Here's a Health to the Company

Saturday evening the crew of the Bloodwake and assorted friends/allies/henchpersons met for a belated Yule feast. A good time was had by all, and "all" in this case stuffed a rather spacious apartment nearly to bursting. With the aid of an inflatable spear, we taught young Jake Scalawag, aged 14 months, the word "stab". With the aid of hot buttered rum, we toasted any number of things. With the aid of a small fleet of pots, pans and slow cookers we all ate until we felt like beached whales.

Now, I'm not what you'd call a social person, unless of course you were being sarcastic. And normally, a noisy throng like that would send me screaming into the night, but these folks are different. It's a funny thing that's happened with the Bloodwake Pirates. It all started out a few years ago when a few (less than half a dozen) of us grew a bit bored with our Renaissance Festival garb and personas, so we threw together sailor outfits for a lark.

It has since blossomed, or snowballed, into an honest-to-gosh organization with its own website, membership rolls (seventeen crew at last count, and several applicants in waiting), and a spinoff group, the Ladies of Tortuga Knitting and Keelhauling Society. We've met people we never would have in the normal course of things, and they've become part of our circle of friends, part of our lives.

It's an odd feeling, to look at people who are important to you and realize that you would be strangers if you hadn't woken up one day and thought that you were a little tired of being Scottish all the time. It makes you grateful, and it makes you wonder.

So if you're ever at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival, stop by Mac's Pub. We're the pirates. You can't miss us.


Minutiae:

--"61*" is an excellent movie.

--Hey, look, I changed the blog layout!

--Yesterday I ice skated for the first time in twenty-odd years. I remained upright the entire time by virtue of proceeding very slowly and with much frantic waving of arms. Small children were skating circles around me. Tonight I'm going back out. My goal is to skate faster than the pedestrians passing on the sidewalk.