How I spent my Sunday afternoon

I love October because it holds not only my birthday (only five more shopping days!) but also Halloween. Halloween has always been my favorite holiday and I love decorating inside and out to celebrate. I typically  wait until the weekend before Halloween to deploy the cemetery, but this year I threw caution to the wind -- literally: today was GUSTY -- and built my little yard of horror.

Welcome to the Cemetery.

Enter if you dare. Muahahaha!

The neighbors are quiet.

But we have a bit of a giant spider problem.

The masterpiece which delights and terrifies the neighborhood children.

This is definitely one of the better parts of being a grown-up.

If it's not Scottish, it's craaaaap

Ummm...

On Saturday morning, one of Scott's facebook buddies posted about the Virginia Scottish Games and the hubs proposed we take a looksee and let him get back in touch with, as he calls it, "the home country". I'd never been to a Highland Games event and was keen to see what the hoopla was about. With that, we headed down to The Plains, VA, for an afternoon of fun.

My first impression, as we hiked from our parking spot in BFE to the gate, was this event felt like Renaissance Faire meets a ball game. I could see tents with pennons flying in the distance and hear bagpipers plying their trade as we passed people tailgating in the parking area. Oookay. Plus, there were a lot of dogs. The volume of dogs seemed greater than the volume of children, actually. And then we passed through the gate into a little piece of Scotland with Virginia weather.

Kilts! Kilts everywhere! And pipers. Good ones, thankfully. Scott spied the antique and vintage automobiles on the hillside and we window shopped. He wanted Roger Moore's Volvo from "The Saint". I was perfectly happy to settle for the powder blue Austin Healey 3000.

My stomach decided that it was lunchtime -- because it was -- and I followed my nose to a vendor of meat pies. No, I did not try the haggis. Scott didn't eat the haggis, either. He said he wasn't hungry and that he'd eaten enough as a child. My beef meat pie was seriously delicious and I savored every last crumbly bit as we watched the professional division of the caber toss competition.

I had no idea it was a professional sport.

Apparently, the bout had been held up because the first caber broke. How embarrassing. Luckily, a stunt caber was located and the first competitor to the field threw a perfect 180 degree toss. The next closest competitor threw 80%. After the pros, the amateurs were let on the field. We left when a first timer nearly squashed the judge by losing control of the (much lighter) pole.

The next tent over was full of young girls participating in a dance competition. Scott says he can remember some of the steps but, out of respect to the girls, didn't dance along. When I could no longer stand baking in the sun, we moved on to the vendor area.

Oh, the luck we had there! I've been searching for the perfect red purse for AGES and, wouldn't you know it, I found it there. Perfect size, drop, color, shape, and price. I could've walked on air. We also found a pretty silver thistle brooch as a gift for Scott's mom. Scott's score of the day was a new kilt from The Kilted Nation. He has several Utilikilts -- and I was surprised that he didn't wear one to the event -- but none of them fit at the moment. Plus, I think his olive Utilikilt is too long. So now he's got a knee-length olive Kilted Nation utility kilt. And, uh, I have a khaki one. Scott said that I'd look good in a kilt and I didn't want to get the wrong tartan...

No kilt pictures. Have a fried Twinkie, instead.

We continued down to the race track for the sheep herding demonstration. The lady running the demo had three sheep and two border collies. Because the weather was so hot and humid, she didn't want to stress out the animals with a high energy demo but it was still an interesting watch. Every time she'd call off the dog with "that'll do", someone in the audience would coo, "That's just like the movie!" I wonder if that grates or pleases sheep herders.

As we made our way towards the exit, Scott ran across a couple of his historical martial arts buddies from the Virginia Academy of Fencing. We watched their demo for a bit and chatted a while. Scott was happy to play with some of their swords and show me the sword he wants next: a montante (I'm going on faith that this is the actual sword; work is blocking this site because its content categorization is "Weapons").

Our very last stop was at the Northern Virginia Sheltie Rescue tent so I could pick up a brochure. We've been thinking about getting a smallish dog and Shelties are high on my list of possibilities. With that, we bid Scotland adieu and hiked back into the real world.

Out of touch

My pavilion during last year's Pennsic War.

I'm headed off to the wilds of northwestern Pennsylvania for an extended weekend camping trip with 10,000 of my closest friends for an event known in the SCA as the Pennsic War. Yes, I'm one of those people who dresses up in funny clothing. I don't try to speak in a "ye olde" way; although, I do sing Middle English, Latin, and Italian songs on occasion.

Hopefully there will be actual bicycle content on this bicycle blog fairly soon. I've put the Velo Orange saddle and matching grips on the C8 and I'm still getting used to that new arrangement. Review coming soon. Plus, there's a beach trip in the works which means my sweet little cruiser will get to roll in her appropriate environment. Lots of group rides are coming up starting in late August, and I just received notification that this year's Great Pumpkin Ride is on the same day as my birthday. The Backroads Century kind of spoiled me for other group rides and I wasn't that thrilled with last year's Great Pumpkin, but I'm willing to give it a second chance. Plus, I get to wear my Halloween jersey again!

Punk rock Venetian, y'all.

So. Y'all be good while I'm camping like medieval royalty.

(Seriously. My persona is a Venetian noblewoman of the late 15th century. She never would have camped in a tent -- not that I can really call what I do "camping" what with my queen size bed, closet, dressing table, and plush rugs; Scott says I camp like a 19th century Briton on safari -- in fact, she probably would have left her casa for only social calls. When people ask if I'd like to have lived back them, my quick answer is "Oh, hell no.")

See you next week!

Please stand by

Flash is once again not playing nicely with Firefox and I can't append photos to my post until I use my home computer (hopefully). I should have a post up this evening.