Hooray! Hooray! It's May! It's May!

[elfs]

Mayday Field

As if spending the day with my daughter and her class at the Boeing Flight Museum wasn't enough of a good thing, that evening, like every year, Omaha, Kouryou-chan and I made our way to the Fremont Maypole Festival. There, the city's many and varied pagan communities come together and enjoy a beautiful picnic, a lot of hugging and snuggling, and an openly Pagan celebration of fertility.

Kids playing at the grassy knoll.

Unlike the whole man-in-a-kilt thing being weird with the kids, there were dozens of kilts at the Maypole. Even the women wore utilitkilts. There were dozens of children there too, and the park is big and safe and we generally let them run around without much supervision. The latest fad is elf ears.

We showed up very early, and herne51 showed up shortly thereafter. We were so early, in fact, that we found someone who seemed to know what she was doing and she assured us that, yes, she was with the Arts Council that sponsored this event every year and, yes, we were in the right place. Omaha, Kouryou-chan and I shared grapes and bread and terrible brie, and then Kouryou-chan joined the girls-vs-boys tug of war.

Yamaraashi-chan's mother

Yamaraashi-chan eventually showed up. She accompanied her mother and her newly minted stepfather, who sat on a pair of chairs in the middle of it all and generally sat alone for the entirety of the celebrations. She, on the other hand, joined us mostly because Omaha's coven has a lot of children in it.

The Maypole

The maypole was gorgeous, and like every year took too long, but it has to be big to handle all of the participants. An impromptu brass band got tied up in the middle of it all, and kept playing even as they were so completely wrapped in ribbons they could no longer be seen. It was so much fun. While I switched off with Kouryou-chan, I ran into the_misha, who apparently just recognized me from a random photo. "Where else would you be on a day like today?" he mused. He seemed altogether nifty, and his wife and daughter were delightful.

I flirted with two lovely women, ate a lot of good food, talked a lot of great shop (including, oddly enough, some questions about the overhead of using an API versus using ad-hoc controls in WATIR), had some amazing honey mead, and took photos of the moon. On the way back from using the "comfort station" (what, "bathroom" isn't politically correct anymore?), I heard a young couple walk by and the man said, "What's that? Looks big. Let's go see." We had crashers, of a sort, for this open and public event.

The Maypole, After All

Eventually, night came and so did the chill. We wrapped up and headed home. A good time was very much had by all, and when we got home we crashed hard.

More pictures from the Fremont Maypole 2009 set

Comments

[mauraanderson.livejournal.com]

It was great to see you, Omaha and the girls again! Heck, it was great to feel like I was returning to some sense of community.

I had to laugh at the WATIR discussion - that could only be due to Mr. Maura!

- Maura

[mundens.livejournal.com]

Sounds like you're about to break out into that Jonathan Coulton song ! :)

[boiwondering.livejournal.com]

Thanks! It was wonderful to meet you and Omaha and Kouryou-chan. We thought you all were pretty spiffy, too. :)