 Location: | Xxxxxx'x Xxxxxxxxx |
| Tempe, AZ |
It's 9:21 in the morning, and I'm riding in the back seat of one of my friend's friend's cars, heading out to the Renaissance Fair in the desert in the outskirts of Phoenix.
I put most of this month's "discretionary" money toward my credit card, to give me some extra margin to treat my friend and his wife to a nice meal. Unfortunately, this meant that I have no such margin for cash withdrawals from my checking account. Which means that, since the renaissance fair operates on a cash basis, I'll be restricted to the $50 remaining from the money my landlord gave me prior to the trip.
It's 3:46, about an hour before we're supposed to meet up with our ride home, and we're sitting in the audience area for a glass-blowing exhibition to begin at four o'clock. In the background I can hear the sound of a hypnotist doing an audience participation show in an adjacent area. We watched that for a while, but neither my friend nor I believed it was real. He's a Christian, I'm an agnostic; the perfect nexus for skepticism of such practices.
I ate a turkey drumstick, the traditional food of a renaissance fair, two pretzels, a brownie, and a bottle of water purchased on-site. Beyond this, the only money that I spent was five dollars to "tip" a harpsichordist who was kind enough to play some Bach minuets. After she finished, I pronounced her the only thing authentically baroque I'd seen that day.
There were other shows besides the glass blowing and hypnotism. Early in the day, we caught a show including whip artistry and sword fighting featuring a duo billing themselves as Don Juan and Miguel, with Miguel's daughter, Esmeralda. I've written their names in my journal for posterity, as I'm thinking of purchasing a DVD featured on their website. Somewhat later, after a few miscellaneous musical and acrobatic acts, we caught an act featuring falconry with several different birds of prey, from owls to buzzards to a red-tailed hawk.
I'm back at my friend's house, sitting on the bottom step of the stairs leading up to his apartment. I had some gum stuck to the bottom of my shoe, so I used picking it off as an excuse (subsequent to his request) to give them a little a little alone time.
On the way back to the apartment of the "friends of my friend" I discovered that the husband of the family was a computer programmer, and shared geek talk with him about databases and server-side programming. It was quite fun to be able to do so, since I seldom talk with anyone who both (a) knows and (b) cares about what I'm talking about.
Once in the house, we had a meal of pot roast with a dessert of chocolate cake. At the suggestion of my friend's wife, we accompanied the cake with a bottle of wine purchased at a local package store, and ate/drank while watching Friends... which brings me to right now.
It's 9:52, and I'm attending church with my friend tomorrow to be polite, so I'll wrap up and post this entry now, then go to bed.