Archive for November, 2007

Not The Daily Show, With Some Writer

A good way to say it…

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Emporia is cooking!

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It’s been amazing how fast the year has gone, even with the whole vast number of faires that have come and past throughout it. It seems like years ago when Calaveras Celtic was in planning and then opened. Now to think that Calaveras won’t even happen again now that it’s moving to Sonora – or more aptly said, it’s moving back to Sonora.

I’ve met many new people, and I think generally continued to get better at not letting the politics get me down. There was a good number of incidents and scenes this year where in the past I would have completely lost my cool or exploded all over the place. And in the end, I only broke down in tears once, and a tirade once. Both I believe the same weekend (opening weekend of Valhalla), but other than that it’s been pleasantly mellow. Even the craziness that happened around SLO faire, and when some of the vendors noted that it seemed like I was fearless, I’d told them no, not fearless, it just didn’t matter enough for me to get that worked up about. I wonder how all of that will pan out as the 2008 season comes into play,

I cut my hair, and in the end, I do think it was for the best. It’s been 20 years of long (or longish) hair, and was more than time for something that looked more well kept. And not to mention it’s more period short, anyway. Though I do notice the grey hair a lot more often…

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Been fighing off a cold since last week. The worst of that was over by the end of the weekend, but then as is my want around this time of year when the weather changes I get an annoying bout of an eye gunk. A nice round of blepharitis, and it’s annoying as heck. I know it only lasts 2-5 days once it dries out, but still it’s gross looking, and very disconcerting. Bleh, it’s gone into the drying phase at this point, and i think on the downswing, but I loathe looking like a healthy leper – or that i just shoved my head into a microwave.Another day or two and I’ll be good to go… now all I’d need would be a nice flair up of gout to round out the experience and cover all my bases…

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It was good to get to visit Kearney this past Saturday. It was very likely a bit foolish in that I was still recovering from my cold, but getting to watch the Medieval Madness tour season finale Saturday afternoon, but in the end I probably could have stayed at home just as well. But I did get to listed to 7 hours of my book that I’ve been listening to at least.

Azure Cross was jousting at Kearney – which was a bit of a surprise. I’d thought that the expense of their insurance was too prohibitive to be able to support them for doing just one joust this year. But in the end they were there, and it was with mixed emotions that I watched them prep for their one joust of the day. It was Cliff jousting along with some other fellow that I’d not seen before, and then two others also riding in the games. The games went uneventfully, and the moderate audience applauded politely. When it came time for the actual joust to begin, they wont down for their first pass and was a glancing no break pass. When the new rider got to the end of the list and pulled up to slow and turn, the saddle slipped and twisted almost 90 degrees around the horse and he took a rather nasty fall and dislocated his shoulder. Given that Pappy was yelling across the field that the wrong saddle had been used/who’d been responsible for it, while the medics were still checking on the other rider, I’d noticed that the joust was done when they began taking of the main armor pieces of the fallen Knight.

So as a note to myself, I should make sure that I always throw into the jousting contracts that if there’s only two jousters to be riding, that there’s a third on hand in case of an injury. It’s just too easy for one person to get hurt, and then your big ticket show is just thrown out the window. Apparently they were able to have Daniel ride on Sunday as a replacement, but still that’s also a position you don’t want to have to be in – putting someone on a horse that’s not yet ready. It’d be about like putting me on a horse and having me joust. I could do the games with no notice if I at least knew the horse or could get some practice runs on it, but jousting? that’d just be silly.

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