Renaissance weekend

Didn't get a chance to post about my weekend yesterday. Was much fun. Not only did my Aggies beat up on Kansas State, but the Astros managed to complete one of the most amazing season-ending runs in baseball history to win the National League wild card race. But those victories were just the sideshow to our main event: The Texas Renaissance Festival.

This year, we stayed for almost seven hours, which is a record for us in the era of children. For the past five years or so, we've been limited to maybe three hours before the girls get cranky. This is the first time they didn't want to leave. They rode many of the muscle-powered rides, ate the food, darted from shop to shop and collected flowers from the performers in the parade. In short, they were Into it. Along the way, we found (!) one of those beautiful handcrafted wooden mugs with the leather lid, as well as a beautiful blue renaissance flat hat with an impressive ostrich feather in it. Both had been lost, and after searching in vain for the original owners, we gave up and brought them home with us. Our efforts were not wholly unsuccessful: We did find a lost little girl who was about three years old and scared out of her wits. After about 15 minutes she was successfully reunited with her family. Never seriously considered claiming her for our own, though.

One of the more interesting developments was Calista's sudden fascination with renaissance music. She likes it, and occasionally asks to hear one of our CDs, but was downright enraptured with a group performing called Istanpitta. They were playing 13th century Galacian tunes, on period instruments. The leader, Al Cofrin, is a flight controller at NASA in his other life. Calista made us go back to watch and listen to them three times, and just about bounced out of the festival when I told her she could pick out a CD to buy. A great deal of her fascination came from a dancer who was performing with the (singing and playing the recorder as well). She goes by the name Sahira and is good. To say she's a bellydancer is like saying Fred Astaire was a hoofer. She combined a number of different styles very effectively. The fact that she was attractive and oozed charisma didn't hurt, either. Turns out she is a professional dance instructor in the Houston area. Too bad Houston's a three-hour drive away--Calista would jump at the opportunity to take lessons in a heartbeat.

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