MDRF: Weekend the Last

[macdobhran]

Ed. note: This got a lot longer than I intended it to be. I mean, a LOT. No seriously, bring a lunch.


Ahhh, the last weekend of MDRF was as bittersweet as always. For me it was much more sweet than bitter.

Saturday monring dawned cold in West Virginia as cellymcfae and I headed to faire. Since it had rained the night before, they started parking everyone in the middle of the far lot, which sucks because the whole point of getting there early is to get Princess Parking. *sigh* Maybe on Sunday I'd get to be a princess. We finished getting dressed and headed over to wait for the gates to open. Well, cellymcfae did, I had to wait in the Will Call line to pick up some tickets.

Once I got in, I checked with Columbina Stupina ptpgrad about where to meet her to pick up her video camera. You may have noticed me walking around with a camera bag and tripod. No, I hadn't turned into a video stalker, although that thing was so cool that now I want to make a whole movie about MDRF. Actually I was recording several of ptpgrad's performances for her. I think it helps her see what the audience sees or it might have been for promo purposes, I don't know.

Anyway, once we set the meet time, I headed off in search of breakfast on the way to the Dragon Inn. The schweet started with seeing the regulars, cellymcfae, sweetpea86, the Jawhnsons, ani_moore's platinum locks, then the New Ye-ork crew arrived and the party really started going. Shortly after russell_moore showed up, I suddenly realized what time it was and ran off to my first Camera Monkey assignment. It took me 10 minutes to realize that I was an hour early. So I went over to the Globe stage and watched Gypsophilia for a while.

When it actually was time to film, I got set up and started recording. Unfortunately, because I didn't know the show, I set up in the wrong place and missed a lot of the action. Later, I asked ptpgrad if I could do that show again. Luckily, she's a Virgo too so she understands what it means to suffer for your art.

I went over to O'MiddleShucks to attend the Ninth Weekly Meeting of the Grand Mystic Loyal Order of the Crab Dip Temple and the Mussels of the Shrine. (ed. note: try naming your band THAT, bee-yotch!) It was motioned and seconded that no calories, carbs or fat would be counted against us as it was the last weekend. Naturally that was passed unaniamously. So we all pigged out on crab dip, mussels, shrimp and oyster shooters, crab rangoon, and fries. ilostonjeopardy and bonkoif were there with a baby, so I got in some Godfadda time. She was very interested in the crackers, although about half of them ended up down my shirt.

Eventually I had to leave for more Camera Monkey duty. The previous show ran over 25 minutes so I spent a lot of time standing around waiting. While I was filming, snipeyhead finally decided to show up. We made quick plans to meet up at Pub Sing. Yeah, I know, that's like saying "Meet me at the NY City Marathon, I'll be the one in shorts." Eventually I got done, and ran out to the parking lot to drop off the camera and pick up some glowsticks we'd brought. Once I got back to the White Hart, I walked around searching until ca_amethyst called out to me. Finally I got to squeeze up on snipeyhead and chat a little. Not nearly enough, but I can't blame everyone for wanting to chat with her too. cellymcfae finally got to meet her after having only talked online.

All too soon, Pub Sing was over so I collected cellymcfae, said goodbye to snipeyhead and ca_amethyst, and headed for the parking lot. I changed clothes and we fought our way out of the MDRF Parking Nightmare that is the lot. Once we arrived at Famous Dave's fireyirishangel informed us they had already been waiting an hour and it was probably going to be another half hour before we'd be seated. So we settled down to wait as other people with our party slowly started to filter in. Dinner was pretty good once we finally got around to it. cellymcfae and I ended up staying out and it was 1:30 AM before we finally hit the hay.

Sunday dawned to flippin' early. But we managed to get up, dressed and to MDRF before the Gate Show. I filmed that by holding the camera up over my head. Thank God they make those things so small now! I handed the camera off to another Camera Monkey so he could film Stupina's show, then I got it back so I could film the 1:00 PM show. In the meantime, I went and planted myself at O'MiddleShucks for a while.

After I finished my Camera Monkey duties and had handed it off for the final time, I went back to O'MiddleShucks to wait for The Event. On my way back I bought a lovely pendant for cellymcfae. While desparately searching for a rose seller (why is there never one around when you need one??) some Rogues started to filter in for The Event. cellymcfae finally found me a rose seller and I gave her two deliveries and got one rose for later and one rose for The Event.

I bet you're all wondering what The Event is, aren't you?

Once roses were procured, I went up onto the porch and got sweetpea86 to follow me with some lame story about her mother (your MOM!) being drunk. It didn't have to be a good story, just one outrageous enough to cause curiosity and distract her from what I was really doing. For you see, gentle readers, sweetpea86 WAS The Event. Having successfully delivered said victim target to The Event, we sat her on one of the benches behind the porch and encircled her. She tried to escape a couple times but webquatch managed to bring her back into the fold. As it were. I'm not going to detail every bit of it but I think we managed to Rogue her in a properly Madame-ly fashion.

Once that was over it was time to get our grub on, so we brought the final meeting of the Grand Mystic Loyal Order of the Crab Dip Temple and the Mussels of the Shrine to order. While sitting around I saw a couple people that I know don't get out to faire that much and it truly did my heart good to see them. zammis was one of them and so I took the opportunity to love up on her. Eventually everyone started migrating down for the final Pub Sing of the year. sweetpea86 and I hung back at O'MiddleShucks for a while (sitting in the Best Seat in da Hizzou) until we decided to find everyone else. And find them we did. I broke out the glowsticks again and started passing them out. I recognized a couple of little girls in the audience and almost sent them some, but decided against it. ladylyonesse's daughter ended up with three of them so it was all good.

Since I had been running around all weekend, I hadn't had a chance to spend much time with angel_on_earth so I figured "better late than never". I slipped up behind her, wrapped my arms around her and loved up on her. I'm told the facial expressions were something to behold. Even though I couldn't hear much, I did get to hear (and am extremely grateful for the crowd's silence) pyratelady sing. That's my favorite part of Pub Sing.

Finally the fireball was lit, the bells tolled and the cannon sounded. Hugs and kisses were given, tears were shed and then we let the darkness take us out of our Brigadoon one more time.

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[shhhlisa.livejournal.com]

Poker night, or at least the weekend it might fall upon, is dead in the middle of my/Lex/Shawn's birthdays. It's un-possible.