A Winter In Review

Written on Tuesday, Jan. 24th, 2012. Sherwood Forest Faire, TX.

We’ve finally made it to the Sherwood Forest Faire, and I can’t say how much I’m glad we’re here. Not to say that our stay in Toon Town wasn’t nice, but I’m glad we are out of there. We carried a lot of drama from Louisiana with us into our winter camp; add that to the neighbor’s drama and we had a whole lot of bitterness circulating in the camp. This winter frustrated me. I had plans to either be very productive or to relax, meditate, and refresh my body and spirit; read some books, do some sewing, fix on my house, play around in the shop. Stuff like that.

It didn’t happen. Nothing happened, except a whole lot of frustration. I finally bought some steel and got a few pieces cut, got some stuff ready to go, made about 100 nail swords, but never really got much product made because of all the ADD-ness happening at our camp. Go figure, that when I finally wake up one morning and decide that I am absolutely done with being a procrastinator, everyone else suddenly decides to procrastinate about everything.

In the end, as we’re all packing up to head to Sherwood, it finally struck me (smack in the forehead with a _dong-ong-ong-ong!_ sound) – Why the hell am I waiting on everybody when I don’t need to? Why was I stressing about looking after friends who didn’t ask for help? I feel I’m in that stage of life where I’m learning the finer points of life.

Perhaps if we’d all had jobs, we might’ve been less bitchy.

We did have many good highlights to our winter, however. We ate wild hog and had many happy, filling, meals of cornbread, beans, pork and eggs. I got to shoot a .22 for the first time in nine years, and got to shoot a lot of cool trash. I lurked about, drunk on wine and high as a kite, in a bamboo thicket secretly pretending I was an adventurous 10-year-old again. The weather was lovely. We never found ourselves short of beer or pot. I listened to the ambiance of Ryan refining his lovely songs (on his slowly failing old keyboard, poor man). We had huge fires, were visited by many generous friends, met a lot of strange Texans (strange for Texas, that is), had a nice, warm, yurt to hang out in most every cold night, I learned a new massage technique from the fellow down the street, and I found out that I’m still not pregnant, hahaha!

All in all, it was a nice winter, but now I’m feeling very hermity. I’m done hanging out and partying for the most part. I can’t be looking after my own health, cooking for half a dozen people, fixing on my house, and fretting over the shop all at the same time. And I kinda need my health, especially for the busy year to come.

Take a moment to take care of yourself, dear Reader. Life is more enjoyable if you are alive and well.

Peace.

Texas is Burning Down

Picture Taken 9/6/2011

While we’re over here on the east coast putting up with days on end of rain, Texas is slowly burning down. Recent arrivals from the state reported 115 degree weather and little fires everywhere on the road. Part of Scarborough Faire burnt down – The Junk (where we hung out on site and ordered food, drank beer, and listened to local musicians) is no more, along with severl booths that happened to be near it. One person died in that fire – Will, “The Pickle Guy.” I have yet to hear the details of his death.

Parts of “Toon Town” – a well-known part of the TRF (Texas Rennaisance Faire) campground – are gone, including several semi-permanent houses there. Ryan has a house in Toon Town and he’s been checking regularly on the status of the fires there. So far as I know, his house is fine, along with his home forge.

I heard that already, over one thousand homes have burnt to the ground, leaving one thousand families without a place to return to. Thousands more have evacuated, waiting in angst for the fire to burn out without anymore damages done. I have yet to get ahold of the family we stayed with in Scarborough, to see how they and their ranch are faring. Perhaps they’ve evacuated, too???

And while Texas is burning down, parts of New York are flooding due to the hurricane down south. The hurricane is pushing a huge storm system right up against the side of the Appalachian Mountains, the worst of it headed straight for New York. The Tuxedo Ren Faire shut down and evacuated about a week ago (this being Sept. 9th when this post was actually written), and I’m concerned about my friends who were trying to start a booth up there. Did they actually make it? Did they have to evacuate? Where are they now?

Until I learn more, or all of this crazy weather blows over, I keep my friends and fellow transients in my thoughts and prayers. Stay safe, you guys.

Peace.