austin_dern

Continuing on to describe the fairy ball ... you maybe get the sense we spent a lot of time wandering around. This is fair enough, but so much of that was exploring, seeing the sights. The setting made as strange as it was, and the people in such costumes; it had a lot of that furry-event energy where everybody's something. We never did ask FAE directly about their dress, and whether it represented something put together for the event or something they had developed for any great while. We did a couple times ask FAE what they hoped to do, or if they wanted to go on their own, out of the fear that they were hanging on to us as the ride home instead of having fun. FAE has a stoic manner, and I say this as someone with a stoic manner except for roller coaster ride photos; we weren't sure they enjoyed the time until they posted to Facebook about how thrilling it was and how it got them out of a creative slump.

But there was a lot to explore, including events like knights in armor battling it out in the Ring of Fire. Or the fire-eater, rolling flames out onto their arm or tongue or palm in this ongoing acrobatic experience. The dance floor, which split its time between vaguely fairy-tale-Europe music and demonstrations of kung fu dance/body movement (including from a six-year-old repeatedly introduced as the midwest's grand champion, I assume in their age class) and wedding party dance, pulled us in near the end of the night. This as they handed out foam tubes with flickering LED lights inside and I tried to not be embarrassing. (The organizer, explaining this as part of his connection with the Grand Rapids Swing Dance group, also taught the ``Polish line dance'' which he explained every time was not Polish and not really a line dance, as the line is a pair of circles dancing against one another. It looked fun enough.)

One moment that stood out for bunnyhugger was the dragon dance. Part of the kung fu school's work was bringing in your classic long dragon puppet, and calling up two groups of nine people each who would get one brief instructional session and like ten minutes of practice time and then go head-to-head in competition. bunnyhugger volunteered and was put in the first group, getting to put her old marching band instincts for synchronized --- and, more important, for delayed synchronized --- movement that not enough of the other participants had. Also to discover how badly her jackalope mask clashed with waving something over her head. For the actual demonstration she handed the mask to me. But disappointment came after her group's demonstration: they didn't have time for the second group of dragon dancers to go on, at least not right now but stick around, maybe later in the night. (They never did, and there would be no getting the group back together once they'd split up. It was hard enough getting the two nines to not drift apart during the organized moment.)

Another high point was FAE introducing us to some of their friends in the fairy-party community. I felt a little awkward at hearing their names --- that sounds like it's against theme to not at least be cagey with names, right? --- but it was, besides a chance for everyone to admire one another's outfits, a chance to meet some of FAE's friends from the part of their life that isn't pinball. Being worth someone's trust like that is a big moment and I don't know that I could express to FAE how good I feel to be worth that trust, but they probably know it, intuitively if nothing else.

So I think I'll leave that as my closing thought for the night. It won't surprise anyone who knows me even slightly that we did stay through the end of the event, and maybe a few minutes past to see the tiniest bit of cleanup and the transition of the dance floor entirely to wedding party. We stayed long enough the natural traffic jam of everyone lined up on the road behind us was able to clear, and we got home with nothing worse than one missed turn.

I was stunned that this was the first time they'd held and event like this. It was all so smooth and so full of things to do --- at least from our perspective --- it felt like something with a good history and a lot of learned lessons. Of course it might be that the organizers were bringing experience with similar events to a new one, and it might be that things were nearer chaos than I perceived. All I can say with certainty is it went great. Glad to have been.

And now on the photo roll it's holiday pictures again. This time they feature a precious bunny and how he spent a portion of the day:

Of course it wouldn't be Christmas without gifts for our pet rabbit who doesn't know why he has to be moved from his nice cozy home to somewhere else in a car. Here, he asks me why all this is happening and why bunnyhugger didn't stop it.

How can you disappoint a happy, curious boy like this?

And here's his gift: a thing to chew! He needed a little encouragement to start chewing because Roger was really not a very chewy rabbit; he'd eat food, and hay, but not other stuff.

Here we finally waved it in his face enough he got the hint that if he didn't chew it he was never going to have things stop being waved in his face.

He's freed his present! A veggie and a fruit 'pie'. bunnyhugger pauses to congratulate him with a quick mind-meld before opening the pies up.

And here is eating the fruit 'pie', an ice-cream-cone dish with dehydrated fruits in it.

Trivia: Based on the United States population as of the census of 1790, and the constitutional provision that there not be more than one Representative for every 30,000 people, the third Congress of the United States could have had a theoretical maximum of 120 in the House of Representatives. (The first Congress, per the 1787 Constitution, was set at 65 members, and the second grew to 69.) Source: The Sum of the People: How the Census Has Shaped Nations, From the Ancient World to the Modern Age, Andrew Whitby. (The third had 105 representatives and one non-voting delegate, from what would become Tennessee.)

Currently Reading: His Majesty's Airship: The Life and Tragic Death of the World's Largest Flying Machine, S C Gwynne.

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 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.