August 9, 2008 - Ah!

Ah!  As in the relaxed "ah!".  I had just taken some brownies out of the oven (for after church tomorrow morning) and set them down on the stove.  I could smell the sweet chocolate as I cut the brownies into little squares.  I looked down at the knife I was cutting them with and there was some brownie still clinging to its edges.  It looked so good...

Ah!  As in the painful "ah!".  I was careless enough to burn my tongue!  Ow ow ow...

(Two minutes later...)  Ah!  As in the panicky "ah!".  I had plopped myself down on the computer seat and the horrible thought plopped into my head: exactly when was the last time I had updated my blog?!  I am such an unfaithful blog writer!  Perhaps some people are meant to be artists rather than writers.  I'm beginning to think it's impossible to do both, even if I'm just writing blog entries.  Sigh!

So here I am, writing down my thoughts.  But I've only written about the most unimportant things imaginable, compared to all the great and exciting things I did today.  Today at the...Renaissance Faire! 

I was so excited when I heard we were going there to celebrate Tinuviel's birthday.  (It was a month-late celebration, because her sixteenth birthday was in July while we were at camp, but - AH! - that's another story!!!  Must stay on track...)

Most of my family went.  Everyone but my mom and younger brother, DXD.  He didn't want to go, and my mom had errands to run.  So, off my dad went with the rest of the kids!  You wouldn't believe the size of the Renaissance Fair.  It was huge!  Not like what my dad imagined it would be like, the size of a football field.  What we all loved was that all the rides there were either powered by people's muscles or by gravity.  The only electric things you'd find there would be cameras and cell phones brought by the visitors.  It was so charming...everyone was just walking around, many of them in medieval outfits, just having a good time.  My camera stopped working at the very start of our adventure, so I brought out my handy-dandy sketchbook and pen.  (Haaalelujah!)  Mister Cool got to go on the first ride.  Come to think of it,  Tinuviel and I never went on any rides (mainly because we had a skirts and you had to have your legs apart for most of them).  But we still had great fun!  I kept repeating to people how I wished I could live there, or at least work there.  :) 

One of the performers there was quite excellent.  He had several whips, and kept snapping them through the air and doing several tricks with them (some of which included snapping pretzel sticks in two while they were still in the air, cracking the whip to create the a tune to the songs people requested, and flinging it around volunteers without them feeling a thing).  I loved the last part, where he dipped the whip in oil or something like that and flung it around as it was on fire!  It was so awesome.  I made sure to do a sketch of that!

Again, I must mention how peaceful everything was!  There were performers everywhere, and people just sat down in the grass to see them.  One elderly man was just sitting next to the dirt road and playing a nice tune on the flute he carried.  There were renaissance books, music, clothing, and weaponry shops, all of which we found amazingly good.  Even the food like the "cornish dogs" my family ate for supper weren't anything like what you'd find in the frozen foods section of a grocery store.  There was a large sort of pastry wrapped around the beef, and poppy seeds sprinkled on it.  For dessert we went to a nice candy shop and bought chocolate-covered pretzel sticks (like the ones I like to make at home), and I got to taste sassafras for the first time also.  :)

The only things I didn't like were that some of the things were crewd (like the Mud Show) and several people were wearing immodest outfits, or outfits that were just plain ridiculous.  But it was so much better there than even what you see on TV nowadays (even on the Disney Channel, which is supposed to be child and teen directed).

Lord willing, we are going back to the fair next year, and will get to bring along Daydreamer, Tinuviel, and Maddie if everything works out.  We'll also have bought costumes by then, so there's a lot to look forward to.  I'm very glad we went - I had a wonderful time.  Ah!  :)

-Enilarwyn

(PS - There were elephant rides!  :D)