Renaissance Faire

Paul, Andrea, John and I went to the Ren fair in Casa de Fruta this weekend. It was a long drive (over 2 hours so we tried to drag our sorry butts out of bed and on the road by 9:30. Well, it didn’t work out as well as we would like and we weren’t on the road until after 10. But we had coffee and donuts. Ahh…. The three of them all brought ren garb, I would be the odd woman out. The drive was easy and no unpleasant traffic.

We arrived around 1, easy parking, got our tickets at Will Call, Izzy had bought them for us beforehand. As we made out way in we were bombarded with vendors selling their wares. Bread, dried fish on sticks and of course chicken feet. We also found John’s friend John, who is a ren fair vetern, having been going over 15 years and works them every year. He has official ren clothes and knew about 90% of the peeps there. John had forgotten his ren shirt so we had to find him another one. We did, he bought it then made his merry way back to the car to change. While we waited some kids admired my “Talk Nerdy to me” t-shirt and one small lad gave me a hug, a lot of people would comment on my shirt throughout the day. John(#2), Paul, Andrea and I watched a comedy improv show (Merry Misfits of Doom), they were pretty good. After every performace, or skit they would ask the audience if that performance was worth “Beer” or “Doom”. In the last skit, they received Doom and had to shove ice down their pants while the audience flipped torillas at them. Now that is classy! Afterewards we tried to reconnect with John, that took about 45 minutes.

Stopped for some food, it was typical Faire grub. We made our way slowly towards Izzy, Jim(#2) and Jim. I say slowly because we were stopping every 10 minutes. John(#2) knew everybody…. We stopped at a show: Broon, comedianm magician and juggler. He was quite good. Afterwards, I dropped some money into his bucket he commented that he had wondered what my t-shirt said. I had been sitting many rows back, I was impressed that he could see that far. After that we saw Moonie, a mime/acrobat/juggler. Very funny. At one point he was on a tighrope juggling fire. Kickass!

I walked by Jim fencing and waved but he was busy with a client, and didn’t wanna bug him much. We finally made our way (at 4:00!) to Izzy, only to see her and Jim(#2) running off to a show. We followed. I didn’t get the name, but it was an improv show, about the English Court system. It was slightly naughty.

Andrea and I got henna tatoos. It took a long time and I was in an uncomfortable and painful position for awhile but it was worth it. John came over and let me lean on him, helped a lot.

Our group split up and John and I went bodice shopping. He stared as I bound “the ladies”. He had a big ole grin on his face for a long time. So much I bought the bodice and a shirt. Now I need excuses to wear it!

At 6 the ren faire closes (well it closes as the sun goes down). I think we saw about 20% of what the Faire offered. I would have liked to seen more. Maybe next year we will do a 2 day event. We made our way out to the car, out of the parking lot and our merry way back home. No traffice hassles whatso ever. Stopped in San Rafeal for some food.

I just wish I could have spent more time with Izzy, Jim(#2) and Jim. It was a good day.