Waterloo Faire: II

[vakkotaur]

And then on Saturday, not necessarily in order:

Discovered I forgot my mug strap. Bought a new on later at J&L Trading a bit later. Not too bad, but still an annoyance. Fortunately that was the only thing I forgot and an easily (and cheaply!) replaced item.

This was the first year Waterloo charged admission for the faire. The results were, would have been comedic had it not been us involved. They have the booth or whatever, they have have the people to work it, but the tickets? "What tickets? I thought they were here?" "Who has the tickets?" "We'll get the tickets." "It's time to open, where are the tickets?" "We have a hand stamp." "Collect the money and stamp their hands." "We won't worry about the tickets just now." and like that.

Wandered about a bit, met a few folks here and there and gave away some jelly beans. Even dove for one later. *grin* Let's see.. eventually met up with all of the Washer Well Wenches (and John Paul, which was a bit of a surprise - even he didn't know if he'd be able to there), Danza Mystique, The Shattock Schoole of Defense - comedy swordplay, with emphasis on the comedy, as well as Minstrosity and a few others I don't mean to slight.

Listen to one of Minstrosity's sets, which was quite good. They had a couple new tunes (though they sounded old enough) which were quite popular. They kept getting asked which CD they were on ("The next one!") wendyzski had an interesting earring thing. Looked like a little metal man climbing her ear. Someone thought it looked like something else was going on.. oh my. Somewhere jmthane showed a rather.. different.. bauble. Comedic... and easily missed. But once you realize what it is, you wonder how anyone could miss it. (Actually Wendy & Josie both had such baubles.)

Watched Danza Mystique dance. And I burned through a roll or two of film.. so easy to do that. They didn't have Ra, a snake, there this time as Ra was shedding skin. But Shiva, another snake, was there and was fairly active. Active for a snake that eaten recently, anyway.

Watched Shattock's revised Don Antonio show, which I think worked well. I don't recall all that was changed, but there were detectable changes, and for the better. It was a good show, I think it's now a better one. Also bought their new fifth anniversary World Tour t-shirt. I may have been the first buyer. The front is good, but the back is hilarious. A list of tour stops with a few ringers - but the thing is, some of the real stops look like they ought to be ringers.

Sometime I'll have to sit down and watch a full performance of Renaissance Sword Theatre (I only really watched them under decidedly less than ideal conditions a couple years ago at Wybreg "Beer Garden" - rainy day, mud, damp when not raining, very cool temps, limited space, and so on). RST's stuff is almost all swordplay. Live steel, and not choreographed. Not really my thing. It's not that they aren't good - RST is damn good at what they do - just that it's not my first choice of entertainment.

Met up with Gizmoe (a clown) who wasn't too scary... but only because I knew him from on-line.

Also met a couple mounted police, or perhaps I should say I met the mounts. A nice paint(?) saddlebred named Twister and a beautiful big black percheron whose name I do not know. The percheron was one the breeder didn't want for himself for his draft work as he was too big! The breeder prefers somewhat smaller for his teams, evidently. The big guys were really calm which is ideal for a police mount that would have to deal with crowds. Here it was a friendly crowd of folks, with the officers handing out cards (think trading cards) to kids. It was interesting to watch Twister watch me as I approached. He seemed to keep both eyes on me. Maybe it was suspicious to him as I arced around so that I'd be approaching him from the side.

Somewhere I met up with William O'Wickam (storyteller) and his pet dragon. We were out in the 'street' and some little girl and her companion was there with a walkie-talkie. This lead to some nice play as William and I played ignorant of the modern device. To her credit, the girl also went along well trying to explain it and marvelling at our strangeness rather than just giving up on us. This bit of impromptu went on for a few minutes and it was surprising how well the three of us did, really.

Near the end of the day I, amongst other, got surveyed about the faire, and the larger event (My Waterloo Days) that it was part of. All was fairly well (we didn't go into a few things we could have...) but it was universally agreed that the faire needed better signage. Once there, all as fine - vendors hate being missed and acts tend to have their own signs for the same reason. But getting there? What signs?

At Last Huzzah Concentio Agnorum made a presentation to the Queen: a portrait of her. Before it was presented Billie checked, double checked, and triple checked it was right side up. So naturally it was presented upside-down. Not that much later the last song of the day, A Health To The Company was sung and Billie raised her mug... and it, too, was upside down.

After hours we were still on-site, as Jay was the wedding photographer and the rehearsal was going on. I chatted a bit with Lord & Lady Nitestar, not realizing who they were until I finally asked. Seems I still have that bit going where some know me or seem to and I have no idea who they are.

When the wedding rehearsal and discussion was over we headed over to "the island" were some folks were camped. Like last year, this was the place for the after hours potluck - though it was scheduled later to allow folks to get back to their hotels and change (shower, too, perhaps) before things got going. The pig roast was good. I don't care much for pork, but that was good. So were the bratwurst. And the usual picnic kinds of things, cookies, chips, pickles, and so on. The M&Ms went over well. And it was interesting to see the reactions. I got a great look from at least one person with "Gee, I hope a brought enough..." (in a Jack Benny sort of way of saying that).

Much eating ensued, and more conversation with various folks. We left as the mosquitoes started to get bad and some silly folks claimed it was getting cold. (Feh, 63 F isn't cold, merely a bit cool.) But I did get a small sample of a very good single malt scotch. I can see why some folks would say it smells like solvent, but I can also easily understand why it has fans.

It was very long day, but aside from my feet letting me know they didn't want to be stood on quite so much, it was fine with me. Jay's back was acting up and it was just as well I'd packed some naproxen. I'd not used any, expecting I might drink a bit (alcohol + naproxen = liver damage). Also I probably didn't drink enough (water, soda, whatever) through the day. I woke up at 3 AM and HAD to get something to drink, despite all the lemonade from the potluck.