s e v e n i s a j o u r n e y

This is Judith, not Stephen. I’m posting this because I thought Tam & Stephen would be interested, and, well, because I can.

OK, so after Stephen left, my life lost all meaning…

No wait. I mean, I went back to Pennsic on Friday and did some more stuff Friday and Saturday. Here’s a further report:

Got to see Feather. Here’s a picture of 3 Mongols. I’m doing my Disney Arab thing. Note: bought North African woven fan.

News flash: one cannot take digital pictures of a dance performance in a dark tent. But that was Turku’s performance Friday night. Picture it… in your mind.

Met up with Dancing Lady Kate at Turku, walked back to her camp (by oversize parking; note to self: when people say it’s a “short walk”, spend time defining your terms) to hang out & wait for the Period Fireworks Display. This started a little after ten and kicked ALL kinds of ass. Apparently the Zambelli family, one of the biggest fireworks companies in the U.S., lives right here in New Castle. After 25 years of driving past Pennsic on rte. 79, they approached the Coopers and asked if they could do a medieval fireworks display. “Hell,” said the Coopers, “We’d pay you to do it!” So they donated their time and the Pennsic fees paid for the materials. They did the fireworks over the main battlefield, with a lot of huge Roman candles and stuff based on the crenellations of the fort, and why it didn’t burn down I’ll never know. A lot of it looked like your modern fireworks (I have a little AVI I’d post but it’d exceed your size limits,) but one thing I loved was these near-to-the-ground fireballs, that went FOOM, and absolutely turned the sky red, and sent a mushroom cloud of smoke into the air. Really, they looked like something had gone hideously wrong, but I’m pretty sure they were supposed to look like that. Here’s one of them starting up.

Lots of people commented that the idiots who packed up early and left Friday were fools to miss this. They also lit up the XXXII on the hillside with red flame. Nifty. We all hope this will now become a tradition.

After that was the O’Choda party, which was low-key and quiet – folks were mostly exhausted, though I did dance, and relate the story of Anne trying to set Stephen on fire.

Went back to hang out Saturday, but everyone was breaking down and bugging out, because there’d been some thunder at 7:30 a.m. and everyone was tired of being wet. Came home for a nap and never went back, because it was POURING rain and lightning by 8:30 p.m. and I decided to be wimpy, though Feather phoned me and invited me out to party in the mud. He’s so sweet. He came by for lunch today before bugging out of town.

Tomorrow I intend to drive by the site and try to take some pictures, if they’ll let me in.

OK, that’s all the news that is news here from Frogtown Hollow, which is about to turn from a social hub back into the lonely desert it is the other 11 months of the year.

judith