Sabin

Shhhhhh. Don't tell anyone, but he also has marvelous hidden talents that beg to surface. May even be related to Narumi. Hoping to fence both off at high profit at the opportune time. Maybe to a traveling sultan.

Narumi

Beyond comprehension. Probably born in a foreign land and taken as a baby. Suspect ransom went horribly wrong, to our benefit. Has talents beyond mortals.

Etain of Sutherland

Not to be taken lightly. As fierce a fighter as she is fiercely kind to her friends.

Geldemar

Much wiser and better looking than his brother. Has lurked in the shadows of camp as long as I recall. Occasionally graces us by joining us by the fire for boisterous revelry if the lure is right.

Rabies, Mud, and Palm Trees

Well, no sooner am I back from Pennsic War up in Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania, but I had to take off to Isle of Palms here in South Carolina for a family gathering.

I had one whole day to do laundry. I started when I rolled out of bed Monday morning and didn't stop till I went to bed late that night.

I'm kind of sick of being inside a moving car. I'm just saying.

The week before that involved me getting bitten by a feral cat and the cat having to be quarentined for rabies observation. That's always a laff riot when you're already freaking out about driving a day and a half away from your kid. I didn't particularly want to have to send the cat to the shelter in the first place, nor was I all that interested in getting a call while I was that far away from home on vacation that I needed a a series of injections before I started foaming at the freaking mouth. Fun times.

In case you're curious, no, I don't have rabies.

So I'm typing this sitting in the kitchen of a rental house. At least here, I have Internet access, which I didn't have at Pennsic.

I used to go to Pennsic every year, but then I got sick and needed surgery, and then 10 months after that, I got pregnant, and then after that, my daughter was too small to leave...in other words, I had some adventures along the way and life intervened. Which is fine, it's been a great ride. But the husband decided that this year I needed to get out of the house, go reconnect with friends, and visit my old life a little bit.

Well, I was terrified. You'd think I would have wanted to go, and did. I wanted to go, but I didn't want to leave, if you understand me. If it hadn't been for a friend riding with me, and me being her only way there, I would have bailed out.

I have to tell you this...for the past six years, I've been having this dream about Pennsic. Those who have been to Pennsic know that Pennsic can pervade your very heart and soul, and while you may not be there at Pennsic, Pennsic never quite leaves you once it gets into you. My dream was this: I would be going to Pennsic just long enough to tell everyone I wouldn't be there. Just drop in and let everyone know (never mind that in reality, it takes me a day and a half to get there) I was sorry to be missing them again that year.

Yeah. I know, it's nuts, but hey, dreams don't always make sense.

When I showed up at the Pennsic gate this year, in a flash of crazy synchronicity, Cinderella's "Coming Home" started playing on the radio. And for at least a day or two, I could not shake the feeling I was dreaming again. Every time I'd been there for the past six years, it had been in a dream. Now that I was standing under the Pennsylvania sun, the Queen Anne's Lace waving in the breeze and the sticky, cow-manure scented mud cloying around my boots, I could not shake the feeling that I was once again dreaming. Although I had no message to deliver this time. This time, I didn't have to tell anyone I wasn't going to be coming.

So I walked down to the camp of a wonderful friend who I had never met. We'd been corresponding since the year I'd gotten sick. We'd talked on the phone and via email. She was one of the first people I told I was pregnant. I knew all about when her son went to Iraq, and when he returned. We were wonderful friends...we'd just never met.

I walked into her camp and she ran to me and it was like embracing a family member whom I'd been long separated from. That alone was worth the trip.

Yeah, I cried like a damn sap.

But then there was many others who I had yearned to give a hug or a handshake to, and old friends who I never imagined I'd be separated from so long to see. My week was a wonderful blur of connecting with friends old and new. I'll never take friends for granted again.

And for my daughter, who stayed home with her Daddy, well, she fared far better than I did during the week. Daddy kept her busy and the week sailed by for her. I was the one who cried on the phone while talking to her, not the other way around.

I'm glad I finally got to make my long trip. I was never so glad to have gone. And even so, I have never been so glad to return home.

I count my wealth by the love in my life. And I am filthy rich. Life is good.

-Dulcy

Painted Wheel, the Movie!

Here's what happens when you get a bunch of egotists sitting around drinking all day under a tarp. They play "Cast the Movie!", which is a favorite game of mine. Dmitri and I often lay awake at night playing this game. We cast comic books, novels, situations (Kinkos: The Movie!).

The rules:
Majority rules
Money is no object.
Time and age is really no object, either. Just don't do anything stupid like cast Jessica Tandy as Dora the Explorer.
If someone really hates the choice, they can request a recast. (So, yeah. Elphin, you owe me. And you can thank Aysha for saving the day for you.)

So...the next logical step was, of course, Painted Wheel: The Movie! We mostly just did people who were at this particular party, with a few irresistable local exceptions. (I'm looking at you, Geldemar.)

Katherine: Loretta Switt (MASH era)
Morwenna: Sigourney Weaver
Vincent: Gene Hackman
Aysha: Janeane Garofolo
Ivar: Johnny Depp
Denys: Vigo Mortensen
Bardulf: Fred Dryer
Dulcy: Lucy Lawless
Etain: Stockard Channing
Elphin: Keifer Sutherland (we decided Doc from Young Guns was pretty much Elphin)
Delia: Carrie Fisher
Geldemar/Kazimir: Jack Black (I mean, really.)
Dmitri: Jeff Goldblum

Leave your suggestions for other Atlantians in the comments section and I will post them as well!

A Wake At The Wheel MP3s

Okay, as promised, we've been doing some recordings. These are not fancy studio mixes, so, you know, they are what they are. Basically, we set up a stereo mike at practice and forged ahead.

Special thanks to Katherine, who is the one doing all the behind the scenes work on these.

You can just click the links to play the songs, or if you want to download and save the mp3, right click. You have our permission and our blessing.

Watch this space, we have three more recorded already in the que. We plan to update often.

Thanks for listening!

A Pace-Egging Song/The Burning of Auchindoun
Lyrics for A Pace Egging Song by Dulcinaya. The Burning of Auchindoun is traditional. Katherine sings lead on Auchindoun.

Cruiscín Lán
A traditional and a Chalkman Pub favorite. Ivar on lead vocals. "Cruiscín lán" is Gaelic for "little full cup."

Derry
An Irish rebel song by Bobby Sands. No, this is not the Gordon Lightfoot song. Katherine on lead vocals.


Erin
A house original by our own Vincent d'Orleans, who also sings lead on this one. Sometimes, one can change their stars simply by falling out of bed.

Kayla
Lyrics and arrangement by Dulcinaya, who also sings lead. This was written after a local event where some of us were trapped in a tin-roofed barn by a pounding rainstorm. Also trapped was a five year old girl named Kayla, who everyone all day had teased us not to steal. So we gave Kayla a tambourine and jammed until the rain let up.
So last practice, I walked in and the gang said, "It's raining too hard to record, the mike's picking up all the noise." So I said "Let's record Kayla, then." The faint sounds of rain and thunder in the recording are not dubbed, they were picked up real time.

Old Dead Soldiers
Another house favorite written and sung by Vincent. "Dead soldiers" is slang for the empty bottles you find lying all over the place at the end of a session. The song is about playing music with friends, and is kind of a tribute to our friends in Hot Irish Sausage, the Chalkman's house band.

Painted Wheel
Written by Vincent. Go us!

Katherine-lead guitar, vocals
Ivar Ulfsson-dumbek, various percussion and other drums, penny whistle, vocals
Aysha-Fiddle, Bodhran, Dumbek, Zils, Vocals
Vincent-djembe, vocals
Dulcinaya-guitar, mandolin, melodica, bodhran, various percussion, vocals