So let us begin...January 2007.  The year began with a trip to the Washington mall For the SCA demo. Meeting up with Lady K, scarlett and Morwyn and many others we got our first taste of Faire season for 2007.

It was a nice time, just being in garb, even though it was quite snowy, and very cold even in Side the mall.

March/April 2007.  I join Renspace.  A new site to play and meet people.  I connect, and reconnect with so many people form my home faires of GLMF and Pittsburgh, as well as lond time...associates from the renaissancefestival.com.

A place to share pictures and e-mail back and forth.  Great idea and alot of fun...

May:  Scarlett, Morwyn, Syrac and I "crash" the SCA War Practice.  (see Blog) Not sure what we were expecting, but it was good fun,  being in Garb and tailgating....And establishng Scarlett and Morwynn as, Syrac and mine official counterparts.

June: Fairey Festival.  The official Kick off to the season.  WE met  so many people at this faire.  A small faire, yet a chance to resestablish old relationships and make new ones.  See all the familiar faces...a Pittsburgh reunion and a prelude to GLMF since do many people from there came to Fairey fest  From ohio to visit.(O'rourke, and Dave, Beer Blessings, and especially Mat and Tracy, and Barb)

July-August:  Great Lakes Medival Faire.  The Great, grand daddy of all Faires.  I missed one weekend.  The most amazing Faire, people and friends...The friendships I established I will treasure always....

August-Sept: Pittsburgh re-opens, after a year off Moreland shire opens her gates (new ones)once again.  Made more special by the constant influx of friends who visitied every week.

Sept:  We interupt Pittsburgh Faire to spend a Day at the Ohio Renaissance Faire.  A Renaissancefestival.com invasion.  Such a great time meeting people whom I have taked to online for years yet never met face to face....A very special Day for me personally as well.

September cont:  Pittsburgh ends, and the new festival has some bugs to work out.  The old magic and energy is somehow lost.  I do hope next year we are able to recoupe some of it. Still I am gratefull to have our faire back.

October:  Tradionally Syrac and I finish off our season with a Trip to PARF.  This year we broke tradtion and embarked on a new adventure to Maryland.  And what a way to finish the season.  An absolutly amazing and beautiful faire.  Such energy and  friends from pittburgh and Great Lakes and new friends met right there in MD presented an amzing time.  Truely the most amazing way to finish the Faire season.

So now it is over, and WE hunker down for a long winters nap.  I am thank ful that I have renaissancefestival.com and now renspace.com to keep me warm and cozy these winter months, as I live vicariously through  "family" from the southern faires.  

Next year I will be hopefully be adding Tennessee to our repetoire, and possibly Virginia as they are early faires and will help get me through the spring months.

Fair well all and A Blessed Holiday to one and all...

Opening weekend this year was just ...overwhelming.  It was amazing to be reunited with these people.  A True Family reunion.

 

  I could go on and on and on with people that I have met and have come to know throughthis faire.  GLMF is home.  I go to this faire and I am instantly comfortable.  I go to this faire by myself yet am never alone. 

Everyone was there this weekend. New friends and old friends alike.  It was like a class reunion...Only, unlike, High School everyone is briliant and warm and wonderful to be around. 

I overindulged.  Yet it wasn't just the ale..well some of it was...but it was just a Euphoria that took over when I was there.  One person commented that I just had this glazed look on my face all day.  Well that was pure joy at being back at Faire and reunited with my friends...my family.

The Fairy Festival last year was an emotional reunion for most of us.  It came mere weeks after the anouncement came down that Pittsburgh was closing.  So the Fairy Festival was a reunion after the long cold winter, of coming together as a group and mourning that loss.

This year, it was also a reuinion.  Seeing people that I have not seen all winter, or even since last year.  So again it holds special significance, and that is why I feel it is the kick off to the season.

I was pleased to see the Faire had grown over the last year.  More vendors, more characters and tons of people in some sort of Garb.  It was great fun to see everyone again, including  Scarlett, and Morwyn and the ever present Syrac.  It was good to see others had traveled from Ohio to spend time here as well.   And lots of new faces who will hopefully be joining our community of eccentrics.

My only regret is that I just went the one day.  I should have gone solo on Sunday...but alas mundania was calling with its obligations.  Oh well...bygones.  On ward and upward to GReat Lakes in a mere three weeks.

Widom is most often shown by what is not said then what is said...(Either Lang Tzu or Mark Twain)

Friends are Family...but with out the Guilt...Me

If who I am matters less, then maybe what I say will matter more...Scott McCloud

Habits are hells own substitute for good intentions.  Habits are the ruin of ambition, of intiative, of imagination.  They are the curse of marriage and the afterbane of Death....Lymond (Dorothy Dunnett.  The Lymond Chronicles Book 1: The Game of Kings.)

To be an Eagle you will Soar to high.  So be a pidgeon and shit on everything....Cardinal Wolsey from The Tudors

Irreverence is the champion of liberty it only true defense--  Mark Twain

It you hae always done it that way [then] it is probably wrong-- Charles Kettering

More to come...

A Definition of Romance: A prose narrative treating imaginary characters involved in events remote in time or space and usually heroic, adventurous or mysterious.

Historical Romance: A narrative that weaves the writers inventions, mingling historical and fictitous characters with actual and imagined happenings.