A Family. A Fair.

The Medieval Fair starts tomorrow in Norman, our home town. Chris and I will probably take Charlie along with my mom.

We'll eat some roasted corn. Listen to the bagpipes. Visit the mermaid's keep. Cheer on a joust. Wash down a humongous turkey leg or a piping hot meat pie with blue-glass bottle of sasparilla. Smirk at fifty-something fat friars with suspiciously modern Birkenstocks and middle aged wrinkled wenches getting sunburned cleavage on this first weekend of spring. Roll our eyes at fourteen-year old girls with fairy wings and glitter eyeshadow and their skinny pimply-faced boy counterparts trailing behind in dangerously tight leather pants and open-laced pirate shirts.

You know, like normal people do when they go to a Ren Fair. (That's insider lingo for Renaissance Fair. Why am I using insider lingo you ask? Um... well.... )

Yes, it's true. That's Donny the magician's squire (or something like that) in the foreground. And Kathleen the court jester in the background. Juggling. On a guy's shoulders.

When Kathleen and Donny were tweens (that was before they called them that) they were completely drawn in to the cloak-wearing, dagger-yielding, ye-olde-fake-accent-speaking world of Medieval Fair.

They belonged to a group (The Arthurian Order of Avalon to be precise) that practiced jousting and sword fighting and juggling and (okay, yes, role playing) year 'round in people's backyards or in the community rooms at the library or veteran's centers, or sometimes even on nature expeditions. But it all culminated with the Medieval Fair every spring.

Look at that cute little mouse on the end of Donny's staff (do you see it?!)

Our mom sewed so many awesome costumes for Donny and Kathleen over the years. And as they grew up, so did their characters. Kathleen was only a jester from about age nine to eleven. Then she was sort of like a little rascally tomboyish maid. But the last year she participated in the fair she had the most gorgeous Anne Boleyn costume. It was dark blue velvet and white silk and lace with tons of beading and detailing and that sucker was corseted on her so tight (and she was a complete waif) that she looked like a living doll. It was breathtaking really. I think she rode in on like a white horse even.

But Donny really grew up with Med Fair and the friends he made there. For years he just played the fool. He was always the court jester. The older boys, the more athletic boys (and don't let my skinny pimply-face comments above fool you, there were "golden" boys even in this Dungeons & Dragons circle of friends), like the Achemire brothers for example, blue eyed, bawdy, sulky, mysterious, beautiful boys who stole the heart of every girl, prancing in on their horses with chain mail and wooden shields and real swords and re-enacting these sweeping dramas for the crowd.

Meanwhile Donny the jester is practicing, practicing, practicing. Learning to juggle heavy knives and catch an apple in his teeth. Learning to breath actual fire. His sweet jester role soon evolved into the Evil Jester. The Arthurian group always does a living life-size chess match at every fair. There is the black and the white. Donny in tattered brocade and long black tresses, always did an impressive fire-breathing move as he took one of the white queen's pawns.

But on one of the later years, I think Donny was sixteen, one of the golden boys, was it an Achemire? Perhaps. He had a bloody accident in the joust earlier that morning. Like he broke his finger or something like that. And he was playing freakin' Lancelot (one of the star roles) in the chess match performance that afternoon.

Everyone was in a tizzy, the middle-aged wenches, the fat friars, the school-girl crush maids who could barely look up as they flocked around the Achemire, dressing his wounds, but all the same, joined the question... what would we do? Who could possible fill in for Lancelot, he had like 50 lines, plus three crucial elaborately choreographed fights!

And Donny piped up... "I can do it." He had been to every practice, watched every fight and heard every line from his jesters' spot for weeks. "Surely not shy Donny?" everyone thought.

But Donny. Literally. Slayed it. He came to life in front of the crowd. He nailed the lines. He swung that freaking sword. He wowed the onlookers with their roasted corn in one fist and turkey legs in the other. But mostly he wowed his peers. They talked about Donny all the rest of the day, and the rest of the month. "Who would have known?"

Donny was a golden boy, too. Just of a darker variety.

But of everyone, our mom was the proudest. Did I mention, um... so yeah, she was sort of like the queen.

The Dark Queen, of course. Hey, if she's going to put in the man hours making all those costumes, she might as well get one herself! She could even fight with a staff! Plus the Arthurians really needed some adult chaperones. I mean, fourteen year olds? Fairy wings and glitter? Tight leather pants. It's like pre-Twilight hormonal craziness, but I'm pretty sure those kids weren't as abstaining as much as Edward and Bella.

Donny, Mom (before she went all dark) and John (the youngest of the two Achemire boys, and Donny's first true best friend.)

We even pulled our Aunt Lynda and our little wood-nymph cousin Kaitlyn into the act one year. Lynda was fittingly earthy, Kaitlyn had a real bunny in a basket.

Why no pictures of me in this royal picture? Um, yeah, I was nerdy enough already. I didn't need any more help! Honestly, it was the age thing. When Kathleen and Donny first got involved they were still practically little kids. I was fourteen already. And, I already knew a girl in my grade who was already all sucked into that scene, and she truly believed with her heart-of-hearts that she was a descendent of honest-to-god elves. And she told anyone who would listen all about it. And of course, being teenagers, we completely ostracized her for it.

So no matter how many Excalibur and Labyrinth movies I had watched as a child (also 'cause of mom), or how many Robin Hood tales and Choose Your Own Adventure novels I had read, and as much in my secret heart-of-hearts I really, really, really wanted to do it... my teenage pride just wouldn't let me.

But I was my family's biggest fan. (Go figure.) I went to every joust and every chess match. I even designed the t-shirt for the Med Fair one year. I supportively "huzzahed" and"oohed and aahed" at all the appropriate moments. And I still love it every year. Even though my own kin no longer grace the chess board or ride across the muddy jousting field there's still always an Achemire, god love 'em and their dreamy blue eyes, to be spied in there – like those high school quarterbacks who just never give up the glory days.

Today at lunch Kathleen and I were chatting about the upcoming weekend. She told me how she always "confesses" her Med Fair past only after she's known people for while. Like on a recent nature hike with friends, when she revealed, "uh, hey guys, the last time I hiked up this trail I was in leather and chain mail."

She's decided that she isn't going to go with us on Saturday. To clarify, we are just normal looking spectators now. Our freak flags... or should I say courtly banners... hidden from the casual eye. Kathleen sighed that it's too windy and the fair has gotten just too huge and crowded (thousands and thousands flock to it annually).. she's just gotten over it.

But I'd bet a giant turkey leg she'll cave at the last minute and tag along. Aw hell... I gotta just end with it. Huzzah!

Born This Way

So Kathleen has always been a bit of a paradox when it comes to her style, or even on a grander scale, her exterior manifestation of herself as she chooses to present it to the world. The photos above might lead you to believe that like many little girls she liked to envision herself as a princess or a doll or something very sweet and girly. But that sly smile gives her away. It's just a ruse.



I'd like to say this layered, aggressive, glittery, pouty stomp pose was a glimpse into her true self. But even that is simply too one-dimensional (if you can call anything about this look simple).



Now, the crazy-lady straw hat and red cape with pink jumper pants combo is sort of the closest to the truth because it is so self-created and not modeled after any one style. Or better yet, droopy onsie with a random piece of brown fabric fashioned as... oh, no that's not some headdress.. it's hair. Kathleen had very little hair, so she'd sometimes put skirts or fabric on her head to "feel what it's like." Our mom had very, very long hair, and sometimes me and Donny (her haircut was all short and 80's feathery by the time Kathleen was a toddler) but when we were baldies, we'd fan our mom's long dark frizzy 70's mane over our own heads and pretend it was ours.

Maybe that's why Kathleen's hair is always her best accessory now? It can be red or black or straight or curly or literally wild with a sentient intelligence all it's own, but it's always an extension of Kathleen. She never, ever, has a bad hair day. I'm not saying this in an enviable way. It's a fact. And it's one she has deliberately willed into being.

One thing us Thomas kids don't lack is an ability to just will (or work) our way into self-defined specialness. Kathleen by sheer willpower, and by all the means available to her as an adult (her tween self just didn't have the resources or the true courage, just the sporadic, quickly shattered kind) is declaring with every outfit or outfit post "I craft myself into a persona that is so special that I am undeniably someone you must look at. With mean glares and eye-rolls, or curiosity and sideways appraisal or sheer unblinking appreciation. Regardless, because you look, I am."

Facts:

1. a coworker once actually dressed up like Kathleen for Halloween

2. I stood in line with Kathleen once when she auditioned for Top Model and she got some of the "serious" and prone-to-start-a-fist-fight auditioners seriously riled up by being so irreverent about the whole thing (but in her heart deadly serious) as she practiced her now much more developed "stomp walk" for a local news cameraman

3. Kathleen wore a flight suit to school sometimes in fifth grade

4. Kathleen wore a men's tie at picture day in sixth grade (with a side ponytail)

5. Kathleen gets heartsick if she sees something that should be on her body that is not

Last week while we were eating a whole box of gluten-free nut crackers between the two of us in our mom's kitchen (it's that vegan thing she's doing) she told me she lost three blog followers when she posted about her girl crush on Lady Gaga. Now if that's not totally appropriate, I don't know what is.

If I start to sound all thesisy or philosophical when I talk about Kathleen, it's because I think how I feel about her is the most complex of anyone I know. I have to stop myself from talking about her in conversations (which I only succeed at about 50% of the time). It's hard for me to post about her as much, because I feel like I'm talking about myself too much, but a version of myself that is maybe a little too brash, or too all-caught-up-in-it-all, but is also hilarious and unafraid, and cool to look at. And cool to eat crackers with when she's pretending to be a vegan.

Thing is? Nine times out of ten? When Kathleen pretends something... it's only a matter of time before it becomes real.

We Were Soooo Beyond Thunderdome

Like this far.

I knew I had this photo of Donny and just had to piggy-back on to Kathleen's post-apocalyptic fashion post when I saw it today, which she deservedly lead with tribute to the best movie of that genre ever – Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.

And if Kathleen's fashion sense of today and Donny's self-made cardboard and scotch tape boy-warrior-of-the-post-nuclear-world costume of our childhood, don't prove how much we loved this movie when we were kids, believe me when I tell you were were the most Beyond Thunderdome kids on the block:

1. We had a cassette tape of film's single "We Don't Need Another Hero" by Tina Turner that our dad bought from a discount tape bin at Service Merchandise that we played in the deck of our copper VW Rabbit (that was our parents' commuter car, the station wagon was the family and boat hauling car).

2. We would often chant Thunderdome's most famous line, "two man enter, one man leave," louder and louder until we got sick of it, like say... in the car on the way to church. Or better yet, on the way back from church, usually one of us bringing home a friend for a Sunday afternoon of playing – the unexpecting friend not realizing that we were going to do donuts in the Rabbit at high speeds at the end of our street while blaring our Tina Turner tape. (Side note: we probably stopped going to church around 1990, but we still quote Thunderdome 'til this day.)

3. One lazy weekend afternoon when Thunderdome happened to come on some cable channel's commercial-ridden matinee movie feature, our dad decided to make a paper plate wheel with punishments written on it in ball point pen (entertainment during the commercials). See, in Thunderdome, if you step out of line or break your word to your leather-clad, chain-mailed post-apocalyptic neighbor, the law says (i.e. Tina Turner dramatically says) "bust a deal, face the wheel." Then everyone chants louder and louder, "bust a deal, face the wheel."

Then they spin a giant rusty like post-apocalyptic Wheel of Fortune wheel and send you out into the desert roped backwards to some horse with a giant thing on your head and a... you know, you should probably just Netflix this movie.

So, we had this punishment paper plate wheel, and entertained ourselves for quite a while doling out punishments like "go sit in the closet for twenty minutes," or "carry your sister on your back for the rest of the afternoon." Like Master Blaster. (Netflix it. Really).

4. You might think we love Thunderdome because it's a kitschy B-movie. A good lark. But I truly love it. I cry every time I watch it. Like when the feral children think Mad Max is their self-created savior, and airline pilot named Captain Walker who will take them back to the real world – so they show him these cave paintings and recite their tale while clicking through View-Master slides of airline captains, and showgirls, and skyscrapers:

They called it the 'pocky-clypse,

and said "we don't need the knowin'

we can live here"

But time counts

and keeps on countin'

And they got so l-l-lonesome

for their skyscrapers and their

v-v-v-v-v-v-v-video

So they said "bye 'd bye"

to them what they birthed

but one of them turned

and said

"Wait. One of us will come."

"Wait. One of us will come."

And so time keeps countin'

and we's tells the tell.

We's ready Captain Walker.

We's ready to go home.

If anyone reading this actually likes Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, and hasn't already stopped reading this post like four paragraphs ago, and looked up that particular monologue, I'm sure I got it completely wrong.

But that's how I 'member it.

Brownie Points. Bacon Badges.

Knowing my affinity for fake food, a friend sent me this link to this bacon patch from artist Lee Meszaros on Etsy.

It's part of her merit badge collection. This one is awarded to someone who, you guessed it, "brings home the bacon." And as a working mom/creative director, multi-tasking/multi-personality, busy-life/busy-body professional gal, I'm definitely bringin' it.



But in simpler times, I was a Brownie.





You have to be a Brownie when you're little (I was six here), before you become a Girl Scout. I think that's how it works? I wouldn't exactly know, since I was a Brownie for all of like one year and then my mom probably decided it was just more effort than it was worth. Piano lessons were more likely to benefit me in the long run, and required less... er, outfitting.

Because, man, was I all about the outfit. The beanie, the little snap tie, the sweet peter pan color, the brown striping, the zip-up jumper, the freakin little tassels that fold up under the top of the knee socks (my favorite part) and of course, the classic brown Hush Puppies.

The funny thing is, that I would wear this entire get-up to every single Brownie meeting. Whereas the other girls wore, oh, like a Brownie t-shirt and jeans. Maybe the striped blouse with kakhis. Definitely not the beanie. Or the sock tassels.

At the time I thought those other girls were just "too cool." But at the same time, while I perceived this, I was too little to be shamed into not wearing what I thought were awesome duds. It's like getting to wear a costume! Not even on Halloween! Hello?! But the conformity shame kicks in when your the ripe old age of seven. Hmm. About the time we quit Brownies. Maybe my mom was more perceptive than I give her credit for.

I did earn a few patches along the way. My own little merits. Probably for things like friendliness, honesty, helpfulness, sock flair. Soft stuff. 'Cause I don't remember learning any hard skills, you know, like building a fire with two sticks or tying awesome knots.

But if I had merit badges today? They'd probably be:



Tara Merits



Donny Merits

Donny was a Cub Scout for a brief stint as well. Long enough to build a little matchbox car. But he traded in his navy blues, his yellow neck kerchief and his Webelos beads for a black trenchcoat and Dungeons & Dragons at the age of eleven.



Kathleen Merits

Now, Kathleen's are easy to pick out. Miss healthy-fare/hiking-far. Miss still knows how to have a messy night out on the town. Miss invitation designer/inviting danger. And, no, she never wore a scout uniform even for the shortest amount of time. Why is no one surprised by this?

Classic Costume

Always A Bride

Yesterday was my office costume party. We did classic Hollywood monsters, and everyone looked fantastic.

I have to say, going old school Bride of Frankenstein was really cool. Kathleen and I used to do "zombie brides" all the time in my parents front yard which is the Halloween epicenter of their neighborhood. But we kind of got burned out on cleaning off the rot makeup and picking all the dead leaves out of our hair every year, so we kind of got out of the habit.

So at first I was kind of ho-hum about gettin' on my get up. But about fifteen minutes into my makeup and hair I got excited.

She Works Hard For The Money

Nothing says nine-to-five corpse bride like a can of low sodium V8.

Thanks mom for helping me, yet again, whip together another awesome homemade costume at the eleventh hour.

A Little. Fright. Reading.

A Little.

The Gashlycrumb Tinies by Edward Gorey. Miniature little picture book I got years ago. Lots of little children meeting an early demise from everything from getting squashed by a train, to drinking to much gin.

Fright.

Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark a collection by Alvin Schwartz, is one of the books I remember fighting to check out at the school library in elementary. Remember how you were always cool if you were the one with the hot book that everyone wanted, like Where The Sidewalk Ends? Just me? Hm. Anyhow, now I scare the crap out of my six-year old by reading it to him right before bedtime. "Where's my big tooooooeeeeee?" I pay for it later at 1:00 am, 2:00 am, 3:00 am... you get the drift.

Reading.

The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks. May I just say, that Kathleen, Donny and I had our zombie survival plan worked out a decade ago, before all this zombie craze reached a fever pitch. Usually we get turned off a trend once it gets too mainstream. But we could never turn on the undead. Or turn our back on them... cause then they'll chomp you right in the back of your neck. In the bony part where your head attaches to it and all.

One thing Max Brooks' guide made me think of that I never had before, is that zombies can live under water (cause they don't breathe.) So they could just come up out of the ocean to chomp on your bony parts. So, that kind of screws finding a secluded island to live on. Plus, Oklahoma is landlocked.... so, we probably need to update our plan. Perhaps when Donny visits for Christmas.

My Husband Works for The Empire

Actually, he works as the art director for an alternative news weekly.

So, yeah... we apparently marry into freaky, too. Gotta keep those blood lines pure, right?

Sometimes this is what my living room rug looks like. Almost Buffalo Billish in a way, right?

Unless it's time to break out the Rocketeer costume. Chris' mom helped him make these gloves. Actually, both our moms are awesome sewers. Which really comes in handy when you want to... you know... whip up a super-detailed, over-the-top costume.

And Chris has got to have it down-to-the detail authentic. So when it comes to our kids costumes...

... they are no exception. Chris made this proton pack himself last year after Charlie discovered Ghostbusters. No store-bought, no way. Then the mom's both helped make the jumpsuits, including...

>

... the baby's. His proton pack was felt and squishy. We actually got him to answer the song "who you gonna call..." then you know the rest.

So, basically, we're passing down the freakdom, and we're passing it down young.

EDIT:

My husband was annoyed with the Rocketeer-in-front-of-the-linen-closet photo I chose to share in this post. Because, 1.) it was apparently was the "bad" helmet (yes, my husband has two Rocketeer helmets... and you're annoyed because your husband watches too much football, ah, well) and 2.) because it didn't show the rocket pack he made from a premolded form thingy that he detailed and finished (which is pretty cool).

Granted, I can't blame him for taking offense. I mean, any self-respecting Rocketeer has gotsta have his rocket pack.

Cookie Robot. Closet Robot.

Robeox. Our six-year-old Charlie's invention (meant to name him Robox, how clever, but misspelled when he wrote it on his back in Sharpie.) His head is fancy organic peanut butter cookies, but his body is just a plain old variety pack of cherry, grape and orange popsicles.







This is the robot costume we made for Charlie two Halloweens ago. It now hangs in his closet.

I keep waiting for it to become self-aware in there and then start controlling our minds, which strangely but innocently begins with our two-year-old Sam randomly placing metal tributes like errant silverware and bits of foil in the closet, and culminates with all of us becoming moon-eyed shut ins that cocoon the entire boys' bedroom in baking tins, foil and wire clothes hangers.

It could happen.

What's funny is the other day we got the flyer for our neighborhood picnic and among the activities including pie contest and moonbounce was "robot contest." We were like, what does that mean? Like robot costume contest? 'Cause will break that baby out and take home the blue ribbon. But we were afraid to show up with Charlie in this elaborate robot costume and have it turn out to be something else entirely. We know we're a bit over the top and kind of freak people out sometimes.

Turns out it was a robot dance contest.

But can I just say, if they had handed out a blue ribbon (which they didn't, they just pulled names randomly from a box... blast!) Charlie would have been the hands-down winner. I swear, when he got out there on the grassy knoll by the park gazebo and some thirtysomething neighbor dad started blasting Beastie Boys... Charlie was like a six-year-old Beck meets James Brown meets Napoleon Dynamite. He even tried to pop n' lock.

As children started to move back to make room for him, I acted all stunned and innocently amused from the sidelines... but I wonder if our neighbors could tell that I used to force him to watch So You Think You Can Dance with me, or sometimes flip the cable tv musical genre channels as I make him change styles, and say things like "use your whole body!" "use your chest!" "use your neck!""use your butt!" and then "let me see it in your eyes!"

Apparently we don't even need costumes to stick out like the crazies that we are. Wait, I have to stop writing now, I suddenly have a strange compulsion to stack all my pie tins in the boys' closet...

Right, like I own pie tins.

Yes, Mario Lives Here

As in the Super Bros. kind.

Don't be fooled by the needle and thread. No, much to my mother-in-law's horror, I do not sew. I have a brand new, very fine sewing machine, in fact, stashed away in my dining room corner hutch as we speak. She got it for me for Christmas. I thanked her politely. And I promptly hid it where it would not guiltily remind me that there are just some things I will never learn. Spanish. Driving a stick. Sewing a hem.

This is not a mom blog. But I am a mom. So that means doing domestic things like sewing these little mushroom patches on my six-year-old Charlie's nylon school lunch bag.

Mario, is in fact a prominent figure in our family's daily life.

Don't know who Toad is? You obviously have a Nintendo deficiency that you must remedy, stat.

Toad in da house.

Guess who sewed this Toad hat immediately upon the request of my warped-sense-of-reality son? Not me. My mom, who is the ultimate the costumer of this huge production we call family. I could post for days on costumes she's made us over the years. It's just one of the few reasons I believe Charlie has no clue that you can't always just ask to "be" somebody in the middle of an ordinary afternoon, and then snap. You are. I mean, of course there are other reasons he sort of lives in a fantasy land, besides his grandma's willingness to just whip up a new identity made to order. Um, his dad collects almost every action figure in existence. His mom brings home props from commercial shoots that he then sees on TV while he's still playing-with-and-or-wearing said prop. Oh.. his uncle breathes fire and sticks nails up his nose.

I actually had no idea that little mustached plumber was so freakin' huge again until I realized it was Charlie's go-to subject for making new friends at his new school. "So, do you play Mario?" It's a fool-proof pickup line. But for them that can mean so many things. Do you play Mario on the Wii? On the Nintendo DS? Or in Charlie's case, in a continuously day-dreaming loop in your own head-in-the-clouds brain.

But I remember when there was only one option for playing Mario. Nintendo 64 baby. Oh yeah. We made the transition from our Atari with it's bleeping and blooping Donkey Kong and Food Fight to a whole new beautiful mushroomed and floating question-mark-cubed world when our parents moved us from our shangri-la lake house in the woods, to a brand new suburb, right at the beginning of the summer, which meant 1.) no friends and 2.) super parent guilt.

Enter the Nintendo.

We had one of those huge wood-paneled TV-as-piece-of-furniture televisions that sit on the floor it's so massive. It was in Donny's room nestled cozily under his loft-style bunk bed. And basically, the rules were this: we had to win the game (as in defeat the big boss, fireworks at the end, roll the credits) before our parents would buy us a new game. This rule right here would leave any modern six-year-old flabbergasted. But we didn't know any better, so we were all in, totally committed to winning Super Mario Bros. Old school.

Donny and I traded off that grey and red controller all day long. I literally got a blister on my thumb from those red buttons. Since it was summer, and I was twelve and uber-responsible, it was just the three of us together during the day while our parents were at work. Kathleen was really too little to play, but that didn't prevent her from whining at us to have a turn... from under the crack... of the locked bedroom door... What? We couldn't have her screw us up.

And I remember when we did screw up, and poor little Mario would fall down a pit or get chomped by a piranha plant... we would lose our minds. We would turn on each other like vicious dogs. "Why did you have to crunch that Cheeto right when I was jumping?!" "Why did you bump my elbow!?" "Why did you breathe?!!!"

I seriously think if any of us meet an untimely death in our later years due to heart attack, it will be because of the blood-pressure-spiking, palm-sweating, adrenaline pumping, high-anxiety state of our Mario playing youth.

So when Charlie fires up his handheld DS and that old little Mario song starts a playing, I can't help but feel a little sentimental (and perhaps a bit itchy-palmed to pull that sucker right out of his little hands and save me a princess.)

And so, to say Mario lives here is like introducing you to my old friend, or maybe my first-cousin. No. Shall I dare to say my brother? Yep. My super... brother.