Good bye, Renaissance Fair

I really love the local Renaissance Fair held every fall outside of the Twin Cities. I wish I could go again this year because it's iffy whether there will be one next year. It turns out that the tract of useless, un-arable land that has been home to the fair for many decades is now valuable real estate--for fracking!

As a result, the Renaissance village with all its structures will be torn down. It's not known where or if it might be held next year.

It was great fun to go out for the stage shows, jousting, scotch eggs and shenanigans.

There were so many specialty shops, foods and sights to bring out the crowds every weekend.

But, the frackers are lusting over what lies beneath the festivities.

Here's a family portrait from 1982. My mom and dad are in front. In back are my sister with her son and me (the chubby one) with my son. We had some good times there.

Cats Happen

I've had many sweet cats over the years but I have never gone out of my way to get one. They just happen.

Late last fall, a woman who lived in an apartment building down the block posted flyers all over the neighborhood for her escaped cats. She was desperate since she was soon moving to Norway and wanted them to stay with her mother.

I contacted Laura and told her they might be in the wooded lot next door. We spoke and I promised her I'd watch for them. Sure enough, there was a black shorthair cat like her Onyx hanging around. (I never saw her other cat.) She brought over a cat carrier, food and a blanket to set on my freezing-cold patio to lure her.

The cat was wary so I put the food over by the retaining wall next to the wooded lot. She would never come to eat until after dark. Slowly, I moved the dish around the corner of the building and onto my patio. The kitty would always appear just after dark so I could time putting out the food before it froze.

This worked well except the cat was so easily spooked that if she caught sight of me watching her she would run away. This went on all through the winter months and into spring. I marveled how hardy she seemed even during the coldest months.

Spring arrived and we started keeping the patio door open so my two cats could lie out in the sun. Slowly, the black cat started coming during daylight and lying a short ways from the patio flirting with my cats. I started talking to her and calling her Pinky (it was obvious by then that she was going to wind up being my cat.) She responded so well that within a few weeks she was eating her food next to my chair on the patio. She was soon coming inside and snoozing on the cat tower and reveling in being loved up.

We took her to the vet for a checkup and shots. That's when we found out we had a male cat and it most definitely was not Laura's Onyx. The name Pinky no longer seemed suitable so we changed it to Tinky--and he's one cool dude!

                                                        (Borrowed image)

Making plans

Do you know how to make God laugh?

      Tell him your plans.

     (Old Jewish proverb)

I had planned to return to blogging again on August 25th which was one year after my last posting. As usual, my plans didn't work out.

I got a different computer and had all my stuff transferred, not knowing that the Microsoft Word program on the old computer was not registered. I wound up with everything stored in Word inaccessible to me. After trying several work-arounds, I gave up after four weeks and went online to buy a new copy of Word  for $109.00. As usual, everything was unbelievably complicated. It took two days and dealing with five separate people to get it installed. I must admit that one of the complications is that I am a computer putz!

I won't even get into the problems I had finding my blog and being able to post again. But anyway, here I am, nearly a year and a month later.

The reason I stopped blogging was because I felt that out of fairness, I had to follow the blogs of everyone who was a follower of mine. This became so time-consuming I that I had to draw the line. But, I missed it so I'm going to try it again. We'll see how it goes.