewhat less than "new."

However, for gently correcting the new and awful, that doesn't sound like bad SCA-style Shtick.

[valkyr8.livejournal.com]

And that's what I have in mind....