You Know You Have it Bad...

...when you get an excited shiver down your spine just reading the rules for the use of punctuation marks.

Isn't language an amazing thing?

(And what does "you have it bad" mean--"you're badly off" or "you have a bad case of It"?)

Grape Tomatoes

Growing Up

Miss M is growing up. She's started saying the word "pancakes" correctly. But I'll miss her "pam-panks."

She still doesn't get everything right, though. She was going on and on about gophers: "I don't like gophers. Gophers are scary! Why are gophers scary, Mommy?"

We racked our brains trying to remember if she'd sen a movie, a cartoon, perhaps, where the villian is a gopher. Finally the mystery was solved when she brought us the Playmobil catalog her brother had been reading with her and showed us a picture of the scary "gopher." It was a Playmobil ghost! I guess ghost could sound like gopher . . .

She still gets black and white backwards. She calls black white, and white black.

Another sign that she's growing up - I've read her books, but never felt like she was following the story. She likes the pictures, though. Yesterday I read her a favorite, The Circus Baby by Maud and Miska Petersham, an old, out of print falling apart book. The story is simple, perfect for a three-year-old. A mother elephant decides that her baby elephant should learn to be refined and eat like real people, like the circus clowns. She she takes him into the clown's tent, sits him on a stool with a bowl of beans and a big spoon, and persuades him to try using the spoon. Of course, with no hands, the result is disastrous and the whole tent ends up coming down on them before it's all over.




When I read it yesterday, Miss M laughed at the funny parts (she's never done that before) and, after it was over, wanted a bowl and big serving spoon so she could pretend to be a baby elephant and knock the bowl off the table and knock the chair over. Daddy didn't think this was very funny, but it's showing me that she's finally ready to move beyond board books to real stories.

Her other favorite stories are Madeline and Corduroy.

What We're Listening To

About a year ago we discovered Vienna Teng. She's not a Christian, but her music is beautiful! She reminds me of Sara Groves, singer-songwriter. You can hear some samples on her website, but our favorite song, Lullaby for a Stormy Night, isn't on there. It's on YouTube, though. Somebody put personal photos of their friends to the music. Oddly enough, this song is on YouTube a lot with Japanese cartoon images (?)

The Renaissance Faire!

The trip began, as trips usually do, with planning sometime in advance. We found the North Carolina Renaissance Faire on the internet. We had to rent a 15-passenger van for the drive (an experience in itself), but it worked out well and we only got lost once. Not even lost, really, just turned around a bit...

The real adventure driving was the last, on the drive home over the mountains: snow!

We spent two weeks researching costumes, then made a few shopping trips. We spent less than four days on construction (including the wee hours of the morning and the minutes before leaving the hotel room the morning of the Faire :D); a few pieces were purchased (such as Miss M's shoes--Wal-Mart special!), much was modified or built upon thrift store finds, and the rest was made from scratch.

Working on costumes in the hotel room, the morning of the Faire.

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The Locksley Children
The older four, from left to right, are Master Thomas, Lady Miriam, Sir Owen, and Master Henry. The younger two remain Master C and Miss M.

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The Faire was great. There was the usual motley assortment of people from mundane tourists in jeans to fairies and pirates to the serious period reenactors (quite a few of these, to our delight). The Queen's Grace was there herself with her guards and court, and we think we spotted Sir Walter Raleigh (though I may have missed him, as I was making obeisance at the time). We spotted one varlet in a T-shirt being hauled away by the guards for trying to sit in the Queen's chair.

Elizabeth, by the grace of God, Queen of England, France and Ireland.

Her Majesty's court. We believe the chap with the Order of the Garter is Sir Walter Raleigh.

There were displays of horsemanship (and horsewomanship...) and jousting, which was great although not quite up to Ashby-de-la-Zouch standards. They played dramatic music on loudspeakers at either ends of the lists, which was unfortunate, but luckily didn't much affect the fun of the joust. There were also rings set up in several places where they had fencing and broadsword fighting, SCA style, and some demonstrations with metal weapons.

The German champion preparing to tilt.

The German champion being unhorsed by the Italian.

There were dancers, singers, and minstrels all about the grounds. Inside the main building they had set up a stage for dancing, and the performances ranged from belly dancers to the Highland Fling. We heard a group of madrigal singers practicing (though we didn't stop--too many empty tankards about for the offspring of Sir Reginald Locksley to countenance :D ).

The madrigal singers.

There was an excellent gallery inside an old church on the fairgrounds, where they had reproduction period manuscripts, a collection of books on the period, and various other things such as a miniature demonstration of a printing press and life-sized cardboard silhouettes to show the average height of Elizabethan adults (surprisingly short--the man was perhaps 5' 6" and the woman about 5'). Oh, and an autographed photo of Queen Elizabeth, a.k.a. Cate Blanchett :P. At one end of the church there was a woodwind trio playing beautiful period music.

An illuminated letter on display in the gallery.

There was a group of acrobats, called Barely Balanced, that performed twice while we were there. They were a lot of fun to watch--a bit nerve-wracking, too, sometimes, juggling knives and whatnot. At the very end one of them did some firebreathing, and that was really neat (we got no pictures of that, but they have some at their site).

Barely Balanced.

The place was thick with vendors, of course, and there was plenty to look at. We bought some traditional Welsh cookies at the inFAMOUS Welsh Cookie Co., which proved quite good--little cakes with currants and nutmeg, baked on a griddle. Otherwise the food was disappointingly modern. Master Henry spent a good deal of time lifting, examining, and generally drooling over the swords at the weapon shop. I, Master Henry, and Lady Miriam got to hold a replica of Anduril, which was (dare I say it?) too cool for words. There were trinket shops and instrument shops, costume shops and hat shops, and a chainmail shop where they were giving lessons in the craft.

The gentry patronizing the Welsh Cookie Company.

We kept having people invite us to the costume contest. When we got there it was not what we had expected--only a few entrants (the well-dressed patrons of the Faire were excluded), and the judging perhaps a bit biased in favor of the cute little fairies. But Master Henry's costume won the Peasant category and he got a T-shirt and bag with the Faire logo.

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There seems to be much to learn about period manners and customs. There is a particular way that the men make obeisance to the Queen--one foot behind the other, with the body bowed forward. It looked like there was a certain way to hold a napkin (though I didn't inquire) and one old gentleman stopped us to show us the proper way of escorting a lady. (The lord raises his right arm level with the ground and the lady places hers on top of it. If, however, during the course of the day, she has reason to be displeased with him, she may mark it by lifting her hand from his and leaving a space betwixt for the hand of any wanderer that may pass by.)

Our reading had of course given us some acquaintance with Shakespearean English, but we found that reading or even reciting it is a very different matter from speaking it fluently. "O, for a muse of fire" doesn't help much when trying to ask your way about, and "Double, double, toil and trouble" doesn't make for good smalltalk. It would take quite a bit of research and practice to learn all the terms of address for different classes and when to use them. Another time, perhaps.

Enjoying ourselves at a show.

We learned a lot about period dress during our research, but we still have a long way to go for authenticity. More slashes, more ornament, some ruffs, fewer trips to Wal-Mart, etc. If we could do it again we would also make some changes for our own comfort, such as tights that don't slip and corsets that don't bunch, but taken altogether the day was a blast and we'd love to do it again sometime. Forsooth, yes!

The end of a long day.

Mom's Perspective of the Faire

As Tim said, we had a great time at the Renaissance Faire. I should mention - the only costumes I worked on were mine and Miss M's - simple skirts and her apron. The boys did their own costumes. Miss M looked adorable on her way to the Faire, like a child straight from a Breugel painting:





But when she came out of her carseat, she was soaking wet! She had spilled her entire cup of juice all over herself. It was cold and windy, a miserable day to be wet. Luckily, C's mom had brought along a pair of Levi's and a shirt in case he needed a change of clothes, so Miss M wore that and I put the apron (which was still mostly dry) over that. It made an interesting fashion statement. Later in the day, the skirt dried, so I slipped it on over the Levi's.





My only complaint about the Faire was the food. At a Renaissance Faire, I would expect meat pasties, pottage, ale. But what they had was cotton candy, funnel cakes, burgers and fries! (?) Very disappointing.

Toddler Talk

Conversation overheard between Miss M and best friend C, both three years old:

C: Mrs.-- was in the hospital. She was oldandsick.

M: What?

C: She was oldandsick.

M: What?

Mommy: (intervening) She was old, and she was sick.

M: Oh. When I was old, I was sick. I coughed and I had to watch Dumbo.

C: (coughs for effect)

M: Are you sick?

C: Yes, I'm allergic to fish. (coughs again) I was watching fish today.

M: (laughs)

C: Don't laugh! It's NOT funny!

Guess Where We Went!

Don Ho Has Died

I saw this at Palm Tree Pundit.

My mother saw him live a few years ago and was impressed. He sang for tourists, but she sensed a love and respect for his real Hawaiian roots.

Diet Update

About a week ago I posted that I was going to try the PH Miracle. It seems to be helping, so I decided to commit to doing that, starting with their juice fast this morning. I'll do this fast for two more days and then move into their rigid plan for 8 weeks, and then to maintenance.

I'm very, very hungry, but otherwise I feel fine. It's funny how it seems like I usually feel worse after I eat something. But since I'm not eating anything today, I have more energy than usual (except for being hungry and a tad weak from that!)