It was what I think of as a successful weekend—one in which I get several things done.

(That reads as if I were a Type A, obsessive, can’t-sit-down-because-civilization-as-we-know-it-depends-on-my-output Achiever. This is not the case. Pretty much any weekend of mine will include large stretches of lying on the couch with a book. That’s why accomplishing a few things matters to me. It means I haven’t succeeded in frittering the whole talent away.)

First of all, I got my tires rotated and balanced. Not hard work (for me), but it meant three hours sitting in the waiting room at Tires Plus. I didn’t agree to the System Flush and hose replacement they recommended, but I succumbed to a new belt of some sort.

Then I went to Radio Shack and picked up a network cable. Some time back, I gave up on getting my renter’s computer to communicate with my wireless network, and he’s been using my main PC to get online. So I bought a cord and ran it down the hall, and lo, the connection did thrive like the green bay tree.

Today I came home and found him using my computer anyway.

I also took my beautiful, expensive shirt of mail—one of my chiefest possessions—and did an awful thing to it. I dumped it in a bucket of vinegar for 24 hours, and soaked all the zinc off it.

It had zinc on it because it was galvanized. It was galvanized to prevent rust. This is a good thing.

However, real, hard-core Viking reenactors don’t like galvanized shirts. The Vikings didn’t have them, so we shouldn’t either, as they see it. As a gesture of goodwill to the guys I’ll be fighting with in Elk Horn in a couple weeks, I decided to unzinc my Precious. I found instructions online. These gave the impression that, if you followed them, you wouldn’t end up with a rusty shirt.

This impression was false. I now have a rusty shirt, covered with WD-40.

It’s not like it’s ruined. But it’s sad. The shirt never did anything to me—in fact, it’s tempered many a blow aimed at my kidneys

Finally, I finished my new shield, so that I once again have a fighting shield plus a spare. I’m using a new paint job with this batch of shields. My old, geometric design was based on the coat of arms of Karmøy Island, ancient ancestral seat of the Walkers. But I recently learned that it’s a modern design, so now I’m painting a sort of a Viking eagle, based on archeological patterns.

Now I think I’ll go lie on the couch with a book.