FAE's outfit, which they had ready before getting in the car, was amazing. Green and elaborate, looking aristocratic and well-tended. The outfit included a pair of wire-frame wings that couldn't be worn in the car; when we arrived ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunnyhugger helped by fitting it into the corset, and the wings needed re-setting a couple of times.
Many people had wings. Many sizes, too, from modest ones you could almost wear on the bus, at least (somewhere you could lean forward) up to ones big enough to be a bonking hazard. Butterfly wings, moth wings, bat wings, elaborately painted, near-translucent. Someone had wings that had the look of sheets of ice and I assume that's just layers of good near-clear plastic. It's well-done anyway.
I had thought the location was a public park. I was wrong; it was in the woods, yes, but those belonging to a specific person. THe last quarter-mile or so was a long wending path through homes much pricier than ones I'll ever afford or even be allowed in. Event staff waved us along, past roads lined with cars, until we got to the very end, a small loop around a tree with a long driveway just behind it, us directed to park on the narrow yet inclined spit of grass separating driveway and circle. The circle, I should mention, was partly filled with event signage being prepared, maybe even still being painted. I waited for the car before me to finish parking, a delay that got the following car to honk at me. I held my ground, though, and turned carefully around so I could park the car nose-downward and, I hoped, not too close to the already-parked car. The impatient next car just pulled up next to us, not bothering to park anywhere close and so taking up space that probably could have allowed for one more car on this grassy peninsula.
The space was a bit mysterious. Beside the house that was clearly the organizing point for the event, and for the wedding party, was an open space atop a hill, with a maybe twenty-foot-tall wood tower of obscure purpose. It seemed pretty permanent for an event meant to last five hours. Everything else was down the long, windy hill, including a couple of port-a-potties decorated with pink and black coverings. Inside both were fantasy pictures, warrior men and women and dragons ranging from ferocious to twee. Ah, but beside them was the flower-covered trellis that marked the official entrance to the event space. Down a wooded trail lined with fairy lights --- more clearly visible, and somehow fragile, as the sun set --- was the good-sized line for registration. This was just showing the QR codes of your tickets; as far as I could tell they weren't scanning them or checking names off a list. This would not be a high-security event but I guess if you're the kind to crash an event like this you have to live with being that.
Past the registration desk was the dance floor set up in a large, open, flat patch of field. There were overhead lights strung up and also the cash bar. Back the other way, past a crossroads with a sign, was the Court of the Fae where the opening of the event was to be. We went down to see what was there and besides the crepes stand --- we would get both dinner and dessert there, once with a savory and once a sweet --- were hills. Many, many hills. Small ones, on an irregular surface, none taller than five or six feet and most between five and ten feet wide. The landscape was plainly human-made, but for what possible purpose? One set of these mounds had a couple pieces of plywood set up, as if it were halfheartedly converted into a seat that wouldn't get muddy, but the boards were at a 45 degree angle to the horizon so they weren't even any good at that. We struggled to figure what we were looking at.
There were pieces easy to explain. Over in one corner, by the audio setup, was a small pen with a ``three-year-old miniature unicorn'' --- a miniature horse named Moxie, wearing a party unicorn-horn and some glitter, including a glittery asterisk on their hip, where you'd expect a cutie mark. Moxie's keeper explained this was the horse's first time at an event without their partner and while they'd been nervous, they were settling down more or less all right. I don't know how long the horse stayed there; Moxie was gone by the evening, I can say.
Off to one side, near the crepe truck and that curious arc of plywood, was a drum circle. Near the top of the hill was a giant chess set, big hollow plastic pieces on a tarp checkerboard. At the very top was a 'throne', a love seat and a smaller chair beside it, with a circle featuring some craggly pattern that made me think of the moon but wasn't exactly it, behind. We got some photographs before someone far off bellowed that the King and Queen were approaching, and events starting. We scurried away to get a good vantage point, watching the knights making that tunnel of crossed swords for the wedding party to enter, and to sit in the thrones up top. And the event organizer came on to explain things including just what the heck was with this strange mound-filled surface.
On the photo reel next? Christmas! As usual we got everything ready and then went to bunnyhugger's parents' for the day itself. Let's watch.
Our tree at home, along with the stuff we'd set under it. The huge box in the background is a baby fence which we used to keep Roger out of the dining room except when we left the door open. Or, if we wanted to be sure he was awake, we'd leave the gate open and he'd make a beeline for the dining room.
Roger curious about why everything's been cleaned up and put away and the carrier is out and waiting for him.
Roger getting what shelter he can against my pulling him into the pet carrier.
And now to bunnyhugger's parents' tree. You may recognize some of the packages as formerly under our tree, since we bring everything over to their place for the day, the baby gate excepted as we opened that without bringing it down.
bunnyhugger's father's basset hound, doing what she liked best, watching him and pretending I don't exist.
But no time for Christmas cheer yet. bunnyhugger has to correct people who are wrong on Facebook!
Trivia: The ancient Egyptians recognized 36 constellations or individual stars as lying on the ecliptic, the sun's daily path. Source: The Riddle of the Compass: The Invention that Changed the World, Amir D Aczel.
Currently Reading: His Majesty's Airship: The Life and Tragic Death of the World's Largest Flying Machine, S C Gwynne.
