Forward, Into the Past ~ Sharing

Before going to the faire, I spoke to the office fashionista about it.  She has a two-year old son. Her husband had attended faires, but she and her son had never been.  I told her how much fun it is, even for small children.  When I told her I'd be going in costume supplied by a friend of ours, she immediately responded "pictures!"

She said she wanted to see me "in tights" and suggested that men had more costume choices than women.  I hadn't thought about that, but she's right.  I agreed and now I wonder when that changed.

I also told her I didn't know what my costume would be and that I didn't ask, although I would to make sure I'm bringing the right stuff of my own.  She said "like shoes?" and I agreed.

I admit to being a bit worried about bringing pictures of Meg in to the office.  I'm not about to say "don't tell anyone" so anything she would see would become an open secret.  I decided that was OK.

I also had levels of admission.  I wasn't going to tell stories, but if she didn't ask, I wouldn't tell.  I sorted my pictures into groups: performers, other guests, "our group," jousting....  I sorted the pictures in each group so they made some sort of sense.  The "us" group I sorted as:
* a group shot
* me
* Charity
* jousting
* other shots of the group, including a few of me buying the garland.

I showed her my other "guests" folder first so she could see some of the various costumes visitors wore.  I pointed out the "typical" girl costume as well as some of the "upper-class" costumes.  I'm far from being an expert on the times, but I think most women were dressed as middle-class women of the time.  A few had dresses such as titled women might wear.  Again, that's conjecture.  I am a good example of the adage "those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it."  I didn't learn, and I had to repeat history several times, when I was in school.  ;-)

We looked at the performer pictures, and the jousting shots.

Then I pulled up the group picture which I identified with "when we all met up, I got a picture of the group" which left ambiguous whether I was part of the group, or the picture taker.  I then identified them from left to right.  When I got to Meg, I said "this is me."  There was silence and then she burst out with "it IS you!  I was wondering who that was... maybe a distant relative or something."

I showed her the pictures of me at Star's house in my costume, and at the faire.  I showed her my sandals, which meant my painted toes.  She said "I'm going to paint my husband's toenails!"  She also said, in response to another (guest) costume, that she wanted to see her husband in tights (this was before she saw the Meg pictures and thought I would be wearing tights).

We went through the rest of the pictures.  At one point she said "Interesting.  Your friend isn't wearing lipstick and you are."  I said "I'm also wearing eye makeup.  I had to look like a girl; she didn't have to."

She loved my garland.

I told her I had never in my life been addressed as "m'lady."

When we were through, after comments on how I had gone "all out" for the faire, I made a decision I had been putting off.  I had two pictures of Meg, pre-faire.  I wasn't sure if I should show them.  She hadn't asked any questions implying I did this more than once in a lifetime and I thought that would surely go where I maybe shouldn't.

But I did.

I showed her a full-length that brought out an "oh my!" but no questions.  I told her I HATED the shoes.  She said "did you ever try to walk in heels?"  I admitted I had, and she asked if it was hard.  I said "I didn't have much trouble."  She said "that's good."  But she didn't ask why I was wearing heels.

The only questions that showing her the pre-faire pictures brought out were "so you knew what kind of costume you were wearing."  I said we discussed it right before the faire, but I didn't have any details.
She didn't ask about where the hair came from, or shoes, or dress, or anything else.

Odd.

She did wonder if she could get her husband to dress like that, and said "I don't thimk he could pull it off like you did."

She also suggested, if I did this again, she'd enjoy dressing me up.  I'd enjoy that too.

And if I can figure out an easy way to add a photo album page to the blog, I'll put up some of the other photos.

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