Today Mom and I went to the San Jose Renaissance Faire, something that’s been on my radar for a while but never actually went over to. It’s done by the same folks who do the Folsom one and you can tell, so that’s done well. The major difference was the venue--San Jose is done in a park (Folsom is done by the fairgrounds/zoo and actually has a rodeo grounds to do all the jousting, military demonstrations, etc.) and said park is located right under the airport traffic, so planes were flying over constantly. Mom decided to count at one point and said planes were coming in every 1.5 minutes to 5 minutes at the longest. One show kept track and counted sixteen that happened in 45 minutes. The apparent etiquette here is to just yell “DRAGON!” when this happens.

I got a fidget spinner pin that has a Lego movable backing on the back and says “Keep calm and fidget on” with arrows directing you to spin it. This took some doing because it was the last of it’s kind and the owners were being kinda weird about parting with it, but Mom got them to do it. I can’t stand to be a harassing nag to anyone these days but clearly that doesn’t bother her. I also introduced her to the joys of the sassaparilla booth.

We saw a show that was putting on Pyramus and Thisbe (from Midsummer Night’s Dream) but using audience members as their human puppets. We saw a falconry show that had a snarky sign language interpreter and I can’t tell you how much I just loved her commentary. We saw a storyteller talking about a magical pasta pot.

And... well, I made Mom sit through the “Whips and Cracks” show, which she haaaaaaaaaaated. I actually wanted to see the shows before and after it, but she decided she wanted to leave early to go see Roger, so that last show never happened. Very few people were at that stage in the afternoon, presumably because of the total lack of shade in that area, and I felt kinda bad for the performers dealing with that.

Anyway, how do I describe Whips and Cracks? It’s like if Tim Taylor had a semi-English(?) accent, like 14 whips (even chain whips), is demonstrating them all, yelling “More Power!” and periodically talking about the possibility of injuring himself. And it’s a good idea not to sit in the first few rows. I was amused, Mom was all, “sixteen minutes...eight minutes...one minute,” and showing me her phone time once he was still going at 4:16 p.m. I’m kinda evil. But hey, she was telling me I introduce her to new things...

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