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Texas Ren Faire
We went to the Texas Renaissance Festival on Saturday. It's the first time I've been to a ren faire. The best description I can come up with for the place is: imagine the "medieval" part of Canada's Wonderland. Remove all the roller coasters. Make all the remaining rides gravity/rope/man powered and charge a hefty fee for them. Allow the place to be over-run with the least historically accurate attendees of the SCA and some sci-fi/fantasy convention goers. Cram in more shops than rides. Make the food REALLY expensive and not very good, but try to make up for it with unreasonably large portions. Serve alcohol every 10 feet or so. Have everyone ask for tips, from the entertainers doing shows on stage to the janitors in the bathroom (yes, there were tip jars on the bathroom counters - as if). It's basically an over-crowded, medieval-themed way to part people with money.
Here's Georgia all dressed for the day and trying out her new 3 month and up stroller for the first time.
It was a pleasant way to spend an unusually warm (81°F/27°C) November day. We saw some excellent belly dancers, Clan Tynker (still doing the same show as when we saw them 7 years ago at Pennsic as far as I could tell) and a few musical acts, ate some mediocre Greek food, bought some fudge, walked through a very small but pretty water garden and left just as the fireworks were starting.
I also had some interesting experiences. There were all the requisite and expected displays with much garb snarking to be had, or as Jason put it, "I think Tang's head would explode". There were women who weren't a perfect 10 running around in far less than they should have been wearing, some of them wearing chainmail bikinis with no undergarments to speak of (that has to chafe). More elf ears and fairy wings than you could shake a stick at. Lots of highly inaccurate "Tudor" ensembles. Plenty of belly bunnies.
Notable sights:
* "slutty" Princess Leia costume: the white gown but with a slit up to mid-thigh. I don't get it, if you're going to go "slutty Leia", go all out and go slave Leia. I guess the "long ago in a galaxy..." means that Star Wars is medieval?
* A "fairy": guy wearing all pink, right down to the boots, a tutu and wings and carrying a light-up sailor moon wand
* A satyr: Fake-fur horse/goat shaped legs (I say "horse" because technically the hooves were not cloven) and big furry wig I get, but carrying a fur-encased wine bottle?
Surprisingly, that was about it for the truly remarkably odd costumes.
Then I had a rather unpleasant experience. I'm not sure but I think I had an encounter with some good 'ol boy, deep South racism. I wasn't 100% sure of it though, so let's run it past you guys... I walk into a shop where someone is demonstrating lampwork. I'm standing off to the side of his work space, not behind any guards, so not the safest place in the world to stand, but it's unlikely anything will go terribly wrong. Also, I'm not in an area that I obviously shouldn't be in. I'm standing in the middle of their store with wares displayed all around me, so it's not like I've climbed behind the counter or anything. He almost immediately stops working and puts down the piece he was working on. I don't think much of it until his shop-mate asks him why he stoped. "Waiting for Godzilla to move on" he answers. At this point I notice two Asian children on the other side of the plexiglass in front of him. I can't honestly recall if his use of "Godzilla" was singular or plural. I am not large, nor was I stomping around crushing buildings or wearing anything scaly or particularly lizardy, so I suspect he was referring to the children! However, he also wasn't exactly friendly to me. A few seconds after the torch was turned off and before the exchange with his shop-mate I leaned in and mumbled something like "I'd love to have a look at your torch set-up", which usually leads to conversation with other lampworkers, and he ignored me completely. I tried to test out whether the children or I was "Godzilla" by first moving to the outside of the shop, behind the protective plexiglass, and then moving out of sight. I don't think he fired up the torch again until both myself and the children had moved on, so I still wasn't 100% sure whether it was me or the children. I'm a bit embarrassed about not calling him out on it if it was a racist remark, but at the same time, I'm a bit dense and Pollyannaish in this sense, so I'm not even sure it was something derogatory, or rather I'm sure it was derogatory, but not sure if it was directed at people of Asian descent, or nosy chick here clomping around the shop. It might have been me being on the inside of the shop on the wrong side of the demonstration glass. The more I think about it, the more I'm leaning towards racism though. Verdict from y'all?
Jason had a very productive day today. While I was out at Roller Derby practice and picking up the beagles from the kennel we boarded them at overnight he bathed Georgia and chatted with his mom online. Later in the afternoon I did a load of dishes and a load of laundry and Jason rounded out the afternoon's tasks by bathing the beagles. Georgia was a pretty happy baby for most of the day, but she's been rather fussy ever since the sun went down.
Some pics from earlier today when she was happy:
Today is her 3-month birthday too. Time sure does fly.
Okay, enough photo-dumping and blogging. Jason just came down and announced that he's ready for bed, so it's my turn to answer Georgia's cries. Wish me luck.
Here's Georgia all dressed for the day and trying out her new 3 month and up stroller for the first time.
It was a pleasant way to spend an unusually warm (81°F/27°C) November day. We saw some excellent belly dancers, Clan Tynker (still doing the same show as when we saw them 7 years ago at Pennsic as far as I could tell) and a few musical acts, ate some mediocre Greek food, bought some fudge, walked through a very small but pretty water garden and left just as the fireworks were starting.
I also had some interesting experiences. There were all the requisite and expected displays with much garb snarking to be had, or as Jason put it, "I think Tang's head would explode". There were women who weren't a perfect 10 running around in far less than they should have been wearing, some of them wearing chainmail bikinis with no undergarments to speak of (that has to chafe). More elf ears and fairy wings than you could shake a stick at. Lots of highly inaccurate "Tudor" ensembles. Plenty of belly bunnies.
Notable sights:
* "slutty" Princess Leia costume: the white gown but with a slit up to mid-thigh. I don't get it, if you're going to go "slutty Leia", go all out and go slave Leia. I guess the "long ago in a galaxy..." means that Star Wars is medieval?
* A "fairy": guy wearing all pink, right down to the boots, a tutu and wings and carrying a light-up sailor moon wand
* A satyr: Fake-fur horse/goat shaped legs (I say "horse" because technically the hooves were not cloven) and big furry wig I get, but carrying a fur-encased wine bottle?
Surprisingly, that was about it for the truly remarkably odd costumes.
Then I had a rather unpleasant experience. I'm not sure but I think I had an encounter with some good 'ol boy, deep South racism. I wasn't 100% sure of it though, so let's run it past you guys... I walk into a shop where someone is demonstrating lampwork. I'm standing off to the side of his work space, not behind any guards, so not the safest place in the world to stand, but it's unlikely anything will go terribly wrong. Also, I'm not in an area that I obviously shouldn't be in. I'm standing in the middle of their store with wares displayed all around me, so it's not like I've climbed behind the counter or anything. He almost immediately stops working and puts down the piece he was working on. I don't think much of it until his shop-mate asks him why he stoped. "Waiting for Godzilla to move on" he answers. At this point I notice two Asian children on the other side of the plexiglass in front of him. I can't honestly recall if his use of "Godzilla" was singular or plural. I am not large, nor was I stomping around crushing buildings or wearing anything scaly or particularly lizardy, so I suspect he was referring to the children! However, he also wasn't exactly friendly to me. A few seconds after the torch was turned off and before the exchange with his shop-mate I leaned in and mumbled something like "I'd love to have a look at your torch set-up", which usually leads to conversation with other lampworkers, and he ignored me completely. I tried to test out whether the children or I was "Godzilla" by first moving to the outside of the shop, behind the protective plexiglass, and then moving out of sight. I don't think he fired up the torch again until both myself and the children had moved on, so I still wasn't 100% sure whether it was me or the children. I'm a bit embarrassed about not calling him out on it if it was a racist remark, but at the same time, I'm a bit dense and Pollyannaish in this sense, so I'm not even sure it was something derogatory, or rather I'm sure it was derogatory, but not sure if it was directed at people of Asian descent, or nosy chick here clomping around the shop. It might have been me being on the inside of the shop on the wrong side of the demonstration glass. The more I think about it, the more I'm leaning towards racism though. Verdict from y'all?
Jason had a very productive day today. While I was out at Roller Derby practice and picking up the beagles from the kennel we boarded them at overnight he bathed Georgia and chatted with his mom online. Later in the afternoon I did a load of dishes and a load of laundry and Jason rounded out the afternoon's tasks by bathing the beagles. Georgia was a pretty happy baby for most of the day, but she's been rather fussy ever since the sun went down.
Some pics from earlier today when she was happy:
Today is her 3-month birthday too. Time sure does fly.
Okay, enough photo-dumping and blogging. Jason just came down and announced that he's ready for bed, so it's my turn to answer Georgia's cries. Wish me luck.