Random Commentary

It was kind of bittersweet to get to actually see the place, but only for the last weekend of the season. It's gorgeous up there, lots of trees and hills and all that good stuff. Although really, if you don't look past the walls surrounding the site it's quite a bit like being at the old Devore site. I know, that's sort of a sad comparison, but really faire is pretty much the same when you have to keep tearing it down every year.

I spent most of the week in the Winnie with Shygirl and Laz, doing the camp out thing and just sort of wandering around faire site during the day and soaking in the atmosphere. I imagine I creeped a few people out while I was doing my quiet wander thing - I know I can give off that stalker vibe. (Especially when I'm stalking, but we won't talk about that.) I popped into the office a couple times to watch them work, but that's kind of a snooze in the long run, and I needed to get my circuits in. It's amazing how much more I'll walk when I have something to look at when I'm doing it. Get this - they put juggling school on a hill, is that fuctup or what?

Had a weird moment there too - I was on the phone with the hubby, but it was the home line not his cell because there is this weird law about cell phones not ever working in one's own home. Anyway, his brother kept calling the cell, but it was a futile gesture, so when I got off the phone with the hubby I called the bro-in-law to tell him to call the land line. He called me back after the two of them talked, and it turned out that he had literally just driven past Casa de Fruta only a couple minutes before. Go figure.

The actual faire event was fun too. I tried to hawk some at axes, but I was a bit weary that first day (hippy weed and space cakes will do that to you) and it usually takes me a couple weekends to get up to speed. I finally gave up on that and just enjoyed being in costume and on site. In fact, I had more fun helping Laz deliver grub to his crew - walking with a big tray of food, the cowbell clanging and us shouting at people to get the hell out of the way. It's all about the piratey goodness, I tells ya.

And then there's the nightlife. I almost forgot how much I missed it. They opened up the alestand so we could buy beer at reasonable prices, there were a couple parties playing disco music (but I was far beyond dancing by then), and for some reason there were a bunch of guys running around in their underwear. Torture man, torture. I didn't stay up to a ridiculous hour, but I suppose I could have if I really wanted to. It was just great to be able to wander around site, walk out to camp and hang out, and just posse up drunk and loud. The Irwindale exile really chopped out the best part of the faire experience for me.

Waking up Monday was the sad part. It was like watching a fever dream disintegrate in the sun as they started to tear it all apart. Quite a lot of mixed emotions trying to pack an entire faire experience into one weekend. It wasn't all sad sack though - they had a golf cart race that day too, complete with girls flashing boobies at the drivers before they got buckets of water thrown into their faces (the drivers, not the booby-girls) or fire extinguishers set off on them. Pretty much like watching an episode of Jackass, actually.

So now I'm thinking I may be willing to change my annual trek out to Cali to do Northern instead of Southern. I can always train down to the IE so I can visit the friends and fam, and I can still get to do faire the way it was meant to be. I'm not solid on this, of course, but it's definitely something to put on simmer. If nothing else, I will certainly try to make it up there for the occasional weekend because it is so worth it.