Thursday, September 26, 2013

Random Crap (or I'm too cranky and lazy to think up a clever title).

I'm having sort of a horrid week. Car accident (and a shop that seems...well, stupid. Is it SO HARD to call the number I gave you, the ONLY number I gave you? Apparenltly it is: they called an out-of-service number instead, because ridiculous), arguments, washing machine that leaks...I've about had it.

Therefore I give you random acts of silly, because I needed somewhat of a pick-me-up today.
Fest "Bench Art" because drunk people have too much time and not enough ideas after hours on a Saturday night.

I don't know who created this on FB (if you have a source, please share).

MMMMMM! BRAINSZZZZ
It's Han's first birthday this week. I appreciate his early propensity for witch books and zombie brain eating. I expect the cake-smoosh party to be most excellent.

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Fest Food AND The Weekly Stupid Wrap Up

I realize some of these should have pictures, but ultimately I'm too busy either laughing (or gagging) to do so.

  • I know most of my Fest posts are about people being dumb: to start this post I'd like to suggest the tastiest things I've found at the MN Renaissance Festival.
    • Deep Fried Jalapeno Cream Cheese Stuffed Olives. OH MY GODS YUM.
    • Calzones (I don't care that they aren't Renaissance food)
    • Alligator bites (again, don't care).
    • Cheese Curds (for you non-Midwesterners: cheese chunks battered and fried. STILL not Renaissance food, still don't care. Yum).  
    • Popovers with honey butter. Fucking FABULOUS.
    • Frozen, chocolate dipped cheesecake on a stick.
    • Meat pies (which ARE pretty historically accurate): meat, cheese, veggies in puff pastry. Also, the breakfast varieties with sausage/bacon, egg, hashbrowns are awesome.
    • Crepes.
    • Shepherd's Pie. Yes, it's essentially beef stew over mashed potatoes out there, but it's hearty and warm and tasty as hell.
    • Mead.
    • Warm apple tarts with cinnamon ice cream. Good lord.
And now, on to the normal idiocy...
  • In an exercise of stupid, someone decided to invest money in shiny new "GARBAGE ONLY" magnetic signs and post them on every dumpster behind scenes. I'm unsure how anyone could get the purpose of a dumpster wrong: they truly do look like your average dumpster. They are not stealthy or in disguise. They aren't even covered in burlap (which as we all know, immediately makes something "period" (ie historically accurate) to the Renaissance. This begs the question: what exactly prompted said common-sense signs?
    • Midget/Hippie/Festie (festival worker) tossing?
    • Nuclear waste? 
    • Elephant poo? I submit that elephant poo is indeed "waste" and therefore is technically garbage. For the record, elephant poo is NOT tossed in the dumpsters. 
    • I realize the signs are intended to stop recyclables from being thrown in with trash, however (again, COMMON SENSE) wouldn't it be better to identify "RECYCLABLES ONLY" instead?  
  • Trash pickup around the Fest grounds is farmed out to various school teams (middle, high, and even community college). Saturday a slightly chubby 14 year old boy from Middleton school walked by me. The Middleton mascot? Beavers. Yes, I snickered.
  • I forgot to include this First Aid bit of entertainment from last weekend...there was a woman drunk enough to be puking AND peeing her pants at the same time. It BOGGLES THE MIND how she could possibly hold enough fluid in either tank to be able to piss every time she threw up. Also, she was apparently agitated (who wouldn't be, I suppose) and had to be held down so she stayed contained in First Aid on a single cot (thereby causing a 5' radius of filth instead of hosing down the entire office). I feel for you, people who had to hold her down and avoid any spray. And I'm pretty glad I wasn't there to witness.
  • A group of idiots thought they could sneak in through my gate without passes. They didn't have enough money to bribe me (kidding...I'm way to bitchy to even allow that). Judging by the FERRET in the leader's purse who stuck his nose out to check out the area, I'm guessing they were attempting to get in on the sly because ferrets aren't actually allowed through the Pet gate. She zipped her purse up (that poor ferret was unimpressed) and tried the front gate. What the hell possesses people to bring their pets out there anyway? It's filthy, the food on the ground is TERRIBLE for pets, the crowds are huge...it's not a healthy environment.
  • Parents, please stop calling in a panic about your "lost" teenager. Your teenager is NOT LOST. They aren't answering your texts because they don't want to be seen with you. SUCK IT UP. Also, Fest is a pretty enclosed space: there are only so many places said teens could be. I suggest all belly dance shows, pubs, and weaponry shops to start. I suppose I could suggest a couple of the other "adult" oriented shows, but I'm not a huge fan and so won't endorse them here. Indeed, I AM a bitch. 
  • And lastly, a word of Renaissance Festival/Music Festival/Anywhere-with-portable-bathrooms advice: Sex in Porta-Potties. DON'T DO IT. Fucking nasty...and if you get off with the stench of blue biff juice, sour hangover poop and puke wafting around you, please stay far, far away from me. Ishka.

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

No Ma'am, Bees Don't Have Teeth.

Another weekend sitting at the First Aid gate at Renaissance Festival.

Another weekend of things. Saturday a drunk (sigh) woman tried to impale her head on a fence post. She succeeded in splitting her lip from nostril down so thoroughly she likely needed multiple sets of stitches.

Someone thought First Aid should have an oxygen tank, for those people who come out on a 90+ degree dusty/poor air quality day who are dependent upon oxygen to get around. Why did this person think the Festival should provide oxygen? Because he LEFT HIS TANK IN THE CAR AND WAS TOO FUCKING LAZY TO GO GET IT. It's good I wasn't in the office when said person stopped by: some stupid just doesn't deserve a nice response.

Most of my Sunday was listening to this: "I was just bitten by a bee. Do you have something to fix it?"

First of all, bees don't have teeth. They cannot bite you. They don't carry rabies. Second, there is no cream/medicine/magic wand the EMTs in First Aid can wave to make it all better (other than making sure the stinger is out). They give you ice and send you on your way. The poor teenage girl who got stung on the butt was the only one who garnered sympathy from me Sunday, because she was already embarrassed about the damn bee flying up her shorts.

Geese, however... they're evil fuckers. A few years ago Husband was a roving security dude at the Renaissnce Festival and was stopped by a very worried (adult, as in "should know better") woman who'd been "bitten" by a goose.

Concerned woman: "A goose just bit my lip!! Do I need first aid?"
Husband: "How exactly did a goose bite your lip, ma'am?"
Concerned woman: "I was giving it a kiss, and it BIT me!" (note this should be read with the appropriate amount of ignorant indignation).
Husband (while attempting not to laugh in her face), "Stop kissing the geese, ma'am."
CrazyGooseKisser: "What if I get rabies?"
Husband: "Fowl don't carry rabies."

CrazyGooseKisser: "Oh, ok."

Indeed, that entire situation was logged in the Security logs for the year, and thus has been saved for posterity. Mwahahahaha.

I DO have two more Townhome character posts pending...I've just been occupied with Fest silliness.

Friday, September 06, 2013

Renaissance Festival and Alcohol: A Perfect Storm of Fools.

Last year at this time I found amusement in the various hospital oddities that I focused on while husband was in the ICU. It's really weird to think that today, one year ago, I was hanging out in a hospital room with a broken, unconscious spouse and no idea what the hell was going to happen next. But I had some faith that eventually things would work out. And ultimately, they have. And things in our life they are a-changin...hopefully for the better.

So, enough sappy digression. Let's move along to the dark humor portion of this post, because the worst things are SO DAMN FUNNY (see my previous post). One of the big steps he wanted to accomplish was to become security at the Renaissance Festival again, and he succeeded in that goal last weekend. I worked at the First Aid gate for most of the three days, and OH MY GODS the stupid shit people do at the Ren Fest is...well, it's just hilarious.

  • Drunk college dude's buddies came to First Aid hoping we had something to "help" their friend, who'd apparently decided sitting in a PRIVY (porta-potty) would be a fabulous place to rest. He'd been in there for over an hour, just hanging out (fully clothed with the seat down...just resting. He was not passed out or horking). That boy has some seriously kind friends, that's all I can really say. Also, of ALL the places to avoid in any outside faire, the smelly cesspools of poop boxes is NOT where'd I'd personally hang out to feel better. Ugh.
FYI: our advice was to feed the dude water and bring his drunk ass home. Banana bags (aka electrolyte IV bags seen on ER...if you're old enough to have seen ER) didn't exist in the Renaissance, people.
  • Middle aged man insisted, for five hours of moaning and crying on a cot, that the Festival had made him drunk. He'd apparently never been drunk before (yeah, sure), and repeatedly wailed "WhyEEEEEEE did you DO this to me? OH LORD WHYEEEEEEE?" He likely spent about $100 just for the big dinner ticket and entrance to the festival, only to spend 90% of his day crying and blaming everyone but himself for drinking himself into a vomitous stupor. Sigh.
  • It's utterly astounding how many women "forget" their tampons at home and have to come to First Aid looking for an emergency plug. Really? Are you SO out of touch with your own cycle that you don't just carry one with you just in case? What the HELL? These are not teenagers: grown women who've presumably had the joyous experience of monthly "I wish I was a dude" cramps and mess should know better.  
  • YET ANOTHER foolish male drunk patron (it's a theme, people. A recurring theme) decided it'd be a fantastic idea to untie the costume sword at his side and swing it around. He'd had more wine than prudence demands when flailing about with an edged weapon, even when said weapon is duller than a butter knife. He managed to thwack himself upside his head. Did you know head cuts, even the ones that don't need stitches, bleed A FUCKING LOT? They do. It's even better when the wife at his side has ALSO had far too little food and water to go with her allotment of wine (do not light a match around that woman. Seriously.) and is busy yelling at him for being upset...because our attempted-self-scalper was more concerned that he'd lost his wallet and belt than he was about the blood all over his head and shirt. His wife, understandably, was significantly more concerned about the blood.
I'm sure there are more shenanigans I could report, but what could possibly follow a self-scalper with an irate drunk wife?

Nothing...and so I'm ending this post in an awkward, inconclusive manner.