The deluge.
It was a really good day at faire on Saturday, so good I wrote a whole lot about it.
Since Chris and Molly had been good enough to get me to go to Irishfest, give me a ticket to go to Irishfest and give me a place to stay after going to Irishfest I woke up at their place the following morning. I got to take a lovely shower with decent water pressure and water which does not slowly rise the longer one is in the shower which was really nice. Afterward we hit the road.
The day at faire began as days at faire usually do. We had morning meeting which gave me a chance to hang out with Katie and rehash our awesome evening. I've gotta say, Irishfest was a great idea and I cannot thank Chris and Molly enough for convincing me to go. We set up the glade in "it might rain" mode. Morning meeting was average and the excitement began to peak pre Lysistrata. I will remind you all that Dad and Weston had arrived the day before and would be in attendance for the big day as well. I opted to make for the rehearsal rather than doing opening gate. It's the first opening gate I've missed in my career. I didn't like it.
The breasts had been dry that morning which was a blessing so all was in preparation, though my lines were not quite what they could have been. I grabbed a script from Aaron and began brushing up/ cramming. That script became part of my costume for the rest of the day. A part that fell off continually, but a part all the same. The rehearsal went really well but it was really obvious that I needed to work on my lines. I had the opening scenes which were line light for me but I didn't have the scene with Chris as well as might have. To make things better Dad and Weston had arrived in the glade. It was great to see them again even if I did have to keep a Frobisherian veneer on the reunion. Dance set went well. I'm getting tired of my standardised toast so I'm going to go back to making them up on the spot, I think. I'll save it for special occasions I suppose or maybe just do it for dance with the queen (it's funnier to make deflowering the queen jokes when she's there to react).
Parade prep gave us a chance to hang out backstage some more and Katie and I got to tell more stories of Irish fest. I try not to spend a lot of time backstage but that is just part of the schedule that is unavoidable. I've come to appreciate the time together bakcstage as special to my guildemates and I. We don't get enough time to know each other as regular people sometimes and so many of my guildmates are such cool people I really would like to know them better and spend more time together outside of period garb and accent. I think next summer will need to see me in Milwaukee if I can swing it.
Parade happened and I watched the extravaganza again expecting to dance in it the next day. I find that being in the audience for it changes my opinion heavily. It's a great show, a lot of fun to watch and full of stuff to laugh at. I do kinda wish I could be a part of it now where before I was just as happy to help vamp for the Queen's arrival. I followed the queen unit down to the glade and generally had fun.
As we headed into the afternoon the rain began to pick up. The carpets had been removed so we did dance set carefully in the muddy patch created by a full season of little sunlight getting to the grass in that spot. Dance went reall well though. I got to jump in on Raliegh's Castelana with the Queen and I got dad in on a Pavanne with Karen, Lady Scrope of Bolton. When the time came for feast a bunch of the noble gents moved all the benches to face the marquee tent. This way the queen's feast was drier and thus more majestic. This caused a few minor changes in the game plan but nothing too drastic. I ate to the side of the feast leaning against Willoughby's garden. It was a good vantage and I got to eat like Frobisher inconspicuously. recently I've been eating in Spain a lot. It's much more doable when the tents aren't full of nobles hiding their velvet from the rain and the queen isn't on the other side of the glade. I like to be able to see what's going on for feast. The Bread scupture for the weekend was absolutely amazing. my usual maraude trhe line bit gives me the chance to see them before they get eaten and oh, man. Emma outdid herself this week.
I got my one chance at the street after the queen went to street. of course I needed to use the restroom at that point. Jim (Span. Am.) and I headed up to KK once I managed to get out of the glade and headed backstage. We had some fun on the street of course. We argued over things I'd stolen, and proper markings for ships. It was great. We got caught up in discussion backstage and missed our entrance with Raleigh so we had to come in later and join the show already in progress. joe and I sat up on the stage trying to stay out of the rain as much as possible. this basically amounted to sitting on the edge of the puppet theatre trying to keep my boots from collecting up rain water. I had to jump down for every kid that actually made it through the privateering lesson. We may have had 5 make it through. Children don't deal well with rain. I figured that one out all by myself.
After the brief privateering school I got another bash at the street which I gave my all before heading to the Glade for our 5:00 rehearsal of Lysistrata. It was uncertain whether or not we would even be performing with the weather. once we got started in prep it became apparent that it was definitely going to happen. I got into a corset, gown, hat, veil and makeup. The gown was a surprisingly good fit. I was also shocked by how comfy the corset was. I wouldn't wear it often but only for fashion reasons. All of a sudden the queen was in the glade and we got the ball rolling. It was a bawdy good time and all the stuff sorta fell together in a suitably madcap fashion. It was like a train wreck really. We just sort of had to go with it onc it started and stop when we ran out of stuff to say. It went pretty well all told. It kept raining but we already had most of the glade packed into the tonnel and tents from the day of rain so pack up was quick. I then rendezvoused with Dad and Weston outside the gates to go to the Reardon's house for dinner. Luckily I was warned that I would be forced to sleep the night in their comfy house. I took my stuff with me and we made a night of it. Christine had made Ratatoille which we all enjoyed (so good). and we enjoyed talking about life and covering the gaps in my expalination of the two parties to each other. Thomas and Tova are growing up which was intresting to note. I suppose children do that when unattended for too long. I slept the night on a futon I share with dad. In the morning there was a shower and breakfast followed by a trip to the site. Dad dropped me, and a watermelon, off at the St. George gate. I hung out with Katie as the group made ready for setup and Brian gave a rousing speech about how hardcore we all are. this was followed quickly by the word that faire would not be happening. For the first time since 1982 the gates would not be opening as scheduled. there was a general atmosphere of shock. Though, never missing a beat plans for breakfast were made immediately. A reference to a short stack had Katie set on breakfast and we made a date of it. We packed everything up well and set out carpets to dry in various and questionable ways. There might be a pyramid of benches covered in carpets in the marquee, I wouldn't rule it out. Then there was a morning meeting at the usual time and place. It was full of the hardcore cast members looking shell shocked and Dirty Ducklings (always hardcore) selling half priced baked goods.
You know something is different when Ron Scott Fry comes out for morning meeting with a bottle of Guiness in hand. There was a lot of joking around which was nice. It made me feel a lot better to have Ron there telling us it was okay. On the way to the Glade Brian caught me and asked me to help people get down the hill and I did so. Katie, Laura and I even went to security to borrow a golf cart. I got to ride on it first by virtue of having a pass and then, on the way to the glade Katie and I rode on the back with a piece of angle iron cutting into the backs of our knees. It was a lot of fun, pain notwithstanding.
Upon returning we heard about something fantastical happening in the back road. the Pat's port a john pump truck had gotten stuck in the mud. Being a ren faire what did we do? Call in the elepahnts, of course. We got there too late to see the elephants actually pushing the septic truck but I got some great photos of them coming back from the job. Dad and Weston swung by to drop off my camera and the spare comp tickets it was sad really. I wish we could have had that extra day. Plus, they spent so much of the day they had in the glade they didn't get to see the rest of the faire. Oh, well.
Afterward I moved a watermelon to the household fridge and loaded up the Shinn's car before we went to breakfast at the Phoenix. I had eggs, my usual. the pancakes at the Phoenix looked pretty good, I must say. It was definitely a very different experience spending a morning with guildemates out of costume and discussing how we could be dancing the pavonne over a plate of eggs.
I slept for the first part of the trip home. this turned out to be a bad idea. When I woke up we had passed up our exit due to flooding on the highway and were wandering about in Northern Milwaukee while Susan swore she knew what she was doing. I was annoyed briefly by my desire to use a map to direct us but eventually gave up and let her figure it out for herself. The rest of the trip was spent in a half nap.
Upon arriving at the apartment I found that I was no longer alone. Karen was home. She was well into the process of cleaning the apartment which is good because she actually knew what she was doing. All the things I hadn't thought to clean were getting cleaned and the place was already smelling better. Apparently something had happened with the ferret's food. I would swear I made a special effort to feed the ferrets before leaving on Friday but apparently by Sunday they had run it out and Chaos was in a bad way. He has since recovered due to lots of feeding but it was scary there for a while. After some heavy cleaning time we found a rapport and I think things have gone well. I spent the afternoon in that wise. Otherwise, nothing much happened for the rest of the day.
-To be continued...-
Since Chris and Molly had been good enough to get me to go to Irishfest, give me a ticket to go to Irishfest and give me a place to stay after going to Irishfest I woke up at their place the following morning. I got to take a lovely shower with decent water pressure and water which does not slowly rise the longer one is in the shower which was really nice. Afterward we hit the road.
The day at faire began as days at faire usually do. We had morning meeting which gave me a chance to hang out with Katie and rehash our awesome evening. I've gotta say, Irishfest was a great idea and I cannot thank Chris and Molly enough for convincing me to go. We set up the glade in "it might rain" mode. Morning meeting was average and the excitement began to peak pre Lysistrata. I will remind you all that Dad and Weston had arrived the day before and would be in attendance for the big day as well. I opted to make for the rehearsal rather than doing opening gate. It's the first opening gate I've missed in my career. I didn't like it.
The breasts had been dry that morning which was a blessing so all was in preparation, though my lines were not quite what they could have been. I grabbed a script from Aaron and began brushing up/ cramming. That script became part of my costume for the rest of the day. A part that fell off continually, but a part all the same. The rehearsal went really well but it was really obvious that I needed to work on my lines. I had the opening scenes which were line light for me but I didn't have the scene with Chris as well as might have. To make things better Dad and Weston had arrived in the glade. It was great to see them again even if I did have to keep a Frobisherian veneer on the reunion. Dance set went well. I'm getting tired of my standardised toast so I'm going to go back to making them up on the spot, I think. I'll save it for special occasions I suppose or maybe just do it for dance with the queen (it's funnier to make deflowering the queen jokes when she's there to react).
Parade prep gave us a chance to hang out backstage some more and Katie and I got to tell more stories of Irish fest. I try not to spend a lot of time backstage but that is just part of the schedule that is unavoidable. I've come to appreciate the time together bakcstage as special to my guildemates and I. We don't get enough time to know each other as regular people sometimes and so many of my guildmates are such cool people I really would like to know them better and spend more time together outside of period garb and accent. I think next summer will need to see me in Milwaukee if I can swing it.
Parade happened and I watched the extravaganza again expecting to dance in it the next day. I find that being in the audience for it changes my opinion heavily. It's a great show, a lot of fun to watch and full of stuff to laugh at. I do kinda wish I could be a part of it now where before I was just as happy to help vamp for the Queen's arrival. I followed the queen unit down to the glade and generally had fun.
As we headed into the afternoon the rain began to pick up. The carpets had been removed so we did dance set carefully in the muddy patch created by a full season of little sunlight getting to the grass in that spot. Dance went reall well though. I got to jump in on Raliegh's Castelana with the Queen and I got dad in on a Pavanne with Karen, Lady Scrope of Bolton. When the time came for feast a bunch of the noble gents moved all the benches to face the marquee tent. This way the queen's feast was drier and thus more majestic. This caused a few minor changes in the game plan but nothing too drastic. I ate to the side of the feast leaning against Willoughby's garden. It was a good vantage and I got to eat like Frobisher inconspicuously. recently I've been eating in Spain a lot. It's much more doable when the tents aren't full of nobles hiding their velvet from the rain and the queen isn't on the other side of the glade. I like to be able to see what's going on for feast. The Bread scupture for the weekend was absolutely amazing. my usual maraude trhe line bit gives me the chance to see them before they get eaten and oh, man. Emma outdid herself this week.
I got my one chance at the street after the queen went to street. of course I needed to use the restroom at that point. Jim (Span. Am.) and I headed up to KK once I managed to get out of the glade and headed backstage. We had some fun on the street of course. We argued over things I'd stolen, and proper markings for ships. It was great. We got caught up in discussion backstage and missed our entrance with Raleigh so we had to come in later and join the show already in progress. joe and I sat up on the stage trying to stay out of the rain as much as possible. this basically amounted to sitting on the edge of the puppet theatre trying to keep my boots from collecting up rain water. I had to jump down for every kid that actually made it through the privateering lesson. We may have had 5 make it through. Children don't deal well with rain. I figured that one out all by myself.
After the brief privateering school I got another bash at the street which I gave my all before heading to the Glade for our 5:00 rehearsal of Lysistrata. It was uncertain whether or not we would even be performing with the weather. once we got started in prep it became apparent that it was definitely going to happen. I got into a corset, gown, hat, veil and makeup. The gown was a surprisingly good fit. I was also shocked by how comfy the corset was. I wouldn't wear it often but only for fashion reasons. All of a sudden the queen was in the glade and we got the ball rolling. It was a bawdy good time and all the stuff sorta fell together in a suitably madcap fashion. It was like a train wreck really. We just sort of had to go with it onc it started and stop when we ran out of stuff to say. It went pretty well all told. It kept raining but we already had most of the glade packed into the tonnel and tents from the day of rain so pack up was quick. I then rendezvoused with Dad and Weston outside the gates to go to the Reardon's house for dinner. Luckily I was warned that I would be forced to sleep the night in their comfy house. I took my stuff with me and we made a night of it. Christine had made Ratatoille which we all enjoyed (so good). and we enjoyed talking about life and covering the gaps in my expalination of the two parties to each other. Thomas and Tova are growing up which was intresting to note. I suppose children do that when unattended for too long. I slept the night on a futon I share with dad. In the morning there was a shower and breakfast followed by a trip to the site. Dad dropped me, and a watermelon, off at the St. George gate. I hung out with Katie as the group made ready for setup and Brian gave a rousing speech about how hardcore we all are. this was followed quickly by the word that faire would not be happening. For the first time since 1982 the gates would not be opening as scheduled. there was a general atmosphere of shock. Though, never missing a beat plans for breakfast were made immediately. A reference to a short stack had Katie set on breakfast and we made a date of it. We packed everything up well and set out carpets to dry in various and questionable ways. There might be a pyramid of benches covered in carpets in the marquee, I wouldn't rule it out. Then there was a morning meeting at the usual time and place. It was full of the hardcore cast members looking shell shocked and Dirty Ducklings (always hardcore) selling half priced baked goods.
You know something is different when Ron Scott Fry comes out for morning meeting with a bottle of Guiness in hand. There was a lot of joking around which was nice. It made me feel a lot better to have Ron there telling us it was okay. On the way to the Glade Brian caught me and asked me to help people get down the hill and I did so. Katie, Laura and I even went to security to borrow a golf cart. I got to ride on it first by virtue of having a pass and then, on the way to the glade Katie and I rode on the back with a piece of angle iron cutting into the backs of our knees. It was a lot of fun, pain notwithstanding.
Upon returning we heard about something fantastical happening in the back road. the Pat's port a john pump truck had gotten stuck in the mud. Being a ren faire what did we do? Call in the elepahnts, of course. We got there too late to see the elephants actually pushing the septic truck but I got some great photos of them coming back from the job. Dad and Weston swung by to drop off my camera and the spare comp tickets it was sad really. I wish we could have had that extra day. Plus, they spent so much of the day they had in the glade they didn't get to see the rest of the faire. Oh, well.
Afterward I moved a watermelon to the household fridge and loaded up the Shinn's car before we went to breakfast at the Phoenix. I had eggs, my usual. the pancakes at the Phoenix looked pretty good, I must say. It was definitely a very different experience spending a morning with guildemates out of costume and discussing how we could be dancing the pavonne over a plate of eggs.
I slept for the first part of the trip home. this turned out to be a bad idea. When I woke up we had passed up our exit due to flooding on the highway and were wandering about in Northern Milwaukee while Susan swore she knew what she was doing. I was annoyed briefly by my desire to use a map to direct us but eventually gave up and let her figure it out for herself. The rest of the trip was spent in a half nap.
Upon arriving at the apartment I found that I was no longer alone. Karen was home. She was well into the process of cleaning the apartment which is good because she actually knew what she was doing. All the things I hadn't thought to clean were getting cleaned and the place was already smelling better. Apparently something had happened with the ferret's food. I would swear I made a special effort to feed the ferrets before leaving on Friday but apparently by Sunday they had run it out and Chaos was in a bad way. He has since recovered due to lots of feeding but it was scary there for a while. After some heavy cleaning time we found a rapport and I think things have gone well. I spent the afternoon in that wise. Otherwise, nothing much happened for the rest of the day.
-To be continued...-