Minnesota Renaissance Festival
Silver Anniversary
or
Puph & Phluff’s
Captivation of the Ren Fest

Please remember that what you see here is nothing more than the scattered rantings of a Newbie at the MRF. I wrote this diary for myself and it seems that some other people might like to see it so here goes.

August 12-13
Opening weekend. What a blast seeing old friends again and presenting our favorites with wine which we made. On Sunday, we are given an Atta Boy for "Constant Interaction with the Patrons" and received two food coupon books. This is kind of funny because we had been thinking that we were not doing enough. Later we kind of realized that we were doing quite a bit more than others we know out there. We dined with the Duchess of Diddle at her tea party at 1:00 and decide to make it a standard part of our day. We also participate in the parade but that is a little taxing so we don’t know how often we will do that. At gate close, we performed our verse of The Mermaid song and everyone laughed. Her Majesty asked us to come to her Tea Party and do some poetry reading there. She wants us to sit up close too, as befits our station. God they love us. It either rained or was beastly humid all weekend and my hat melted as it was made of starched buckram. The next incarnation has a plastic cross-stitch frame and will probably outlast me.

August 19-20
Second weekend is a smashing success. The weather was nice, cool and dry. Lesley is in town with us for both days and she is playing the role of our Nanna, Madame Coupon. The Mayor’s Entourage tried to get her to spill out some of our embarrassing secrets from growing up. We gave out more wine including to James who we got the inspiration from to begin making wine ourselves. He is saving it to age more but he tells me of a wine contest for home vinters on Sunday which we enter a bottle in. We debuted a new song on Saturday in front of the Mayor’s Entourage. It is based on "This old man, He played One" but we made it "Puph & Phluff, We bought One" and we call it Puph & Phluff’s Shopping Day. I wrote it Friday at work with the help of Tracy, whom I work with. It was an instant success even when we messed it up.

Sunday I competed in the Vilification Tennis game, you hurl insults at the opposing team across a net of Peasants and score like tennis. My partner was Epaul and we did fairly good but Tim thought I was under prepared because my responses were a little slower that everyone else’s. I had no idea it would be so fast.

Jessey and his parents who are customers of Steven’s, were there on Sunday and asked around for us everywhere. This was really cool as everyone they asked, including the Queen, knew who we were but no one knew where we were. We introduced Jessey to the King too. Sunday at the wine competition, the Mead placed Second ( YEA!!!) in the white wine competition. What a thrill! Next, we are invited to dine with Their Majesties, Henry and Katherine. I thought it would be just a bunch of us sitting around on benches watching the King and Queen eat cheese and crackers while a troop of entertainment went through. The next thing I know they are announcing our names and no one else’s. There were two tables pushed together end to end with a blue table cloth spread out on it and candelabra. We were the only people seated with the King and Queen and were served a full five course meal. My breath was just taken away by it all. Her Majesty asked if I was not enjoying myself when I wasn’t eating a lot but I explained that I had just eaten and that this was all quite a surprise.

At the Queen’s Tea Party later that day, we did some poetry reading but I really didn’t like it so we will just sing one of our silly little songs next time. We sang Puph & Phluff’s Shopping Day at the Gate Closing show and it went verry well. Again we messed it up but it still got plenty of laughs.

That evening, after all the patrons had left, we were sitting and talking with D’lis, the Duchess of Diddle, and her boyfriend. She told us that the manager of the Renaissance Festival, Bonnie, has seen us perform and she likes us. As we sit and talk more, up she comes and eventually we perform the original Puph & Phluff song and lead into Puph & Phluff’s Shopping Day. As we are singing it, up walks the management of the Kansas City fair and Bonnie has us sing the first song to them as well. They all like our stuff.

When we got home that night, there was a message from Lesley on the answering machine. On her way home she has written us an new song based on the Brady Bunch. It is hysterical and we plan on singing it the next weekend. It is called The Immaculate Acquisition.

August 26-27
Janell, who signs our contracts, has called during the week and I’m just frantic trying to think what we did wrong. But no, she asks if we would like to entertain at an after hours private party on the upcoming Sunday for $40 each. It sure is nice to have your talent recognized!!! Tracy has written us a new song too but we will wait until the following weekend to learn that one.

Saturday morning, Rita came to Festival and we played a little with her. She came with us to debut the new song in front of Patsy’s booth. We had Patsy come out and display some of here children’s clothes during the line about Mumsie buying 40 sets of fancy baby clothes. It went well and it is funny how everyone seems to instantly join in the chorus.

It rained in the morning and created some lovely puddles. I tried to get one of the patrons to lie down in the puddle to let me walk across but none of them would. I then asked for someone to carry me across and this big man came over to carry me across the mud. The first attempt didn’t work at all. On the second attempt, I lost my ice-cream and it rolled down his shoulder and we laughed. He was a very good sport and even stopped to have his picture taken with us latter in the day.

We walked in the Parade and then joined the Duchess’ Tea party only to find out that she was on the Elephant during the parade. Yes she rode the cesspool as the Elephant did relieve itself during the middle of the parade. The rest of Saturday was fairly uneventful but we did sing our songs some more and we decided to make it a point to sing from some of the booths during the day. At gate close, we sang The Immaculate Acquisition for the crowd and had many of the performers and patrons join in for the chorus. That was fun. I managed to dance right out of one of my shoes. Sunday we tried to take it easy as we would be there until 10:00 pm. We napped during the day and then managed to join the Queen’s party in some dancing. Not only are people joining in on the chorus of The Immaculate Acquisition , but they have even started to add in the Pu-dumm-dumm between lines of the chorus. That was great. We completely missed the gate closing show today.

Then the party began and that was a lot of work. It was like taking the entire day and ramming it all into a four hour period. It was so hot, one of the women traded me a goblet for my fan. Cool!!! The whole party was heavy, constant interaction with the patrons. We found a lady named Elizabeth King who told us that we didn’t give her proper reverence so we took her by the hand and led her to the front of the food line calling our "Make way for the King, Make way for Madame the King." Her friends seemed to like that but some of the people at the front of the line were a little miffed. Pity!!! Another lady was from London, England and she told us that our accents were better than hers.

The most fun we had was with a lady who looked like Elizabeth Taylor so all night long we kept seeing her and exclaiming, "Elizabeth, so nice of you to grace our presence." She actually had on a big diamond ring so of course we talked about that too. We saw her as she was on the way out and managed to talk to her one last time and lament the fact that we hadn’t gotten here autograph. Overall it was a fun party but a lot of work, especially since it was after two days of festival already. We did get a prime rib dinner afterwards too, but my goodness it was late by then. We didn’t get home until almost midnight. The house is a disaster and the cats are beginning to wonder if we live there anymore.

September 2-4
Oh God, the big weekend of Sat. Sun. and Mon, Labor Day. Kind of long but it was fun too. We had another song to debut which was written by Tracy. It is called A Shopping Life and we first performed it at one of the candle makers in the front of his shop. He gave us each a candle shaped like a long stemmed rose. Steven had a bee on his for over 45 minutes which is hysterical considering the roses are not real and are not scented. He named the bee Nimrod, not the bright spot of the hive.

We also tried a new skit at the King and Queen’s luncheon. The King suggested that we do a shopping forecast for them so I wrote it based on a weather forecast. I was so tired because of only getting 5 hours of sleep the night before that I really felt that it fell flat on its face and died in the mud. I asked around though and the Crown Prince told me that it was good, needed tightening up, and they wanted us to continue it. We hold a Shop Of The Day in the end of it and that is cute. Patsy, who made our banner for the same weekend, was our first shop of the day and she modeled her children’s clothes for the audience. It resulted in her only sale that day as someone there did go down to her shop later that day and bought something. Weenie, our Designated Peasant, stood with us and carried our banner. The next day’s Shop was Kathleen Creger and she brought down some of her beautiful jewelry to many "OOOOOO" and "Aaaaahhhh" from the audience. Monday’s Shop was the Cat in the Hat, another Cathleen, whom Steven had bought a new hat from. She came down with a chest of hats. His Majesty was very excited about the "Treasure Chest" too. She used the Mayor to model all the hats which was very cute as he assumed the character of all the hats he put on. The audience loved him.

On Saturday, I participated in the Wench Press, kind of like bench press except you are lifting up women as wenches. There is a line of them from small to largest (a big girl of 6 feet). When it came my turn, I knew I would never be able to lift in my entire costume so I went down the line of women and gave each of them a piece of my costume while the audience giggled. I think they wanted more but I stopped at my shirt and tights. I lifted four fine but got to the fifth, Pat, and couldn’t make it. She walks our kind of bouncing her chest and sultry like. "Yea, there is a waste of effort" Steven says. On my second attempt with her, Steven yelled out "Close your eyes and think of England." So I lost but that is okay since the younger Prince, Philip, always wins. He lifted all the women including Reigna Terra, who was taller and larger than himself.

We then found Steven’s friend Audry, who was in town from Philadelphia, by being in the Parade. Once again we got a cool response from someone looking for us. Audry said that as they were looking for us, they asked all kinds of people if they knew the Princes, Puph & Phluff. Again, every one knew us but no one knew where we were. I like being popular. Or is that infamy???

The wench press and the parade were too much for me so when we got to the Duchess’ Tea I again stripped off my hat, doublet, shoes, and belt and sat away from the table because I didn’t want to have to struggle into the bench near the table. Her serving attendants were so nice. They were worried that I might collapse from the heat. Yes, another scorcher of a day. They brought me chocolate, sugars, and lots of water for quite a while. Eventually, I cooled off and sat on the ground with Diddle and enjoyed my self more.

At the Queen’s tea, we continue to perform to laughing people. We have started not staying after we sing though, using the line "So Many Shops, So Little Time." Her Majesty has begun asking for our country’s slogans though so it is giving us the idea that she wants us to lengthen out our time for her. That’s really cool.

There is this wonderful couple who have come in to the festival on two different weekends, for the whole weekend. That isn’t much until you consider that they live in Connecticut. They have the most beautiful costumes. For this weekend they wore Black and Silver on Sat.; Green and Silver on Sun.; and Burgundy and Gold on Labor Day. We stopped with them for about a half an hour and they told us they had caught our song at Gate Close the night before and really liked us. They then said they had been talking to Bonnie, the site manager, and she had asked them if they had caught our act and that they should before they left. So we sang a couple of our songs for them. We saw them again at Labor Day’s gate close and said how much we had really enjoyed seeing them and getting to know them and they said the same of us. I’m really going to miss them.

Jeff the landlord and Lance came to the festival on Sunday. Monday night they told us that they had heard other people talking about us as they walked around but they never saw us until Gate Close. We also got a complement for a couple of guys who pretend to think one or the other of them is a dog named Dibby. They said how nice it was that we associated with everyone no matter what class of character they were. By the way, Dibby the Dog and I won Vilification Tennis on Saturday.

September 9-10
Today is the day of the Queen’s first For-Pay Tea Party. I asked her if we were to be included in it and she told me "no, that marketing had set this up" I said that must mean that only big name people were to be included and she responded that we were making quite the name for ourselves at festival and that we would probably get an award too. Cool!! I later figured that since it was a paid event, only paid performers were included in it, maybe. She later told Steven that the paid event was to be a daily feature next year and she definitely wanted us to be a standard part of it. Really Cool!!! Does that mean that we will be paid next year? One can only hope. I also asked her about lengthening out our piece at her tea party and she said yes. She said we make a bright spot of laughter in an otherwise serious performance. I did hear a different name for the Tattered Demailians (singing orphans) which was so funny I had to leave the tea party because I was laughing so much. They were dubbed the Tatter Tot Aliens. Hee-hee-hee.

Since the weather was cooler, we were finally able to wear the entire costume without sweating our brains out. Steven even wore his new ruff. It looked really good. We were presented to the King and Queen in the morning again and it went quite well. Steven told His Majesty that his outfit wasn’t butch enough and that he needed to "ruff it up." So I used his phrase from earlier and called him "Puph in a Ruph." The king liked it.

We gave bottles of wine to the Fops and were really complimented by them. We told them about all the people who have been concerned that we were going to step on the toes of the Fops and they said that that would never have happened because they like us. Steven told Beau Mond about the hassle of getting in Academy and then Academy itself. He told us that all we really had to do was call him and we could have been part of his group. Wasn’t that nice.

We have been asked to participate with the Midwife and Matchmaker in the talent show next weekend so apparently we will be doing a twisted medley of The Sound of Music. We have also been asked if it would be OK if people came up to us at the end of our Brady song and joined us with four frames so we could have that grid of nine people with everyone looking at each other like in the Brady Bunch TV show. Cool!!! It is so neat when other people want to join in on your stuff and contribute. We have to get that pregnant women in this time.

Steven did two new things at the Duchess’ Tea. He initiated a "21 Grape Salute" in which we throw tuns of grapes at one victim or group of victims. He also referred to the Mother Superior as a Broad of Christ. Hee-hee-hee!!

Saturday, September 16
Saturday morning we go to cast call and I am talking to the Queen. You know, one queen to another. The next thing I know, Steven is calling me from the center of the stage. I joined him up there and he starts telling everyone that it is Romance Weekend and this is a typical example of what you can see out there that weekend. He hands me a rose and says "Here, lets go get some beer." I’m like, "What?!?" He then proceeds to tell them that here is another example of what can be seen but you will probably only see it once. He takes a small box with a ring in it out of his pocket, goes to one knee, and says: "I love you, will you be my partner?" I am just speechless!!! I took the ring and put it on my finger. Apparently, the crowd was just going wild and applauding, and someone yelled "Hold out for a bigger stone." Well there was no stone but it is just beautiful. Everyone hugged us and asked what I had said. I told them I said, "Shithead." He had told many people so there should be plenty of pictures. All day long and into the next, people kept coming up to us and saying congratulations. It was too cool. The Queen sent us a card and the King patted Steven on the shoulder.

September 16-17
Lesley and her friend Stephanie came on Saturday. Steph asked if there were any trumpeters at any of the events and I said yes. She said that she could do those kinds of things so I went into our craft room and came down with a cheap curled horn that is a Christmas decoration. She blew a beautiful Fanfare from it surprisingly since it is such an ugly little trumpet. We decided to make her Toot, our Herald on approval. We of course had to not approve of her as she was only there that day. Everywhere we went that we had a major part, she would blow that fanfare for us. I really liked that.

We made Madame Coupon, Lesley, a Puphy, Phluffy Phriend today. That was neat. We also made Mary who is our Designated Peasant, a Phriend too.

My hat got boarded by the Pirates. They all stood a little ways from me and all yelled "Prepare to be Boarded." Then they all came running over and started kind of jumping up at me and my hat and making obscene gestures and noises. Weirdos!!! Apparently this was Steven’s idea too. Gotta Luv them.

The butchers were back at gate closing with some of the very good stuff. They read a Subliminal Letter they had written which kept everyone in stitches. It was so hard trying not to laugh so we could hear what to laugh at next. We performed the extended version of The Immaculate Acquisition (the Brady song) with help from others. We had our banner brought out to trumpet fanfare when our turn came. Steven told His Majesty that we were sorry that nothing we had to day had anything to do with panties or body parts. I said that they had promised that we could go after some act that was lame to make us look better. His Majesty responded that that meant we could go anywhere we wanted to then. We explained that there were people who didn’t know us so we did the Puph & Phluff song without the sayings after it. Then I said that people were coming up to us and asking "So, Like, what the hell do you do here?" I then said that we had sent off to Mumsie for one of the family crests and Steven and I pointed at the banner and said "Does this not say Prince shopping?" To which they responded "Yea, Verily, Shop till you drop." We then went into the Brady song and the pregnant woman came out during the first verse. The Midwife came out and handed her a baby doll during the part about 27 children. Then more people came out to pull her back and the midwife handed her another baby doll. Then we continued with the song until the last refrains of Puph & Phluff when they came back out to make three rows and three columns of people looking at each other just like the TV show. It went really well.

Randome Notes

The Mayor’ Entourage presented us with a small gift. It is a die that has five sides that say Spend $ and one side that is blank. Sounds like my kind of game of chance.

September 23-24
Saturday
We arrived to the final weekend with multiple layers of clothes to wear as the forecast was for cold wet weather. At the regular morning cast call, I was greeted by one of the other actors with a copy of the Privy Councilor. She showed me that our names were in it under nominations for the Rookie of the Year award. Four other people were also amongst the nominees. Of course the inevitable happened in that not only were our character names misspelled, but so were our real names. Later in the day we were telling some of the other characters this when Janell came up and I showed her too. She made some joke about removing our names completely to correct the error.

Also at the Cast Call, Will came up and gave us an award of his own. He gives out five of these each year and he gave us one. It is a wishing feather made of brown suede. How Nice! As we left the cast call and were headed to the front gate, this guy came walking past and gave us some pictures of us on the stage from the weekend before. Later that same day, Peter came up and showed us pictures he had taken of the elongated Brady song from the Previous Gate Closing show. We got some of those too. It is just too cool when others do nice things for you.

We went to the Queen’s tea party as normal and performed something I can’t remember what. On the way out, she, Kim the Queen, asked Steven and myself to escort her, one on each side. She made remarks about steering with the fingers of her escorts. She took us into her "suite" in the Summer Palace and we had a wonderful time getting to know her and a couple of her Ladies in Waiting. Summer Palace is a collection of trailers and campers used by members of the court. They are supplied by either themselves or the Festival itself. Kim’s is a camper that goes on the back of a pick-up truck. She asked if we were excited about the nomination and of course we said yes. She asked if we would be disappointed if we lost. Steven said "No, this whole year has been a dream come true to just be here and participate." I just said "Yes!" We told her we had something planned if we won and she had us go through our "acceptance speech." Kim told us that if we needed a place to get away from everything for a while, we were always welcome to use her "suite".

That evening we ate dinner with the people of the Bakery Stage. They had invited us the previous weekend so we came and had a wonderful time with them. We made Annette a Puphy, Phluffy Phriend at that time too. I love doing that where the most people who work with the new Phriend will see it and she worked at the Bakery Stage. Come to find out, we have quite a few people there who like us too. It is amazing how many people know us and still like us.

Party
Saturday evening was the traditional party for everyone involved with the festival. All the characters and crafters and their help are invited. The owner supplies cheap wine, beer, and appetizers for them all. There was a slide show of past and present people to start. Steven got really emotional here. Then they give out the awards. The crafter awards are given first, then the character awards.

When they got to our category, Cracked Cup - Rookie of the Year, they first read off all the nominees. There was light applause for each of the other nominations but when they got to our names, there was cheering. It was such an incredible moment. We kept telling ourselves "we may not win, we may not win" just to keep reality in check but when that cheering came just from the announcing of our nomination, I about lost it. My heart just started racing and my skin crawling. I had been wondering before this if we should even do our little acceptance speech because no one else was doing anything like that at all. Then I thought, "To hell with it, we’re Puph & Phluff."

When they announced the winner, I was listening for "Puph & Phluff" so when they said "Steven Wilson", I thought, "Oh, shit. We didn’t win. Whose Steven Wilson anyway?" But then as they completed the pair with my name and the crowd just erupted in cheers, applause, and everyone was looking at us, I just started crying. We went on the stage and they gave us a wooden chalice engraved on the bottom with "Best New Character", two blue glazed goblets of the Festival, and a certificate for each of us with our names spelled wrong. We then told them that we had something to say and we went to the microphone.

We were wearing matching purple satin shirts that one of Steven’s employees, Lois, had given us. We both said, "We can’t understand why people can’t keep our names straight." I then went on with, "We have three things that will help anyone to further their career here at the festival. 1. Never go near the Fops, there just too good. 2. Never go near the giant puppets, screaming two year olds are not fun to deal with." Steven said, "3. Never follow the butchers in a Panty skit." They loved that one. Then me, "Since people have such problems with our names, we have decided to change our names. From now on we will be known as ‘the actors formerly known as Puph & Phluff’ and our new name will be this." At this point I held up a sign with a very large dollar sign, $, on it to everyone’s amusement.

On our way down from the stage, the entire front section of the audience started bowing and saying "We’re now worthy, we’re not worthy." The court Herald, John, came pushing his way up front and asked if they were supposed to pronounce the sign as "KaChing." Kim came up to the front and she said she had prayed to all the gods that we would win and she hugged me and Steven. Tears were flooding my eyes ever since we came down from the stage. Then someone with long, blond hair came to give me a hug and I just buried my face in her shoulder and burst into tears for a while. I’m not even sure who she was. So many people were coming forward to congratulate us and give us hugs that I don’t think I could experience such a high ever again. Yep, I’m really going to miss the adulation of the crowds. Hee-hee-hee.

After we had taken our awards to the car, we came across George who is King Henry. He told us that we deserved the award as we were a good act, well organized and highly polished. And to think that I thought we were just fumbling along and trying to stay our of trouble.

Sunday
Sunday morning I wanted to call Mom and let her know the good news but the damn phone wouldn’t take the full $2.75 that it needed to make the call so I had to call her collect. I let her know all the good news and she wished us well. As we were approaching the front gates to enter the festival grounds again, the Mayor’s entourage was on the parapet. They all said, "Oh, look here comes KaChing and KaChang!!!" I just love our adoring fans.

We were then told to go and take a look at the moat around the tower in the Children’s Realm. It was completely full of bubbles and several feet tall in some places. Since it was cold, the bubbles were quite dry and at times, large chunks of it would break off and float around a bit. Quite beautiful all in all.

We decided to try and honor our fellow nominees of Rookie of the Year by giving all of them a rose. They seemed to appreciate it but it took us all day, from the very beginning to the very end, just to find four people. Steven borrowed Tim Wick’s video camera to tape a video birthday card for his Uncle George. He has a thing for breasts and Steven got all the women that were blessed by God to wish George a happy birthday. Some of the wishes were quite amusing and inventive.

I went to the Duchess’ tea party and just kind of sat there with a dazed look on my face as I was just exhausted and emotionally drained from the night before. I toasted the Duchess for all the magical moments she and her staff created at the tea parties and David Brice toasted Steven and myself for our award. We made Thaddeus a Phriend at the tea party with his fiancé, Belledonna, there to watch.

We skipped the Shopping Forecast on Saturday and Sunday because it was blowing like hell Saturday and we just didn’t feel up to it Sunday. Our voices were just trashed which we really knew when we tried to play at the stocks. We normally sing "Poor Wandering One" from the Pirates of Penzance. We couldn’t reach the high notes that we had previously been able to and our tone was that of a bull frog in heat. The butchers gave us a copy of their "Subliminal Letter" and they treat us as equals even though we know there stuff is just incredible. I think they appreciated the part about not following them in order to further you festival career. The Fops sure did. They all laughed when I related it to them as none of them were present to see us get the award. They came looking for us this day in order to give us a card.

I think one of the greatest complements we got is the invitation to join the Mayor’s Entourage. They are loosing some of their people and need replacements. It is nice to be considered good enough to join such a long standing group. I don’t think I want to join them only because we seem to have made a very good presence for ourselves out there.

Throughout the day, we exchanged names and addresses with lots of people and we ended up being formally invited to five parties from the end of festival until Christmas. I just love being popular. At least I hope that’s what they meant and not just inviting us to be the freak show.

We were asked to be in a skit for the gate closing show by the Genie. The skit would involve two peasants making a wish to be dressed like the Fops and have Puph & Phluff’s money. In the end, we ended up with the Genie’s bottle and wished our money back. It was kind of cute but I’m not sure the audience got the punch line of "Possession is 9 tenths of the Law." Oh well.

Steven and I were also the very last item of the last Closing Gate Show. Tim, who runs the show, had asked if it would be OK for him to mutilate our names in our introduction. It couldn’t be more perfect as we were planning on making him a Puphy Phluffy Phriend. We went out and did our normal Puph & Phluff song and then we begged the King that we could present an award to one of his servants. We then told the Tinker, Tim, to step forward and assume an aspect of humility. He kind of looked at me like I was crazy or something but he did come out and kneel in front of us to a cheering crowd. We went through the whole bit and dubbed him with his "outstanding ability to get our names correct most of the time, and for always scheduling only the best of entertainment at the Gate Closing Shows." I have found that the audiences always need a "The End" or they keep looking for something more so I had started adding "Huzzah for the new Phriend." Well, the entire crowd yelled Huzzah for Tim in one very loud and united voice. Then he stood and hugged me and the crowd went "Ahhhhhh", and he hugged Steven and they went "Ahhhhhh" again. It was really, really cool.

The drum dance was brought outside of the gates and they actually beat on the big kettle drum with flaming sticks. There was a fire breathing bit and lots of great dancing. Then the cannon went off, twice! It actually blew out its top before going of the normal way. Weird. It blew a big smoke ring when the top blew too. I understand that it actually split apart its frame. Then there was more drums and finally the people left for the last time.

We went out to dinner with some people and then went to the campgrounds after hours for talk, drinks, and fun around the camp fires. I don’t ever want to stay down there because there was so much smoke from all the fires that my jacket smelled from it. One fool put one of those giant spools like telephone lines goes on, onto one of their fires. Flames shot up 5 or 6 feet above the surrounding tents. It was such a shocker that a number of us ran over to make sure that everything was OK.

Randome Notes
One day as we were walking towards the B gate to enter the festival grounds, there was a family with a small girl following us. Here is a conversation overheard.

Girl: Mommy look at the feathers!
Mommy: Yes dear, what color are they?
Girl: Purple and blue....Mommy! He’s not wearing any pants!!!
I was wearing my tights but they are very form fit.

Monday
Monday morning dawned very, very foggy. It was really cool. We went for a walk with Pat who is Cantaloupé. It was rather odd seeing the grounds shrouded in fog with no one else there. It will be a remarkable memory. The woman who lives on the grounds even asked us to breakfast although we only thought she was inviting us to coffee. Then we progressed over to Summer Palace and talked with the members of the court. Overall, everyone there treated us as equals and not just as upstart wanna-bees. That was very encouraging.

We all went to breakfast at J’s in Chaska only to discover that a group of about 20-25 of us had already gotten there. I decided to help out and started getting water and coffee for our group. Beth also helped and then we decided to just go ahead and take the orders too. That was kind of fun and the other festival people told me how good my acting as a waiter was. I told them that I had followed a professional waiter around for two weeks just to get the part right. Beth and I did end up getting our breakfasts for free so that was really nice. Everyone was really cool with us and related various tales of previous years. The waitress told us there was an annual touch football game that day at festival too. Now why didn’t anyone of the festival tell us this themselves???

Back at the festival grounds we made another trip around the area and saw people to give them their final farewells. We went down to the camp ground with John and Christina and got more of the history of the place from them. We then went back to the regular grounds and discovered exactly what the football game was. It wasn’t touch football, it was Fondle Football, similar to touch football but a lot more friendly! Half of the people ended us playing in their underwear or some other bizarre clothing. The entire thing was based on the ridiculous and who could do the most absurd thing while still having the outlook of a football game. Pretty wild.

One of the most amazing things happened here. People we didn’t really know came up to us and started thanking us for playing with them and telling us they are looking forward to playing with us at the festival in the future. I barely remember one of the people and saying one line to her. Some of the others, however, I do not have any recollection of ever running across them nor of ever seeing them on the grounds. Go figure!!! I guess with popularity comes Notoriety

P.S.
Wednesday night after everything was done and over with we went out to the movies with a bunch of people from festival. We were jokingly told not to watch the credits of the film in order to find more awards for ourselves as festival was over. While standing in the lobby of the theater and saying our good-byes, two girls came down the escalator and said, "I know you, you’re Puph & Phluff." So much for festival being over!!!

Where is my spotlight anyway?