Tales from the Shark Tank

I promised a full report of the Bristol RenFaire, so it’s time to get to it. It was wonderful. My friend and I walked our feet off, looked into many a merchant’s shop, and watched the faire-goers. Many of them were fascinating. The barbarian contingent in what looked like fairly accurate very early Germanic clothing lounged against a stone wall. They looked perfectly in context until one looked a couple of feet to one side, to see a contingent of teenaged girls in irridescent chain-mail bikinis with chiffon veils tucked in. (At least they had fabric lining to the bikinis. It still looked mighty uncomfortable, though.) Then there were the dedicated Rennies, the people whose hobby is attending RenFaires. They were costumed colorfully, but their gypsy garb owed considerably more to fantasy than reality. They went skipping along, laughing and clearly having a wonderful time, equally clearly not participants. The Faire participants were in awesome costumes, accurate Elizabethan outfits pretty much from the skin out. Some of the Queen’s Ladies were young teenagers; they were playing a stick and hoop game in full brocaded hoop skirts. It was like seeing one of Holbein’s paintings come to life, which of course is the whole point. K. and I have a friend who is one of the Queen’s Ladies, Lady Philadelphia Carey. She managed to discuss dinner plans for after the Faire (which closes for the day at 7:00 p.m.) with us without once breaking character. They are trained to speak in Elizabethan cadence, so it was all the more impressive.

Then there were the people who do re-enacting from other periods who show up for something of this sort in their own groups. We were such ourselves, but we were much amused to be spotted as such over and over. K’s guess was that while we were costumed, we weren’t at all flashy – no fake jewels, no metallic gold trim, no polyester brocades. And we simply wore our garb; it wasn’t so unusual to us that we played to it, the way the “gypsy wenches” were self-consciously flipping their skirts. But it did get us into some fascinating conversations. K. got to talking details and technique with the archers, and I with the professional weaver who had a booth there. (She had a magnificent hand-woven silk cloak I have my eye on. If it’s still there next summer and I’ve money enough saved, I may well acquire it.)

The high point of the Faire events, for us, were the falconry exhibitions. The Royal Falconer is an amazing man who travels all over the country with his birds. We saw him fly Harris hawks one day, and a peregrine at the end of the last exhibition on Sunday. It was amazing. The hawks, it seems, hunt cooperatively, following their prey in relays.  We had perfect seats, too; one of the birds landed perhaps 5 feet away from us, and another one perched on a support beam directly overhead, swooping over us on her flight path over and over again. We would hear the ankle bells, then the shadow would go by so quickly it seemed impossible. They were so beautiful, I can’t begin to explain it. What can I say; I’ve been fascinated by raptors since I was a kid.

And we talked endlessly. Wonderful the faire may have been, but the time spent with my oldest friend, with no parental responsibilities for either of us, was priceless. We waded in Lake Michigan, me with my skirts kilted up, and sat on the rocks with our feet in warm sand. We talked into the night, until we all but fell asleep sitting there. We would have confused heck out of anyone listening, because there was no background in our conversation; we just jumped in mid-topic, knowing each other would understand. It was wonderful. And so is my husband, who took over with our boychick and let me run off to play.

We are intending to go to the Ohio Valley Filk Fest, which this year will be held October 20-22, in Columbus, Ohio.  It seems, though, that everyone likes that weekend.  The Quarterhorse Congress is there as well, an event that traditionally fills every hotel in the area.  Then to add to the congestion, there’s a home football game.  So the con website recommends making hotel reservations as soon as possible.

So ok, I made mine today, three months in advance…and barely got in.  The reservations clerk said they had less than a dozen rooms left for that weekend, and it’s not even August yet.  We’re all set, but anyone out there who’s intending to go, get on it quickly or there won’t be any place to stay.

I’ll give a more complete report on my Renaissance Faire ramblings when I’m not operating with less brain than the little puppet nestling bird my friend bought there. But there was one brief interchange I thought worthy of repeating.

My friend is a public defender, and there is one prosecutor in particular who, shall we say, pushes the envelope of acceptable behavior until it resembles an overfilled water-balloon balanced on a pin. So as we were wandering around the fair, we came upon a merchant selling furs, fleeces and hides of various sorts. (He had some lovely lambskin suede that was literally as soft as velvet, but that’s another story.) We wandered into the back area of his pavillion, where he had assorted small animal pelts for sale. The previous owner of one of them had clearly been a skunk.

K: “Oh, look at this! I love it, but I don’t know what I’d do with it.”

Me: “Well, you could always take it up to the prosecutor’s office when no one’s around and tack it to (bad apple’s) office door.”

I can’t remember the last time I saw her laugh quite that hard.

Oh, the skunk pelt? She bought it.

I am off to Bristol Renaissance Faire for the weekend, leaving tomorrow. I’ve wanted to go to this particular Faire for 20 years, and something has always prevented me from doing so. But now it’s in easy range, up on the Wisconsin/ Illinois border, so my friend K. and I are going. I’d dreaded the summer heat, but the weather is being most cooperative, dropping from 90 and upwards down to the low to mid 70s. It couldn’t be more perfect if it tried.

I have full garb for both of us, as well. Of course, the Faire is set in the 15th century and the garb is for the 11th, but what’s a few centuries between friends? I am looking forward to this more than I can say!

Seen on a bumper sticker this afternoon:

“Frodo has failed.  Bush has the Ring. “

Our kitten, like most small children, has two speeds: full tilt and sleeping.  There is a brief in-between stage of seeking a lap in which to purr, but that invariably gives way to sleep within a matter of five minutes.  Also like many small children whose parents would like to sleep, she is most active late at night.  Fortunately, her human-mama needn’t stay up with her.  I leave that for her feline mama.

So last night, when I woke up at midnight for my usual expedition to the bathroom I could hear that she was playing right outside the bedroom door.  She knows my habits, and she was lying in wait for an opportunity to explore the forbidden Land of Bedroom.  But being a baby, stealth is not her distinguishing characteristic, and she was playing in loose paper on the floor as she waited, thus telegraphing her intent.  This was interspersed, lest I miss the point, with intervals of pawing at the door.  She intended, when the sleepy and half-blind human opened the door, to use speed rather than stealth, shooting into the bedroom like a small black rocket.

Age and planning beats youth and enthusiasm every time.  I put on my glasses (taking care of the “half-blind” part of the equation), and opened the door with a hand set to scoop kitten up as soon as she presented her face by the opening.  That worked nicely; she rocketed right into the waiting hand, which lifted her up into the air, depriving her feet of floor from which to accomplish launching.  Ok, we’re good; I shut the door behind me and put her down.

She wasn’t done.  She chose a secondary target: the bathroom.  As soon as she had four on the floor, she shifted into overdrive and shot around the corner, on destination intent.  That was fine until she hit the tile floor in the kitchen.  She immediately skidded.  She was going so fast that she slid clear across the room and bumped into the stove in a mad scrabble of claws.  Ok; new trajectory!  She launched again, this time attaining the bathroom a little before the plodding human managed it.

That was when I discovered she had a new trick; jumping up on the seat and balancing there.  I brushed her off in preparation for seating myself.  Before I could complete the action, she had jumped up again, coming appallingly close to being knocked into the water by my descending anatomy.  That time I picked her up, holding her in one hand while I completed my mission, then putting her down after the lid was shut.  She glared at me; I had thwarted her desire to watch swirling water.  But you know?  She’s a baby.  She has the mindfulness of a mayfly.  She’d forgotten her pique and was winding my ankles before my hands were washed.  So I picked her up again, lest she tangle my feet, and held her as I walked back toward the bedroom.  She purred through the kitchen, and was asleep on my arm by the time I got to my bedroom door.  So I put her beside her mother on the recliner and went back to bed myself, leaving Sophia to deal with kitten-antics the next time baby woke up.

“Don’t you dare throw my blanket at me, or else.”

“Or else what?”

Pause for thought.  Shrug.  “I don’t know.”

Life is pretty peaceful around here, enlivened by occasional outbursts of boyish frustration engendered by the combination of his absolute conviction that I can read his mind and can therefore write his stories for him exactly as he wishes, and his inability to find the words he wants to do it himself.  He really wants to be someplace else, or even just outside, and it’s too hot even for him.  We have heat warnings around here right now, best summarized as “stay in air conditioning if you possibly can”.  We can, and we are.

But the threat du jour, when he does get frustrated, is that he’s going to “run away forever”….or at least until dinnertime.  He plans it carefully, putting his most treasured toys in a large plastic tub.  Of course, then it’s too heavy for him and he has to ask me to carry it for him.  I usually tell him I’ll get it when he figures out where it is to go.  (I have yet to actually pick it up.)  And then he puts his kitten in her bed to attempt to carry her along as well…only she jumps out and runs to hide in the attic.  So then he has to chase the kitten up to the attic, track her down, get her out, and bring her downstairs.  By that point I hear “Mom!  Guess who I have?”, and all thoughts of running away are quite forgotten.  Pretty soon he settles down to watch a movie with kitten cuddled in his arms.  He tends to watch his movies on endless loop, though – the same movie, over and over, for several days running.  My definition of a true “children’s classic” is one I can have running as the sound track of my life for three consecutive days without wanting to break the video.  “Mary Poppins” is the current one, and fits that definition nicely.

On the other hand, if I have to listen to “The Tigger Movie” one more time, I believe the one who will be running away will be mom…and I might actually make it out the door.

For the past some minutes, I have been watching as the Sophia-cat held her daughter down with a firm maternal forepaw and gave her a nose-to-tail bath. I thought that would be the end of it, but no. Now the admonishing foreleg is black and kitten sized. Yes indeed, Tornado has stretched her paw as far as it will reach across Sophia’s back and has begun to groom her mother. It’s abundantly clear that nothing is really preventing mom-cat from getting up and walking away, but she isn’t. She’s just lying there, being assiduously licked, staring at me through half-closed eyes. “It’s in the mom contract” she seems to be telling me. “She wants to play that she’s the mom for awhile”. I wouldn’t know a thing about it, Sophia. Not a single thing.

I am much amused at my cats. I was told that they were quite calm at the vet’s, playing together when in their cage and purring and cuddling with whomever came to take them out and care for them. They utterly charmed the staff; one young woman said she’d get a cat in a minute if she could be sure of cats as sweet as mine. So I did not think their stay had traumatized them too terribly.

Since our return home, though, they’ve very quietly and very undemandingly not let me out of their sight. It kind of crept up on me, but they are following me all over the house. If I go into the kitchen to get a bowl of cereal or soup, by the time I have the bowl on the counter and turn around to get the proposed contents, Sophia is sprawled in the middle of the kitchen floor and Tornado by the cabinet. If I take my bowl into the living room and sit down with it, by the time I’ve taken my first bite they’re resettled under the couch, looking for all the world as though they’ve been there for hours. When I went upstairs to sew last night, they were there. That’s when I realized what was going on, because I’d forgotten something downstairs, went down for it, and paused to talk to my beloved husband for a bit before going back up. Sophia had been by my sewing desk when I left, but when I started for the stairs to return, there she was at the foot. She stood there and looked at me, then mewed. It was a very clear “Mom, please make up your mind.” So I gave her a scritch and went back up, turning around to find her strolling in a minute or so later, her feline dignity forbidding her to demonstrate that my presence in any way influenced her decision on where to curl up. Of course not. Purely coincidental. That’s her story, and she’s sticking to it.