#79 - Hither to the Renaissance!

I used to make a point of going to the Minnesota Renaissance Festival every year.  However, it's been harder to get there since I moved a five hour drive away.  I realized at the end of this summer that a huge (for me) gap of seven years had gone by since I last got my fix of Festival!

I was so impressed by this tortoise.  He was moving along at quite a pace every time I saw him.  Where was he so determined to go?

There have been a lot of changes since my last visit.  Some expected ... food prices have doubled. Some sad ... no combat chess this year.  Some unexpected ... many of the artisan booths that I remember being there for years have left.  Quite a few have been replaced by more food and wine booths.  I wish that they would have been able to get new artisans to replace ALL of the old ones.   The festival also offers many more activities for children than they did in the past; however, I didn't see a change in the proportion of children to adults in the crowd.  Kids could take short rides in the jousting ring between meets (the horses didn't seem thrilled by this change).  Basically, things are becoming less quirky and more commercial.

The joust master lets people greet his horse.

There were still many things I love there.  My favorite mind picture of the day (I couldn't get my camera out quickly enough) is of a little girl in a pink princess dress and sparkly sunglasses twirling around until she got dizzy in a small patch of grass. The artisans were friendly even though they had been out there for several weekends and had to be tired of it.  One of the glass workers even made a custom piece on the spot for my sister.  The Wacky Chickens can still amuse the crowd with whistles, clucks and no real words ... true showmanship to get the crowd involved with no speech cues.  And, my favorite magicians were still at the riddle booth challenging the wits of the crowd.  I have to apologize to Janet since I think we stayed there about three riddles past when she was ready to leave.

Glass worker at Raven's Glass makes a custom piece on the spot

And, there were a few new finds as well.  I hadn't been fairy dusted before: warning to those who may want to try this:  lots of glitter was involved!  We found a fabulous new product - bodice warmers/coolers!  And, I think that HoneyStix may be my new go-to, low calorie snack.

Overall, I had a good time and hope to do it again next year.

#62 - Having my palm read

It's always interesting to guess what the future holds.  Equally interesting is to gain some new insights into one's own personality.  This weekend, I decided to try something that might have both of these aspects - I had my palm read.

My sister, Janet, and I were at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival (more on that in the next post), and I asked her if she was interested in stopping at one of the astrology booths for fun.   She agreed, and we both had our palms read by the same woman.  The process was quite interesting ... both hands examined at once, only the palms (not the back or the fingers), and words washing over us at an incredible speed.  I will leave Janet's reading private to her and only comment on my own.

One of the spot on comments that she made was that, in the last 5-6 years, I have experienced a lot of turmoil in my job, and it has drained me emotionally to the point of threatening my health.  Sadly, this is true; I am working to keep a better balance between work and personal life because of it.  An off-base comment was that I had experienced a great loss or traumatic event when I was 11-12.  While I did have my share of ups and downs growing up, they were all what I would consider normal events.  Also something that didn't happen ... a romantic relationship in my mid20s that changed me.  My mid20s were devoted to finishing graduate school and starting my career; I didn't have much time or inclination for romance at that point.

The most interesting thing she said (multiple times) was that I have a very strong psychic sense and that I am probably using it in my daily life even if I'm not aware of that fact.  I'm not sure how I feel about this.  The only thing that I could think of in my job that might match is my skill at giving book recommendations to people.  However, I mentioned this to a friend today, and she said that she thought I was very intuitive and good at reading people.

So, an interlude that gave me something to think on ... even if I'm not sure how much I believe it ...