OOH LOOK, I have posted again!

It's been a busy couple of weeks since Thanksgiving. The move is almost complete, literally. Tomorrow I'm going back to the old place to clean and pick up the last few items still over there, and Saturday will do the final walk through and turn over the keys I honestly had hoped that I would live there for many years, and ultimately purchase the house, but alas that was not to be.

My friends, The Rogues, entered a Battle of the Bands being sponsored by an Irish brewery. They took 2^nd place in the preliminary round, out of 65 bands from North America and Europe, and advanced to the finals. If they win, they will go to Las Vegas to perform at one of the resorts for St. Patrick's Day, 2010! If you would take just a moment to go to http://www.slbc.ie/involved/competitions/, watch their video, which is listed first on the page, and cast your vote, I would really appreciate it, as would they. Also, your vote will also enter you into a drawing for a trip to Vegas to see them!

Thursday afternoon I made my 3^rd annual trek to Galveston for Dickens on the Strand. I had hoped to head down earlier in the day, but alas that didn't work out and it was very nearly 4 p.m. before I got out of here! I was looking forward to seeing the island in the daylight, to see the recovery from Ike. Obviously since it was after 9 when I arrived, I was only able to see what was lit, and truthfully, that alone was an AMAZING difference from last year! I stayed with friends who live on the island, in a beautiful, late 19^th century home, which, fortunately sustained no real damage to the living spaces, though the workshop on the ground floor had about 5 feet of water & muck in it. Of course we stayed up entirely too late, since we hadn't seen each other since June. They added a train to the scene in their living room.

If you look closely, you'll see that it's a LEGO set! How awesome is that? Apparently you can go to the LEGO website and design whatever you want and get the pieces shipped to you!









Friday was full of roasting and other preparation of food for the party Saturday night. I promise to put up recipes later.  There were dire predictions of a significant (for Galveston, anyway) snowfall on Friday, however we only saw a few tiny flurries that didn't amount to anything, and about 5 minutes of sleet, but it was COLD! It was good to see more of the island than I've seen in a great many years! We had lunch at a little bakery called the Sunflower Bakery & Cafe as we had to go by there to pick up the birthday cake. I can highly recommend their Deluxe Grilled Cheese, made with Gruyere Swiss, applewood bacon, and tomato (which I left off, thankyouverymuch) on sourdough. Of course we stayed up way too late again that night, but that's because the rest of the visitors had rolled into town.

Saturday dawned COLD, and I layered up so in an effort to be warm but not overly hot and needing to go back and forth to the car. It was a cold, but pretty day, and the crowds were pretty good, from what I saw. I kind of thought I might run into more people from up here than I did, but for whatever reason, it just didn't happen. The Rogues had 2 stage shows and did several street shows throughout the day. I have to say that being back in the pub was AWESOME, since last year we were pretty much out on a street corner the whole weekend because so much, including the pub was not yet open again after the storm. Because of the weather in the Midwest, one of the pipers couldn't get back to TX in time for Saturday's shows, so we had an emergency fill-in, Stuart Clements, who did a fabulous job, especially considering that he had NEVER played with the Rogues before! It was a wonderful day, and the gathering at the house that night was, of course, a good time, as the bunch of us that was there tends to spend a lot of time laughing and enjoying the conversation, not to mention the food!

Sunday was a bit warmer, and another beautiful day on the floaty bit out there in the Gulf. I was only out until about 2:30 due to a need to get the Canadian contingent back to the airport in time for their flight. I did score some fun things, including a couple of Woozies, a smartass, an awesome 2 piece barrette thing for my hair, and a couple of other gifts that I am not ready to reveal, lest I spoil the surprise! My drive home was longer than I would have liked, largely because it was rainy for about half the trip, but I was certainly glad to get back to my kitties and my own bed, on the ground floor, as opposed to on the 2^nd floor of a house that sits about 12 feet above ground level to begin with… Have I mentioned my butt is quite tired from all those stairs?

Today's random weirdness can be traced back to Sunday at Dickens, and the smartass I bought. On Saturday, as I walked around looking at the various vendors, I came across one that had a variety of pins shaped like butts. There was a rat's ass, dumbass, a smartass, a kickass, a pain in the ass, cinnamon buns, a candyass, an ass 'n' 9, a grapeass, a buttface, and I don't even remember all of the rest of them, but I found them highly amusing, and went back on Sunday to purchase one of the smartass, and a rat's ass. While I was standing there deciding just which ones I needed, I noticed some beads on the other corner of the booth. When I'd made my selection, I was looking at the rest of the booth, and I realized that the beads over there were ROSARIES! That struck me as even more amusing than the asses in the first place, having both products in the same booth!

Ups & Downs

Another weekend of faire has come and gone. Saturday I was out with one of my adoptakids, who is 9. He's a sweetheart, and we had a pretty good time. I'm thinkin' I'll take him again next month when another friend will have someone in with a 2nd grader. The Rogues added a show to the schedule on a stage on the other side of the festival this weekend. It's not an official show, but they discovered an empty stage, and seized the opportunity to entertain people who may not always make it to Pecan Grove, for whatever reason. I think it went over fairly well. Sunday dawned cold and wet from overnight rains and a bit of ongoing drizzle, which kept a lot of people away, though about half of my usual bunch made it out. I had high expectations of Sunday, which, I guess, in the grand scheme of things, I should have known would not pan out, because, well, they never do. I won't say it was my least happy day at faire, but it's pretty close to that. I couldn't even get motivated to go to the afternoon Rogues shows, and even listening to them from the other side of the stage didn't help. Yeah, I was in a BAAAD way. I'm tired, and have been, frankly overwrought about this, so I know that this is not the time to make any sort of decisions, but I am hugely afraid that I have spent 8 months working toward a goal that is not going to ever be. On one hand, most of the time I've generally been happier and more content than I have ever been in my life. On the other hand, I'm finding that the price I'm paying is just too much to pay for little or nothing in return. The good days far outnumber the bad ones, but the bad ones are just a wee bit away from being absolutely unbearable. *sigh* I don't know how much longer I can deal with them. Photos of 1st and 2nd week later this week, I hope...

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...

Time to Play Catch Up, Part 1

I'd tell ya that I'm going to try to give you the short version, but well, I don't know how to do a short version of much of anything, so bear with me. My festival season has officially started. NTIF is held every year the first full weekend of March and many of the local rennies consider it sort of a kickoff for the Faire season, because it's one of those situations where we can dress up in garb, or our kilts and be out in public without garnering much negative attention. This year marked the return of The Rogues to the festival after a much too long absence. As a result, my favorite Canadian, his wife, and a fiddler came down and stayed with me. It was a long and busy weekend, and I feared that my sweet Leo would be stressed to the max. Then, about 6 on Friday night, Randy said, as he was leaving to go meet other friends for dinner, "I'll see you about 10 in the morning." Puzzled, I said "Oh, you're coming over to the house? Ok, that's fine" To which he responded "Oh yeah, didn't we tell you, we've got to rehearse, and we are planning to do it at your house. Is that ok?" "Umm, noo, you didn't tell me, but sure, I'm game for it." Before I left for the airport, I did manage to visit with my friends Mary & Sakeeta at their Estelril Enterprises booth and get more lotion and salves, as well as catching the Clandestine show (yeah those pictures aren't all edited yet), and a wee glimpse of a wee new Ameri-Scot, Max Kean, who was a whole 3 1/2 weeks old. By the time that I got home from the airport with the Canadians, I had learned that in my media room there would be 2 sets of bagpipes, a fiddle (actually 2 different ones, but played separately by the same guy), acoustic guitar, probably bass & electric guitar. Yeah, that was going to be interesting. Since we didn't get home until almost 12:30 and the Canadians' were at 1:30 a.m. after being up since early the day before, a text was sent telling Randy not to show before noon! Bow fell in love with Nelson's wife, and commandeered his guitar case for her morning nap. She's such a rotten thing. She learned from the master, the late, great Mr. Moro, who was absolute the King of sweet kitties, thus she believes that the only reason that guitar case came to TX was to provide her with a new and interesting bed for awhile. For DAYS after they left she kept going into the guest bedroom looking for them and wailing her head off when there weren't there! I got a couple of shots of the rehearsal as well: Doug's back, Lyric on chanter, Nelvis, Randy beating on the wall, and Corey on fiddle Doug & Lyric both on chanter, and Nelson's back Apparently years of listening to bagpipes blare through the house on the CD player/Ipod has mellowed Leo somehow, because he slept through the whole thing. By the time we got to the festival on Saturday there wasn't much shopping time, and I didn't get many decent shots because I was at the sale table instead of sitting on the front row.

Sunday was a better photo op for me, and I got some great shots, but haven't gotten them all edited to upload, so you'll just have to wait. We got out there a little earlier, and I got to spend some time with Erin, Tony & Tom, and later with Mark and sweet baby Claire, who, OMG is almost a year old! And isn't she absolutely darling? She LOVES her Auntie Rae and the camera!

Probably wasn't my best decision, leaving the festival to take the Canadians back to D/FW, then going back to the festival for a few more hours, because I was definitely POOPED by the time I got home that night, but I had fun and made some awesome purchases that I'll eventually add photos of as well. Yeah, I suck at getting photos done in a timely manner most of the time, so sue me. Note to self, schedule a vacation day for March 7th next year to recover from NTIF.

And well, I'm tired, so you'll just have to wait for Part 2, I guess, cuz I'm too tired to keep typing and 5 a.m. comes early tomorrow.

Hump Day

Well, it's Wednesday again, the middle of the week, and only 7 more days that I'll be able to reproduce, thank heavens! Last night, at a meeting, one of my sorority sisters, who has clearly not been paying attention over the last 3 years when I have said repeatedly "I like children, OTHER PEOPLE'S children, that I can play with and have fun with, then give back when I'm done!" looked at me, in all seriousness, and said "And you are really ok with, you know, not having any children?" I just looked at her, trying not to look too dumbfounded. I mean, not only have I repeatedly said that I don't want children of my own, that I don't have the patience, that the 10 days I spent with newborn Nicholas 2 years ago now was plenty of newborn for me, and just last night I said at least 3 times before she asked the question "by this time next week, I will be uterus-free!!!" Some people just don't listen! Good news that I got today is that The Rogues will be playing North Texas Irish Festival in March. This makes me very happy, especially in light of the fact that they got scratched from the location I was planning to see them in February, since the venue double booked it. I have no idea why the Scottish band is playing the Irish festival, but frankly, who the hell cares, it's live pipes a month earlier than I usually get them, so I'm good with it! My rotten little calico cat is wandering around the house wailing, for no apparent reason, anybody want a cat? I'm working on a list of things I need to get work on this next year, including

• 1. getting my storage room sorted out, so it can be used for its intended purpose: GARB CLOSET. When I moved into this house in the Spring, there were a BUNCH of boxes that I just couldn't sort out immediately, and they got put into the spare room. Sure there is garb in there, but it's not in the closet, its in totes. some of it will remain it totes, but other pieces I think would be better stored hanging.
• 2. I also need to do a little more writing. What I'm going to write, I don't know, but there are several things rolling around in my head, screaming to get out.
• 3. I've also got to get some other stuff organized so that maybe my house will be able to stay reasonably organized and not get to the point that it makes me want to scream in frustration.
• 4. I have sewing to get done before faire: wrap pants for the boys and a couple of shirts for them. I can't guarantee that I'll get the shirts done, they may be more trouble than I'm comfortable with, but the wrap pants should be easy enough, since I have a pair I can use for a pattern.

Friday night should be good, I'm taking my youngest (he's 18 now) nephew and my only niece out shopping for their Christmas gifts. I don't spend nearly enough time with them, and I truly enjoy the 2 of them, and their older brother, who has other plans for that evening already. Which reminds me, I need to check the website of the shopping center and see what all is there now.

Saturday is Drink Like a Pirate Day, and a bunch of us are getting together at TGI Friday's in Ft. Worth to celebrate. It's a great chance to hang with friends and a fabulous excuse to wear garb somewhere besides faire!

Off to bed, hopefully to sleep through the night, and get more than about 5 hours straight!

Craziness coming

I just looked at my calendar again, and holy cow, the next couple of weeks are CRAZINESS! Sunday my sister & I are going to the Tut exhibit at the Dallas Museum of Art. I missed the last time there was a Tut exhibit in Dallas. It’s one of those things that we would have done with Mom, if she was still with us, she was a HUGE Egyptology fan. Next Sunday, I’m flying out to Midland to celebrate Saint Andrew’s Day at a friend’s church. Why, you ask would I fly to Midland for that??? Because the ever fabulous EJ Jones, & Richard Kean will be piping, with the awesome Randy Wothke drumming. Yeah, I’ll fly to Midland for my Rogues fix! Even if they aren’t all Rogues anymore. I’ll fly out Sunday morning and then fly home on Monday morning before I go to work. Fortunately, work is close to the airport, so I can be to work by like 9:30. Between now and then I have a ton of food prep to do. I’m taking a handful of turkey legs, a couple of boneless, skinless turkey breasts, some meatloaf, a batch of soup and a couple of casseroles. Fortunately, much of it can be prepared in advance and frozen until we are ready to actually cook it, and with disposable foil pans, cleanup will be easy too!!! I’ll head out to the sticks on Wednesday, hopefully around 11 a.m. I’ll be on the road, which should get me there by about 6 p.m. Hopefully, the other company that’s coming in from this area will be a little later than I am, so we can get situated before there are too many people in the house. And have a conference or two with the Captain. Come December, I’ll be heading to Galveston for Dickens’ on the Strand. Yep, Galveston is still in recovery from Ike, and the Strand may not be as pretty as it has been in former years, but hopefully there will be an outstanding turnout for the celebration. I know that several of the acts are performing at no cost to the festival, which is awesome of them to do, so if you’re headed that way, be sure to leave something in the tip jar for them, k? I think that’s about it for tonite.

My weekend

It’s hard to believe the year is almost half over already! WOW! By this time on Saturday, I’ll be (hopefully) making my final descent into Cancun. Originally, we were scheduled for an early morning something on Tuesday evening, so we were going to have 3 nights and 3½ days, roughly. Once we’d paid our final, nonrefundable payment for our “subject to change until final payment is made” scheduled trip, we were given our schedule. It changed. Now we arrive around 5 pm, and have to leave the hotel for the airport at 9 a.m. on Tuesday morning, so we have 2 and less than ½ days, for the money we paid. But that’s another blog. This has been a great spring for my music collection…. I’ve already talked about American Highlander, the latest offering from The Rogues. I’ve also added the latest offering from Clandestine, ReD. If you’ve seen them live in the last year, you’ve already heard some of the awesome new stuff. From the first time I heard it, I’ve loved Wobbly Wheel Set, Sexy An Dros, and The Ewe & the Sound. The harmonizing of Emily, EJ & Al, is great. Overall, it’s a toe-tapping, dancing in your seat (or jumping up and dancing), fun and interesting disc to listen to. Early last week, I went to the post office to discover my Box O’ Swag, from my pre-adoption of Marc Gunn’s latest 2, Whiskers in the Jar and Going for Brogue. My swag included not just copies of the cds but also a handful of other discs to share, some bumper stickers and a new t-shirt. I think I’ve still got a copy of Going for Brogue to share, as well as an Irish Drinking Songs: The Cat Lover’s Companion, and a couple of his first cat CD Irish Drinking Songs for Cat Lovers. If you’re interested, let me know, or head on over to CD Baby and pick up a copy. Whiskers in the Jar is another fun collection of traditional Irish tunes to which Marc & others have rewritten the words, honoring, playing with, or expressing the loving frustration we cat lovers feel for our feline babies. I SOOO understand Danny Boy… as I have my own obnoxious brat, sweet baby who finds it quite amusing to attack my toes when I am asleep, so as to wake me from deep and blissful slumber. What Shall We Do With a Catnipped Kitty pretty much ensures that I’ll be mixing up the words to Drunken Sailor forever… An absolute must for the cat lover in your world! Going for Brogue is Marc’s offering of traditional Irish songs and sea shanties done with wonderful accents. There’s something for the Irishman in you, something for the pirate in you. At first listen, several of the sea shanties sounded odd to my ear, since I’d really only heard them done in 4 or 5 part harmony by the Corsairs, but by the time the song was over, I was backing up to listen again to Marc’s wonderful rendition. Once again, Marc’s love of music and making music shines through in his voice and music. Order a copy for your pirate, or your irish! In the grand scheme of things, I probably should have spent yesterday doing something totally constructive, like getting laundry done so I could pack for the trip, or cleaning the house because it needs it, or working on the pool, because again, it needs it. The problem with all of those , is that none of those would have distracted me sufficiently to forget that I’ve embarked on what could be a pretty long stretch between live bagpipe shows. I may make it to the Killdares show Friday night, but that’s still very up in the air. Instead of the constructive stuff, I went with Emilee down to Austin so we could make an appearance at Marc Gunn’s CD release party at Things Celtic. Probably 25 or so people were there… got to see a handful of faire folke when Queen Bonnie & Var Grayshadow made it. Marc had a sore throat, but did a great job! Having never been in the shop before, I quite enjoyed looking around and seeing what I could find. Emilee, Marc & I took baby Claire and had an early dinner at a cute little café, Kerbey Lane. I gotta say the French toast was good, and I don’t remember the last time I had bacon cooked just the way I like it… without me even asking! I love it when I have the opportunity to have a nice quiet meal with friends! Marc offered us an opportunity to grow our celtic music libraries that sounds great, and as my library is still fairly small, I’m looking forward to adding new artists to those I already enjoy! On the way home (and down, if we’re going to be honest about it) we stopped in West at the Czech Stop. On the way down we’d stopped for gas and breakfast, and I saw Dr. Pepper cake, but didn’t want to have it sit in the car for who knew how long in the heat. I’ve had a bite or two of it, and it’s definitely yummy, and tastes sort of Dr. Peppery, but also kind of chocolatey. The beer bread I brought home is great too!!! That’s about it for now… gotta go move the laundry now.