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!
Once upon a time, a blog was started at AOL Journals. The scales fell from the eyes of The Creator and it was moved to Wordpress. Then Journals tanked and all old posts were moved here for safekeeping.
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3 comments:
Love the story, Good JOB Erma :)
my darling that just sounds so much better than the renaissance fair here (which is expensive and stupid) or the Castro or Haight St. fairs (whch are very crowded and kind of scary). Stay in MD and keep up the good work.
see you in July
xo
rose
Sounds like a fabulous day!
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