It didn't go to Patterson -- the woman who started the whole Faire business, the mother of them all, is named Phyllis Patterson, a sweet, brilliant artist with absolutely no business sense. Personal opinions in both post-schism sects vary on her daughter and son-in-law, but everyone on both sides is firmly agreed upon Phyllis; to wit: she is a wonderful teacher, a great actress and director, a fond and intelligent and lavishly appreciative audience member, and a crappy businesswoman.

Since the old glory days, the RPF has rotated through several ownerships and incarnations, and when it moved to Vacaville a few years ago all the Pattersons were sacked. Most people were glad to see the daughter and SIL go, but everyone felt bad about Phyllis, and most of the artistic side of the management team stayed close to her.

A couple of years ago, the Pattersons scraped together funding to re-start the Dickens Fair, which has been a HUGE moneymaker. They used the profits from that to start RenFaires in Santa Cruz and Marin, both of which have followed the Patterson pattern exactly: brilliant, poorly attended, and slowly dying. The plug was finally pulled on both RenFaires this year, and now the only decent-sized Faire in Northern California is the one at Casa de Fruta.

There are lots of people who have worked all three Faires and loved them all, but there are also fandom_wank-worthy fanatics who swear by either the Casa people or the Pattersons and cordially loathe Those Monsters On The Other Side.

So, in (not very) short, not actually the creepy town of Patterson, but the lovely and non-creepy person Patterson and her mildly creepy spawn.

ICompletelyON, Kristin, you should also take note of this hat, which I wore yesterday, except mine was black with red feathers. If you come up to San Francisco during the holidays, I'll take you someplace you can get one of your own. Or several. Because everyone should have several of them. t /hat pimp

I have spread newspapers and wood chips over about a fifth of my yard. And now I'm out of newspaper. And wood chips.

this is going to take more work than I thought. Off to raid my sister's recycling bin, and then to Home Despot.

Homeownership: SO MUCH FUN!

JZ, my world is back with the sense-making. I couldn't see a Faire in Patterson.

I've been grilling my husband, and for the life of him he can't remember where the Faire was when he worked at it..."Uh, you had to cross the Benecia bridge..." is all I get.

He does have a story about driving back, with about 6 people crammed into his 1968 VW Bug, oversteering on a cloverleaf offramp, and having a police car right car. When he got out of the car, the officer looked him up and down (in his tights and blousy pantaloon thingys) and said something about "Time to head home to Neverland with the rest of the fairies."

Homeownership: SO MUCH FUN!

today this invovles the shower drain - which clogged about this time last year. Which means we must get on a monthly drain mainteance schedual - or I could go bald.

I really need sun to wake up. Cloudy here. Weekends I get up at seven to take care of the cats and then go right back to bed for another couple of hours. Today was more than a couple. I was out. Kinda wasted the day. Oh well, off to run a couple errands and then hopefully do laundry.

sara is me. 14 hours of sleep. I need to get showered and errand. I am one giant sleepy groggy head.

I think you may have beat me. I think. Maybe. I don't recall exactly when I went to bed. Last I looked at a clock, it was 11:35 and I was still up.

OK, off into the drizzle.

The things you find on eBay when you're looking for something else entirely.

Antique Woman SPANKING Boy Porcelain FAIRING [link]

I've done all the laundry I can before I go get quarters, and even put it away. That's enough for the pre-nap part of my day, right?

JZ is mean and hat-taunty.