Dancing through life...

Business has not been wonderful in terms of rose selling so far this year. The weather opening weekend wasn't wonderful, and even though Saturday was pretty nice, the weathermen had been predicting THUNDERSTORMS AND DOOM for most of the week, so no one showed up. Sunday was verrah nice, in terms of weather, but the people seemed to forget their wallets at home. Even though I haven't been hitting my personal goal I've still been top seller, so I guess there's that. We have a really nice crew this year; I like all of the people I work with. It's pretty awesome.

This past weekend was one of the strangest I've experienced in quite some time. Saturday, I was petting the macaw (whose name is pronounced like "Gonzo," but with an "ah" at the end,) outside of the animal exhibit. She hopped up on my arm, and I thought, "Hooray! She likes me!" She started giving me soft little parrot kissies, and I thought, "Hooray! I have a new friend!" Then she chomped down on my bottom lip. Hard.

Evidently, parrots do such things to one another in order to show affection. I, however, do not have a beak. I have delicate soft fleshy bits.

Fortunately, my new buddy did not break my skin. I was really hoping that my lip would get all nice and swollen so I could tell people that I had been in a fist fight, and they should see the other guy! Alas, that did not happen. I'm still waiting to see if I get radioactive parrot powers. So far, nothing. I'm going to be *really* annoyed if I went through all that pain for nought.

Sunday, although it was busier, was MUCH slower in terms of sales. It was completely bizarre. I have never had to work that hard for so few sales with that many people there.

At one point, I was standing at the Moon Dancer back carts chatting with some folks, when a rather large individual dressed as Death approached. He was wearing a big red cowl, a skull mask which concealed his entire head inclusive of his eyes, and his nails were painted black. I did my little "fairy defies Death" act, and ran off to try and move some of my stock.

He followed me. Slowly but surely, he followed me until I ran into Knightly Endeavors. The KEGs and I watched him slowly amble past, and I ran off in the other direction.

I didn't think anything of the encounter, figuring it was probably some random patron who was a little bit *too* into playing a character, until later when I heard from Colin that Death had handed him a little note with a time written on it. At this point I decided that Death was probably some kind of creeper, and that security should be given a heads up.

Colin and I went off to find a security guard. He was about ready to beat the everloving snot out of someone. Eventually, we ran into Big Tom on the other side of the faire. We gave him the scoop about Creepy!Death, and he said he'd keep an eye out for him.

Later on, I was in Greenfield Common when I saw Nick over at Matty Groves. I figured I ought to give him a heads up about Creepy!Death as well, so I headed in that direction. As I was walking, I saw Bud Stud Eric making a bee line for him. We arrived at the same time, and as I was telling Nick the story, Eric pointed and said, "Yeah, he's right over there." Nick said he'd keep an eye on him, and I headed over to Lunde's.

Death followed me. Nick followed a ways behind him, but I didn't know that at the time. Eric followed Death. As I arrived at Lunde's a patron purchased a rose from me. During the entire transaction Death loomed over us. The patron kept giving him the side-eye, and called him creepy. Once the patron's money was safely tucked away I ran into Lunde's. Colin came out looking like he was ready to beat someone into the ground. (For the record, he probably could.) I was getting ready to tell Geoff that I was going to run and get security because a fight was fixing to break out when Nick arrived.

I saw Colin being ver stern with Death. I saw Nick being very stern. Then...laughter? WTF? Colin came back into the booth.

"It's OLAF!"

"Excuse me," I said, as I ran out of the booth to kick him in the shin and call him an asshole.

I went back into the booth to retrieve my basket, and Olaf followed me. He lifted his mask, and said, "I was following you because I wanted to buy a rose!" I berated him a bit more for scaring the shit out of me, sold him a rose, and had a good laugh about the whole thing.

Many people were concerned about the situation with Death, so I ran off to allieviate people's fears. As I was relating the story to a group of folks at the Blue Boar, I noticed a certain individual staring at me.

Most of you reading this will know that as Bubbles the Rose Fairy I do not speak, particularly not to drunken patrons. This particular drunken patron shows up about once a year, babbles at me about how pretty I am, how he loves me, how he's a lawyer, how I shoud be with him, etc. I tolerate him, and others like him, because it's generally not worth the trouble to get them to cut it out. I remind them that I'm taken, relieve them of some of those ever-so-heavy dollar bills, and then promptly forget about them. No big deal.

Later on in the day, I saw a family with three small children dressed as Link, Zelda, and a chicken. I immediately decided that the ENTIRE faire needed to learn of their existance, so I ran off towards the Blue Boar to spread the news.

Upon my arrival, I was accosted by the aforementioned drunken patron. By this time, he was WAY past merely drunk, and well into completely smashed. I don't speak drunk fluently, but from what I could tell, he was REALLY angry that he had seen me talking to other people when he's been coming to the faire and seeing me for seven years and I've never spoken to him. Nogga was walking by with Jax just as I was pounced upon by this idiot, so I grabbed him in case I needed an adult. The drunkard was going on and on; I wasn't going to talk to him, but when he started spouting off about how I need a "real man," I'd had enough.

I told him that I've been with my boyfriend a lot longer than he's "known" me, and he is a real man, and I didn't want to listed to any more of his nonsense, so I was going to go do my job. Of course, THAT exchange took about five minutes, because the jackass just would. Not. Shut. Up. Once I got away from him, I boogied on up the hill to the table where Damien and some others were sitting.

I expressed my need for an adult, and we all watched the drunked idiot stumble away with his friends. Kelly Rose informed us that he had just been cut off. Damien decided to run around to all of the pubs and make sure they knew not to serve this particular individual any more booze. I hugged Nogga for being my adult, and went about my business.

Not half an hour later I was approached by Nick, who asked me what happened at the Blue Boar. I told him the story, and he said he'd keep an eye out for the guy. I rounded the corner by Moresca, and lo and behold the nitwit was there with his two friends, harassing ANOTHER girl.

I waved down two other security guards, who had a bit of a chat with the fellow. They asked me if I wanted him thrown out, and I expressed my distinct desire that he not be allowed to imbibe any more alcohol. They told him he could stay as long as he didn't bother anyone any more, especially me.

He didn't so much as look in my direction for the rest of the day, but all of the craziness completely threw off my mojo. I feel like with the crowd we had, I should have had much better sales. I also completely forgot that I was supposed to be alerting everyone to the presence of Luke, Zelda, and the chicken until after they had gone.

Going out to dinner with good friends made me feel loads better. Getting free scones from the Chocolate Cafe on the way out of faire was also a bonus, even though Trouble Kitten 5000, aka Puck, found them in my basket at some point during the night and made quite the mess in our dining room.

The kitties got along marginally better yesterday. There was some hissing on Oberon's part, and he did need to be given two time-outs in the bathroom for swatting, but they had dinner together in the kitchen, and things seemed to be getting a little better.

Puck peed on Rich's foot yesterday morning. I'm not sure what kind of litter they had in their foster home, but I think it was different enough from the Feline Pine we use that there's some confusion regarding the litterboxes. Oberon also had a couple of accidents when he first came home, so I wasn't terribly concerned.

This morning I gave both kitties their breakfast kibble in the kitchen. Everything seemed to be going fine. Oberon hissed and swatted at Puck when Puck tried to eat from Obi's food bowl while Obi was eating from it, but I let that go because he was just protecting his food. Puck has his own bowl, after all.

I sat on the couch to eat my bowl of cereal, and Obi came in to keep me company as he usually does. Puck was walking around crying his little heart out and sniffing the ground. I put my bowl of cereal on the arm of the couch, scooped up the kitten, and took him to the litterbox in the library. It took a few minutes of sniffing and pawing the litter, but he did his business. As I was heaping praise upon him, I heard the sound of a spoon clinking against a cereal bowl.

Upon my return to the living room I discovered Oberon standing on the couch next to my cereal bowl, which was completely devoid of milk! The cereal itself hadn't been touched, but the milk was gone, and someone was licking his chops.

I scolded the kitty, and went to the kitchen to get a fresh bowl of cereal. As I returned to the living room, Oberon puked. Twice.

Since I still had to finish my breakfast and get to work, I woke Rich up. We came downstairs to find Puck trying to decide if Obi-puke is tasty.

Rich cleaned, I scarfed my cereal, and made it to work (mostly) on time.

Now we know not to leave bowls of cereal unattended around Oberon.

When last we met, I was deciding whether Rich and I would be adopting another kitty.

When I called Lisa, the TNR lady, back, she told me about a kitty she was fostering named Mac. The rescue had adopted Mac out as a kitten, but his family had to give him back three years later because they had another child who turned out to be allergic to kitties. Mac had been to fifteen adoption events, but no one wanted to bring him home. I took a gander at his PetFinder listing, and fell in love.

Rich and I went to see the kitties at Lisa's house that very same evening. Mac turned out to be an absolute sweetheart. He was being fostered along with four tiny kittens who were constantly harassing him to play, and the family has two German Shepherds who he was tolerant of, but not exactly friendly with. It wasn't exactly the happiest situation in the world for poor little Mac. The thought of leaving him there absolutely broke my heart.

However, the little male kitten absolutely wrapped Rich around his wee paw. Since at the time he wasn't ready to come home yet, we made the decision to adopt Mac and take him home that same night.

We changed his name to Oberon, as we felt it better fit his elfin Russian Blue face. We call him Obi for short. He's settling in beautifully; he didn't stop purring for about two days after we brought him home, and he's an absolute snuggle-fiend.

As for the baby kitten that stole Rich's heart, he's going to the vet to be neutered and get his final vaccinations on Wednesday. If all goes well, he'll spend Thursday recovering at his foster home, and will come home on Friday. We plan to call him Puck, since we already have a feeling that he's going to be trouble. ;)

In non-kitty related news, I am ridiculously, depressingly out of shape. It's bad, you guys. I can barely get the lawn mowed without falling over in an out-of-breath heap. When I tried to ride my bike the other day, I got about fifty feet up our hill, and had to get off and walk the rest of the way. It was embarassing. Not to mention, my pants aren't fitting quite right these days.

This is probably the result of entirely too much sitting on my ass. My goal, starting now, is thirty minutes of vigorous exercise at least three times a week. Mowing the lawn counts, yoga does not. Neither does playing with the cat. I intend to get my pants fitting properly before faire starts. Perhaps I shall buy a hula hoop, for days when I don't feel like riding my bike.

Preeesenting...the full complement of kitty photos from our trip to Delaware.

( Slideshow under the cut! )

Note: She isn't *actually* drunk. She just got home from the vet, where she had been under sedation. It hasn't quite worn off yet.

Many of you are familiar with tales of Rich's (mom's) cats. Some of you have met one of them, a few have met two, but the third very rarely makes an appearance. If he does, it is very brief and leaves nothing but confusion in its wake.

For the uninitiated, the spectrum of cats is as follows:

Elmo MacPurrypants, the Twenty Pound Kitten of DOOM! Elmo loves you. Elmo loves everyone, especially if they have hands with which they are willing to pet him. This cat is the biggest whore I ever have or probably ever will meet.

Ms. Zoe Whiskers Zoe is the most normal of the three, in terms of cat-like behavior. She loves a few select people who she knows and trusts, but only on her terms. She likes to groom my hair if I don't have any product in it. It's very cute.

Then, there's Othello. Othello does not like any people, really. He has this personal bubble of varying size, and if you step inside of its boundaries, he bolts. I was dating Rich for three months before I even saw this cat, and I even managed to pet him once! Those of you who were at my pajama birthday party will recall the "cat flying out of the wall" incident. We think he may be the ruler of some mythical Narnia-like realm behind the shelves in the den, but there's no way to tell. There are some who doubt his existence, including the crazy cleaning lady, but I now have proof!

( Click here to see Othello the Mystery Cat!  )

There are KITTIES outside of my office building! One mommy kitty, and four little baby kitties. They were walking through the grass in front of the parking lot this morning, and they were all doing the "I have wet paws" walk. So cute!

I kind of want to see if my father still has his have-a-heart trap, capture them, and take them to the Human Society to get them all checked out and fixed. Then they can go to nice homes where they will be taken care of and fed and loved.

Only thing is, I'm not sure if the babies are big enough to be taken away from mommy yet. ::ponders::