Well, everyone pretty much covered the happenings of the last weekend of faire and Danicia's wedding. I tried uploading some pics last night but my connection kept failing. Hopefully those will go up tonight. In the meantime, I'll amuse you will my bulletlist of memories:

Danicia's hair was FABOO-LUS! (But not in a Texas Pagent Hair kinda way) Remember kids, lightbulbs are FRAGILE! Listening to two medical professionals discuss strange OR and ER practices is not only educational but HOT! (Okay, so I was picturing them dressed in naughty nurse uniforms) Joining the clan is FUN! (Well, it is for me anyway.... *eg*) Yay! for cloak weather John and Shelley's little girls are just the cutest EVER! I may have started The Great Penguin Conspiracy but I wasn't the one that advertised it. :p WOARK! WOARK! WOARK! Russell is my hero! Mmmmm... chocolate MMMMMM... chocolate tights! Shrimp shooters! I kissed TWO Dani's this year! Wheeeeeeee! "Hi!!" "We. Thought. You. Was. A. Tooooaaad." That Keltik really knows how to work a room. "We ain't talkin' about one on one here. We's MASS communicatin'!"

I'm just glad I got through the whole season without being involved in dra-ma or pissing anyone off. I met some new people and hopefully some new friends. I re-established/clarified a friendship that I was questioning. I got to play with My Love and watch the joy in her face as she explored the freedom to play with others. All in all, it was very good year. Strange and surreal at times, but good.

*UPDATE: As promised, here's the pics.

And then there were SHOES! New shoes! Pretty Manly shoes.

On Sunday, Celly and I bailed on going to faire so we could visit my mother in the morning. After that we went out to lunch and then shoe shopping. I generally live in hiking boots. They're comfortable and I like the ankle support but for working out and walking I really wanted some all-purpose tennis shoes. I think the last time I bought tennis shoes was around 1990. So y'know... it was time.

I found some that fit well fairly quickly and since they were pretty cheap I decided to try on some dress shoes. I found a nice pair of burgundy lace-ups that were pretty comfortable. I took them on the requisite test walk and while a little stiff I thought they would work. I happen to like burgundy shoes but Celly seemed to think they wouldn't go well with my charcoal suit.

Then I found a black leather slipper that looked good and felt like... well, slippers. They were quite possibly the most comfortable shoes I've ever put on. I took them out on the floor for a quick test walk and they squeaked! Arrrgh! My newly found leather foot massagers were Squeakers.

Well, I fretted and hemmed and hawed and wrung my hands muchly over this wrench in my otherwise perfect monkey. For about an hour I went back and forth, sought advice from cellymcfae and paced the store's linoleum byways. That's right, an hour. I mean come on, nobody wants to be the SqueakyGuy (not that any guy wouldn't love to be Squeak's guy but you know what I mean) who announces his presence in the hallways with his metronomic chirping footwear.

Ultimate comfort finally won out over corporate embarrassment. I decided that the cushiony goodness was just too nice to pass up. So out I walked with new white tennies and squeaky black comfort shoes. Hopefully I can stick to the carpeted areas of the building.

in va sion:
      1. An annual gathering at a given Renaissance Faire of Otters (former and present readers of the newsgroup alt.fairs.renaissance) from around the country.
      2. A weekend of games, shows, food, flirting, and fun.
      3. Boobs!

This past weekend was the official "Invasion" weekend for MDRF. Generally the festivities start Friday night at Queen Maggie's Meet-n-Greet at the Hotel Otter. I've never been able to make it to one of those because I usually get off work too late in the evening to make it to MD in time. Unfortunately this year wasn't much different.

I didn't get off this year either but instead spent Friday night in Alexandria Hospital with my mother. She had knee-replacement surgery on Wednesday. She was still incoherant and in a lot of pain on Friday. My brother was with her most of the day and had a real struggle trying to get her to agree to be transferred to a rehab facility. She wanted to go home but insurance won't pay for a full-time nurse and neither of us can take off work for an extended period of time to care for her.

He finally got her to sign the paper though. Unfortunately for me, he was already commited to a wedding in Richmond on Saturday. Since my plans were a little more tenuous, I got the job of supervising the transfer. I got her over to the rehab center. She was still pretty cranky and in a lot of pain but she did manage to eat a bit and take her meds before I left at 3:00 PM. I decided it was too late in the day to garb-up so i just threw my bags in the car and headed for Faire.

I got there around 5:00 PM and headed for the Dragon Inn where I was supposed to meet Celly. I ran into John, Lisa and the kids on their way out and made plans with them for dinner. I found Celly at the Dragon but making plans to leave to take the loverly Rose to her hotel because she wasn't feeling well. Just before they were ready to leave the NC Wenches that she was staying with showed up and whisked her away. (She showed up the next day none the worse for wear)

Since I was only there for a couple hours I didn't do anything but go to Pubsing. As soon as that was over we headed back to the hotel so Celly could change clothes. We Wenchnapped Kerry and met up with Salim's Lot. Our original plan was to go to Outback but there was a 90 minute wait. We went by Applebee's but they looked too crowded too. Our next try was Casa d'Italia (where Celly and I (and Kerry) had our first dinner together and where we had our engagement dinner last year) and the wait was only about 10 minutes. We had an excellent dinner while Kerry and Samantha broke Lisa with their rendition of Calimari Theatre.

On Sunday, Kerry, Sharon, Celly and I arrived well before Gate and stood under the trees as Otters drifted in from the parking lot. I met Todd and Maddy from NY (I think) and the NC crew rolled in as well as lots of locals. Cronnacht arrived with his latest leather creation -- a dragon codpiece. Yeah, it really was as scary as you're imagining.

Cannon go boom and we're off for the Sunday morning Wenchslide! There weren't as many participants this year as in years past however I did manage to take a few pictures. Being the good Rogue that I am, I carried all the stray baskets and belts to the bottom of the slide. While taking pictures and waiting for everyone to finish their sliding, I met a yummilicious new NC Wench named Amanda who wanted one of my favors.

So I gave her one. hehehehe... I fairly certain she felt favored afterwards.

Everyone headed over to the Dragon Inn to hang out. I spotted a rose seller and gave him a couple of the hits I had prepared for some of the out-of-town visitors. They were delivered successfully much to their surprise. Hee-hee! I love being sneaky.

After a while everyone drifted away so Celly and I decided to head off in search of food. Then we headed to the Globe to catch The Bloody Drama. It was hilarious! After that we just sort of meandered about the faire until it was time for Teatro's The Italian Wedding. Celly had a Secret Otter delivery for Columbina so we stayed for her show (She kissed me! Heh-heh!) and Dinty the Moor's show.

Afterwards we wandered down to the Dragon Inn again to kill some time before Stupina's Genius At Work show at 4:00 PM. Celly and I got our Stupina t-shirts and then said our buh-byes to John, Lisa and spawn as they headed back north. We retrieved Kerry and met up with Lance and Evelyn at the White Hart for Pubsing. The energy was really "on" for Pubsing and we all mourned that fact that the weekend was over as we headed out to the parking lot. It was a much shorter Invasion that I would have liked and I didn't get to spend nearly enough time with the out-of-towners I'd I woud have liked. Hopefully I'll get to see everyone on closing weekend though.