[Sca-cooks] Paging Amr ibn Majid al-Bakri al-Amra!

Sat Aug 27 21:20:13 PDT 2005

[Lengthy response, but I hope it is worth the read...]

Olwen, one of my friends (HL Suzanna the Herbalist) stepped on my line with 
"They caught you now" (paraphrase here!), to which I replied, in essence, 
"What did I do this time?"

His Excellency, Qadi Mahdi, current Baron of the Steppes, replied to the 
effect of what *hadn't* I been seen doing, at one time or place, quietly 
serving others.  (My interjection into this re-telling: sometimes not so 
quiet -- I'm a voice herald and bard -- but yeah, that's about right. I'm a 
bit of a generalist...)  The main thing I remember other than that was to 
make sure I was displaying the nifty bit o' illuminated certificate, that 
comes with the dangly insignia, to the gathered populace.  Done, and gladly 
so!

I was NOT expecting this -- quite.  But I wasn't particularly surprised, 
either.

There is an additional part of this story that I want to share -- and NOT 
NOT NOT because of any bitterness or concern about delays on my own part. 
(It took over 13 years from being a founder of the Shire of Moonschadowe 
until my AoA was received -- a fair amount of which I was admittedly 
inactive, due to mundane considerations.  The Sable Crane came to me in 
another twelve, and I DID NOT have to have this reminder to keep doing what 
I do.  It *is* nice to be noticed sometimes, though.)  No, it's as a general 
reminder to all of us who participate in the SCA that sometimes there are 
people who go unnoticed for a while -- and to record something that was, 
well, just darn neat in my opinion.  I *will* admit that I was expecting 
that something might happen at Steppes Artisan, and had made an extra effort 
to be at the event -- but that gets ahead of the story.

It all went something like this:  Robin of Gilwell (Pelican, Laurel, White 
Scarf, Lion of Ansteorra, etc.), currently serving as Oakenwald Pursuivant 
[and still one-half of the Arm Militant of the Ansteorran College of Heralds 
AFAIK], is running a "Kindergarten of Heralds" series of lectures / classes. 
We were up to the session covering the Awards and Precedence of Ansteorra. 
I'd gone to lend support, and see what may have occurred recently that I 
needed to update in my personal knowledge base.  I have, after all, been 
participating only as circumstances allow for the last four years or so, and 
six months of that was in Aethelmarc.
  <f/x: waving a big HELLO to Odriana and the rest of the crew in BMDL>

It came the time in the class for a bit of "hands-on" demonstration of how 
precedence can be applied, and to do that of course one needs to know _what_ 
awards the participants have, establish _when_ they were received (in order 
to "break" any ties), along with related minutiae primarily of interest to 
heralds but pertinent to the line-of-march.  My turn came around, and in 
effect I said that I held only a simple Award of Arms, but use the 
culturally-equivalent "al-Sayyid" instead of "Lord".

I don't think I've ever seen quite as much astonishment on a Peer's face as 
I did on Robin's face that night, when I stated that all I held was an 
AoA... (To be completely honest, I amended that slightly a few minutes 
later, relating that I also already held a non-armigerous baronial service 
token which carries no precedence, the Acorn of the Steppes.)

I didn't see Mahdi's face [he who was, the last I checked, the other half of 
the Arm Militant of the Ansteorran CoH -- Obligatory food content: Mahdi was 
once involved in a scroll presentation where the scroll was written on a 
<real> banana], but I heard something in his voice that seemed to have a 
similar implication.

Nothing else was particularly said that evening about my history & 
accomplishments, or even in my presence at any other time before the event, 
but I had a certain feeling that I should be there...

That's the story the way I'm gonna tell it, anyway.  "Truth, if not 
necessarily adorned by a capital T."

Amra
Kitchen Idiot of the Cathedral of the Cheesey Salamander

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Olwen the Odd" <olwentheodd at hotmail.com>
To: <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Sent: Saturday, August 27, 2005 7:18 PM
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Paging Amr ibn Majid al-Bakri al-Amra!

> Vivat to You!!
>
> Funny thing that.  So many of the cooks end up getting Service awards, but 
> not necessarily for our cooking.  Often it is for our shlepping and 
> cleaning!  After all, the cooks are often among the first on site, who 
> then have to either make the kitchen and hall clean enough for us to use, 
> and the last to leave, after we once again clean the kitchen and hall.
>
> So,  what sorts of things were mentioned at your Award giving?  Were you 
> suprized?  Come on and tell us more!
> Olwen
>
>>Dame Selene, not all of us were so fortunate as to reach Pennsic this 
>>year -- but there were awards courts elsewhere in the Knowne Worlde during 
>>that time...
>>
>>Amr ibn Majid al-Bakri al-Amra, at Steppes Artisan (13th August, A.S. 
>>XXXX): Award of the Sable Crane of Ansteorra
>>
>>(IKA moment:  "mid-level" service award, lying between a simple AoA and 
>>the grant-level CSM [Ansteorran Star of Merit]...)
>>
>>Adieu, Amra / ttfn - Mike / Pax ... Kihe
>>
>>Mike C. Baker
>>SCA: al-Sayyid Amr ibn Majid al-Bakri al-Amra
>>"Other": Reverend Kihe Blackeagle PULC (the DreamSinger Bard)
>>Opinions? I'm FULL of 'em
>>alt. e-mail: KiheBard at hotmail.com OR MCBaker216 at cs.com
>>   Buy my writings!:   http://www.lulu.com/WizardsDen
>>   http://www.livejournal.com/users/kihebard/
>>   SFF&H Reviews and More!: http://www.sfwatcher.com