ROADTRIIIPPPP

[sanura]

I've been back since about 11:45 Monday night, but it feels like longer. I drove up to Grand Prairie on Friday night at about 9, made it in at 1 with no mishaps, and Seth came out and let me in. We ended up talking till about 3, which made getting up the next morning a slight chore, but Seth made breakfast, which, yeah. I don't usually go for food enthusiastically in the morning, but he's a professional, and asparagus tips with diced tomatoes and homemade sausage and a soft egg on top was enough to have me licking the bowl. Jill helped me fix my Rohirric shirt, which had come undone at its side seams (I knew I should have double-rolled them), and spoke at length about how crazy the political situation is these days. Which, I don't disagree, but it seems both useless and unpleasant to spend all your time thinking and complaining about it. Her job as a massage therapist has suffered immensely under the weight of the recession, and Seth and Harmony moved back to her house because they were struggling too (with Seth's new focus on school for psychiatry/counseling, he's working nights as a bartender at the Hyatt where Harmony works), so, of course it would be foremost in Jill's mind, but somehow every conversation turned back to how crazy the country is. Especially the multitude of steps backwards away from women's rights the government's been taking. Which, sure, it's true. But unpleasant.

It was fun to hang with Seth, though, and show him music. He approved of Genocide, played it on the big speakers, and showed me how to equalize it so that the vocals don't get covered but neither does anything else. I spent the morning with him, and then found my way to Jenny's house, where I helped her get groceries (and chocolate milk), ate lovely pork chops and arugula salad, and talked late into the night, catching up on life and the universe. I played her a lot of music, too, things from NEC, Reggie, even Joodles things she hadn't heard. That reminds me, I need to send her things.

Sunday was much the same, morning with Seth, evening with Jenny, except that Seth took us to Bolsa, a fantastic restaurant he approved, and Jenny and I played games as well as music and chatting. She showed me Diablo 3, which is gorgeous, and I showed her I had Heroes 3, which instigated a spate of lovely nostalgia; we actually finished a multiplayer campaign (and half a gallon of sea-salt caramel pretzel ice cream), it was amazing. She got Heroes 5 so we could try it out, and it was very pretty, but the interface was so different (and un-intuitive) that we sucked and were having no fun, so we went back to Heroes 3 and knocked ourselves out till about 1 in the morning, when I reluctantly headed back to Seth's to sleep. I didn't see him in the morning before I left, but I told Jill to tell him and Harmony bye for me.

I made it out of Grand Prairie with a plan to get cheap Kroger gas on the way (and it worked beautifully, thanks to Jill's knowledge of the area), and made it to Waxahachie and Scarborough Faire by 11. I chugged some yoghurt I'd picked up at Kroger, put all relevant things in my pockets, and headed to the gate.

It's been awhile since I was so overwhelmed by a Faire experience. I think it helps that I was alone; I could wander as I pleased, and stop for as many demonstrations as I wanted. I hit the tiny-bottle-on-a-string perfume shop first, as it was close to the gate, and acquired two adorable bottles, a blue one with gold spots and magnolia oil and a purple one with jasmine oil. YES tiny bottles. I heard a mention of the direction of the bird show, and wandered that way just in time for a cannon demonstration just prior. The falconer was astonishingly preachy (I *know* hunting isn't wrong, and I wasn't convinced by his argument), but the birds were beautiful, and the cheesy-but-appropriate wonder-of-nature music complemented the experience neatly. They had three owls: a great horned owl, a barred owl, and a tiny screech owl who took care to demonstrate his ability to turn his head very far around very quickly. They had a juvenile bald eagle (still with a wingspan bigger than mine), a vulture (such graceful gliding!), a red-tailed hawk, and a very fast falcon (I didn't catch whether it was a peregrine). They had one hawk they were still training, and demonstrated the training. It was fascinating.

From the bird show, I ran straight into a pirate ship stage with my old rock stars Tartanic flailing skilfully around on their pipes and drums. I do love their energy, especially their frontman Adrian, whose accent is probably real as far as my somewhat experienced ears can tell. They're fulfilling in the same way I've written of the Balkan Brass in that their sound and rhythm and sheer awesomeness are physically overwhelming and you can bathe in it like sunlight. Which was also present in abundance. Also, this happens fairly often (that song's one of my favorites, and the kid reminds me of myself at Limpopo shows back in the day). I love their show, and I bought an album and went to see them twice more at Scarborough, since of course they plug their other showtimes.

I also encountered an act I think has been recommended to me and I've never managed to catch at TRF: Adam Crack, the Fire Whip Show. Very much worth seeing, and worth the tip I gave him. Not only were his harmonica and bullwhip skillz mad, his patter was hilarious without being self-conscious or self-aggrandizing. His gimmick, if one can call it that, was to do something absurdly impressive and acknowledge the response of the audience by saying "I know!" in a pleased manner, like he was just as amazed as we were that he could do it. Watch this. It's from a couple years ago at TRF, not the same show as I saw, but he's just as impressive.

The turtle races went about as fast as they sound, but there were some cute reptiles. I picked up some beautiful purple ceramic cups from a potter, one normal-mug-sized, one giant. I wandered aimlessly, having to stop a couple times for the heat, and on a little creek bridge shaded by a verdant grove, a very good fiddler was playing jigs and ballads, just sitting on the ground of the bridge with his hat in front of him. I stood there for a good 20 minutes, listening, and occasionally chatting with him when he took a breather, and despite my inexperience and utter lack of skill, I'm moderately certain I may have been flirting with him. I like to think the $10 I put in the hat was for his playing, though. He mentioned where his band's next gig would be, and I managed to time my wandering properly so that my presence at the Maypole coincided with the last 20 minutes of their playing. He was definitely the best player in the band, and their main singer sang louder than he could hear, I suspect, but I got an album anyway, to check it out.

I stopped by the Legendary Candle Company on my way back toward the pirate ship stage for my second Tartanic show, because I'd burned most of my magnolia candle I'd got from them at TRF, and was in need of another one. They obliged quite pleasantly and gave me good directions, and that was the extent of my loot. I managed to keep from spending the last $40 in my wallet, as I'd already gotten a cold Snapple to counteract the impending heatstroke and a piece of chicken on a stick to counteract the fatigue. I made my way back over there, past the Wine and Alchemy stage where they were playing Kashmir on sitar, violins and ethnic percussion, but that didn't stop me, much as I did like it. I made it in time, and Tartanic's second show was stolen by a couple of little girls who had beginning training in Irish dancing, which they did on stage when invited up by Tartanic's dancing girls (I know that sounds derogatory, but they actually own the band, so they can be dancing girls if they want). Adrian made an impassioned (but still hilarious) speech about the future of these traditions being carried on, and the little girls danced a bit more, and the show was over too soon. They didn't play any AC/DC this time, the girls took too much time, but it was still overwhelmingly fun. It's the sort of show that reminds me why I'm a performer.

I saw the Adam Crack show a second time, because, man, it was really good. It was the last show of the season, so he pulled out his biggest trick (it wasn't that dark, but I picked that video because I bet that's Tartanic you hear way in the background), TWO firewhips! Yes.

And then back up the road to the Dirty Duck Pub for the Pub Sing, which started and middled with Tartanic. I stayed till the end, and I'm glad I sat through the slightly less compelling performers, because there was a guy (who apparently is just at the festival to sell soap or candles or something) who told the story of Little Red Riding Hood entirely in spoonerisms, with giant digressions into spoonerized Shakespeare (which he pointed me out for laughing at first, and decided I was an English major) and just general hilarious stories about the kind of people he's seen at Faire shows (eleven Doctors Who in the front row, exclaiming to anyone and everyone that "We're in chronological order!", a pack of Stormtroopers all forbidding and evil except the one in a kilt, an entire crowd of Klingons). The end of the show marked the end of a piece of magic, as it was the very last day of the very last weekend, but it was rekindled outside the gates. Guess who had left the pub sing early to play outside?

Tartanic, of course. There was a giant ring of departing fairegoers I couldn't even get to the third row of, and a proper radius of 20 feet in front of the band where a myriad of different people danced or jumped or just pumped their fists. Yeah, it was a good day. It was 7:30 by the end of their last "just one more", and I stopped by one piper to tell him how they'd made the faire twice as good, and I'd heard at the pub he'd just moved to Houston? (I'd heard this as some drunk girl was trying to chat him up, so I made an effort not to be creepy). He explained he doesn't play the Duck much, as pipes are too loud, but his girlfriend plays there all the time, and he plays with the St John Alumni band. So I'll keep an ear out for them. Maybe he's the piper who practices in our neighborhood. I love that that happens.

The drive back required only one pull-over to check directions, and I wasn't even going the wrong way! I got a Frosty and a bacon cheeseburger and a coffee for the road, and sucked that coffee down despite its lack of milk or sugar, because I knew the day was going to catch up with me. I sang to the radio until the Dallas station disappeared, I sang the entirety of Carmina (instrumental parts, too, and pretty close to pitch, as I'd done on the way up, though this time I took several things the octave down) to pass time, I called Brent, and once I got to Huntsville the Houston station was audible. It was slightly before midnight when I got to the driveway, though it took me several minutes to gather my trash and my stuff and be thankful I hadn't crashed the borrowed fancy car or had it stolen or anything. What a weekend.