Sex and Politics

There's this town on the way from Frederick to Hanover, PA.  It's called Littlestown and until now, its only claim to fame was a really seedy looking strip club called Sensations (perpetually "hiring new dancers").  There was an election yesterday.  As I drove up to visit my friend, Stacey, I noticed this campaign sign:



"Damned unfortunate name."  I thinks to meself, thinks I.  I recall seeing this lovely street name in town and connect the two:



I'd always thought what a lovely street address that would be.  Then I saw THIS campaign sign, a little farther down the road:



and that's when I reached for the camera phone.  I mean, I'm sure the Kuntz's of Basehoar Alley are lovely people and all...

"It's pronouced Koontz" they tell me.  Then SPELL it that way, ferpetesakes.    It's not like living in a suburb of Hanover isn't punishment enough.  And why do I suspect that a sheriff named Kuntz would be a bit of an asshole?  Or, close to an asshole, anyway...

So much for cat naps

So I saw this site on Attack of the Show! on G4 television (Geek show.  I'll sit and watch it with Steve like a jr.high girl watching her boyfriend play video games):

Stuff on my cat

It's just what it says.  People put stuff on their sleeping kitties and take a picture.  This struck me as hilarious.  My cats have been sleeping lightly ever since.  Here was the first attempt, when I found Maggie sleeping in Julianna's room:



The angle was all wrong, though and you can't see all the stuff that's on her.  Her "Oh how I hate you" expression is nice, though.  So, next day, I find her sleeping in the same place:



Awww....sleepy kitty.  but not for long....


Maggie!  You fell asleep on a pit of vermin!  Silly cat!

And then Allie.  Sleeping so peacfully.  But too near the shoreline!  Look out!  Giant Squid!  Augh!



Maggie expresses her sympathies.  She knows how trying The People can be.



But what's that?  Oh no!  Now it has Maggie!  The horror!



They're not sleeping as much these days.

Kubiando!

Oh, hi. It's been a while...uh, to bring you to date:

Ben actually expressed sympathy for another human and is deeply in love with Wolfgang (not Mozart, but the kid down the street).

Lily has learned the word "vulva"(or, more precisely, "bulba"), and declares her clothes "bisgustin'"when she feels like changing.

Julianna has a foster hamster and is having a bit of a struggle with the whole "someone else gets to adopt it" thing.

Turns out that Steve's ex-girlfriend is a lousy baker.  HA-ha.

Now, to the present.   The girls and I spent yesterday at The Fairie Festival  in Glen Rock, PA. This was our second year but we took our friend Chris (who helped birth Miss Lily) and her girls Tori and Ellie with us.  Our friend Andrea met us there, with her daughter Sophia. Having a whole mess of little girls in wings definitely made for a better trip.  The drive was shorter than I remembered, thank goodness, but still clocked in at about 90 min.  We had a picnic in the parking lot (big muddy field) before heading to the festival.  It had rained a lot the day before, so it was pretty mucky everywhere...Do pagans bring their own mud?  I swear, the half-nekkid-multi-pierced-tribal-tattoo set always seems to come with mud.  Mud spirits, I suppose.  The walk from the lot to the actual festival was said to be 3/10ths of a mile, but I think it was closer to a half.  I was pushing a stroller through mud, though,so I'm probably a poor judge.

As we waited in a fairly short line to pay to get in, there were characters entertaining the crowd and teaching them the word "Kubiando!" a fairie greeting equivilent to "Aloha."  They were in full costumes of varying sorts.  The girls and I were sporting wings and flower crowns, having planned since last year to make wings for this year's trip. 
One of my favorite moments of the day (and right at the beginning!) was hearing one of the actor-types declaring, "She's looking away from me!  Hello?  Lady, I'm wearing horns!  I have furry legs and hooves!  What do I have to DO to get some attention around here?!"  And to be honest? He really DIDN'T stand out once you got in there. His ensemble was fairly tame. Witness these guys:

Costumes were amazing.  Of course there were lots of wings--some purchased at the festival (I saw at least 3 vendors selling them), some home-made, some from the Walmart costume clearance after Halloween.  There were a fair number of women in those Renfest corsets that push the bosom up and out and present them on a tapestry platter (tattooed boob, anyone?).  Lots of skin, lots of bare feet (squelch squelch squelch).  Guy in a T shirt that said, "Get a taste of religion, lick a witch."  The ethnographer in me was categorizing constantly:  Goth kid, Cicely Mary Barker fairy, hard-core pagan, increasingly uncomfortable soccer mom...  I told Chris that my favorite thing about the festival is that the people who usually feel a bit out of step with society, the misfits, are totally in their element.  They swagger and prance and just BEAM.  I think I had a smile on my face the whole time, just seeing how happy they were.  The Normals, on the other hand, were in the slightly-off-balance position; they were having fun, but it was in someone else's land, they were clearly tourists.  Loved it.  I'd go back to grad school just to have an excuse to study it all more. (just kidding, Steve)

The girls had a blast.  They chased bubbles,
they danced (and danced and danced), they frollicked. There is a maze through the woods in which you are supposed to find 5 fairies.  You are looking for a stand with a little pot of chalk, each one a different color.  At each stand, you get the chalk on the tip of one finger, so that when you've found all five, you have one blue fingertip, one yellow, one purple, one green, and one  red.  At the exit, there is a chart of all the possible color-to-finger combinations, and your combination gives your fortune.  A really cute idea, which the girls loved.  I'd have loved it more w/fewer people in the maze and without the constant worry about the poison ivy that was growing EVERYWHERE.  I expect to be itchy later today or tomorrow.  I think the best part for the adults was just sitting on a hill, listening to live music, watching the girls dance. 
Weheard Big Blow and the Bushwackers and liked them so much we got the CD.  Accordian, tuba, dijeridu!  What's not to like?

Of course, all that dancing was rather exhausting.  The walk back to the car was like the Forced Fairie March.  The ankle bells, so cheerful and tinkly on the way TO the festival, sounded a cheerless CLANK CLANK on the way back.  Wings drooped, muddy Birkenstocks squished.  We piled in the van and headed home.  My voice, which went from Deana to Suzanne Pleshette, to Selma Simpson, to post-tracheotomy squeak, soon hit "nuthin' but air."  Lily, after shouting "Kubiando!" a few last times, passed out.  To keep her from sleeping the whole way (and of course that was the ONLY reason) we decided to stop at Krispy Kreme near Baltimore.  I told (or squeaked at) the girls to use their wishing stones to wish for the "Hot Fresh" sign to be on.  The old fairy was right, the wishing stones were real, for as we approached the line in the store, the light came on.  Fairie magick!  So we had our fairie dinner of hot Krispy Kremes (insert drooling Homer Simpson noise here) and headed for Frederick.  Julianna and Tori were totally torqued and played horrible, loud word games the rest of the way home.  Chris and I were about to puncture our eardrums to escape.  Oy.  But they were just so happy about it.  bless 'em. 

And so we arrived home around 7:30, safe and sound and covered in hippie dirt.  Can't wait to go back next year (we'll pull the girls out of school and go on Friday this time).  Kubiando!