Summer with the Carnies
So I'm back, here at work in front of the
According to humanforsale.com I am worth exactly: $2,197,096.00. According to thespark.com, my purity test score has dropped five percent since the last time I took the test, bringing me down to a grand total of only... FORTY percent pure. I bet Cat still has me beat, what with all the crazy shiiat she's been doing all summer long. But man...
Guh, I feel like a cog in the great big societal machine coming back to work after a weekend at the Faire. I grew up with parents as close to mundane as mundane is, always hoping there was something more and always being disappointed. Well, I wasn't crazy... I found what I was looking for- adults who PLAY and play HARD... These weekends at the faire are utterly exhausting, working and playing and running about. But they are the most wonderful thing, by far, that has happened to me in a long time.
Life is great right now. That sort of amazing, living-the-moment wonderful, crazy-happy summer euphoria that won't last but means the world while it does. I'm not clawing through knee deep emotional shit or looking so hard to the future that I can't enjoy myself. I've reconciled the past and I'm enjoying the present with great satisfaction. It's a world of decadence.
Friday, we drove up to Gig harbor. On the way out of town we saw a huge smoke cloud billowing off one of the hills south of Eugene. Impressed as we were, we still have no idea what caused it. The drive to Tacoma took over five hours, traffic was heinous, but we still decided to bypass the turnoff and drive all the way into Seattle for Sushi. Justin's g-pa from the east coast was i town, staying at the Four Seasons (the NW's only 5 diamond hotel!) on a layover with his new lady-friend. They invited us to dinner with them, so, after a brief but filling appetizer at Toyoda's, we had seafood at Shuckers in downtown Seattle. Can we say Gluttony? ; ) Got into Gig Harbor late but giddy and in time for me to play (but lose) another game of Munchkin.
Gig Habor fair is something special. It has a TON of merchants and is rife with guilds, SCAddians, Bavarians, Knights and more. It's not a real eye-catcher or tourist trap, it's more an encampment of die-hard faire goers who stay the weekends and maybe even the week between. Saturday was pretty much uneventful. The knights performed well with only slight hitches and the weather was pleasant. Justin made my "big purchase" for the faire, a green leather bodice from RavensWood leather. It completes my swordswoman/amazon getup, an outfit I'll only wear when I feel toerant of the attention it gets me. I swear to god, while in this getup over ten strangers (men) took my picture (most when they thought I wasn't looking, some posed me), five men escorted me across camp, and two offered to buy me a drink. Yippee. ^^
Saturday evening we went out to dinner with some of the knights at a local bar. After we came back to camp, we headed to the Faire tavern... a scene straight out of bad scenema. Dimly lit, bellydancers, drum circle. We drank a little and laughed a lot. Even Damian (the Old Man, the head honcho) lightened up a bit and took me under his wing. When we returned to the Knights' area, we sat in front of the fire until it went out. I'm grateful that morning role call at Gig is at 9:30, not 8:30 or 9 like we've had to deal with in the past. It makes for a more leisurely morning.
Sunday the weather was bipolar. One minute it was freezing and pouring, the next it was sunny and muggy. Ask the Knights which they prefer and they'll tell you they prefer to be shot instead. Wearing forty plus pounds of armor and running around in either pole of weather is not exactly a good time. Granted, inclement weather makes for a great sense of cameraderie as merchants, tourists, and actors alike huddled underneath pavillions to shelter from the downpour. BUT, it also makes for slippery fighting and confused horses. We were one horse down in the morning, due to the fact that Damian's horse decided to run a line on Saturday and hurt his leg. By the end of the day, only two of five riders were really operational. The last act was when it struck home.
I know some people think coreographed fighting is lame. I know I've thought the same thing. But I have utter and complete respect for all these fighters, especially those on horseback. You can't coreograph a joust or a light horse run. You can STAGE it, but you can't fake skill. You must know how to ride to ride well. Well, in the third act, horses decided to be stupid. One rider was thrown into a wrought iron line peg after his horse ran OVER the joust lines. Luckily, the stake just bent and the rider (mostly clothed in plate) was fine. In the next joust, someone aimed a bit low and hit the Gold rider in the gonads... with the LANCE. I saw that one. Ow. That gentleman was also alright after hopping up and down for a while and hobbling off his horse. The real kicker was this, and I (nor most of the audience) never even saw it happen. In the last foot fight of Sunday, Fighter A was attempting to further plot by exposing Fighter C and hence did not pull his hands out of Fighter B's strike zone. What was supposed to be an axe hit blocked with the hilt of a polearm came down onto Fighter A's FINGER and ... well... crushed/ sliced it. He didn't let the audience know though, and was later taken to the hospital for repairs. So the last act was a distaster from the actors' standpoint. But the audience loves blood and mishaps. They think it's COOL when the Knights really get hurt.
There wasn't any teardown Sunday night. All the tents and pavillions have been left up for next weekend. We left site near 7:30 and got home before midnight. I drove most of the way, more than confident that I can now drive manual without killing myself or freaking out. The sky was lit orange with sunset behind us as we drove down the corridor back to Eugene. No traffic aside from some gawking at two major police events: one drug bust where a cop car was sweeping the road for a tossed item and another bust with five cars after a van. I turned up the music and sang along. Pink Floyd's Coming Back to Life loud, on a perfect summer night.
One week till Michigan.
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