A Universal Faire Time!

Hey Ho~
I have a bit of a breather in the action down here and so I thought I'd blog while the blogging is good and catch you all up to date.

Fort Myers Medieval Faire was this last weekend and we have 4 shows a day (3 of which are at the pub :) with the days being 9am-6:30pm.

Had a nice surprise of seeing the lovely Barby Holder here! We miss you Barby!!!

Some mischief with my buddy Jay admiring my "top shelf" bodice and capturing in on his camera for posterity's sake  :)

And here is that pic he took :)

It's really lovely here for faire....

But what's the bright thing in the sky????
Oh yah...SUNSHINE. :)

  Harry and Jay Michaels got up at 5am and went to the faire site to do some music for a couple of the TV stations for publicity interviews. Abby & I got there at a more reasonable hour and helped a bit for the last 9am slot. Channel 4 & 10 down here I think on "WINK" station.

Some faire friends and pics for you to enjoy....

Our favorite lovely "horny" pub wench :) 

 Our guitars are having fun....

 Dre and Max!

 Harry and I played with Heather of the Harpies...

 Such a lovely rendition of Nonesuch and Greensleeves we played!

Our best buds, Jay & Abby of The Harper & The Minstrel sounded wondrous as usual...

The faire was great fun, and the weather was perfect for faire on Saturday with a beauteous 75 degree day. Sunday was warmer, 83 or so, with an afternoon shower which caused some "premature evacuation" of some of the mundanes, but otherwise a wondrous day!  It is so much fun to work it (even with drunk patrons occasionally "loving Merlyn too much", climbing up on stage uninvited and singing loud off key in her ear on stage :) But he was just loving Merry Mischief, so how can we blame him??

 Wailing Wench and Rogue!

Great hanging out with our friends Dre & Max here in Cape Coral with friends The Harper & The Minstrel and singing with them several times on both of our stages!

Monday saw us bugging out around 7am with Donna Davenport and heading to Orlando for our planned adventure of going back to Universal.

 First up, found Harry hanging 10....

 I ran into my long time teenage crush of Shaggy and his Mystery Van.... along with his buddy, Scooby Doo!
I told Shaggy, "Dude! I've had such a crush on you for SOOO long!"
He looked at Scooby and said,
"I saw her first, man!" which made my day!!

 And Harry of course, LOVED Shaggy's Chevy Van...the Mystery Machine!

 Donna got a squeeze too!

Then we yelled hello to Elwood and Jake as they cruised by....
 

Then onward we went straight way (after a pint at an Irish Pub),
(which reminded us of a certain song.... :)

after avoiding a stray Transformer or two...

and we zombie shuffled into a fun Beetlejuice "Monsters of Rock" show

And I also caught a fish my dad would've been proud of :)

and saving Donna from almost certain death!

 Then we caught the Knight Bus and went to Diagon Alley!

 It was so much fun! I bought a Severus Snape interactive wand and we had fun playing with the intermittent places to do "magic" (turning on lights, unlocking doors, making an umbrella "rain").

Saw the Guardian Dragon on top of Gringots breathe fire!

Went on the Gringots ride and was appropriately scared and amused. (I'm not a big roller coaster ride fanatic, but I did have fun in between times when my eyes were shut and I was hanging on for dear life!)

Got some lunch in Diagon Alley....

Hagrid let me take his bike for a spin....Harry was a little concerned about my driving, but I had fun!

Shopped in the bookstores...

I VERY much enjoyed Diagon Alley and all the shops! It started raining so we had a HOT Butter Beer. Mmmmm! (will be making them with a kick soon :) and then we went to the train station and boarded at 9 & 3/4 and rode it over to Hogsmeade and had a Feast which made the rain go away (at least while we were eating!)

 Got back to Donna's in Gulfport and got warm and into dry clothes and started our new addiction of watching the "Outlander" series with her. Slept well...finally...(it's been hard for me on the road, as usual, to sleep well)

Yesterday, it was another day of travel and performance and we played at The Celtic Ray Public House in Punta Gorda for 3 hours. The folks were grand, the food awesome and we had a blast playing from 6-9pm in the evening.

 Today finds me a bit exhausted, so I am having a bit of a slug day, lounging and watching another Outlander episode or 3...gearing up to play tonight at the Fort Myers Unitarian Universalist Church here at 7pm.

I hope you liked the pics! We are having a fun and busy time of it. On this Thursday we will have our first "day off" since Jan. 5th when we left home, without having to travel, work, or adventure.
Looking forward to every minute of this trip and it's been so fun!

One more weekend of faire coming up and more adventures soon!

Stay warm up home and give my Monty Joe Doggy a scratch for me!

Chilly Billy Travels

“How do you spell ‘harrowing’?” asked Harry, as he was texting his brother.

“H-a-r-r-o-w-i-n-g” I regurgitated. 

We left early on Tuesday morning and it was 11 degrees. Brrrrr!

Too cold to snow…the snow, was crunchy and the roads? Well, they were covered with black ice. Sweet. Over the many years that we’ve been driving to Florida to do the Fort Myers Kiwanis Medieval Faire, we’ve seen our share of shite weather.

Merlyn posted Angels on every side of the car and also at the doors to her home and we set off. Thank God that we know how to drive in the snow and ice, and thank God that our faithful old Suburu has “goat feet” and all wheel drive. We saw SO many accidents along the way to the Washington D.C. area.  Even police cars and tractor trailers off the road. We were very lucky. But yes, a white knuckle drive for Harry the whole way. 

We arrived safe and sound at friend Kathleen’s and after hugs and kisses she brought out bottles of Scotch for a welcome “tasting.” We also slipped and slided our way down an icy hill as we took a winter walk to a wonderful Chinese restaurant for a fabulous dinner for a lot of tea, dumplings and hot and sour soup. Harry and I happily practiced for a couple of hours in Kathleen’s living room and we all sang and had fun. That night, we got some good sleep on an awesome BeautyRest bed and set off again in the morning. 

We continued on south and I tell you, it seems that our home winter weather was following us as it was NOT balmy. We got into Georgia and stopped for the night and it was a whopping 45 degrees here!
 Got checked into our modest Motel 6 room (they left the light on for us :)  It was clean and cheap we were grateful to get off the road for awhile. We then went out to get some dinner at a “Southern Buffet” down the road.  

Traveling Tip: When a waitress with a deep Southern drawl asks you if you would like cornbread, TAKE IT. Mmmmmm.   

It's a different world in the south you know. 

This was the bizarre billboard in the parking lot outside the restaurant there.   

Christ, you just don’t see that everyday. 

LOL.

Leaving the restaurant, the roads were dark and not well lit nor marked. It seemed to be a divided highway but without an apparent concrete meridian. We waited for traffic and crossed over in a safe manner…well, that was what we thought we were doing.….but as we were headed back to the motel, we suddenly realized with horror that we were now  traveling down the one-way road -ON THE WRONG SIDE FACING ONCOMING TRAFFIC!!! 

EEGAD!!! Swiftly using some race car driving techniques, Harry did an instant U-turn hairpin turn and we finally found a way off the fecked up engineered road and got safely back to our abode for the night.

Well, thank you Jesus! (and all the other Gods and Angels that Merlyn invoked) 

for all the safe travels and BONUS good cornbread.)

We have made it safe and sound to our friend, Ravyn's house in Gulfport in Florida. We look forward to a visit with her this night and some down time tonight. 

Off to Fort Myers tomorrow to meet up with our favorite minstrel buds, Jay & Abby (The Harper & The Minstrel) and to see our buds Dre and Max in Cape Coral!

And guess what? They have Sunshine here! 

 

A Real American PRINCESS, Pocahantas!

At this lovely time of Thanksgiving, here at our StoryBook Club, we thought we'd celebrate it by studying the historical tale of "Pocahontas" for the season.

You know, what with all the Pilgrims & American Indians and all.

Oh come on. It's OK to say "American Indian." It really is, because, actually there was a poll done of the native population of peoples in New York State, and the highest percentage of indigenous natives said they preferred "American Indian" to "Native American." (so there).

Anyways, the legend of the 1st Thanksgiving isn't what we've been told. Disney didn't get it right either. But at least the story got out somehow. It's one of the biggest PR blockbusters to raise funding for the Brits to fund the colonists that ever was. So what if it got skewed with the lack of pesky facts.

Like first off....Pocahontas wasn't her real name. It was a nickname meaning "unruly child" or "spoiled brat." Pocahontas WAS an Indian Princess. She was the daughter of Chief Powhatan in what is now Virginia. She had an idyllic childhood and when she was ELEVEN, ships came and she met John Smith.

And hey....John Smith was an older man.
Pocahontas was 11, yet SHE ended up saving HIS life. Pocahontas stepped in and risked her own life to save that man.

And John Smith probably wasn't all that nice. Oh sure, he was an organized man, and helped get the Jamestown crew to work and was a pretty good leader...but he probably didn't tell Pocahontas everything.

Pocahontas was also lied to, kidnapped, bartered for, most likely raped and used by her captors, and then when her father wouldn't trade arms for hostages...she was deprived of her culture by her captors and taken to another country to be paraded around like a freak show exhibit at Ringling Brothers.

"Step right up. SEE the INDIAN PRINCESS...A Savage turned Civilized...."

Some people don't know royalty when it bites them in the ass.

She was a true, kind and smart Peace Maker.

If it weren't for Pocahontas, the white settlers would've starved for those first few "Thanksgivings." If they had starved and died...maybe Virginia wouldn't have been a happening thing. Maybe England wouldn't have sent more and more people over here to colonize.

Maybe there wouldn't even BE an AMERICA without Pocahontas!

Yet, she was stripped of her culture, not given any more prestige than an oddity and for years she didn't even have a marker at her burial site in ENGLAND. That's right. One of the greatest women in our history, who fought to make peace in her own land, wasn't even buried here.

And guess what? She only lived to be 21 years old before her life ended (most likely with pneumonia) as she was basically "suffocated" by the English culture and their ways.

No more the free spirited cart wheeling girl of the forest. She died in England, far from her home, dressed in corsets and bonnets and with a "Christian" name of Rebecca Rolfe. Her husband married her for her lands and after he dropped her off in Gravesend, England (a most ominous location for a death, eh?) where this statue stands today.

John Rolfe high tailed it back to the place where he met Pocahontas, to claim her lands by rights as her husband and promptly planted tobacco all over it.

But I thank her for her bravery, her belief that people could be good (even if those she fought for, sold her out...) there are millions of descendants here (including 2 First Ladys) who are related by blood to her.

Pocahontas was a strong willed, brave, Peace Maker and she tried to help two clashing communities come together to live and thrive.

Her story makes me want to learn more about our Native cultures here.

These are a brave race that the white man sold out, used, abused and terrorized and tried to obliterate by decimating their culture and family lives and environments. It only makes me feel more hungry to learn about them, to honor them, to grow in love towards them and our Mother Earth whom they have tried to care for, while greedy men leave oily tracks and wipe out forests.

We have to wake up and learn to be more caring for the Earth and for each other.

Pocahontas LIVES in every man, woman and child who cares about such things.


We honored her last night with learning as much as we could about her stories. Stories fraught with lies, twists, propaganda and spin. But knowing that she was just a girl....who did such amazing things...it gives me hope.

Disney didn't need to concoct a love story between Pocahontas and John Smith. The story didn't need sex to sell it.

It only needed TRUTH to be shown for our own daughters and sons to admire COURAGE.

We ate and drank at our friend Kate's house on this OUR Thanksgiving for StoryBook. We here, are our Chosen Family of members and we dined on delicious American Indian recipes and gifts of the autumn in Kate's new home.

We are grateful. We are so very grateful.

And we thank Pocahontas for reminding us to try to just get along and share what we have too!

Happy Thanksgiving from us here at StoryBook Club!


Next month, is the busy month of Hanukkah and Christmas...so we will be having an outing and going to see the new released December movie:

Blessings to you all.

Aho. (Which is a Native American saying that is similar to "amen".)