Ren Faire!

The morning was a comedy of errors if there ever was one, due to massive amounts of miscommunication, I didn't get picked up from the max until almost nine. I'd been there since 7:20. Sucky all over, especially since I'd had, oh, four hours of sleep. The drive down was rather uneventful, except that I fell asleep right near the end.

It took place in a huge field. Sorta bumpy and very dusty, kinda like Oregon Country Fair w/out any trees. A lot of the booths were similar types of merchandise, but everything had a medieval twist. There was a small number of carnival type games, including one called Pitch-a-peasant. The peasants were small beanbags in a roughly human shape with faces drawn on them, and you catapulted them over a cardboard castle. There were people walking around in garb talking Shakespeare-style (the ren faire's supposed time/place is 1620's England). Saw some Morris dancers, I love those. Bells, jumping, waving sticks around, it's all good. Saw some belly dancing, tribal style. There were harps, too, which was awesome. We saw a duet, a singer and a harp. They were pretty good.

The people who made Annalee's harp were there. I ended up getting my picture taken with my hands on the harp. I was told that I have have pretty good form, that made me feel good. The harps they make are just beautiful, the one I played almost made me swoon, but they are accordingly expensive. Their student harp is 36 strings and costs $2500. That does include full strings, full sharping levers, and a case, but still. A Dusty Strings 26-string student harp with C and F sharping levers and no case is $1295. Once you factor in the smaller size plus extra levers and case, I guess the price isn't that different. I'll still probably end up with a Dusty Strings. Unless I get a station wagon, I won't have a big enough car to carry a 36 string. I bought a tiny pin from the harp booth, it's a small clay bit with a harp shaped in it, and a little symbol that means "harps in harmony."

Saw Katrina and Marty and Elska and Joel and their parents. Saw Chris Pettit and "anime" Mary and her fiance. It was like a big happy reunion. Except that Chris and Annalee aren't exactly buddies, so they sort of ignored each other. Katrina, as glad as I was to see her, kinda pissed me off just a little. We were talking about my learning the harp, and she kept saying that I would never be as good as Annalee, Annalee picked it up so fast, yadda yadda yadda. Annalee, for her credit, did indeed agree, but pointed out that she started a lot younger, and had had a lot of other musical training before that, with piano and clarinet and singing.

Missed a dance lesson, which pissed me off. Renee (Katrina, Elska, and Joel's mom) and Annalee both bought kits of a drop spindle and wool roving and got spinning lessons. Got to pet goats and feed them some kettle corn. They really like it. Talked to Molly about owning goats and/or other animals and making the Funny Farm an actual farm at some point in the future.

It was hot, but not intolerably so, especially since there was a strong breeze all day. It kept blowing people's hats off. I was apparently the only person in my entire group of friends to bother wearing sunscreen, I am the only person w/out a sunburn. Ha ha ha.

ARGH. Have to take a shower and go to work now. Will post more later.

......

Called shotgun on the way home and promptly fell asleep for a while. Then we listened to some of the Aurora chorus CD, and then to my Box of Fairies CD (Gwen Knighton). Annalee liked her voice. Tyson just likes the song about one of the the RPGs he plays, Shadowrun. We ended up, somehow, getting into a debate about gender issue stuff. It was getting chaotic and angry until Molly enforced turn-taking. The only problem with that is, it allows people to ramble on and on with no limit, and I'm not sure how much people listened to one another. It was, in some ways, like arguing with someone on a different planet. The language, what we called things, the assumptions we came from, were so different. Oh man, I wish noog had been there. I also wish I had pursued the trannie/intersex line of conversation, simply because of my argument that the whole "There are two completely different genders and we naturally think and act differently" thing is bullshit. Oh well.

Did I mention the Hot Pirate? No, I didn't. While we were waiting in line to pay our way in, we saw a man in pirate garb walk by. He was quite handsome, and he had a tricorner hat (with plumes, of course) and an eyepatch. We were all discussing how attractive we found him. I giggled and said, "Savvy!" in my best bad Captain Jack Sparrow accent. He stopped and turned to us and said, "Me eye may be missing but me ears work just fine!" which resulted in much giggles from the bunch of us. Later he made jokes about "crossing our stern" (walking behind us) and Molly pointed at herself and said something about that was why her stern was on display, for crossing. He replied that he'd often been called a sternchaser. *lol* Lordy, this is why I want to join the pirate crew Molly and Tyson are on. The garb is so much fun, and the joking is just hysterical.

Also, you couldn't miss Molly's brother and Mom dressed as King Arthur and Patsy, straight from Monty Python. They had another pal dressed as Galahad. It was so funny, they got lots of attention. They walked up to a random guy dressed as a monk and asked if he had the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch. "Not at the moment," he said between laughing.

Ended up sleeping over at Tyson's, where Devin, Kat, Haley, and another Tyson were staying over before they went the next day. So we pulled out the couch and me and Haley shared it while the other Tyson slept on the couch cushions on the floor. I kept waking up (especially when they were getting ready to leave, but I did get to see Haley's garb). Kat is REALLY LOUD in the morning, HELLO, I'm laying right there sleeping! Grrrr.

Tyson drove me home, I ate and showered and went to work, where I was in toys, yeay. Please don't let your children run loose in the toys section, it's not a playground. Thank you, that is all.