Dealings with Drama...

Dealing with drama has never been my strong suit. This last weekend was a perfect example of why I now know that I’ve grown up, and away, from those who are part of the “non-sanctioned” SCA crew.

Fred and I had been planning for months to head to Courtesan Carnival this last weekend. For those out of the loop, it’s a non-SCA-sanctioned get-together of people who like dressing up and acting the part of pirates and courtesans (and I mean the Hollywood-ized, over-the-top version of them).

In the past, it’s been a nice diversion and something to break up the monotony of the winter months between tourney seasons. Since it’s indoors, it was a great way to show off more fancy costume techniques than you’d normally get at an outdoor event (since most times you’re in the woods otherwise, and have brambles and tree sap to deal with). In addition, since it wasn’t filled with a lot of stuffy “pointy hats”, one felt that one’s hair could be let down and a bunch of debauchery would happen throughout the course of the weekend.

First thing that happens, I-5 gets flooded in Washington, so… our plan of having my mother coming to take care of Boo was foiled. We called around and got another person to take care of her for the weekend so I wouldn’t have to stay home while S and Fred went to the event.

After handing the new person phone numbers for 3 different people to call in case of urgent matters or confusion, or if any questions arose during Boo’s care, and making sure that it was clear what she could eat, etc, AND making sure that she understands what to do in case of emergency, etc, we all took off to the event.

I was more than a little nervous, as this was the first weekend we’d left Boo with someone for the whole weekend. I wasn’t sure whether the person taking care of her would be able to do it, but hoped that with three people to call on if she had questions, it would be ok. Fred re-assured me several times that things would be fine, and we unpacked and got everything set up.

I ended up forgetting my meds, which wasn’t as horrible as it sounded – I actually didn’t have too horrible of a reaction without them. The most that happened with that was that I felt really tired and overly sensitive to sound/light the first 36 hours.

I ended up going to bed early, and wended in and out of consciousness for most of the night as we were camped in a one-room lodge with 70 other people; most of whom were loud and hadn’t seen one another in about 5 or 6 months. So, it was inevitable that they would be loud and overly cheery. Fred stayed up most of the night socializing, and spent a small portion talking an acquaintance of his down from a bout of self-deprecation.

Saturday was much the same socialization, some alcohol during the day, a barroom brawl boffer fight, and as the day wound down, we had dinner, then had the fire show, the talent contest, the tall tales contest, and the two major contests: Best rump and best boobies.

Fred won the Best Arse contest, while I didn’t win either the boobies or the talent contest (this bummed me out quite a bit, but hey – at least I entered). After everything was done with, there was a lot more drinking and revelry, and then the drama started.

I’d gone to bed around midnight or 1 in the morning. Fred said he’d be up in a bit, and sat by the fire again talking the acquaintance out of another TWO bouts of self-deprecation… *sigh* By that time (about 3am), I woke back up and went downstairs in time to hear the person running the event sobbing in her bunk. I looked over and saw her husband (still VERY drunk) pound down the stairs and out the door.

We still don’t quite know what happened, other than he got upset for some reason, attacked a good friend of his for no reason, and headed out the door with his car keys, deciding to put a few good miles between him and the situation. Except that he’s drunk… And shouldn’t drive…

Fred immediately got sober, as did the acquaintance, and they and another two guys went out after the gentleman in question. Fred launched himself onto the front of the vehicle, effectively blocking the guy’s view of the road. The guy got back out and tried to pull Fred off the hood of the car, and at that point, the acquaintance tried to bring him down and put a sleeper hold on the guy so that the car keys could get taken away. It didn’t work, and the guy managed to scrape his way out of the hold and knock Fred in the nose with his elbow.

He then got back into the car and took off down the road, stopped long enough to allow one sober person into the vehicle to talk with for about 500 ft, then booted the sober person back out of the car and took off with two other people following him in their car.

Back at the lodge, Fred stayed up another two hours – til about 5 or 5:30am, and I went back to bed. We woke up around 10-ish, and started packing out, exhausted. The gentleman still hadn’t made it back, but we’d heard from the two others who followed him that he drove about 6 miles and then turned off and passed out in his car.

After leaving the site finally around 1pm, we headed home to find that the person who had been babysitting was apparently exhausted from Boo. She told me that Boo hadn’t slept her normal schedule, had refused to eat other than formula and juice until Sunday when eggs had been made, and had generally been a handful but she didn’t know why. After she left, I found that Boo’s food hadn’t been touched at all, none of her snacks had been opened, and from the look of the sink, the only food cooked that weekend had been the eggs.

In addition, due to the high consumption of juice and formula, she had a diaper rash from hell on her poor tushy; a bad enough one that skin was missing from spots. Also, apparently she’d had a diaper blow-out at one point. I only knew this because her onesie hadn’t been changed since the blow-out and there was diarrhea everywhere on the bottom of it.

I found out from the three people whose numbers that the babysitter had, and none of them had been contacted – at all. So, even though a normally healthy, hungry baby supposedly “refused” to eat for over 24 hours, and even though a normally fairly happy baby screamed incoherently for apparently no reason, and the babysitter *didn’t know why*, she still didn’t feel it was necessary to call for assistance of any kind…

I’m utterly horrified that my daughter was treated this way. There is absolutely NO excuse for it, and I honestly never want to deal with that woman ever again – not even as a friend or acquaintance of the family. I honestly thought she would have enough common sense to see beyond her own wants and needs and take the needs and wants of a small child, less than a year old, into account. But apparently that’s beyond her.

I was told by friends of mine that I should pursue legal action – I won’t, if only because – Boo wasn’t irreparably harmed in the incident. But I won’t deal with her anymore, and am going to let her know that she has completely lost my trust in the matter.

So, that’s the drama of the weekend. I’m done with both non-sanctioned events and dramatical pirates, and am done with someone who apparently couldn’t be bothered to actually care for my daughter, other than make sure that she didn’t kill herself.

*sigh* Sometimes it’s horrible to realize that you’re one of a handful people who can be recognized as an adult – and not just because of your chronological age.

~M