Renaissance Faire 2010

I know what you're thinking. Renaissance Faires are just another place where geeks meet to impress each other with their ability to dress and speak oddly with other cult members that are as warped as they are. They are no different than the 'trekkies' that swarm the Star Trek conventions. They are social misfits and nerds that can't get dates...basically people that have no lives and this gives them something to do so they don't hate themselves quite as much as they normally do. Well I thought that was what it was going to be too. I was wrong.

Perhaps they are the same type of people...devoted to their interest and eager to explore it more. But I found that the Renaissance people can be very generous and extremely informative if you give them half a chance. I don't know if the Trekkies are the same way. The main characters ( and a lot of the bit players too) at the Renaissance Faires are paid actors and they are more than willing to converse with you even if you make no attempt to 'talk in their language'. They are friendly and easy going and it's very easy to believe you have actually stepped back in time. They are very well versed in any aspect of life from that time period and address you as if they talk to you every day. If you are a bit shy they understand that as well and don't push you beyond your comfort level. Many times I asked if I could take their picture and they gladly posed for me no matter what they happen to be doing at the time. It was a very accepting and intriguing feeling that I came away with. You don't have to make the attempt to fit in. You can just be an interested observer. Although I did see whole families that were making active participation the rule of the day.

I spoke with King Arthur and Queen Guinevere as easily as if they were an Uncle and Aunt of mine. The king posed for me and then beckoned the queen to his side (see how easy it is to slip into it?) so that I could take a picture of her...front and back. Her head piece was beautiful. I came across a minstrel playing some beautiful music on an instrument that I had never seen before. When he was finished with his songs he explained the instrument was a dulcimer and where it came from. Unfortunately a zombie chose that moment to show interest in Justin's brains so I was too distracted to absorb all the information he was giving me. Why would there be zombies at a Renaissance Faire you say? Well because they were slowly changing over to a Halloween themed evening as the day progressed. And it gave the knights, like Sir Tristan something to do to earn their keep.

I came across Sir Tristan several times and each time it seemed he had a different weapon in his hands. And busy as he was defending damsels and doing his best to stem the tide of zombies he did take the time to speak to me a few times. He never broke character and I found him very entertaining (as well as very good to look at!). Unfortunately the zombie he was supposed to fight ended up being M.I.A. (a choreographed fight scene had been planned) so he had to go searching for another foe. He seemed a bit distressed that his zombie never arrived. However he still took the time to inform me how a zombie would attack; the areas of the body they prefer and that once your loved one is bitten they are no longer to be trusted and will 'turn' soon after. On one of our encounters he was very charming and when I aimed the camera at him he asked me to wait a minute...then proceeded to toss his hair and give me a 'come hither' look for the picture! What a ham! We all loved that of course. (too bad the picture came out so terrible!)

There were a few zombies to be reckoned with during the day but as night drew closer they began showing up in force! My favorite part of the evening was the zombies dancing down the avenue to Michael Jackson's Thriller. I was determined to see the event and the crowd was huge and tightly packed. It didn't stop me. I started excusing myself and explaining that I was too short to see and they all edged over enough so I had a view...not a good view but I could see at least. I did take some pictures but they weren't the best shots. (probably because being the MJ fan that I am, I could barely stop myself from dancing too) But I was so swept up in the music and the anticipation of the dance number that I didn't really care. It was so wonderful to see that performed in real life....and by the undead of course. Some of the knights and ladies of the court joined in as well. And I have to admit that not everyone was a "dancer" by nature. But it's still a real treat to see that number performed in a group right in front of you. Very dramatic!

Pirates have always held a special interest for me. I've dressed the part more than once for Halloween over the years. We were fortunate enough to come across a pirate show and we were ready to sit and relax for a bit anyway so we took a seat at the top of a set of bleachers. One of the pirates took exception to our filling in the back rows....said he would have to yell his lines that much louder for us to hear. So he came up into the bleachers and yelled pirate jokes at us for awhile. He was hysterical and we loved it! I can only assume this was the way they warm up the crowd. He never relented on the crowd either...often stepping out of the scene to spray water on little kids and name different people in the crowd. One large guy in a blue shirt was named Mother and then they proceeded to blame Mother for everything that went wrong in their show. Another fellow was named chum bucket or some such name and he was eventually handed the wheel of the ship and commanded to steer for them (from the audience no less) because the captain was too drunk and too busy trying to kill his first mate, being the scoundrel that had spilled his rum! (as instructed in the pirates articles of course). Being a family show there were a few references to 'public school' having produced these pirates...a 'liberal arts' program was also blamed for their career choice too. I came away wishing I had taken those pirate courses myself!

The food at the faire was diverse also. There were choices like steak on a stick (I'm told it was delicious); a turkey leg (also delicious); vegetarian dishes as well as the usual hamburgers and hot dogs. I had the opportunity to try deep fried oreos, something I've heard of before but never tried. Now that I've tried them...I need never do that again. :) I don't generally eat deep fried anything but at least I know what they taste like now....nothing special in my book. After eating we felt the need to put Justin and Carol in the stocks for awhile...so they could relax. That was fun! And then we made the rounds visiting the various stalls with their trinkets and wares to sell. I did see many interesting clothing pieces that I'd love to have for costuming but the prices were high and I'm pretty sure I can get a better price somewhere else.

The evening ended with the flaming jousts on the tournament field. I think this was their first time doing this display and I hope they will improve it for next years performance. Many people found the field to be too dark...impossible to see the contestants and their horses...even with the lit torches. And the sound system needs to be tweaked a bit too. However I was impressed with the flaming sword thrown (while on horseback) into the huge sinister looking pumpkin in front of us..which made a very dramatic burst of flames (and some much needed warmth) in front of where I was standing. The riders caught flaming rings as they rode by and eventually had a fight to the death...quite close to where I was standing. A very tall and evil pumpkin headed creature fought the dark knight and we had the perfect spot to see his head leave his body...the body stumbling a few steps before collapsing to the ground dead. These shows are all about the drama! This ended the show and the evening and rightly so...because you just can't top the beheading of the evil pumpkin headed guy can you?

We headed for our cars..tired and happy...chatting about what we had seen during the faire. (not all of us had seen the same things as we split up several times during the day) I made sure to bid them all 'fare thee well' before leaving the gates. Yet I was surprised to find more zombies outside the gate in the parking lot. One of them was determined to come home with me. He kept following me with his shuffling gate and saying things like 'take a zombie home my lady?'; 'I don't eat much'; 'sleep under your bed or in a closet'. Every time I'd laughingly say no to him he'd come up with another line to try to persuade me. We eventually did make it to the car zombie-less. I had already decided to come back again next year...possibly for the spring show as well as the fall show. Long live the King!

Parts 1 and 2 of the faire are below.

Tyler's Welcome Home Party

Tyler (my nephew by my brother David) is now officially a Marine! And he's got the tattoo to prove it too. :)



It was great to see him and boy have they changed the boys physical appearance! He went in to boot camp a soft, slightly pudgy boy and came out slim, tall and confident...(I have no idea how they made him taller!) but they haven't changed that grin of his! He seems very happy and I really think it was the right choice for him. Of course we worry where they will be stationing him in the long run of course but you have to have confidence that he is learning all he needs to know to keep himself as safe as possible.


I had a talk with him about weapons...don't know how we got there but I do love weapons myself. He showed me a souvenir type knife that they gave him...not for combat use. It was really nice! All black blade with a multi-toned brown striped handle with the Marine insignia on it. Quite the handsome knife. He'll be learning more about some really serious weapons when he goes back. He's being sent to North Carolina for further training.



I have to be honest with you. I love all the armed forces. I think it really does make a man out of a boy. However, during times of war (such as now) I'd be happier to see an only son (like Tyler) in any one's family join up with the Air Force or the Navy...for safety's sake. The Marines and the Army are on the front lines. Most of us in my family only have one son (with the exception of my sister Bunny) and I just don't want to lose any of them. It's a constant fear I'm sure for anyone that has a family member in the Marines or Army.



So for now we will be proud and keep our fears contained...trust in the training they will give him and pray for his safety. I intend to send him as much home baked goods as he can handle as soon as he gets settled somewhere. When we worry about them, we send them goodies from home. It's what women do.

Gallery 131 and Apple Picking

This day started out with a trip to Gallery 131 in West Springfield. I had read about this small gallery on line and a friends sister is one of the artists that shows her work there. I was already impressed with the work I've seen of hers on her FB page so I figured it could only be better to see what the other artists have to show as well.

My friend Carol was my co-pilot and her skills as such leave much to be desired. I will admit the directions were also a bit confusing. I got one set of directions from Mapquest and the other set from the gallery's website. We opted to go with the directions from the website because haven't we all been burned by Mapquest at some time or other? As it turned out Carol doesn't give you the direction to turn anywhere until there is a split second to make the decision to follow her direction or not. She did not pick the right turn/exits for at least the first 4 attempts. So we had a very scenic ride through West Springfield (seeing the same area at least 3 times!) and many repeat performances at more than one rotary (don't you just hate rotaries anyway?) before we finally found our way to the gallery. Turns out that our ride that should have been 18mins according to Mapquest turned out to be at least twice that long.....using Carol's 'internal' GPS (extremely faulty I must say) and the process of elimination with the exits off the rotary. We also got quite familiar with an odd girl standing near one of the rotaries trying to get a ride. I couldn't make up my mind if she was dressed for Halloween a little early or an escapee from the circus with that get up she had on. I can't imagine anyone would want to give her a ride dressed like that but it worked in our favor as we used her as a point of reference on our many rides around that rotary. Here's that girl again! I remember this spot...she's still there! I wonder if she dresses like that all the time? Oh my God, we have to start waving at her now just to be polite! She probably was wondering why we didn't just pick her up instead of stalking her.

The gallery was being run this day by a sweet older woman named Mickey Encalade. That's 'Encalade'...not 'Escalade'. She was not a car...but she was an artist. Mickey was very uncertain if it would be ok for me to take pictures of the art work while I was there. I found this to be an odd attitude to have considering artists are usually looking for free publicity aren't they? I explained to her that the photos would be going into a blog I write and judging by the blank look she gave me I'm guessing she didn't know what a blog was. I decided to let her show me her artwork first and ask again later. She was willing to let me photograph her stuff at least but didn't want to make a decision for the rest of the artists. I figured that was reasonable.
She showed us all around the gallery, giving personal tidbits on any artist she knew personally. There was some really beautiful work there and we had the gallery to ourselves with Mickey so we soon got comfortable with each other. There was a variety of artistic endeavors on display...some I loved...some not so much. Some was inspired and some was just plain odd as hell. I like odd stuff for the most part...I like how someones mind works to come up with it in the first place. It was a good idea to go there even if we did take the most indirect route imaginable.

By the end of our visit you would have thought we'd all known each other our whole lives. Mickey told us several times we were funny and she obviously was having a good time. I did decide to purchase a box of note cards with a beautiful wooded scene on it. (it was just about the only thing I could afford actually) They were from a local artist, Donna Shaw. (who is the sister of the girl I went to school with) I've seen her work on her FB page and that's where I found the reference to Gallery 131 as well. Mickey told me the gallery is very new...having just opened in September. I'm guessing it's not well known yet. That works in my favor because I'd rather not have a bunch of people to wade through anyway.
As it turned out Mickey had warmed up to us to the point where the picture taking wasn't such a big deal anymore. She also justified it by saying 'she didn't see anything'...and then proceeded to ask me what kind of camera I was using and wanting to take a look at it. (she was so cute!) So while Carol had her show her some of the jewelery and hair pieces I went from room to room and took pictures to my hearts content.

Before leaving Mickey had confided that she had left her pocketbook on the front seat in her car which was parked on the street. After some discussion about it we convinced Mickey it would be a good idea to go get her pocketbook. She felt that because she could see her car from the gallery it wasn't a big deal. I suggested to her that really that just meant that she'd be watching as someone smashed her window and took it...not being able to stop them and she'd still be out the pocketbook and a solid window in her car. We kept an eye on Mickey and didn't pull away until she had made it back with her pocketbook in tow. She was such a nice lady and we'd hate to see anything happen to her.

The trip home didn't seem as long as the original ride was however we still didn't really know where we were going. This time we turned off Carol's internal GPS ( I just stopped listening to her actually) and just read the signs..taking the most logical exits to find our way back to the highway and it worked. But our day wasn't over yet. We decided to go apple picking at the Easy Pickings Orchard in Enfield . A quick stop at my house for a potty break and we ended up with another passenger for apple picking too. Kaylee wanted to go, so off we went.

I was originally looking for Gayla apples because they are sweeter and I just love them. When we got there it was to find that they had already gone by but there were a few other types that we were told we also sweet. Carol was looking for apples suitable for making pies and turnovers. I was looking for eating apples because I don't like pie. We ended up with a type of apple called Kinsea which neither one of us were familiar with but oh they are good! I justified eating one while picking so I'd know what I was buying. I ended up eating three of them! Kaylee did nothing but eat apples the whole time we were there then complained a bit that her stomach felt funny...probably apple overload. She never did any picking, just kept eating. Eventually I took her bag and filled it myself. I couldn't carry anymore and Carol was ready too so we took a few pictures and headed out to pay for our apples.
Before we paid, Kaylee said she wanted a couple of tiny white pumpkins...to keep her big pumpkin company (of course!) so I bought those for her and added a few gourds also. I love gourds...it's that preoccupation of mine with odd things coming into play again. Carol bought a couple of little pumpkins too. One for herself and one for Teddy (her dog). Teddy likes to eat them. Teddy likes to eat a lot of things. He ate some of my tomatoes right off the plant last year! I didn't know Teddy had graduated to pumpkins. I can only assume that he's never met a watermelon yet. :)

We headed home with our treasure and memories of fun in the orchard and at the gallery. I can't wait until next year when the blueberries are ripe again. I've eaten pounds of those berries this year and never put them in pies; pancakes; muffins or anything. I eat my berries naked by the fistful! And now that I think of it the last couple of times I took Kaylee with me berry picking all she did was eat them too. Her container was always empty! Seems like we have a pattern developing here doesn't it?

Just a few pictures from each of the segments of our day.

Taunya's Surprise Party

When I received Chris's invitation via Face Book for Taunya's surprise birthday party my first thought was...it's over a month early! My second thought was...you'd have to do it real early just to make sure Taunya didn't suspect anything. She's too clever for her own good sometimes. :)

Imagine OUR surprise when we got there at the appointed time only to have Taunya come out of the house and say Hi to us! She surprised us instead of the other way around. As it turned out she was told she was invited to an end of summer cook out....so of course she shows up early to help out! I don't know how the kids could have pulled if off without her finding out about it. But at least she said she had a good time and the cake was really pretty!

I did take a bunch of pictures but honestly most of them aren't all that interesting to look at. And I suspect Taunya wouldn't want me to use some of the gag shots I took. So I'm posting a picture of her lovely cake and a couple of Taunya looking her birthday best. :)