kethrai's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- And Lo The Heavens Opened.... Third Week at the Faire Dear Non-Scheduled Reader: I am BONE TIRED. I am beyond bone tired, and so glad that this faire is over. Not that it was all bad. Or all good. A short note on the following narrative—yes, I have changed all the names involved in this faire. I don’t really think that anyone would care if I wrote about them online, but for the sake of their privacy, I’m not doing it. However, most of the names retain the flavor of the original... For instance, Crow DOES go about by an animal name most of the time, as does Coyote. Demon has an even less attractive appellation that is apparently a nickname that stuck. I tried to preserve the flavor, but no, that’s not their real names. I got out of work on Friday afternoon to take off for the faire. The weather reports were NOT promising—raw, wet, and in the 50-degree range. The weather had not turned gruesome yet that afternoon, so we set off, hoping at least that we wouldn’t drown, but after the previous two weeks, simply making up our minds to survive. We were looking forward to meeting up with our merchanting friends Alice and Thomas, and our actor friends Crow and Demon. Driving over the mountains was starting to feel familiar by now, and we made decent time to the state park where the faire is held. We arrived about 6:30, to hear that Crow and Demon (the same young actors whose car had so spectacularly died and been removed the weekend before) were desperately trying to get transport, and two rides had fallen through already. So far, their best bet was Demon’s brother, who was getting off work at nine pm and would drive them the three hours to the show. Alice and Thomas had decided to camp that weekend, and so we shared the lean-to that had sheltered us so handily from the rain. Alice is as much of a shopaholic as I am—the two of us skated as early as humanly possible and went to the grocery store for a few essentials (marshmallows, chocolate, water) and the cruise the local dollar store—much cooler than the dollar stores at home, for it had camping equipment available. Calloo, callay—loose in the dollar store. We arrived back at the campsite post the time that we were “supposed” to be allowed to buy firewood from the rangers... apologizing profusely, I rousted the poor suffering bastard anyway and we got our firewood. By now, it was nine at night and we were ready for a fire. We arrived back at the campsite and started the fire. It was cold enough that all of us were pretty constantly starving, so more hotdogs and sausages and marshmallows disappeared down us. The lady who sold swords had her two young sons with her –ages 15 and 20 –she was an early-to-bed sort of person, but her kids were up, and at the smell of food, they arrived ready to wolf down more. They were lovely young men—they had helped us excessively the weekend before, playing stevedore. Older Stevedore had curly black hair and stood taller and wider than I—but with that square almost fat look of a dockworker, the kind that looks soft but is all muscle. Younger Stevedore had lighter hair, a softer face and body, and worked like a trouper. Both of them were sweet, respectful, and kind, and had the curiously innocent faces of warm, helpful people. On, this, the third weekend, our fire had become the party spot—Anastasia the Lute Player came down (a dreamy wisp of a girl who looked like she’d stepped from a Byzantine wall-mosaic), the King of the Actors (actually, stage manager for Games) an excessively goodlooking and youngly cynical young man, and a few other random folks, along with the Darling Husband, I, Alice, and Thomas. At nearly midnight Crow and Demon pulled in, driven by Demon’s brother, a rangy, thin, sarcastic guy with long hair. I thought of him immediately as Coyote—sense of humor and sand-colored hair included. By now (shush, I know it was a state park, whatever) many beers had been broached, the mead was passing hand to hand, and we were hugely enthused (nay, sloppily enthused) to see Crow and Demon safe back. Crow is a lovely dark-haired girl, uncannily cast in a female mould of my own Darling husband...the brother-and-sister jokes were flying hard and fast between them from weekend one, made funnier by the fact that the Darling Husband is adopted. Demon is taller than I, rather cadaverous looking, and one of the rapier fighters amongst the actors. They’re both tomboys—Crow never wears skirts or makeup, heaven forfend, and they are both terribly young, and very sweet. She played his squire through the shows all weekend. Alice and Thomas are terribly cute, also...my age, she short and curvy and redhaired, he taller, going a bit thin on top and thankfully not disguising it with a little-longer-than-military-buzz cut. I must admit, within that group not only were Alice and I (at 33 and 32 respectively) the Grand Old Ladies of the group, I did tend to regard most of the others as terribly young, including the Darling Husband who regressed in the company of folks who swing swords for a living. Alice and I were the first two to poop out. A last trip to the privy down the hill, and we both went to bed in the lean-to...and were shortly asleep. It was chilly, but warm enough under blankets and so on. I thought nothing of it when I had to pump up the air mattress a bit—after all, the temperature had dropped 20 degrees since that afternoon. When the Darling Husband came to bed, some hour and more later—it became apparent that we had sprung a leak. Much fumbling and swearing in the dark and some duct tape later, we were trying to sleep on a half-inflated air mattress. I woke up Saturday morning to the sound of Alice stirring around and the boards of the lean-to floor painfully gouging my hip. Alice and I were the early risers—both of us hurried down the hill to the privy and took hot showers in the 25-cents-per-five-minutes showers, and had hot drinks brewing. Meanwhile, a steady and cold rain beat down. Both of us reconned our wardrobes to see what we had in street clothes that fit under the ren costumes. Eventually, the Darling Husband and Thomas stirred themselves (why are men always such slugabeds? Honestly.) and started moving around. With only a little fuss, we got the cars parked in the authorized lot off the site, and our tent set up. The day remained dank, gray, and cold. It never entirely stopped raining and never was completely clear. The dirt road into the field where our show tent was became a river of mud. Alice kept a teakettle going in her tent, and frequent trips over for hot drinks was indicated. We made the unlovely discovery that our BRAND NEW tent leaked, but assumed it was just a matter of seam sealer (about which more later). Despite all this, our sales weren’t as terrible as before. But by 5pm, everyone was wet, cold, muddy, and tired. Our van was deemed the emptiest, so we managed to pile in 8 people to a 7-passenger van with one seat removed—Crow, Demon, and Stevedore the Younger piled in the very back like sacks of potatoes, and hauled ass three exits down to the local Bickfords. Never did a lumberjack breakfast and coffee seem so good..... Crow and Demon, poor children, had had most of their performances cancelled due to rain, and so were very short of funds. The Darling Husband and I quietly anted up for them. It felt really good to be able to give back, a little, having been in that position myself more times than I can count-- although I could tell that Crow and Demon were upset and tired. We went back to the park, where Alice and I did the last van run around the park to make sure that all the camping stuff was at the actual campsite, etc. and got wood from the rangers. We built a huge fire, and were the ones to again toddle off to bed, as Thomas, the Darling Husband, Stevedore the Younger, Demon and Crow had all decided to play D&D according to original rules. The air mattress was promisingly firm when I went to bed; by the time the Darling Husband climbed in, it was much later, I was asleep, and it was half down again. Morning brought wakeup at 6am and the by-now-familiar feel of the lean-to boards beneath my butt. Hot shower again enabled me to move, and in complete frustration with the very cold morning, we headed out to Dunkin’s---where, ironically enough, the air conditioner blew directly on the ordering line. After the slowest service I have EVER experienced, we got back to the fairegrounds...whoops. Too much time. We were supposed to have cars off the faire site by 9am, and were pulling them through at 9:30. Another cold day, warming gradually. I think at one point I may have gotten down to two layers—it didn’t rain for a good part of the early afternoon, but we never actually saw SUN. And then...at about three-thirty Sunday afternoon...just as we were starting to get good traffic for the first time all weekend and make some sales.... ...the sky opened up with the almightiest thunderstorm. Here’s the other piece of irritation; as you know, dear NSR’s, we had purchased a Show Tent to do this and other summer shows. I do not think it is too much to ask that it not LEAK LIKE A SIEVE the first time in a heavy rainfall. On Saturday, the dank was pretty constant but not too awful—on Sunday, in the downpour, it became REAL apparent that not only was the tent top not a little waterproof, it had not been waterproofed at all. A nasty letter is going out from me to the EZ Up company—granted, I was not expecting this to be the tent that ends all tents, but it was outrageous to have water dripping directly through the top onto my head. The lightning cracking right above our heads sent the last potential customer shrieking for the parking lot and the buses, and that was the last day of the faire. Of course, a certain watery amount of sunlight embarrassedly showed up while we were packing up, steaming the acres of mud and sending people carrying heavy boxes skidding... but slowly, bit by piece, we packed up, got out, and got home by 11pm last night. I think---although my math skills are by no means certain right now, due to exhaustion, that we ended up making just about $100 above expenses. That’s assuming that we’re not paying ourselves for the hours we worked. Financially speaking, this faire ended up going from A to A...but. A few other faire organizers were at this faire, and they have invited us with great enthusiasm to come to their party. That was a lovely egoboost. And we got to know Demon and Crow, and Alice and Thomas, and chat with any number of other people who were sweet and charming and fun. The Darling Husband had a ball—he used to be a rennie years ago, and missed it. Often too much of a ball—while he was usually on tap to cover the booth if I needed to go to the bathroom or get something to eat, I ended up for most of the three weekends getting us packed, unpacked, set up, or taken down by myself because he was off somewhere gossiping, and would only come back to help after I had a small fit. (Remember that bit about regressing?) He would be around for a little of the heavy lifting, but that was about it. It was nice to see him having fun—but it was irritating as all hell to have to rope him in to help like a reluctant teenager. I admit I was not in the best frame of mine myself. So. A mixed bag. A financial disappointment. Strange days. A lot learned....and as I mentioned, well, very very tired. Goodnight, dear NSR. 6:09 p.m. - 2002-06-17 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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