It's been a while, so I may not remember anything, but I'm gonna finish this if it kills me!



During the week we went to Mulligan's pub in downtown Nashville to see Celticopia both of the Wednesdays that they were there. It was so mellow and fun that it just about made up for the fact that the service was lousy. (Good thing we'd already had supper and were just ordering drinks and dessert, though that may have been why we were so neglected) The FM was able to join us the first time they were there but not the second. Both times Demetrius (aka Gary) and Victoria ("In the bar you can call me Vicky!") were joined onstage for a few songs by Loony Lucy, who cleans up nicely as her alter ego Linda Kavy. The second time, there were a couple familiar faces in the audience, namely Paolo Garbanzo (whose real name is actually Paul Garbanzo, no wonder he went into Renaissance entertainment) and a very lovely, tall, slim lady with long red hair and a pale complexion, though not as pale as when we have seen her as...the Queen! Wow! We actually got to meet the Queen out of costume, and she is just as sweet and charming and adorable as at the faire. (Her name is Kimberly, BTW, and now she knows our names, eek!) The joy of going to these two shows is that they really gave us an unprecedented chance to schmooze with some of our favourite performers and certainly I think we have achieved RF groupie status. I think Vicky and Gary were happy to see familiar faces and know that we would clap and sing along with everything. :~) We got to know them a little bit better, including what they do when they're not at Tenn Ren. Gary, for instance, is artistic director for a faire in Colorado, which I think may be their next stop. (Colorado would be nice in June) Anyway, it was truly an unforgettable experience, and I really hope they decide to do it again next year.

So back to the faire. As I said, I've forgotten stuff, so I'm gonna have to summarize a bit. Pirate weekend was next and I went with FM on Saturday and Ary on Sunday. Saturday was kinda hot and muggy until two when the sky quickly darkened and then the heavens opened and we had barely enough time to get back to the car before getting soaked. That cut the day short, though I was not too sorry as we were toting FM's boss's ten year old daughter with us, which limited some of the things we could do. Sunday, perhaps due to the rain, was much cooler, so I wore a heavier costume and even took my grey fleece shawl and was still a little on the cool side. Geez, why can't the faire be like that more often, preferably without all the rain, though.

The final weekend I think was even more fun than the last two, and this was largely because even more friends joined us, mainly on the holiday Monday. Moments of note: Paolo does a finale for one of his shows where he juggles a (mostly) razor sharp knife, a flaming torch, and an onion, while standing on a two foot diameter ball, then he eats the onion while still juggling it with the other two items, before spraying the audience with partially chewed onion bits and soliciting tips and breath mints. This is prefaced by a bit where he juggles an apple, orange, and onion, and shows how he learned to eat the apple while juggling the other two (kinda lame). When it comes time to eat something with the dangerous implements, the audience invariably votes he eat the onion instead. However, there is always a healthy number of people who vote for the orange, simply because we want to see it done. He has always said afterward, "I would love to eat the orange instead of the onion, but majority rules, man." (I should mention that the orange is not peeled) So the final weekend the Order of the Orange was in attendance, and Paolo picked one of their number as the volunteer who was supposed to throw him the onion to juggle. As soon as his back was turned she ran over and exchanged the onion for the orange. Given the huge swell of cheers that rose up then, Paolo decided to humour us and promised to juggle with the orange before switching to the onion. He found out that it was not so easy, and he eventually had to stop juggling and rip at the orange with his teeth till he got a big chunk, which he promptly spat out at the audience, causing a spray of orange oil that was briefly ignited. Who says Ren faires aren't exciting. ;~) So the Order of the Orange went away happy.

Also with Paolo, for the finale of his fire eating show he picked three volunteers out of the audience. The third one was a pleasingly plump young lady in a low cut gown, and as he brought her up on stage he asked her if she was over eighteen. She answered no, and he instantly raised his hands over his head and yelled, "I didn't touch her!" After the finale he gave us an encore (it was the last day of the faire) where he attempted to juggle *five* flaming torches in three tries or less. He got it on the second try, and that was good enough for him.

Also of note, tiggertailz came to the faire with us on the final day and we were able to take her to the castle, which was very, very cool as always. She also got to see the Pirate show, Empty Hats, Celticopia, and Paolo and Giacomo's knife throwing act. (Poor Paolo, he gets so much abuse) We also caught most of the chess match, which pitted Shakespeare and his actor against Lord Hastings, who had arrested the Romeo and Juliet players. The actor Kent was the King on his side, and he played so poorly that he was quickly defeated, and the Queen sentenced him to acting only in dining houses for a whole year. ("Dinner theatre?! Nooooooo!!!") Shakespeare, however, she let off, cos she had liked Romeo and Juliet, which led her to punish Lord Hastings for trying to prevent the performance; he was told her would have to produce Shakespeare's next play.

"Oh yes, your majesty," the playwright said, "I am already working on my next play, a delightful little Scottish play called MacBe--"

"Don't!!!" all the actors cried in horror. (Naming the play Macbeth is supposed to be bad luck, because it's cursed...mwa ha ha ha!)

"I heard it!" Sir Phil exclaimed, and keeled over with his hand to his heart. One of the other actors immediately began giving him chest compressions.

I mention this little episode because Shakespeare's next play was always something different at each chess match, and I thought this little bit of improv was particularly good. :~)

Tigger had to leave us before the end of the day, but I think she enjoyed herself. We caught the Royal Improv one last time, then hurried to the Pub Sing. We had learned earlier that Sir Phil Inn's (real name Ryan) wife was at the faire again, and we had met her, now in the personage of Grace O'Malley, and she was going to be singing a song about herself at the pub sing. When we got there they were still on the gypsy musicians, and while we were listening to them a vaguely familiar guy (not in costume) came up and said hi, then introduced himself as our waiter from Mulligan's. I'm impressed he remembered us, esp given how inattentive he was at the pub.

Anyway, Grace O'Malley's turn came and she prefaced her song (accompanied on guitar by Demetrius) by turning to the Queen and saying, "With apologies to Her Majesty." We soon found out why, as the song was not very complimentary to QEI, essentially saying, "This is *my* land, you can't rule here, so go back where you came from!" As soon as the song was done she and Demetrius bowed briefly to the Queen and then quickly skedaddled. The hosts of the pub sing this year were the Irish pirate singing duo Porter and Stout and they now came forth looking rather shame-faced. They apologized to the Queen, pleading that since they were Irish Grace O'Malley did hold sway over them and she had threatened them with dire punishment if they didn't let her sing. The Queen was very gracious to them, of course.

The pub sing finished with the lovely "Beggars to God" (though Craig of Farrington had earlier regaled us with "Health to the Company" which I prefer) and then it was "to the gate!" for the last time. We said our goodbyes to all our new friends, particularly the Queen, Grace, and Tavi, the latter who gave us her business card so we could exchange pictures. (Real name Rachel!) On the way back to Nashville we stopped and picked up a few foodstuffs and met at FM's apartment with sailingwest and her *ahem* new friend for a nice little dinner to finish things off.

It was an absolutely wonderful faire season, and even though I was completely exhausted by going every weekend, I still think it was well worth it, and I hope we can get the season passes again next year. Now as promised, here is a link to all of our Ren faire pix as well as a few "other" pix taken recently. Here also is a link to pix from the ConCarolina-Va trip. They are all, alas, in a somewhat random order, so if something confuses you, let me know and I will try to explain it.

In other news I was fiddling around with my LJ and have changed the layout, as well swapping out three of my icons, including my default. Hope you like.