Stag at the Renaissance Faire

Barton Springs Early Morning Swim Report, 3/18/2024

First Barton Springs swim since February 22nd. The time change means that I finished my laps while it was still dark out. Lovely swim, without incident. Last week I was in Massachusetts looking at this:

Yesterday I took one of my kids to Sherwood Forest, our nearby Renaissance Faire. I love Renaissance Faires without enjoying them, if it makes sense: a collection of sweet weirdos in costume: renaissance get-ups, yes, but tails and matching animal heads, elf ears, kids in St. Patrick’s Day hats, pirates, knights, kilts, bare chests, meters and meters of cleavage. My kid and her friends went off their direction, and I went mine. Though I wasn’t the only solo traveler, I was perhaps the only one not in costume. “Good morrow,” a man said to me. Yeah sure, I thought. Eventually I sat down with a book.

I saw a guy hike up his monk’s habit so he could stow his cell phone in a pocket of his cargo shorts. Saw a lot of mixed marriages: one in costume, one in jeans. One woman in elf ears said to another woman in elf ears, “You look so good!” A statuesque goth teenager adjusted her middle-aged mother’s fairy wings; a man with an actual prosthetic leg had dressed it to make it seem made of wood. A lot of people walking around in outrageous costumes, wearing private smiles.

“Are you reading a book? Here?” said a woman a moment later, as though that were the strangest thing of all.

Tomorrow it will be in the 40s for my swim. I cannot wait.