Hello! I went to the Maryland Renaissance Festival yesterday, and I think I’m dyin.
Okay, not really. I did do much more than my accustomed amount of walking, though, and it was one of those days that seems to alternate between toasty and very chilly, which is pretty much guaranteed to give me a headache. By the time I got home, I felt like I’d been run over. (And I’ve been run over.)
My Handsome Assistant and I make a point to go to at least one Ren Faire a year. In my case, I think it’s genetic — my dad was very into that kind of thing, to the point where he actually made his own armor and chainmail. There’s a baby picture of me, bare-ass naked, with an adult-sized morion helmet on. He had a collection of swords. (I think it was one of the many bones of contention in my parent’s marriage, which is why I’m also glad that my Handsome Assistant and I can agree that swords are cool and a large knife collection is a good thing to have. But I digress.)
This year, we met up and hung out with our Druid group. Well… as much as its possible to “meet up” and “hang out” at any large event like this. Even times when I’ve gone there with groups of friends, everyone ends up splitting up and meeting periodically throughout the day. This was no exception. We met up to go to the Bee Folks, then got separated when my Handsome Assistant got sidetracked by a sculptor and I went to go find him. We met up again, later, when everyone else was watching a band play and he and I were looking for somewhere to sit down for a bit.
The two of us bought some artwork and some sculptures for the garden, pounds of specialty honey for mead brewing, more specialty honey because it’s delicious, and a large bag of honey candy for cold season. I found a shirt I liked, he found a pauldron he liked, and so we continued the tradition of adding one piece or so to each of our costumes every year. It was fun, the food was good (there were even options for herbivores like me), the music was good, and I had a good time, as always.
The following morning, though? Woof.
I have one working nostril, and my lungs appear to have accumulated several pounds of Substances throughout the evening. COVID tests were negative, so I’m pretty sure I’m just dealing with a regular vintage cold. A bit of stuffiness from the before times, if you will. It almost makes me miss being on massive doses of Diamox — it altered the pH of my blood to the point where I never got sick. This also meant that I had chloride acidosis pretty much constantly, but still.
It’s a good thing we got all of that honey.
Now, I’m settled in with warm blankets and a wonderful-yet-incredibly-impractical mug which I love. It’s massive and great for when I feel sick, but the handle is goofily small. It used to have a gold image of a crystal ball on the side that said, “Your Future is Bright!” but an accidental trip through the dishwasher has rubbed off the gold until all it says is “Ufb.” Which, to be fair, is usually exactly how I’m feeling when I most want to use this mug.
And so, for the time being, I am taking naps and doing my usual autumn cleaning. I also have a raised bed that I’d like to plant with cold-weather crops, but I haven’t decided what I want to plant yet. (After last year, I’m probably not doing kale again. There were so many seeds, and there’s volunteer kale everywhere now. I even saved half a jam jar of broccoli/kale/some kind of hybrid seeds for growing microgreens, so I am full up with brassicas.)
Here’s hoping everyone else is successful at staving off autumn and winter bugs.
Marble Crow 