RIP Colleen Savitzky
Jul. 14th, 2021 09:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
figmoI heard the sad news about flowercat Monday afternoon and haven't been quite right since.
Colleen was more than a force of nature. I swear the woman had her own gravitational field! For years she was the central figure in one of the social circles in which I run. At cons, she'd plant herself in a central place and folks would come up to her all day. It hit me really hard when I realized that at least half of my close circle of friends are folks I met through her.
Colleen's SCA household used to take over a Round Table Pizza on Monday nights. Instead of football, we we put on Star Trek: The Next Generation on the big screen TV. I met many really cool people on those nights, including my closest friend out here in CA.
Colleen used to hold "open house" on Wednesdays. The door would be unlocked, and you'd come in and hang out. There were some folks who mostly showed up because she'd order pizza and they'd mooch off her and Steve, but there were other folks like myself who were there for the company and because you never knew who was going to show up or what was going to happen. When she and Steve moved to Seattle, the folks who were renting their San Jose house promised to keep "open house" going, but after a while it kind of died off. Without Wednesday Open House, those of us in the San Jose area were left flailing with nowhere to hang out on Wednesdays.
About a year or two ago, Colleen warned (her word) me that she "didn't think [she] was going to last much longer." I asked her if she'd been hanging out with Dionne Warwicke's "Psychic Friends," pointing out that we never know when we're going to go until it happens. I was afraid she was going to pull a "Harlan Ellison" and stay home "waiting to die." Ellison wasted years doing that. Colleen, however, had fully intended to make the most of whatever time she had.
I first realized her health had gone downhill when she didn't resume "Open House" when she and Steve moved first to Seattle and then to Whidbey Island. Her health had first started going downhill when she had a botched epidural when they lived in San Jose. As the years went on, it seemed like she had more and more things to contend with. Despite this, she made it a point not to let it get her down.
Colleen very much enjoyed traveling to distant places. She'd spent part of her childhood living in England, so whenever I went there, I picked up teas for her. When I went to Canada, I'd bring back cyclamates. Sometimes I'd share something I'd baked with her household, especially if it catered to a special diet. Needless to say, if someone in our crowd had a dietary restriction, I knew it because she knew it.
As her health was getting worse, whenever she'd call, I'd jump to get the phone, no matter how inconvenient it was. I might have been in the middle of loading my car or even a work meeting, but if there was a way I could mute my meeting (and cut the video feed) and get the phone, I would do so. In retrospect, I'm very glad I did.
She was also responsible for some of the funniest things I've ever experienced. When I bought an anatomically correct inflatable sheep (a "Love Ewe") for a performance at ConChord's Totally Tasteless and Tacky Revue, she walked it across the street to her local Safeway and had it inflated with helium. It didn't make it float, but at the end of that con, a bunch of us sat around "inhaling" from the sheep's awkwardly placed nozzle and sounding like Mickey and Minnie Mouse. I even banged out a few songs at her place. "L. Ron Ron" (to "Da Doo Ron Ron") spewed out when I'd seen an L. Ron Hubbard poster that said "22 best sellers and more to come" and then heard a version of "Da Doo Ron Ron" on a Wednesday night. My infamous "California Love Song" came together in roughly half an hour after Robin Baylor passed on a song idea she had but couldn't do anything with.
When she ran "Flowers by Colleen," her arrangements were legendary. She did flowers for many of the fannish weddings out here. For one wedding she would do a standard silk rose bouquet for each bridesmaid; for another, she did bouquets that had lights. For a last-minute "drive through" wedding a couple of friends did because the wife-to-be was about to lose her health insurance, she created this absolutely hysterical bouquet with things like black roses and some of the tackiest combinations of flowers available!
She also provided a "landing place" when I needed somewhere to send packages. Since there was always someone around on Wednesdays, it was safe to have stuff delivered there. I also became familiar with many catalogs through her. I could devote an entire post to catalog shopping. When a roommate of mine stole checks from my bedroom and started ordering stuff from catalogs I liked, effectively making me "persona non grata" with them, she let me use her accounts to get stuff. (This was in the days before online ordering, so it was possible for the order to have her name on it with my payment.)
Colleen's end for me was especially sad because we'd talked about what she was going to do in her kitchen when she got home. She had wanted to clean out her cabinets of old teas and spices that were no longer at their prime. We would geek over the phone about food stuff. I've been doing cooking experiments during the pandemic, making lots of stuff that's sugar-free, gluten-free, and dairy-free, and she was interested in my recipes because of all the folks she knew in the Seattle area with dietary restrictions. When someone has a future they want to go to, it's that much harder when they die.
flowercat Monday afternoon and haven't been quite right since.Colleen was more than a force of nature. I swear the woman had her own gravitational field! For years she was the central figure in one of the social circles in which I run. At cons, she'd plant herself in a central place and folks would come up to her all day. It hit me really hard when I realized that at least half of my close circle of friends are folks I met through her.
Colleen's SCA household used to take over a Round Table Pizza on Monday nights. Instead of football, we we put on Star Trek: The Next Generation on the big screen TV. I met many really cool people on those nights, including my closest friend out here in CA.
Colleen used to hold "open house" on Wednesdays. The door would be unlocked, and you'd come in and hang out. There were some folks who mostly showed up because she'd order pizza and they'd mooch off her and Steve, but there were other folks like myself who were there for the company and because you never knew who was going to show up or what was going to happen. When she and Steve moved to Seattle, the folks who were renting their San Jose house promised to keep "open house" going, but after a while it kind of died off. Without Wednesday Open House, those of us in the San Jose area were left flailing with nowhere to hang out on Wednesdays.
About a year or two ago, Colleen warned (her word) me that she "didn't think [she] was going to last much longer." I asked her if she'd been hanging out with Dionne Warwicke's "Psychic Friends," pointing out that we never know when we're going to go until it happens. I was afraid she was going to pull a "Harlan Ellison" and stay home "waiting to die." Ellison wasted years doing that. Colleen, however, had fully intended to make the most of whatever time she had.
I first realized her health had gone downhill when she didn't resume "Open House" when she and Steve moved first to Seattle and then to Whidbey Island. Her health had first started going downhill when she had a botched epidural when they lived in San Jose. As the years went on, it seemed like she had more and more things to contend with. Despite this, she made it a point not to let it get her down.
Colleen very much enjoyed traveling to distant places. She'd spent part of her childhood living in England, so whenever I went there, I picked up teas for her. When I went to Canada, I'd bring back cyclamates. Sometimes I'd share something I'd baked with her household, especially if it catered to a special diet. Needless to say, if someone in our crowd had a dietary restriction, I knew it because she knew it.
As her health was getting worse, whenever she'd call, I'd jump to get the phone, no matter how inconvenient it was. I might have been in the middle of loading my car or even a work meeting, but if there was a way I could mute my meeting (and cut the video feed) and get the phone, I would do so. In retrospect, I'm very glad I did.
She was also responsible for some of the funniest things I've ever experienced. When I bought an anatomically correct inflatable sheep (a "Love Ewe") for a performance at ConChord's Totally Tasteless and Tacky Revue, she walked it across the street to her local Safeway and had it inflated with helium. It didn't make it float, but at the end of that con, a bunch of us sat around "inhaling" from the sheep's awkwardly placed nozzle and sounding like Mickey and Minnie Mouse. I even banged out a few songs at her place. "L. Ron Ron" (to "Da Doo Ron Ron") spewed out when I'd seen an L. Ron Hubbard poster that said "22 best sellers and more to come" and then heard a version of "Da Doo Ron Ron" on a Wednesday night. My infamous "California Love Song" came together in roughly half an hour after Robin Baylor passed on a song idea she had but couldn't do anything with.
When she ran "Flowers by Colleen," her arrangements were legendary. She did flowers for many of the fannish weddings out here. For one wedding she would do a standard silk rose bouquet for each bridesmaid; for another, she did bouquets that had lights. For a last-minute "drive through" wedding a couple of friends did because the wife-to-be was about to lose her health insurance, she created this absolutely hysterical bouquet with things like black roses and some of the tackiest combinations of flowers available!
She also provided a "landing place" when I needed somewhere to send packages. Since there was always someone around on Wednesdays, it was safe to have stuff delivered there. I also became familiar with many catalogs through her. I could devote an entire post to catalog shopping. When a roommate of mine stole checks from my bedroom and started ordering stuff from catalogs I liked, effectively making me "persona non grata" with them, she let me use her accounts to get stuff. (This was in the days before online ordering, so it was possible for the order to have her name on it with my payment.)
Colleen's end for me was especially sad because we'd talked about what she was going to do in her kitchen when she got home. She had wanted to clean out her cabinets of old teas and spices that were no longer at their prime. We would geek over the phone about food stuff. I've been doing cooking experiments during the pandemic, making lots of stuff that's sugar-free, gluten-free, and dairy-free, and she was interested in my recipes because of all the folks she knew in the Seattle area with dietary restrictions. When someone has a future they want to go to, it's that much harder when they die.
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Date: 2021-07-14 06:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-07-14 10:19 pm (UTC)Thanks for the tribute, and the memories. I'd completely forgotten about the sheep.
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Date: 2021-07-15 12:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-07-15 01:40 am (UTC)By virtue of having relatives in the Bay Area - and a job that pre-Covid tended to result in business trips there - I'm one of the East Coast folks lucky enough to have known Colleen. I've been recalling my various visits to the Starport, including the time my aunt (the one whose house inspired part of "Sedona") got dragged to an open house because I flew into SFO on a Wednesday night and she picked me up at the airport. So we dropped in before we headed up into the mountains.