Taking out the Garbage, and Robert Fulghum, and the SCA

Robert Fulghum's second book, It was on Fire When I Lay Down on It, includes an essay about 'taking out the trash.'

"A willingness to do your share of cleaning up the mess is a test. And taking out the garbage of this life is a condition of membership in the community.
When you are a kid, you feel that if they really loved you, they wouldn't ever ask you to take out the garbage. When you join the ranks of the grown-ups, you take out the garbage because you love them. And by 'them' I mean not only your own family, but the family of humankind.
The old cliche holds, firm and true.
Being an adult is dirty work.
But someone has to do it.

That's why I do what I do, in service. In love and in truth, as John Paul II said in the canonization service for my patroness, St. Jadwiga of Wawel. Taking out the trash, cleaning up the mess, is a condition of my membership in the community of humankind.

The last event in my local group that I went to, at the very end, I looked around at the people who were sweeping floors and washing dishes and taking out the trash, and I saw that everyone but the autocrat was a member of our kingdom's high Order of Merit for Service. There's a reason for that. They are all the kinds of people who take out the trash. Who do things that need to be done, even when it's not fun all the time. Even when you're hot and greasy and sweaty and you've got water all down your front, and you maybe feel like you never want to stand up again. But you look around at the other people, and realize that if you don't stand up, someone else who's just as tired as you will need to do the work instead. So you stand up again and you do the work.

Because being an adult is dirty work, but someone has to do it.

I am privileged to know a lot of these people, some with pretty danglies and some without. I call them chair-carriers. The kind of people who, when they are in a room and realize that someone is carrying something heavy, or someone is arranging chairs, get up and help. I don't always get along with all of those people. Sometimes we disagree about how to get things done, or what needs to be done. Sometimes, sadly, we disagree about personal things. But I respect them for being willing to take out the trash, and dig out the crud at the bottom of the sink, and do all the other 'nastycrat' things that our recreation sometimes needs people to do.

Easter Eggs

Well, Monday night I paid my debt to society for the season.
I hadn't colored eggs yet for the Equinox. Hm, says I, I should do that. I should do the fun colored eggs. I should color eggs with natural dyes. Hey, tonight's the shire meeting. We can all color eggs with natural dyes ... So I let the A&S mistress and the Kingdom A&S mistress and my friend Sarah know about my plans, went home, packed up the electric 2 burner, my previously-unused stainless steel pot set, and a selection of dyes-- brazilwood, madder, saffron, saunders, cochineal. I also brought supplies for making gingerbrede in the vain hope I'd be able to do that TOO. Stopped at the grocery and bought eggs, onion peels, and red cabbage.

Got to practice, set up my little stove, started boiling cabbage and water with brazilwood. Told people I would be dyeing eggs. Collected my onion skins. Got some attention from some young ladies. Put some eggs in the brazillwood mix, and put eggs, etc. in the pot with the onion skins. Walked away for five minutes. Realized the little stove had turned itself off. Gah. Figured it was a fuse. Chased toddlers out of kitchen of site. Tried various ways to get stove to work again. No luck. We can't use the site's stove, so I tried several ways to boil the eggs. Using the coffepot setup. Putting the pots in the bottom of a 450 degree electric roaster. Etc.

We didn't get the eggs hard boiled, but they sure looked pretty. We did cochineal, brazilwood, red cabbage (makes robin's egg blue), tumeric (makes yellow or orange), onionskins (makes orange to mahogany red), and combinations thereof. I had 4 little girls 'helping' ranging from age 4 to age 10, and one little boy at a difficult age that I had to remove several times because I don't mind working with kids but when I say, "Don't touch that please, it's dangerous" they have to a) not touch it and b) not throw a temper tantrum.

The young ladies had a wonderful time. They really enjoyed it. I enjoyed it. I'd only brought 2.5 dozen eggs so I didn't have any to take home (next time there will be more, darnit). The kids were amused because I kept burning myself and telling them that that sure was dumb of me, and they of course would be much smarter about it than I was and wouldn't burn themselves... :)

I'm nuts. *grin*