Well now

I had every intention of getting my Opening Weekend blog posted earlier in the week. Obviously that didn't happen, because here we are at Thursday and I'm just now taking the time to even write it. I took about 300 pictures and really wanted to include a few in here, but that didn't happen, either, mostly because I didn't get them edited and sorted yet. Friday I took the day off work to finish getting the car packed, and getting last minute stuff done so as to be a responsible, albeit absent innkeeper because some of my friends are staying at my place each weekend for the duration of Scarby. You are probably wondering why I'm absent. I love my friends, and I love that I can provide them a place to stay, even if I'm not there, however I also love the oh, about an hour and a half to two hours in the parking lot before cannon on faire mornings. I use that time to finish dressing (have you ever tried to lace yourself into that back-lacing bodice without any help? tried driving an hour and a half in that laced, steel-boned bodice, 2.5 lbs of skirt which measures 27 feet around the hemline?) and visit with my friends in the parking lot. In order to do this, from my house, I would have to leave between 6:30 and 7 a.m., and on Saturday nights, anyway, I wouldn't make it home after dinner until nearly midnight. Raevyn at Faire on less than 6 hours of sleep is NOT a pretty sight, I can assure you. Fortunately I have a friend that I can split a motel room with each weekend. It works out better this way anyhow, because there are only 3 or 4 people cycling through the shower at my house, instead of 5 of us. Staying near faire means I can sleep until 6:30 most mornings, and still be on my way to faire by 8, and have plenty of time to get a good parking space and play with my friends for awhile. So I am running around the house, getting sheets changed, trash emptied, etc. I finally finished everything, loaded the last of what I needed to into the car, and was off. I got a later start than I anticipated, but I made it to the motel, got stuff unloaded, changed another friend's room so she could be beside us instead of above us, and headed for the festival to deliver the housekey to one of my guests. I had a tasty little dinner with one of my oldest friends, and his wife... we'll hit 30 years of friendship this fall... holy crap we're old. It was Saturday morning in the wee hours before I was able to go to sleep because my roomie was sewing madly. Saturday morning was beautiful... we truly couldn't have asked for a prettier Opening. Getting passes at the gate didn't appear to be the fustercluck that everyone feared, but I have no idea what the situation inside where the actual passes were being printed was. As we were competing with 2 other festivals within about 3 hours drive, and Nascar race weekend, there weren't as many people as could have been, but it was still a great day. I honestly didn't get to see as much of the faire as I might have liked, but I did manage to see a couple of new vendors and lots of people I hadn't seen in months. I was at every Rogues show (yes, I know this comes as a terrible shock to you, but it's true), but didn't see a single other show. I remember last year, opening weekend totally kicked my ass, I was absolutely exhausted, and my back was killing me. At the time, I blamed the fact that my Pendragon bodice is not as extensively boned in the back as my Morescas are. Yeah, shame on me, it wasn't the bodice, it was the fact that my body is no longer accustomed to the walking and being bodiced up at all, because the same thing happened this year, despite the fact that I wasn't working and walking around a show area selling CDs for 4 shows a day. It was a bit warm by the end of the day, but overall it was an outstanding day. Sunday was about 20 degrees cooler, which means that anytime I wasn't in the sun, I was a wee bit chilled. There were fewer people out on Sunday, probably mostly due to the weather, we had a grand time anyway. I was DONE before cannon, which is a rarity for me, so left to head on home. When I got home, I discovered that perhaps I'm not such a fabulous innkeeper, as I'd left a bag of trash in the hallway. yeah, I suck, I know, but really ya'll is that any reason to leave the cats closed up in the media room? Fortunately they were happy to see me, and hadn't left me any messes in there, so it's all good. I think I'm going to post a note that says "hey, I won't leave a big bag of trash for you to trip on in the hallway if you won't lock my cats up" :) I know that it wasn't done on purpose, and even I have been known to lock one or the other of them in there from time to time. Today is my Friday, and I've got plenty to keep me busy this evening getting ready for this weekend. Hopefully I'll get photos up here in the next day or two...