kareina

Ursula is running an interview meme, and asked me five questions. If you want a writing prompt comment here and I will ask you some (or, if you feel moved to reply to something I said, but don't want questions, that is ok too, just say so).

1. What are you making right now?

If "right now" = "worked on it already today", the answer is the transformation of an extra large black with white logo print cotton T-shirt from Lofotr Viking Museum into a comfy sleeveless fitted tunic with pockets plus a matching very short "buff" (tube of knit fabric to wear as a hat or scarf). I started cutting the shirt into bits on the ferry home from Lofoten this summer, and made good progress the first week or so I was home, before other projects claimed the top of the priority list. Now I have picked it back up, and am nearly done.

Since I am reasonably slender, but prefer a tunic-cut shirt which is reasonably close fitting on the upper torso but hanging in a loose skirt over the hips I started with an extra-large shirt and cut the body vertically exactly at the point of each shoulder. Then I removed the sleeves from the side bits, and cut each of the side bits into one long narrow triangle and two shorter, wider triangles (which, when still attached to the shirt were upside down with respect to the narrow triangle). Those got reassembled, wide bits down, and sewn to the side of the main body rectangle, using some thick dark blue embroidery floss (one pass of running back stitch, and the edges finished, to the outside of the tunic, with osenstitch, since it is nice and stretchy and works well on knit fabric)

Then I used some of the smaller scrap that was beyond the edges of the triangles before cutting to edge the arm hole, and cut one of the sleeves in half to make pockets. (The other sleeve is just big enough to go around my head, so I am heming the cut edge with osenstitch, and will keep it in my coat pocket for when I need a light layer to keep the wind off the hearing aids, or when I want one more layer under my hat.) I was nearly done with the body assembly when the project got set aside, and I knew that I was going to make pockets. But when I picked it up this week and started working on it again, I realized that half of one sleeve, while wide enough for a good pocket, was a bit short, and only half my hand would fit in. I considered using both sleeves, but having just lost the buff I had made myself from the lower legs of a pair of Marino wool tights when the knee wore out and I converted them to shorts, I decided that it was more important to have the cotton buff as better than nothing.

So instead I asked Keldor what he thought of the idea of using some other cotton t-shirt fabric to extend the pockets, and he said yes, white! (since the logo is white). I don't have any white t-shirts, so I asked him if he has one that I could cut up, and he did--he wanted one of his white shirts turned into a sleeveless shirt, so I cut off those sleeves, and cut one in half, and then took a rectangle off of that for the pocket extension, which is attached, and which I am quite happy with, and I am now ready to sew the other part of the sleeve into matching little extensions just over the tops of the shoulders, to bring balance and coordination to the pockets. I should be able to finish it today or tomorrow, depending on if I pick it back up today, and then can post photos. Edited to add: done now:
https://www.facebook.com/1558503355/posts/pfbid0TUSRntnouLHACTsVDBuUEErwT7xajj1KzTrsGRu5DUySPSieyKSAR8KAyyFsbdmFl/

If by "right now" you mean "in the past seven days", you can add to that list:

* Mended my belt pouch a friend made me by reinforcing and re-attaching the hanging straps, mending the gap in the seam that happened because the tablet woven band, which covers the seam, had gotten too close to the seam itself, and the fabric opened up just on the same

* The gambeson for me that I started in 2016, and got distracted and didn't touch again for a few years, then worked on it a bit, and then put it aside and didn't touch it again for another few years. I took it out again the week before we went to Fury in Frostheim SCA event this past weekend, and worked on it enough before and during the event that it is, finally, all assembled, and there is nothing left but seam finishing. However, as I am doing the seam finishing in a structural manner, I can't actually use it till that is done.

2. What have you noticed recently about your cats' personalities?

Kalika not only loves to be in the same room as people much of the time, she is also fascinated by doors. If we open a door, she wants to go through. If we leave her on the orginal side of the door, and go through it ourselves she will wait near the door for a time to see if we come back. Even if she left the door, if she hears us returning to the door she will hurry to it to be there when we open it again. However, there is one big exception to this. If the basement door wasn't *quite* latched properly, and as a result it pops open due to pressure changes when the front door opens so that one of us can go out, instead of waiting at the outer door for that one to return, she will go through the now open basement door to see what lies in that forbidden realm.

Skaði, who came to us very focused on food (as one might expect as a kitten born into a house with three litters of cats and a variety of adult cats (for a total of 15 cats; hers was the litter in the middle in age), and always happily cleaned both her own bowl of soft cat food, and everything that Kalika didn't finish in hers, is starting to understand that if she walks away from the bowl before it is empty that the food will still be there later, and she doesn't *have* to eat it all at once.

3. What's your favorite body of water?

Pretty much any fjord--give me the mountain-water interaction, every time! (there are reasons I love Lofoten, and fall in love with pretty much every other mountain and the water it is adjacent to as we travel around there.)

4. What's your favorite cooking tool?

Just as with people, books, and mountains, I don't have only one favourite cooking tool, but I love different ones for different purposes. I love my ulu for cutting food--the round blade is just so easy to rock back and forth to chop vegetables and cut other things, and I always feel a little handicapped when I try to cut food in a kitchen that doesn't have one. I love my little mini food processor attachment to the immersion blender for chopping small amounts of things or turning dried nettles into powder (and the big food processor for turning frozen berries and veg into smoothies). I love the solid wood rolling pin I took from my mom's house when I moved out (and she took from hers) which is just denser and nicer than rolling pins I see in the stores today. I love my Silicon garlic peeler and my Silicon muffin cups for freezing smoothies or sauces in handy single-serving sizes. I love my dark blue glass nested mixing bowls, because blue. And one can never have too many good mixing bowls. (Well, ok, one probably can, and I am starting to close my eyes and look the other when when I see a nice mixing bowl in a second hand store, as I really don't have that much available cupboard space anymore.)

5. Do you enjoy wrapping presents, or do you prefer more functional gifting?

I do enjoy wrapping presents, and I enjoy unwrapping them, too. However, I haven't participated in a gift-giving holiday exchange in years, so haven't done any wrapping or unwrapping in ages. I still give people things occasionally, but at random times, and usually in a setting where there isn't time for wrapping. There wasn't much point in trying to gift wrap the house when I bought that for Keldor, and it really wasn't a surprise...

This feels like a better place for filling in the SCA Meme I saw katerit post on FB, if for no other reason, formatting...

SCA name and how it's pronounced?: Kareina Talventytär (Ka-rain-ya. Talventytär is just like it is spelled, because Finnish is totally phonetic. :-P )

How long have you been playing?: Since the early 1980's, while still in high school.

Your first event?: My first household event was a weekend gathering at the home of one of the founders of Purwydd (the household) in Rainbow Valley, about half an hour south of Anchorage for which we kids all made costumes and cooked a feast. It was some months after joining Purwydd that I first heard about this weird group of Adults who were doing the same thing (though others in the household knew about the SCA when they decided to start the household), and some months later before I made it to my first SCA event, which was held to celebrate the wedding of Sir Brendan and Mistress Aryana, in May of 1982. I remember dancing Hole in the Wall to a recording that was long enough that even though the dance seemed confusing at first I had no problems at all with the pattern by the end of it (and still remember it, even though I haven't danced it in years), and being asked to hold one of the candles to create a square around the couple for the ceremony.


Describe your heraldic device in layman's terms: White cat on a blue diamond on a white background (see my profile pic) (though, in reality that white background, a vetu, is on the blue field). I chose to have a vetu as a field division because a herald tried to tell 15 year old me that in period men displayed their device on a shield because they are warriors, but women displayed theirs on a lozenge because they weren't warriors. No one was going to tell me what I could or couldn't do based on gender, so I chose a field division that isn't possible to display on a lozenge (the vetu is everything outside the lozenge).

Go to garb style/colors?: I tend to wear either 12th century bliaut, or Viking boy clothes, depending on if I want practical or pretty (but my practical stuff tends to be pretty too, because I can). Blue. Lots of blue. Even my brown dress is blue (it is a wavy twill with brown warp and indigo blue, almost black weft, so it looks brown from a distance, but has precisely the same amount of blue as brown)

An accessory you wish you had?: I would love to have my sexy viking cloak, that I started years go. However, I keep finding other projects that are more urgently needed, so it is languishing in the UFO pile.

Favorite SCA activities?: bardic (especially group unison singing), dancing, hot tubs and saunas (especially when there is a lake to go with the sauna), massage circles, sewing, nålbinging and other crafts, cooking, eating (when the food is available early enough in the day that I am still hungry)

Favorite mundane activities? Acroyoga, folk dance, singing, trading massage

At an event, you will most likely be doing?: See above. Yes, even when I am the event autocrat I still find time for that stuff.

Friends would describe you as?: weird, useful and decorative

Sekanjabin or pickles?: Neither! Nothing containing wine or vinegar for me, thanks. Luckily, I live in Frostheim, which is rarely hot enough to need Sekanjabin. Nice plain water (which is reasonably plentiful here) is fine for me.

I have been asked a handful of questions by stitchwhich:

1. How many languages do you speak comfortably?

Comfortably? One. Unless you count Australian and American as separate languages, in which case I can probably claim two. Sure, I speak Swedish, but I am very aware that my pronunciation has issues (which I can't hear, but everyone else can), so I am not so comfortable with my abilities.

2. If you could (in fantasy, anyway) switch professional fields, what would you choose to do?

Well, my "professional field" has been "career student" for most of my life (the pay is low, but the quality of life is high) until recently, when it transitioned to "researcher" (much better pay) and then to "lab technician" (less stress/responsibility), so I have been pretty pretty lucky with my field so far, and have never really thought about what else I might do to earn enough cash to keep baking my own bread. But since fantasy is ok, how about "wealthy land owner"? You know--in a time and place where owning the land provided an income, along with the responsibility to manage the land...

3. If you were able to go back in time who would you choose for your guide, and where would they take you through?

Oh, dear, now here is one I have never thought of in those sorts of terms. It never occurred to me in my previous time travel dreams to have a guide. A guide... Ok, how about one of the inhabitants of the long house which is in Lofoten? I would love to see how it looked back in the day, how it compares to the replica long house that stands there now, and I would love to know what the clothing of the people living there actually looked like.

4. (Do you have a/what is your religious faith?

Well, I have said more than once that it is against my religion to sit out of a dance. Leaving dirty dishes unwashed is also against my religion. But other than those two quirks I don't actually have any sort of religion and can't understand why anyone would want one. Isn't it better to be a good person because it increases the quality of ones own life and the lives of the people with whom one interacts than to do so because some god (or someone claiming to be the representative of some god) told you to?

5. What do you find inspiring about the SCA?

The arts and crafts that we do. The things that we make are just so inspiring. So many of the nice things I have made were made because I saw something similar at an event and just had to try making one of my own...

If anyone else wants questions leave a comment and I will come up with some for you. If you enjoy playing you can pass more questions on forward to others who want to play.

If you would like to ask me questions, leave them in the comments. :-)

Re-posting from FB, since I went to the effort to type it at all, it may as well get dual use...

1. I so enjoy the beauty in order that I hang my clothes in my closet organized by colour, hue, and tone (this is easier than you might think, since most of them are dark blue or black, which is why hue and tone also need to come into play).
2. I love to sing and have a very good memory for the words and timing of songs and learn them quickly. Fortunately for the rest of the world, since moving to Sweden I have actually learned to carry a tune, too.
3. I am so fond of almonds that people who live with me and eat my cooking tend to get tired of them. I never do.
4. Over the course of my life I have typically moved to a new location around every three years; I moved to Sweden nearly three years ago, and now my current work contract is drawing to a close at the same time I am seeing interesting job advertisements in my field at universities here and there around the world. The reflex built up based on past patterns says I should be applying to all of them, but, on the other hand; perhaps I am ready to break the trend and actually stay in one place for a while?
5. While I consider myself sapiosexual, finding people more attractive for how they use their minds than what sort of package they come in, I do have an extreme weakness for the beauty of long hair, and have been known to cry when people cut theirs off.
6. While I normally move often, I did live in one house from the summer of 1977 to the spring of 1988, and am curious to see if I will ever manage to break that record.
7. I found the SCA when I was around 15 years old, and have never been in a romantic relationship with someone who wasn’t part of it (unless you count the “boyfriend” I had in Kindergarten).
8. I am an addicted re-reader—I tend to re-read three old favourite books before reading another new book. This trait has come in very handy for helping me learn Swedish—I don’t need to stop to look up new words when reading the Swedish version of those books!
9. When I was a child I enjoyed telling adults who were going on about the evils of living with someone before marriage that I had lived with my first boyfriend. Never mind that our mothers were roommates when I was a newborn (both of our dads were doing their TDY with the military), and he wasn’t my boyfriend till Kindergarten, it still counts.
10. My need to fidget helped me get better grades in school—on those days I forgot to bring a sewing or embroidery project to class I wound up daydreaming and didn’t remember what was discussed later, but on the days I stitched while listening and jotting down notes I could remember it all.
11. Winter is, by far, my favourite season—to the point that when I chose my SCA name, I picked a last name that means “winter daughter”. Needless to say, it is wonderful to once again be living far enough north that we have snow on the ground all winter long.
12. Thanksgiving weekend will mark 9 years of my doing yoga on a daily basis, and it still feels so good every day that I want to do it again the next day and I wonder why it took so many years before I started.
13. I gave it up eating commercially available meat when I figured out what was causing the issues with my digestion, and haven’t missed it; that was a decade ago, but I still don’t think of myself as a vegetarian.

If you can’t be bothered choosing your own number, leave me a comment and I will give you one.

1. If you could recommend places for people to travel, what would top your list? (feel free to have as many or as few locations as you want here)

Well, I always mention Alaska to those who don't live there, because the mountains are so beautiful. Ditto Norway. The Alps and the Rockies come in reasonably close thereafter as places I've actually been to and can recommend. Basically, Mountains. Preferably ones which contain exposed rock and few people. These are the best places to visit, and I so wish I could live such a place, but how would I afford food to eat?

2. If you could continue as a student indefinitely, would you?

Hell yes! If someone would pay me to be a student, there are still 1000's of interesting topics to learn.

3. You've been in the SCA much longer than I have - what keeps you coming back and participating?

The sense of community. The dancing, the singing, and other group activities wherein people are encouraged to participate rather than sitting on the sidelines. The fact that it provides an excuse for "too many hobbies" to keep me busy and out of trouble. The continuity as I move hither and yon about the planet and the fact that wherever I go so far I've had friends I'd not yet met waiting for me.

4. Today was election day, so I'm in a politics frame of mind (sorry!) - having lived in various countries, how do you think US politics measure up as a system in comparison to other countries?

Well, I think that should the US ever switch to compulsory voting and a preferential system (like Australia) things would likely be *very* different. But I'm not certain I'd want them to--I think I'd rather see a system wherein voting was done by intelligent, thoughtful people, rather than "everyone", since there are a lot of stupid sheep amongst "everyone".

5. What is your favorite poem? (or song, if you don't have a favorite poem) - I've been on a poem kick, and this is the cheater question that I am asking everyone.

For me it would have to be a song--I don't like poems, I love songs. Put a poem to a tune, and suddenly I like it. Take the tune away from a song and I lose interest. Favorite? See--this is why I'm a poly sort of person--I don't have favorites in much of anything, but think in terms of lots of loved items in any given category. My favourite class of song are the ones that are fun/easy to sing, with a chorus that gets everyone singing. Performance pieces are all well and fine, but I'd 1000 times rather be singing with *everyone* participating than have some people sing and others listen, no matter how much more talented at singing the performers are. Same for dance. I don't want to watch others dance, I want to dance with them.

mamapduck is playing, and her answer to the first question prompted me to answer it as well. I don't promise to play for a full 30 days, but I'll at least manage this one.

01. Discuss how you got into Harry Potter and why you still love it.

I was still living in Anchorage, and the house in which I lived received a paper subscription of the newspaper, which I tended to read over breakfast. I saw an article about the books, which raved about how amazing it was that someone had published a book which had children actually *reading*, even kids who are not normally people who read for pleasure. This was the first time I'd heard of the books, and wondered what the fuss was about.

At the time I worked part-time in a used book store as a favour to one of the students in the Geology Lab I was teaching--she had complained that she couldn't find anyone competent to work at the book store she owned, and as a result she was having problems getting her homework done. So I agreed to take on a couple of shifts a week to give her time to attend to her studies. One afternoon a customer brought in some books on trade, and one of them was the first Harry Potter book. When there was a lull in customers I picked it up to glance at the fist page or to "just to see what the fuss was about". The next thing I was aware of, other than the story, was when another customer came into the store, and I looked up to realize that I was three chapters into the book. So I set it aside in the pile of things for me to purchase, and returned to work.

I think I finished that first book the same day I brought it home, and have purchased the others as soon as they came out, and then, again, when they came out in paperback, since I by far prefer to read paperback books. I still love them because I enjoy the world--I've always loved stories with magic, and this is a plausible version of that. Like many books aimed at a young audience they are written in an engaging manner which lends itself well to re-reading (which is something I love to do). In addition to loving the official books, I am also hooked on the fan-fic written by blamebrampton who always does a wonderful job creating stories which are plausible given the "facts" of the published books, and whose writing skill is such that I'd read her shopping list and enjoy it.

From broider_barones

1. Would you like to reign again? What was the most fulfilling part of reigning?

Yes, I think that it has been enough years now that I would like to reign again. I was so very young and new to the SCA when I served as 2nd Princess of Oertha that I didn’t really know what I was doing, and couldn’t properly appreciate it. I think I now have sufficient experience to more fully embrace the role. Which is funny, because for most of my time in the SCA I’ve had a champion carrying my favour in tournaments, yet I didn’t really want us to be granted victory—I was simply content with getting (or giving when it was me in armour) the salutes before each round of combat. Now that I feel confidant enough to seriously consider it I not only have no one carrying my favour, but I’m not even eligible to enter in my Kingdom of residence as I’ve not yet attended enough in-Kingdom events to meet the minimum qualifications. Therefore it isn’t going to happen any time soon!

It is hard to say what the most fulling part of reigning is—it has been so many years that my memories of being princess are a bit spotty. But I will never, ever forget the joy that came from making Kylson and Anne a Viscount and Viscountess, nor will I ever forget the tears in Kylson’s eyes when we gave him a Leaf.

2. Other than fiber and dance - what hobby do you like to spend time doing?

I love my daily yoga practice—it feels so good to move and to stretch. And there is something so very joyful from the balancing poses; knowing I can do a head-stand is an amazing confidence-booster! I love hiking and long walks. I really enjoy climbing, too, but haven’t made time for that one if far, far too long. My other weakness is reading. When I was young it was always SciFi/Fantasy books. These days LiveJournal, FaceBook, and blogs compete with fiction for my reading time.

3. What would be your ideal job?

One where they pay me to learn interesting things and have fun doing field work in the mountains and then play with fancy high-tech equipment to analyse the samples afterwards. One where I get to set my own hours and choose my own research topics. Plus or minus teaching. Yup, I like academia.

4. You could only go to/stay in 1 country for the rest of your life. Which one would it be?

I am so not a monogamist! But if you are going to remove everywhere else from the map I guess I’ll choose Norway, as it has a very good mountain to flat land ratio, is far enough north to have good weather, the vegetation is “right” to my Alaskan eyes, and they speak a language which is high on the list of languages I wish to learn. They are, sadly, lacking in an SCA branch, but I’m willing to play some other re-enactment game if I must (since the SCA would cease to exist when the other countries vanished anyway). Food might be an issue though, since I think a reasonable amount of food there needs to be imported, and if the other countries vanished, where would it come from?

5. Why garnets?

1. They are pretty!
2. They are very common in a wide range of metamorphic rock types
3. They are stable across a reasonably broad range of pressures and temperatures of relevance for metamorphism
4. The often form “porphyroblasts” (crystals that are noticeably larger than those which surround them)
5. They are easy to identify in hand-samples—their nice “garnet-red” colour often contrasts with the other minerals in the sample
6. They are easy to identify in thin-section—they have a high “relief” (they look like they are taller than the things next to them, even though they aren’t) and they are isotropic (they are black when the polarizing filters are crossed, no matter how the stage is turned, making them stand out against the bright blues, pinks, and yellows that the other minerals turn when the filters are crossed)
7. They have a rather broad range of possible chemical compositions, with iron, magnesium, manganese, and calcium all fitting into the same position in the crystal structure (this is part of what gives it a broad range of stable temperatures and pressures) and aluminum and silica can do a certain amount of swapping one for the other as well. There are a handful of other, less common elements which can also substitute for others in its crystal structure.
8. They have very slow diffusion, which means that once they reach a certain size the center of the grains no longer get involved in chemical reactions. As a result it is normal for the composition of garnets to be “zoned”, with the center containing more Mn than the rims, and the rims containing more Mg than the core (each of the other major elements also typically change their concentration from core to rim).

We metamorphic petrologist talk about the garnet cores being “armored” by the rims. The rims are, in theory, in equilibrium with the matrix minerals at any given time—this means that the minerals present will be participating in the chemical reactions that are causing the growth of some minerals and the dissolution of others. For many minerals the normal grain size is small enough that the reactions involve the entire grains, but garnets often grow large enough that only the outermost shell is involved in the reactions, with the inner portion “freezing” in whatever composition was stable when it was the outer portion.

So, just like an EverlastingGobstopper (do they still make those candies?) changes colors as you suck on it, so garnets show a range of compositions from core to rim. Part of the changes in garnet composition are due to rare ingredients having been used up making garnet (plus or minus any other zoned minerals present). So Mn, which tends to prefer garnet to any other mineral in metamorphic rocks, starts out “high” in garnet, but there is usually so little of it available in any given metamorphic rock it is soon used up and the garnets have gradually less and less Mn as they grow, until eventually the outer portions have no measurable Mn at all. The other reasons garnets change their composition is due to changes in pressure or temperature. Different recipes of garnet are stable at different pressures and temperatures. So if the conditions change different types of garnet grow on the outside of the pre-existing garnet. These features all combine to make it a very well-studied mineral because of all of the information one can extract about the history of the rock.

Note: today's icon is a Back-scatter Electron Image (BSE) of a garnet. It is a grain about 2 mm in diameter.
With BSE images the heavier the elements present the brighter the image, and the lighter the elements present the darker the image. The contrast for this image has been adjusted to make the garnet (which contains the reasonably heavy elements of Fe, Mg, and Mn) grey and the quartz (which contains only silica and oxygen) black. The two bright white patches are inclusion of monazite--a mineral which contains the even heavier elements of uranium, thorium, and lead (which the first two radioactive elements decay to). The pattern of black dots in the garnet are inclusions of quartz which got trapped inside of the garnet as it grew. The fact that there is ab obvious ring of quartz around the middle tells us that there was a noticeable change in the rate of garnet growth between the core and the rim. Indeed, when one looks at the composition changes of the garnet itself, there is a huge change in composition of the garnet which correspond to the change in the inclusion density.

I’ve been busy, so the questions have been piling up, here are some answers to questions:

( From pearl )
( From vittoriosa )
( From callistotoni )

I still owe some people some questions, but that will have to wait till another day, but I’ve not forgotten. Besides, it sometimes helps if they are spread out over a bit of time…

(As played by others; if you want me to ask you some, comment with a smile.)

1} Where did we meet?

I don’t know that we have ever been introduced, as such. The earliest clear memory I have of you as an individual was a long post you did to SCA-West summarizing your adventures at an event (Pennsic?) shortly after I moved to Tasmania. I enjoyed reading it, noted many points we have in common, but thought it odd that you’d bother doing things like (curling your hair? Putting on make up? Something else? I forget which) before heading out to evening parties.

2} What is the best and worst parts about living in Europe?

The best? Getting to go to events in castles! The worst? Way, way more smokers than I had been accustomed to being around. Though, to be fair, I never spent time in cities in the US if I could possibly avoid it, so perhaps there are as many folk in US cities standing or walking on the sidewalks with nasty smelling smoke drifting away from their hands or face as I see daily in Milan.

3} How do Europeans view Americans? What would surprise us about that?

Honestly, that is a surprisingly hard question for me to answer. The only two places I see humans in person are generally geology conferences, where I listen to the talks but rarely actually talk to anyone, and SCA events, where I tend to get into conversations with the English-speakers, many of whom are Americans. I know that Australians tend to see us as “pushy”, but I don’t have a clue how Europeans see us.

4} What is the best thing you've eaten there so far?

Well, the best things I ever eat are my own cooking, especially fresh bread or nann straight out of the oven. Since I’m a fussy eater and a control freak, and only hungry during the day I rarely eat things that other people cook. That said, Italian gelato is pretty darn good, and the Fior di Latte flavour is surprisingly good.

5} When are you coming back to the States?

I have no idea! Some of the jobs for which I’ve sent off applications happen to be for US locations (one is even in the West!), but I don’t know how my CV looks next to the other applications they will doubtless receive. If I could choose any location I wanted for “next”, I’d pick Norway—all the advantages of Alaska *and* all the advantages of Europe in one package. But if I wind up staying in Europe (or moving to some other non-US location), I hope I’ll be able to do another US visit sometime in the next year or three.

(As played by others; if you want me to ask you some, comment with a smile.)

1) What is your favourite memory from your childhood?

Favourite? Now that is a difficult task no matter what the category—how to pick only one? I have some very fond memories of making tundra forts with my cousins. They lived on an Alaskan homestead about half way between Anchorage and Fairbanks, and had no near neighbours, so we kids were free to run wild were we would, so long as we were home for meals. Needless to say, it was always a joy to visit them! To make the fort we’d find down sticks/logs and lean them against a tree like a tepee, then roll up large mats of tundra to cover it. We made one by our uncle’s house (one mile up the road—he had no kids of his own) and he later reported that a fox moved into it for a season. He was a trapper, and complained that the fox moved on elsewhere just a few days before fox season opened up. Smart fox.

2) If you had unlimited time and money what would you do?

Find a suitable location to build my castle—someplace north enough to have real winter, mountainous enough to suit me, and not in a city. Build a modest tower keep to call home base, and then alternate between enjoying being at home and travelling, filling my free time with some research, some SCA participation, and working on projects for fun.

3) Now that you have completed your PhD what do you see yourself doing 10 years from today?

Ten years? Well, that would be three vastly different moves from now, if my past pattern is anything to go on. Doing research at a uni somewhere +/- teaching?

4) With all of your travels do you have one particular place that you call home?

I call Alaska home, and have lived there more than any one other place. However, my travels in Norway spoke to me and said “home”, too, and I’ve never lived there. But the vegetation is “right”, as are the mountains.

5) You always seem to be working on some textile or fiber activity as you travel or when you visit with people. What is your inspiration for your projects?

I normally find inspiration at SCA events, or on SCA e-mail lists. I see something someone else made (or otherwise acquired) for themselves and think I’d like one of those”. The list of projects I’d like to do is way longer than I have time to accomplish, of course.