Happy Birthday, Serena.

.....Today, Dianne Wasser-Monreal, known to us in the SCA as THL Serena Eame, would have turned 56. We would have had a huge party to celebrate (either last weekend or this weekend :-)) and would have had lots of stories to tell, akin to the party coloured saran wrap stories. :-)

.....Even though she died almost eight years ago now, there are still memories of her all over the house. From the celtic music I listen to in the car, to pictures on the wall, to dishes in the kitchen, to a pair of her glasses that hang from the sunshade in Lobelia. I think that even with the final implementation of the 100-item rule in the house I'll find some way to keep a small handful of mementos of her life and the impact it had on me.

.....If you look on one of the shelves in the Computer room you'll see a leather tankard with a withered cloven fruit in it. There are ribbons and bells and other things hanging from it as it rests on a stick. I can not remember now what type of fruit it actually was, but the cloves seem to have petrified it. :-)

.....The reason I think that I hold that item most dearly is that she was holding it the first time I met her. Wielding it is actually more like it. :-) She was the autocrat for a Last Chance feast out at Long Branch. She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was the Feast-O-Crat and Serena was literally dancing around the tables trying to keep everyone entertained and distracted from the terrible food that was set before them.

.....When she whipped around the table at which I was seated a little key on a ribbon that dangled from the cloved fruit almost hit me and I asked her what the purpose of the key was. She proceeded to tell me that it was the key to her heart. I, being not so bright in those days, mused out loud my disappointment that it wasn't the key to her bedroom.

.....I was viciously teasing her of course, and she was taken aback for a second. Not expecting that kind of rudeness at an SCA Feast. But then she grinned, burst out laughing uproariously, and then gave me a wink as she ran away to entertain other guests who were fighting off indigestion.

.....We were good friends for the rest of her life after that.

.....I hope that whatever afterlife in which she exists now is the bestest. She deserves only the best. :-)

.....With Love, Aaron / Arontius.