epic epic epic

Well thanks for all your birthday good wishes!!! :)

We had an interesting couple of days. Friday night around 9 I was in the middle of cake-baking when it turned up that I might not be allowed to take the theatre class after all. Can you spell "disappointed"? I had been so looking forward to a really fun class.
But the workload was worrying my parents, as it might shuffle out other things.

Anyway grr grr grr. End of long day. I take the cake out of the oven. It breaks as I flip it out of the pan. I decide to taste-test it, it already looks erm...disappointing.
I forgot to add any sugar.
Yep, just clean forgot the sugar. The recipe was one of those annoying ones where the ingredients are listed at the beginning and then it says "mix first seven ingredients".

We shall draw the curtain of compassion over the rest of the scene [to quote Mark Twain]. Actually I just went to bed.

This picture was not taken last night. I wish it weren't so fuzzy, it perfectly captures my expression [purposely for the camera] of craziness. teehee

Saturday I was up early. I can't seem to sleep in, and I've been not getting enough sleep recently.

But there was a nice sunrise, very pink. Off to the farmers' market under a blue sky and warm air, just perfect party weather. We spent a long time at the market, getting various bits of produce for the party. Fixings for tortillas, grapes, a melon, flowers.

Here's me bouquet being specially made:

Then off to the Co-op for more cheese. Home, where I began the day-long operation of washing and preparing produce. A few phone calls to Dallan and Eva, my confederates in party-planning.

I frosted the doomed carrot-cake [what remained of it. It made a surprisingly good breakfast, and I have it on good authority that it was a rather tasty midnight snack as well] which improved it.

Around 5: 30 we took the first load of stuff out to the field. Dallan arrived to hep set up. Here we are struggling with the tent-poles whilst my dad takes photos [lol. He was working harder than anybody.]

By 6 or thereabouts [party scheduled for 6:30] I was in my usual pre-party state of happy frantic hospitality, struggling with a table, carting tubs of food hither and yon, greeting guests, directing traffic.

We started off with frisbee. That's me, grey shirt, far right [I didn't know my hair was that red! Henna, lols]

A large contingent of less athletically-minded gals [including myself] were the pioneers in a new sport, contact Frisbee. Your hands should never leave contact with the frisbee. It's great fun, you stand in a little circle and serve up the disk with great ceremony or perhaps a twist ["Under the leg! Ooh, a mean trick!" "Backwards! The plot thickens!"]

There was a lot of music, live and iPod

Around 7 we felt a few drops of rain. An hour before there had not been a cloud in the sky. We hustled the stuff under the tent and it cleared up.

There aren't many more good photos, alas. It got dark pretty quick.

But oh the epicness! I think there were about 15 people there. Fairly early on we made a foray out to the clump of trees in the middle of the field. The trees are clearly not visible in the left-hand side of the picture. That involved one person running alongside, holding the wireless iPod player to spur us on, and most everybody else joining arms and skipping. Do I not have awesome friends?

Did a little more dancing. Came back and had more food. My dad made tortillas over a propane grill/burner/whatever it is and that was fun. Who would have thought that 15 teenagers would scarcely touch the four bags of chips?

The grapes, on the other hand, proved extremely alluring. People wound up with grapes in their pockets ["I have a grape in my pocket! What is it doing there, I did not put a grape in my pocket!"]

Speaking of pockets, Bethany once again proved her reputation as carry-all. "Need a band-aid? A signal-splitter? A converter, AA batteries? How 'bout some triple-A's? Do you know, I've got needle-nosed tweezers in here, and two lighters. What's this? I did not know this was in here! What's that, do you need an audio cable, or a USB?" I had specially stocked my pockets for the day's events.

As the night wore on we got increasingly hilarious. The rain had not returned but there was a sizeable quantity of lightning to all compass-points of us but thankfully not above.

There was more dancing, in a circle this time. My playlist includes the perennial favorite Siamsa which had us all up and dancing. The plastic cups did not survive. "Oops, we're dancing on the cups!" CRUNCH!

Another epic memory had to be doing the folk-dance Dermish under the stars. It's a very epic dance, everybody's in a circle holding the hands of the person two down from them, spinning round.

Sword-fighting too. And adventures with glow-sticks. A bit of singing. Around 9:30 I decided we needed to open the bottle of expensive French imported sparkling apple cider, and did so with much ceremony. The cups were mostly gone by that time but we made do. A very nice vintage.

Cut the cake that Eva had made, toothsome. Stood round in a huddle, trying to keep warm, as the breeze had picked up.

Oodles of fun. We had all cleared out by 10:45, just as the rain began again. Got the tent down, but we need to head out there today to pick up bits of cups no doubt, and collect any sundry items left behind. We'll have to start a "Lost and Found from Bethany's Epic Party".

Next weekend is RenFaire!!!!! I'm excited, Eva and I have been commanded [tehee] to go, and rendezvous with the other peeps that are going.

And regarding the theatre class, prayers that I can convince my parents would be appreciated!! :)

In short, I had an awesome birthday!