The short report: the weather was lovely! I arrived Friday night to find that pretty much everything had been blown into the trees by 70mph winds. It was a mad scramble to clean and prettify on Saturday morning. I was duct taping tents, re-setting tables, and I eventually ended up at performer check-in, covering for a team of volunteers who never arrived. I didn't even get in costume until midday Saturday, things were so busy. I helped a little at the childrens' Glamour Glade, making body glitter and Lip Blam! (And possibly killing our children. Oops! Just kidding.)

I did catch some of Sestraluna's set on Saturday, and I picked up some goodies from Father Dunn and from the Gypsy's Monkey. Overall, though, it was a very work-oriented day until evening, when there was a hell of a fire and dance circle. Being a kids' festival, fire-performing is not allowed during festival hours. But given that many of the volunteers and vendors are accomplished fire performers and drummers, there is a bonfire circle at night where the show really starts. Since most of us are some flavor of pagan, the circle most certainly had ritual intent behind it, and I saw a truly moving fire staff performance by one of the performers of Excentrik-- it was like ballet with wooshing fire. One of the ladies of Boomtown Hoops did an inspiring fire hoop performance, and then there was a double fire-whip, double fire-staff performance as well. I danced and danced and made new friends and overall enjoyed myself. It felt so good to be dancing in sacred space.

Sunday, it was back to performer check-in until noon, where I danced with DragonSong band, along with the ladies of Belly Dance Delight and some other soloists. I was told to go out and start dancing to a piece that was thought to be the meditative piece I'd agreed to. Well, it was not. I figured that out just as soon as a) vocals kicked in and b) Nina came at me in a dragon costume. In any case, I'm an improv dancer. I improv-ed. All was well. For the meditative piece, Brooke (Kallisti Tribal), Meredith (Lilam), and I joined forces and did some slow and juicy ATS. The thing I love most about ATS? Ladies from three different troupes can get together and it looks as smooth as choreography.

From there, I wandered with the hubbins, mugging with my new parasol, browsing vendors, eating ice cream, catching Hip'Notic, pinch-hitting at Glamour Glade, and then finally converging for Telesma featuring the Indra Lazul bellydancers (Piper's students, I think?). I LOVE TELESMA, Y'ALL. It was so great to jam out, and the Indra Lazul girls are SO SWEET. Big smiles the whole time, workin' the crowd. Lovely ladies. Finished out the day helping to pull up the childrens' area before I headed home to shower and then collapse in a heap. I lost my bindi. :( It fell off while I was pulling up the labyrinth-- I saw it fall and yet when I went to pick it up, it had disappeared. The faeries had claimed it.



( Peektures!Collapse )

Lots more at my Flickr!

Well, it's probably a liiiiittle late to call it her birthday. But it was this week last year that we first saw our little Bean, when she was just a teeny feral kitty in our ABQ backyard. Too tiny to take from her momma, even. I remember the night we captured the kittens: we decided it was TIME when we watched Olive climb a 6' terra cotta wall. She swan-dived into the tree under which her den was hidden. We pulled up the boards to get to her. Squeaky hissed and bit. Olive quietly trembled as I put my hand around her and talked to her quietly. We got them inside, and she immediately found the tiniest spot in the room to wedge herself into. We could not find her until we heard soft cries-- and her brother went over to find her. Of course, we thought she was a boy at first-- her fur bore no traces of gold. One trip to the vet, and 'Oliver' became Olive, our little Bean.


Here she is, peeking at us with her brother, Squeaky, whom we miss dearly.


( In honor of Queen Bean.Collapse )