August 3, 2004

• That “bright side” keeps getting bigger and bigger.

  I mentioned that I’d found something to feel good about in the recent
  looting and vandalism at Elvenhurst, our old home place half a mile or
  so from here.  “Here” is where we’ve been “housesitting” so long
  now it’s beginning to look permanent.  The owner of this land
  hasn’t contacted us since 2000, when he came back briefly, gave me the
  title to this trailer and went south again.  The acre I own across
  the highway has two trailers, a school bus, two VW vans and some other
  disabled vehicles, a pile of junk left there “temporarily” 21 years ago
  by the man who helped us move, and the bits and pieces of my library,
  rock collection and other impedimenta I don’t have room for here or
  just haven’t gotten moved yet.

  Besides having found some treasured objects scattered around by the
  looters, the news came back to me through my ex-husband, Charley, who
  is my son Doug’s father, that some other valued things were
  retrievable.  The story was that these friends of his ended up
  (innocently) with a distinctive pair of green cut glass goblets with
  gold trim, which Charley had given me over twenty years ago.  They
  were expensive, and that wasn’t the only reason I treasured them. 
  When I was in the SCA, the colors I chose for my arms were gold, green
  and black. 

  My heraldic device was a black goblet issuing green flames on a gold
  field:  the power of life and growth arising from death, on a
  background of incorruptible truth.  My best mediaeval costumes
  were green and gold.  I also set a fine table at feasts,
  competitively so.  The goblets were a perfect accompaniment for my
  table settings.   I saw them at a Wasilla bookstore and the
  price made me go pale:  $180.00 each.  I knew I’d never have
  them, but every time we were in that store, I’d go feast my eyes on
  them, drawn to them, couldn’t NOT go gaze at their beauty. 
  Charley got a well-paid temporary job on Barter Island one
  summer.  He said that all the way home he was hoping those goblets
  were still there.  They were.

  But by the time he gave them to me, I’d stopped going to SCA events,
  partly from my chronic fatigue and my disgust at the petty politics,
  but mostly because of the Poisoner’s Guild.  They were a pack of
  Goth-looking young male university students mostly from
  Fairbanks.  I was their first victim, the first of a series of at
  least five red-haired women into whose drinks, and later when people
  became more careful with drinks, fruit, they had slipped potent doses
  of some hallucinogen.  I just got temporarily nuts and was
  fortunate in having a circle of friends who quickly caught on to what
  was happening and kept reminding me it was only the drug.  I came
  down okay.  Some of the other victims had less experience and/or
  more delicate health.  Several had very bad trips and ended up in
  psychotherapy.  One woman, with severe diabetes, became seriously
  ill and went into a lengthy decline from which she didn’t
  recover.  She and I were not the only redheads to quit playing SCA
  when the word got around through the grapevine about what was happening.

  Because
  I’d had no practical use for them, and because Doug was at that time a
  wild little thing with ADHD who wasn’t deterred by high shelves or
  latched cabinets, I packed the goblets away for safe-keeping.  I
  had known precisely where they were up until Greyfox moved in.  I
  remember showing them to him.  Then the pickup camper in which
  they’d been stowed was moved over to Charley’s place, and I wasn’t sure
  where they were put when all four of us:  Doug, Greyfox, Charley
  and I, moved my stuff out of the camper.  I thought they were in
  one of the VW vans, and it happened to be the one with the hatch that
  later got stuck shut.  I thought a few times about using a crowbar
  on that hatch, but never did, hesitating as ever to destroy anything,
  even junk.  I looked for my goblets every time I went to
  Elvenhurst to gather things to move here, even tried crawling into that
  van from the side door, but just couldn’t shift enough crates around to
  access every nook and cranny before my asthma drove me out of there.

  
  Charley saw my goblets sitting on a shelf at his friends’ house. 
  He asked about them.  I’m not sure whether he believed the story
  they told him or whether it was the same story he told me.  What
  I’m sure of is that someone isn’t telling the truth.  I don’t
  really care, because Charley got my goblets back.  He told me last
  week he was going to get them back for me, but I didn’t mention them
  when I blogged about the looters because I wasn’t sure what the story
  was there or whether he’d actually get them back.  He has made me
  many promises and kept few.  That was my main reason for splitting
  up with him.  Anyhow, whatever the real story may be, I have my
  green goblets back.  Aren’t they pretty?

  

  • 5:46 pm
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