So...

I'm sitting on my bed listening to Christmas music (yes I know it's not even Thanksgiving yet, but I love Christmas music). I'm trying to decide how to start my essay and know that the only way to start is ...wait for it... to simply start writing.

not that I haven't had plenty of time today to write, but oh, I've had some lovely distractions. My sister Leah and hubby and kids all showed up to visit this afternoon with bags of clothes for me to sort through.

I have better stop and start what I'm really supposed to be working on.

Aude, igitur, semper esse idem! (Dare, therefore, always to be the same (man,person))

I'm back.....

Haven't felt like writing, then I felt to busy to write. It is, however, time to get back on the bandwagon. I turned in my first paper of school year today and thought I'd share it. I just
hope my instructor likes it.

Wandering at the War

On the long President’s weekend in February, an oddly assorted group of people gathered at Estrella Mountain Park for what we called the “Estrella War”.  Produced by the members of the Society of Creative Anachronism or the SCA, this war brought together about 3000 of our closest acquaintances from around the world to recreate the Middle Ages (just the good parts).  One week to leave the everyday mundane world behind to become the person we wished we could be. Knights and ladies, merchants and bards, the war enabled us to play ‘let’s pretend’ on a truly life-sized stage. Camping and costumes, hard-suit fighting and arts competitions, music, dancing, shopping, feasting and especially camp-hopping were the order of the day.

 Wandering the war during daylight hours is bright and busy. There are bravely colored banners billowing in the wind, bright painted tents and outlandish garb to behold; it hums with voices, with the crash and bash of the fighters on the field, marshals crying “hoolldd…” Merchants on merchant row selling, customers buying trims, knives, books, jewelry, anything and everything we could need to help create the semblance of medieval times. In the market are exotic delights called ‘ice cream’ or ‘fry bread’ as well as stew or steak on a stick to try. We greet friends, unseen since the previous war. There are classes to go to, art tourneys to attend, battles to observe, bards to hear, and courts to grace with our presence. At times, wearing full garb, we run into town for ice or something else that was forgotten. We call that ‘freaking the mundanes’ for obvious reasons.  We cook and clean, and we prepared for the coming darkness with prepping lanterns and fire pits, setting out candles ready in their holders. Just going to the privy (the port o’ johns) at night necessitated taking a lantern.  As wonderfully anachronistic (an anachronism is something belonging to a time other than the one being represented) as the day-time hours were, night-time transported us even further from the modern world. At dusk we let the bright colored business of daytime pass away.

We forget how deeply dark the night is, in the modern cities we have. There are no street lights or lit houses here. Out in the middle of nowhere, we remembered and played in a world lit by only by fire, moonlight and the faint glow of stars. 

Walking away from the camp’s ruddy glow into the chilly unlit lanes to visit other camps, darkness folded in around us. Over head were the stars, beautiful sparks brighter here than in the city from which we had fled. Surrounding camps were marked by greater sparks, glimmering guides to lead us in. Under foot was the crunch of gravel giving way at times to the softer brush of shoes on sand and dirt. At times, a grunt or exclamation as someone miss-stepped then caught themselves. The thud of drums playing came from several encampments, accompanied by strains of violins and flutes. The thump of feet, women’s voices exclaiming ‘lalalalalala’ as they shimmied ‘round the blaze. Those drums played till the wee hours of morning, a steady rhythm that underlay the night so thoroughly as to wake many from sleep when the constant thump gave way to quiet. Further off the mumble of faint conversations, sweet whispers of singing and the snap of banners arrived on a gust. Occasionally we’d hear the swoosh of cars or the rumble of airplanes reminding us the everyday world was still there. That same wind brought the familiar scent of desert plants, wood smoke, roasting meat, cooking food, perfume and incense. A heady mix stirred -up wonderfully together.  Other times, the cold draft also carried the tang of piss, sickly sweet odor of human waste, the rot of garbage letting us know we were passing by the privies.

Approaching the encampment of fellow players, we call “Hello the fire”.  Drawing closer, the firelight reveals a peculiar assortment of modern 20^th century camping supplies with items painstakingly recreated to carry out the illusion of the medieval era. Coleman tents sit side by side with brightly painted pavilions, hand embroidered cloths disguise coolers, and propane stoves as well as campfires cook food and heat water. We seat ourselves on store-bought fold-out seats as well as elaborate hand crafted chairs. Even our appearances mixed medieval and modern, cloaks and robes covering tee-shirts and jeans as often as they did tunics and kirtles. But somehow the cloaking darkness and the firelight that played hide and seek with our eyes, made it all fit together.

 We settle around the fire, bringing out drinking horns, tankards, earthenware cups and goblets to taste whatever libations are to hand. Then with faces and knees warmed and our backs nipped by the breeze, the serious work begins: Gossip. We speak, of course, of our interests;  different ways to make garb (costumes) that are true to the medieval ages, how to embroider and embellish them, to paint or do calligraphy or dance more authentically, better ways to make armor or fight.  Mostly, however we gossip, the ever human need to know what our fellow humans are up to. The old who was doing what for how many chocolate chip cookies?

So our nights go, wandering in the icy dark until we found a warm haven to visit for a bit followed by yet more meandering through the fire lanes.  We go dance at the drummers’ encampment, listen to a first timer wonder at everything they’d seen that day, hold a baby that was conceived on the chilliest night of the war prior, flirt with tipsy strangers in the shadowed lanes and congratulate a friend on finally getting their award of arms to become a lord or lady. Finally our feet worn out and our bodies chilled to the bone, we find our way back to our home camp. There, we receive our own camp-hoppers wandering in the dark, drawn to the spark of our fire to be warmed under a cold starry sky.

What is Burlesque?

 Article Summary I wrote for a class.

In the 2011 Burlesque Bible Vol. 1 article “Embracing the Taboo” Kirsty Lucinda Allen writes about the history and nature of Burlesque. Burlesque, by its nature, is tricky to define. Misinformation abounds.  There are few reliable historical sources about the performers and their acts. What there is; is usually biased, fictional, or simply doesn’t make sense to us; relying on in-jokes and social conventions we no longer have.

To understand burlesque it helps to know that the word means literally ‘in the style of a joke’. To burlesque is to ‘make mockery of, exaggerate, satirize’. Burlesque has been around for centuries and in many different forms such as poetry, prose, musical theater, and now as performance art and striptease. Some examples of literary burlesques include Aristophanes, Chaucer, Dickens, and Mark Twain.  Many burlesquers through their performances challenge social norms and standards of acceptability in a playful manner. Their acts will often focus on gender, social class, political and moral issues with larger-than-life flamboyant displays of femininity and/or masculinity, use of spectacle, censure, and parody. The genre has been subject to many interpretations over time and is constantly changing. Burlesque is both low-brow, literate, looks to both the future and the past, is profound and profane, bizarre and seductive. Allen writes “It (burlesque) holds a mirror to the face of the masses so that society might be observed from a new perspective-often where the truth hurts.” By being the risk-takers and pushing the limits of accepted behavior burlesquers influence pop culture and set trends. It has influenced fashion from women wearing pants to the retro pin-up girls of today.

Burlesque in the 18^th and 19^th century took the form of musical comedies where women played the leading(male) parts. The goal was to get laughs, burst illusions, and show off legs that weren’t usually seen in public. This era was also a time of women starting to take control of their financial and political lives. This scared people and entertainers would become the scapegoat. In the 20^th century striptease would become part of burlesque and it started moving from female to male drag into female to female drag. Burlesquers were parodying their own sex.  Theater managers used the appetite for scandal and sex to sell tickets. New also to the 20^th century was the celebrity of the burlesquers. They were lauded and reviled in turn by the public who couldn’t get enough of them.  Until recently entertainers, esp. women, were considered to be little better than prostitutes and thieves; the new found fame gave burlesquers more opportunities to make better money or just marry well.

Burlesque has been routinely banned and regulated throughout the recent centuries. As the nudity aspect increased; so did the outcries of indecency and exploitation that continue to this day. Burlesque is often thought to be just high class stripping and sometimes, it is. It’s important to not romanticize the burlesquers of old. Many of them burlesqued because that was the only way to make a living, let alone a decent one.

If you really want to know what burlesque is, go take in a show. “Burlesque is an ongoing reaction, in action.”

Let's see if this will work

!Happy New Year!

One of the things I've been wanting to do is have a blog. A place to share my musings and mishaps with others. It's new year's eve and I decided to share a piece of writing I did for a class.           

 

 

The 5000 dollar cat and other tales
 

Charlie was four pounds of orange and white fuzzy furred, vibrating kitten. When I met him, he crawled up my body and nuzzled his face in my neck. I was instantly smitten and took him home.

I knew I was going to catch it for bringing him home. We already had two cats and my Mom didn’t want more.

"I’ll clean the litter all the time, I’ll feed them. You won’t have to do anything." I said in a rush when I walked in. I picked him up and gave him to Mom.

"We don’t need more cats." She grumped, petting him.

"Since when is a cat about need?" I gleefully replied. And so Charlie became a member of the household along with Ashley cat and Houdini the escape artist.

When my sisters saw Charlie, they kept remarking on his huge paws, and their desire to change his name.

"Charlee’s our niece. Let’s call him Frodo. He’s got hobbit feet." Said one sister

"No…" I howled, "Frodo’s the White’s weird hermaphrodite cat. He knows his name. He’s Charlie." They didn’t understand that it was a fight they wouldn’t win. My sisters suggested many others names. Finally I told them I’d change it to Pretty Boy Floyd.

"He’s Charlie," They decided.

Charlie grew into his paws, and became an outgoing, confident cat. He charmed everyone who was around him. He would walk right up and meow to people on the street. He’d visit and insist on his share of attention when someone new was in the house.

"He’s so friendly, like a dog," they’d say.

Charlie has one strange habit we didn’t quite know what to make of. Charlie likes to suckle on people’s hands. If you don’t let him do it when he’s tired, he will have a little kitty meltdown like a two-year-old. He’ll yowl, cry, fuss, wind around your feet and climb on whomever he’d picked to give him affection, till he’s cuddled and has access to a hand. It isn’t slobbery, or wet, just this combo of lapping, sucking and kneading against your hand until he’s relaxed and asleep. Sometimes, the person he’s suckling on will fall asleep too. It’s strangely calming. The vet says it’s fairly common thing for cats to do.

Early one morning I went out to call him to breakfast.

"Din- din, Charlie, din-din," I hollered. He didn’t show. I thought I heard him but couldn’t find him, so after several tries; I went back to bed because I was sick. I wasn’t too concerned because Charlie liked to roam and he always came home. One night when driving, I saw him laying on a car down the street.

"Charlie! Go home!" I yelled out my window. He jumped up as guilty as can be and ran home to meet me at the door.

Later that morning I woke up quite abruptly to a sound I hope to never hear again. It was Charlie screaming in pain.

"He was in the street; he was trying to crawl to me." My sister Tara said visibly upset. My Mom, Tara and I tried to check him, but couldn’t find any injury. He didn’t have a mark on him. My happy-go-lucky baby was in agony, crying, and panting, screaming when you touched him, and I didn’t know what to do for him! I threw on some clothes, put Charlie carefully in a box and Tara drove to the nearest vet we could find open. That vet’s office sent us to the emergency animal hospital. Tara and I walked in and I started sobbing, trying to explain the situation to them. Luckily, the staff spoke ‘sob’ and got Charlie back to be looked at right away. Then they wanted to know how I was going to pay for him. I didn’t have that kind of money. It was almost three hundred just to have him looked at. Yet more for pain meds and x-rays. I looked at the clerk in disbelief; I might have to put Charlie down just because I couldn’t pay his vet fees. Tara put the initial bill on her credit card.

"Charlie’s pelvis is broken; we’re going to do an ultrasound to see what damage there is. You’ll need to make some decisions depending on what we find." The vet soberly told me. My heart dropped. I sat in the waiting room, and wept. The vet tech came and kindly explained the options, then asked if I wanted to sign a DNR, if things went south. I did. If he died, I wasn’t going to have him yanked back to a broken body.

Good news, a miracle even, there was no internal damage. Charlie had a clean break with no complications. Bad news, he needed to have major surgery to have a plate and six screws put in to hold the pelvic bones together. That meant lab work, more x-rays, more meds, I.V.s, more ultrasounds and a stay in intensive care for maybe a week. I spoke with my Mom, got her credit card and put the charges on it. All five thousand dollars worth.

Charlie came through the surgery with flying colors, was sent home on cage rest with his back half shaved and a huge incision with stitches down one leg. Eight weeks later, he got to leave his 2 by 3 cage and start back into normal life. He’s not quite the same friendly, silly cat. He gets very grumpy when the weather changes, and is more shy of strangers, but he’s a healthy, mostly happy animal that can do all the things that cats will do. My Charlie, the five thousand dollar cat.