1/4 of a gummy really didn't do much of anything, I felt sleepy but don't feel like I lost consciousness. I note that as I type I'm taking a half gummy.... well, I don't have to do anything before 5 tomorrow, so.

This morning I got up earlier than I would have liked to go to a craft fair in old town Folsom. I checked out the farmer's market and craft fair and stores but didn't end up getting anything, which is disappointing for the awesomeness of old town Folsom. Like I got lunch and that was it. Oh well.

I did see a guy walking around WITH HIS BIG OL' WHITE POTBELLIED PIG DOWN THE STREET. The pig sadly wasn't a very cute pig--very scrunchface--but it was funny how he just let her stroll down the street alone and was all "I'll catch her later." Later I saw a little girl in a tutu patting the pig. Adorbs, photographed it.

I'm going to have to write up more notes on this later, but I went to the new Sacramento Storytelling Festival. The local guild is going to do their own now, which is awesome.

Wacky moment: they had you stamp yourself with a blue butterfly upon entry. The lady running it was all "stamp yourself, I'm not very good with them" and I said "Me neither!" I then stamped myself, then ran to the bathroom before the show started, and then I got blue ink ALL over my damn hands. I showed her, "See, I'm REALLY not good with the stamping!" Luckily most of it came the hell off in the wash.

They started out with two hours of workshops, one by Corey Rosen and Claire Hennessy. Corey works on movie/film/ride stuff in the Bay Area (jealous!) and I bought his storytelling book, which so far is very good. He did autograph it for me. Claire has amazing pink hair and is English. They had us partner up with someone twice to tell some aspect of our life story in a minute. I got to hear love stories and theater stories. I decided to do My Theater Story and only got around halfway through with person #1, then had to continue with person #2. Both said I was good at this, which, yay.

I also volunteered to go up for a demonstration (I swear I got a brief psychic ping to do so) and we had to switch between telling only facts, telling only description (not my strong suit) and telling only emotion. It turned into a Rapunzel-trapped-in-castle sort of thing. People seemed to like that I did it, at least.

Willy Claflin did a workshop on voice, doing different voices and tones, etc. This was followed by five local storytellers, most of who I knew.

Regional tellers:

* CharRon Smith, does poetry and was wearing a shirt saying that this is what a master poet looks like. He's a DJ right now, used to be an accountant. Did several poems, one that sounded like um...making a smoothie sound dirty (I note someone had said earlier in the day that you shouldn't get dirty at storytelling events), and did a poem about office work that I really related to. Had some lines like "burned popcorn is the perfume of the damned" and "Today we had a video on an active shooter. I'm not sure if it's prevention or tutorial." I HEAR THAT.

* Tanner Feustel: I'm happy to see Tanner back--last I saw him was 2019 when he graduated and was moving to Oregon. Now he's back--at least in the Bay Area and visiting over here when he can--and he told a story about his mom's dog, Chili the Pomeranian. Upon deciding "it can't shit bigger than I do" on the dog breed, the two were happy as clams until Chili disappeared from the backyard one day. Tanner reasonably assumed Chili was dead, but his mom kept dreaming about him and feeling like he was alive out there somewhere. Well, six years later they've moved to Santa Barbara for a job and Tanner gets a phone call from Antioch saying Chili is alive--I guess his was the only working phone number left on the microchip. ("The second craziest phone call" that he got that day, the one where he told them to call his mom was the first, I think.) Chili was in pretty bad shape, but managed to live another two years. After you've seen someone come back from the dead, "I will never tell someone to give up hope."

He said you can Google for it (and see Chili) and yes, here it is in article and video.

* Jean Green: the one teller I didn't know, she's from Capital Storytelling (haven't run into her there), about being very forcibly dragged to her high school reunion and running into one of the popular kids there.

* Mark Berry: told a story about how his uncle threw "peanut showers" for his students on their birthdays. (Literally throwing peanuts on them.) Mark didn't know when his uncle's birthday was exactly, and was told NOT TO TELL by his mother. Obviously Mark was smart enough not to check on this, but the kids at his uncle's school sure were friendly to him and brought up birthdays a lot. Finally some former student got a job with access to uncle's paperwork, and a GIANT PEANUT SHOWER was held for him on his last birthday before retirement. "I don't know how they got so many peanuts into that room..."

* Linda Kennedy told a story about a kid telling the angry landlord a riddle as to where his parents were, and the landlord swears he'll forgive the rent for the month if the kid explains it. The kid makes him swear on something alive--the nearest fly--and then later when the guy reneges and they drag it all to a judge, the kid says something like "remember when the fly landed on your nose?" and the landlord is all, "No, it didn't, it landed on the door..." OOPS.

I did find out that a lady I knew in storytelling and did events for pre-pandemic, Mary McGrath, died recently. Pancreatic cancer. I hadn't heard from her in years and kind of suspected something might have happened, actually. Her husband Robin (who wasn't doing too well when I last saw him) is in memory care. I got the details for the funeral, but I dunno if I can go since it's a workday, midday, and probably during one of my in-person days to boot.

The draw-a-name tellers I didn't write everything down for, but one guy did a great one on being obviously gay as a kid and being told not to be (obviously he's over that). There was one story about a couple being allowed on a plane flight for free as long as they didn't make any noises as the pilot flew crazy... "I almost shouted when Esther fell out, but $50 is $50." One guy I've met online, John Aubert, I finally met IRL and he told a story about being a geography teacher driving in the wrong direction all day and not noticing until certain distinctive landmarks repeated themselves on the wrong side. Gloria was there and did her "Jesus Chair" story about a kid who wanted to be a veterinarian (I note someone in the parking lot had "A PET VET" as their license plate) and the family chair made by an ancestor named Jesus who was, coincidentally, into carpentry.

During the dinner break, I found a restaurant called Bento Box and got sushi, which was fun, and then was trying to figure out math on my crochet. I note the instructions for the dress are all "repeat a few rows a few more times if you want it longer" so I was trying to figure that out. (Then I figured out during the night that I was doing the wrong stitch and it was coming out way larger than the gauge...I swear I've taken that out 3x now.) A lady walked by and told me she needed to learn how to do it again, and that she's A FORMER SECRET SERVICE AGENT ("protect the president, and all that") and made a blanket while on guard duty.

After dinner, the three main presenters did stories. I didn't write down everything, but Corey mentioned a Dante bust, returning to the same place in Italy with a super old guy proprietor a few times, having "happy hippopotamus face" on his face while trying to get his visa sorted in China, the time he had something stolen at the gym and the cop mentioned it was his last week on the job...and he played Officer Krupke in West Side Story, so they were singing showtunes in the back of the car... and after all of his travel stories gone wrong, he's doing a business trip again soon and "I'm hoping for THE MOST BORING TRIP EVER!"

On a related note, Claire talked about all the luggage (usually like, 7 cases) she used to pack on trips, and what it was like to move internationally. And finally she had this sofa they put outside and various people kept abducting the sofa and moving it to the following locations: the middle of a field, in a middle school play yard, at the coffee shop, in the park, at the movies where it got covered in graffiti....The weird thing is they kept taking it back (I guess some neighbor kept spotting it and complaining and they were afraid she'd report them to someone), and someone started charging them to pick it up, and finally they just hacked it up with a chainsaw and sent it to the dump. "It does feel like we murdered a delinquent animal."

Willy did a lot of stories, what I have written down is that his parents met when his dad hit her mom's car ("introduced himself by totaling her car") and spent 1.5 hours trying to track her down...then asked her to lunch. There was a mention of "Lord of the Flies Academy" at a school, a group of people deemed "thinkers" and "breathers," pandas named Orlando and Amanda and wishing that Nixon had a panda, and "I don't need a panda BECAUSE I AM A PANDA....so that's how it was in the early 70's."

I note Tanner sat next to me during the nighttime show, trying to duck the infernally freezing AC that neither of us was enjoying (I note that on the evaluation, the one quibble I had with the venue was the AC) and afterwards we had a great chat about reuniting again and how he remembered me (despite mask, new hair color, etc) and that I was always nice to him, and inviting me to a show he's hosting in mid-September. (Which is annoyingly same day as Corgi-Con, but...sigh). Which was sweet. Texted a bit later about getting the link for the dog story. He was also curious as to what I write down during shows except my handwriting is terrible trying to catch up with others talking, so I read it to him as to what brief bits I write down to try to remember everything later.

Great to have him back at least in this state/region again, hopefully will see him around when he can get up here--said he's in Pleasant Hill these days.

After all of that was done, Ashley did end up going to karaoke after all, so I met her and Jim there for an hour. Jim had on one of the shirts I got him, so yay there. Had a good time partying it up for an hour. Ashley got another birthday shot and it was smaller and much less messy this go-round. Jim filmed it, I was dancing in the background not paying attention, hah hah. Did Total Eclipse, some guys really got into it, good choice there.

previous entry - next entry
archives - current entry