rennie life

My Little Irish Wanderer…and the Aftermath

Well, so it has been a hot minute since I last updated this – or wrote anything if I’m honest, but work and life have not given me a second to breathe, let alone open the laptop.

That little face there is my Ciaragh (Our Cailín Ádh), and she has had a marvelous adventure this week that nearly ended me. She and I were working at the Georgia Renaissance Festival this past Saturday and I completely forgot that there was a cannon shot from the bow of the pirate ship until it went off with us standing right there. She started to vibrate and I tightened up a bit on her leash to make sure she didn’t bolt. My wonderful niece was there with my sister and she tried to comfort Ciaragh, but as soon as she moved away and I slacked up the slightest bit on the leash, C saw her chance and bolted. Now, for the initial escape, I was still holding onto the leash, so I spun around and was dragged behind her (through the gravel) until she could dash through the exit. Sadly I did not make the graceful turn through the S-bend of an exit that she did and instead bounced off the large wooden fence that marks the boundary between onstage and offstage.

Two of my group’s volunteers and a GARF cast member pursued her as a third volunteer and my sister and niece stayed with me. At first, all I could do was make a primal growly sound because gravel+skin=OW but I was (and am) all right. It took a minute to walk up to my car, but that was where I fully expected folks to be waiting with C.

They were not.

She managed to evade capture for three more full days, and I drove back to the site every one of those days to keep looking for her. Finally, on Tuesday night around midnight, I got a phone call from someone in the area – Ciaragh was on his front porch and could I come get her, please?

Once I got my heart started again, I made some calls and arranged for some folks to go get her and keep her overnight until I could get back on Wednesday. I still don’t know how I did not get a speeding ticket on my way to Atlanta that morning, and yesterday (Thursday) we got her into the vet for a checkup – she is fit as a fiddle. An Irish fiddle.

Aftermath: I have helped out with many lost greyhounds in my two decades of having pets in my life as an adult. I have always just gone where I am needed and done what needs to be done, but I have not until now been on this side of the equation. Sure, my greyhounds occasionally got out, but I never had to spend a night without them back home safely – I sent thoughts and prayers to those that did, joined the search, rejoiced in the eventual recovery, but never really got it, until now.

I have ideas percolating (as does hubs) about non-profits that not only look for lost pets but care for the owners of those pets. I had so much love and support that it was overwhelming, especially since I was convinced that Ciaragh’s loss was my fault, but when it came to trying to pay for gas to keep searching, tracking teams to bring in, other pet recovery specialists who need money for materials and time – it is an expensive prospect to find your pet if they go missing, and mine was only gone for three days! So, I will let that idea keep rolling around. There has to be something that can be created that will harness the talents of EVERYONE that wanted to help rather than narrowing down the field of helpers to only those affordable options. What if we had not had a breed club behind us to help? I already have some ideas that were born from the search for Ciaragh.

So, enough of me. My girl is back, and she has effectively helped me write the last chapter of her Clobberpaws book, and I’m going to go snuggle her on the couch before I get back to writing. Make sure your pets are chipped and tagged, y’all…and loved.

Back to the faire…sort of…

This is me and my girl – well, okay mostly my girl Bryn, with what appears to be a Mommy growing out of her head. This photo was taken by a patron (at one of the renaissance faires where I work as director of the Hounds of East Fairhaven) in November of 2013, when she was just 5 months old and had been mine for about 24-36 hours.

We bring period appropriate hounds (mostly Western European, 1500-mid 1600s, but we also include some Asiatic and Eastern European breeds as well) out to meet patrons and we talk about their place in history. We also wear period-appropriate garb (or as appropriate as possible when the threat of a Clobberpaw on one’s skirt is a real possibility) and tell the patrons about how these hounds (sight mostly but a few scent hounds as well) lived and worked with people in this time period.

I used to work much more than I do now. We started with a small group (four members) and we were attached to the Lord Mayor’s Court at the Carolina Renaissance Festival near Charlotte, NC. We grew in numbers and ended up with our own tent the next year, then our numbers dwindled down to almost nothing and we have gone up and down ever since. We also added more appearances to our schedule – we now appear in the spring with the Royal Court at the Georgia Renaissance Festival and in September at the Enchanted Chalice Renaissance Festival in Greenville, SC.

I can remember the early days of CRF when I had three greyhounds (out of my five) that did faire with me, often sleeping in my Honda in the parking lot with me so that I didn’t have to drive the 2.5 hours (one way) on Saturday nights to just have to get up and drive back on Sunday mornings. Thankfully I moved about 45 minutes up the highway since that time, so it only takes me just under 2 hours to get there now, and I only work on Saturdays because I simply cannot physically do my job on Mondays after being at faire and in the car all day Sunday.

CRF opened this past weekend for it’s 25th year, and it was the first opening weekend that I haven’t worked since the two years that I was forced into behind the scenes work due to living abroad. After the year that 2018 has been for me so far, I decided that it was in the best interest of my health, both physical and mental, if I took some time off from faire this fall. Bryn doesn’t like the setup there anyway – she is afraid of the booth that we have after some bad playtime-gone-wrong experiences with some of our other dogs, and as a result I have to stand out in front of the booth with her for the whole day. Both of us are ready for the car after closing cannon! We will see how Ciaragh does up there – she was a star at GARF this spring until she got tired, but she’s almost two and growing up more every day, so hopefully she will be able to manage being in close communion with other dogs better than her big sister does.

All that said, y’all go to the faire! The Hounds of East Fairhaven will be in their normal booth at CRF across from the DaVinci flying machine. We have greyhounds, Irish wolfhounds, borzoi, Ibizan hounds, and Afghan hounds in any combination on any given weekend, and we have fantastic human cast members that can tell you anything you want to know about their canine companions. The faire runs from 29 September to 18 November, Saturdays and Sundays. My girls and I will be there on the 21st of October and 10th of November, and I will be there with an Ibizan friend on the 6th of October and dogless to interpret on Deaf Awareness Day, 27 October. Hope to see you there!

Huzzah!

Just…wow.

I waxed poetic in my last post about how long it has taken me to get to this point – years of living with this story and these characters – and how surreal it still feels. Wanna know what will kick that feeling of being just on the verge of an anxiety attack right over into full-blown WHAT HAVE I DONE?

One little post on social media, from a real-life friend who happens to be KIND OF A BIG DEAL in the Rennie world saying she can’t wait to start the new trilogy in the picture she posted: The Nature Walker Trilogy. She is about to find out about Gin and Sath and Orana and all the rest. The horrible little voice in my head says that I am about to be exposed as the imposter I am. Exposed – by someone that is my friend.

Now, all of us living in the rational world know that none of the drama described in the above paragraph is realistic. She may hate the trilogy. But she may also love it. In fact, there is a good chance that she will love it. And if she doesn’t, my world will not end. Right?

There is a good chance that a lot of people would love it, and if only I would GET OUT OF MY OWN WAY and let them experience it then they will love it and share it with their friends. But that’s the rub – getting out of my own way. I suppose this is something that all writers (and artists and dancers and anyone of a creative ilk) have to face. The tiny voice in my head is firmly standing in the way of me returning to dance class. But on the positive side, the tiny voice in my head kept me from following a traditional publishing route, and so far I’m quite pleased with the results of indie publishing (or self-publishing). I have a great team that provides me feedback and editing and creative support – a team that the tiny voice can’t touch. One dissenting voice in the face of a supportive chorus is drowned out most of the time.

I hope that my friend’s post on social media will lead to more people giving Gin’s story a try and falling in love with her and Orana. But most of all I hope she enjoys the story because that’s why I wrote it and published it – for people to experience and enjoy. All the wow moments pale in comparison to that.

Sideways…and then some

The I Can’t Even face.

Y’all. How is it that things can go from zero to one hundred so fast when I’m not anywhere near where I need to be to help?

This weekend started with Saturday at CRF which was good, just long. Bryn has a weird issue with twilight where her bad behavior gets worse the more day fades into night, and she was tired and cranky and nearly broke both my knees by slamming her giant head into them trying to remove her Perfect Pace harness from her nose OVER AND OVER.

God love that dog.

Sunday was a bit slower which was nice because I felt like the inside of a punching bag, but holy moly did the universe turn that one on its ear in no time flat. I was supposed to meet friends for dinner and a show downtown at 4pm. At 3pm I heard about an incident with the Hounds on the Sunday crew at CRF. I got all the information I could, sent a hurried damage control email to festival administration to let them know we had everything under control, and figured that I could then go downtown (only running about 10 minutes late somehow) and enjoy the musical that lives in my heart before coming back to sort out what happened at the faire that morning. I could not have been more wrong.

I feel the need to pause here and tell you that earlier that morning, Simon and I were laughing at this moment from the Big Bang Theory:

Stuart: Oh, Sheldon, I’m afraid you couldn’t be more wrong.
Sheldon: More wrong? Wrong is an absolute state and not subject to gradation.
Stuart: Of course it is. It’s a little wrong to say a tomato is a vegetable, it’s very wrong to say it’s a suspension bridge.


All kinds of hell broke loose while I was in the theatre and, in theory at least, unable to respond. But me being me, I had to at least check in on what was going on and I think my blood pressure was at an all-time high by the end of the show. I also was not able to fully concentrate on the show which makes me VERY angry at myself.  So now, today, I am sorting through different versions of events and navigating the choppy waters of hurt feelings while all the time walking the tightrope that is our continued existence in a building at this particular faire and I just really want to take a nap. Now. Under my desk.


Once again, into the breach…err, semester…

Willow-Pickle's head on the dog bed giving me side eye
Trying the blog thing again are you? Pardon me if I don’t stay
awake until you leave it hanging…again… -Willow-Pickle

Here we find ourselves again, dear friends, my handful or so of Lettuce readers, my Lettuce Heads… Oh, I like that, I think I’m keeping it. You are my Lettuce Heads. Yes.

Sorry, moving on…
Here we are again at the beginning of another semester at Clemson. It is fall, so there is the influx of TOO MANY FRESHMEN that makes class scheduling a nightmare at best and my spreadsheet for captioning a never ending work in process.
Welcome to life in Student Accessibility Services, I suppose.
Those lights in tunnels that I spoke about back in May are still burning. GARF was an amazing experience for this seasoned rennie performer that brought loads of new friends and happy memories and bits to try at other faires. The lack of coffee meetings (and overall lack of Daisy) was hard to manage but we moved onward and upward. I’m now on the cusp of the Enchanted Chalice and CRF, and while I am looking forward to again being in my element I’m finding it difficult to bring up the same amount of joy and anticipation that I am already feeling when I think of next year at GARF. I suppose everyone has their niche, and mine is Newcastle.
That makes me laugh everytime I say it, since my parents-in-law live in a village near Newcastle. The real Newcastle. The one filled with Geordies that doesn’t pull a Brigadoon in the mist every summer in June.
Nothing new to report, really, other than general personal growth over the summer. Coffee meetings with Daisy morphed into snuggly telly time with Willow (and Bryn, when she isn’t being ENTIRELY TOO GROWN UP TO MANAGE A SNUGGLE ANYMORE). Work was steady over the summer, so I was out of the house a lot. I missed dance and poi, but that will start back in a few weeks now that I have a steady paycheck. 
Steady. That’s the word for the summer. 
Coming up though? Watch this space, there’s news on the Nature Walker front. That’s all I can say at the moment, but I’m about to burst here. WATCH.THIS.SPACE

Dia duit ó GARF.

Almost TOO Irish, that.
Go raibh míle maith agat to Chris Heffron (of the Southern Travel Guide) for this great shot from last Sunday afternoon. While hopping from shade spot to shade spot, Bryn and Anne and Bo and I ran into one of our dear friends from the GARF cast, Andy (aka Irish or Jordan Hale) as he was waiting to be able to spend a bit of time with his lady-love (who also works at GARF). Andy is just one of many cast members who have made us feel at home and part of the family at GARF this year (and in years past), and we can’t thank him (and them) enough.
It’s funny, it’s like we are almost too Irish here and Bryn is trying to make a break for it. My sweet girl…she didn’t have the best weekend this time around, adding stealing a sandwich off a table and trying to abscond with a turkey leg to her list of accomplishments this season. I hope that my renewed enthusiasm for this faire will bleed over to her, but I know that I am causing some of her frustration when I expect her to do bad things before she does them. She is still roaring at the horses during the joust and wagging her tail when her favourite princess says her name, so I think she is still my Rennie Hound. Dia linn, for the rest of the run, I say. Dia linn.