Vampire On the Fence

First of all, I'd like to thank all the people who took the time to comment on my Poll... I really appreciate it, and I will happily abide by your wishes and keep the format as is. Thanks!

Thanks particularly to Lady Blue and Cheryl for speaking up - it's nice to hear new voices. I especially appreciate Cheryl's input; I suspect she gets way too much of me already in my BossyBoots mode, so it takes real bravery (or masochism) to voluntarily expose herself to *more* of my abuse blatherings in this way!

On to the News Portion of our show:

The Vampire had his first tournament of the year today, and was very nervous. This was understandable, since his Tuesday night class/practice was cancelled nearly two months ago, and the only other fencing class available runs at exactly the same time as his Guthrie acting class. This has been a huge and painful sacrifice for him, since he loves fencing and his favorite set of friends (his Gaming group) are also in the Saturday fencing class... but the Guthrie class is an unprecedented opportunity, and so in the end the fencing had to take second place.

So the poor kid had to go to the tournament having not had a minute of practice for two months. And to top it all off, when he got there it turned out that the wiring on his epee was broken, and he had to use an unfamiliar weapon - one with a different balance and weight to the one he's accustomed to.

Given the pressures and situation, he did very well and won one of his three bouts against a strong team. He and his friends won the Men's Epee competition, and his team (Minnesota Swordplay) also won most of the other competitions today, as well. So the Vampire is feeling fairly set up in himself and his team, and is hopeful that they will have a better showing against their next competitors than they did last year. Tuesday night practice is rumored to begin again in February, so hopefully he'll get at least some coaching and practice in before the next two tournaments. Keep your fingers crossed!

On an unrelated subject, I finally used up my gift card money and got a copy of Charlene Schurch's "Sensational Knitted Socks". I don't think the instructions make as much sense as the ones in Ann Budd's "Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns", but it has some interesting stitch pattern information, had information on how to make toe-up socks, and had a nice clear explanation of Mosaic Knitting. So I'm happy. :)

The giant mutant caterpillar that is my Red Scarf Project is coming along... I'm not *entirely* sure that this is a good thing. I don't want the recipient to have to do major blocking every time they wash the stupid thing, and so far it is looking pretty labor-intensive. We'll see what happens when I wash it.

Speaking of which, I'd better go to it. Only ten days or so until I have to get it to the dropoff!