Ren Faire Boots

The faire this weekend was great! I am finally getting the hang of this sales thing. It's mostly doing what I like to do anyhow - sharing an excitement and appreciation for handwoven textiles, and then asking for a credit card.

I've been wearing borrowed garb, including hard-soled moccasins. They look great, but standing on the hard ground all day was taking a toll on my feet, and therefore my whole mood and energy level. (I also realized that if I wear them out, I'll have to pay for them, but not own them. Eeek.) By Saturday night my feet were so sore that I went to bed without supper. I laid in bed, put my feet up to rest them and didn't wake up until morning, determined to get some new shoes before next week. Maybe Payless would have something that looked "good enough"...

For years, I've wanted to go to Ren Faire, partly to find those beautiful boots that all my renny friends have. They are super expensive, so there's no way I could get them at my first faire. Knowing how particular my sense of style is, I would almost certainly have to pay extra for a custom order. At this point I still have very little money, too, so they were definitely out for this year. It's safe to go and look then, right?

Well... I walked in the booth and saw hundreds of pairs of boots that all looked boring to me. One pair stood out from all the rest - the only ones of interest to me at all. They were dark brown with a simple cinnamon brown and forest green trim. The buttons were silver with Celtic knotwork, perfect for my weaving-focused lifestyle. They weren't quite right, though. The sales girl told me that I need size 11 and these were hanging on the 10 rack. Whew! But they were hanging in the wrong place. They were my size after all.

"Let's just try one on to make sure," the very friendly sales girl said. It was work getting my foot wedged in, so I was sure they were too small. "That's perfect! You want them to stretch and fit like a glove. They'll be tight the first few days, but then they'll be molded perfectly to your foot and feel like you're not wearing anything at all."

Well, I still couldn't afford to get them today. Maybe lay-a-way? "If you're working the faire, we'll give you a discount. If you can put a little bit down on them, you can walk away wearing them right now."

And so I did. I have until the end of faire to pay them off. Look how beautiful they are!



[Handmade, comfortable boots that will last forever]

So now I feel like a kid who can run faster and jump higher in brand new shoes. Except that my new super power is the ability to stand and talk to customers for hours at a time.

So today, to help break them in and take advantage of the desert flower show brought on by last week's rain, I went on a hike in the hills above the resort. It's gorgeous!




[Sunset from the hillside]

Pictures don't even do it justice. The place is filled with the sounds of birds and the smells of greenery and flowers. I was surprised at how many of the plants are new to me. I could, of course, make a meal, put you into an altered state of consciousness or send to your grave with the plants out here that I *do* know, but it's the new ones that interest me most.

...I came back to edit this post this morning because I realized that there are many people reading my blog who don't know me. Compared to nearly everyone I know, I'm the tea-totaler. I don't smoke, don't drink, and maintain the clean-and-sober space on the sanctuary. Any survivalist knows these things about plants because it might be useful to identify brand new plants in an unfamiliar environment. You need to know which plant families are always edible, which ones are always dangerous, and how to identify them. Within the family and even within a single plant, some parts are food, some parts will impair your judgment, and some will kill you. The nightshades are a perfect example. They provide tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant, okra, every kind of pepper, AND drugs like nicotine, scopolamine (the "truth serum" that the eye doctor uses to dilate your pupils), and atropine (a deadly poison that can resuscitate someone with an unmeasurably low heart rate). It just sounds so dramatic to say "I can pick roadside plants to make a salad, bend your mind or kill you," doesn't it? Anyhow... Here are the plants that I haven't yet identified. They're pretty, but new to me...



[A super-fragrant shrub]




[An unexpected color in the desert, looking kind of scrophulariaceous]

Soooo, after a day and a half of wear, I can feel how comfortable these boots are going to be. Right now, it's like walking on a cloud that pinches a bit in the toes. By next weekend, though, my foot woes should be a thing of the past.