Unlike last month, I am writing this a mere two days late.
SO the bad thing about having been almost two weeks late with last month’s journal is that there just isn’t a whole lot to write about when I am on time. I’ve been busy of course. We have had three weekends and two student days a party or two and even a guy’s trip. But nothing really wow-tastic. I’m sitting here on a Monday night. Sick. I guess I have finally contracted the bug that felled both wife and child a week ago. Thankfully the malady hit me on the day I could most afford it – I should be fine by the weekend. I’m wearing shorts. Nothing is on the television because we’re trying a new method for getting Scarlett to sleep in her bed. I had filet for dinner; so rare as to be heavenly. The only thing that could have made it better was a jaunt to the bar pictured in the first photo of this month’s collection.
All of the days we have worked so far have been smooth and seamless.
We have a short, beautiful easy schedule here in the desert. Four 45 minute sets with a long break between shows to and three. Our schedule for this season is Robin Hood, Helen of Troy, Pirate and then R-rated of course. The R-rated is more popularly attended at other fairs – here we are directly against the joust. But the folks we do draw LOVE what we do. You’ll notice we’re not performing Big Bad Wolf here. One, we’re thinking about retiring it – or making it a Blue Team only show. Two, we are looking to film Troy at the end of the Arizona show and want to make sure it is polished as possible. The first two weeks were hectic of course, having just finished sixteen straight days of construction we had to do all of the maintenance and administrative tasks to open the show. We worked the first two days, had Monday for paperwork and banking. We worked Tuesday, had off Wednesday Worked again on Thursday then finished off with a barbecue at our friends.  Friday was maintenance, paperwork and banking then a three-day weekend! Yikes
My annual mustache growing experiment yielded some interesting results.
If you refer back to the Barbecue photo you’ll see a groomed, trimmed but nonetheless pathetic attempt at a mustache. I am almost 47 years old and apparently I STILL haven’t managed to go through puberty. I try, every year at this time to grow a ‘stache with the same disappointing results. Last year as opening day approached; each time I took a shower I shaved a little more until the Friday before we opened I had only a Hitler-style mustache left. Heather made me shave it before anyone could see. This year my neatly groomed flavor-savor lasted until (almost) the second weekend – much to Dakota’s annoyance. “That mustache makes you look fat!†she claimed in a pretty effective bid to get me to shave it. For my own sick amusement I shaved the majority of it off on early Saturday morning of the second weekend.  I kept, over the threat of immediate divorce from my wife what can only really be described as a Klingon-style mustache. I tickled me. But even with the addition of the sexy pig-tail scrunchies I couldn’t convince my wife of its merit. It was gone before Sunday morning.
We’ve clearly been in the desert too long
This is one of my favorite shows to live at. It certainly is a nice one to work at – but we just plain got here to early I am already dreaming of our impending time in Atlanta. This is a much better working and living environment – but we’ve just plain been here too long. I’m dreaming of movie nights and a sushi roll called the seven up roll. I’m dreaming of my Atlanta friends and Mojitos on my deck.  Heather and I hope to (one-day) have a home that doesn’t move. I mentioned that we looked at some land here in the north-of-Phoenix area. As always the front runners are the Kansas City and Charlotte areas. What I fear is that two (or four or six) months after buying a house I’ll get antsy and dissatisfied. Life is full of questions and our future is uncertain.
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Speaking of chaos in my life – I have no idea what my family’s summer is going to be.
The Tortuga Twins don’t have a full-time gig again this summer. We’re doing a guest spot again in Bristol, but only one or two weekends. We’d planned on sending the Blue Team to the Silver Leaf show in Michigan. We’d had some fun and Heather’s business did well (as did ours) but we just felt that it would be a better fit for the team that was going to be working in Holly Michigan later that summer. Even THAT fall back closed. Heather may potentially be working in either Bristol, Colorado or both this summer. I might just watch Scarlett and let her be the breadwinner for two months.
Life keeps rolling on in its own quirky way.
We’re 18 years at this fair in Arizona, our second-longest continuous run The Tortuga Twins are celebrating their 25th Anniversary; look for commemorative shirts later this summer. I still love what I do. I still marvel at the absurdity of it all. I remember each and every day just how lucky I am to have found this life. Things change. Have you watched any prime-time sitcoms lately? They’re more R-rated than our show! You know me – I like to push the boundaries and stay current. I’m getting a lot of mileage out of those two obscenely popular LMFAO songs. Moves like Jagger doesn’t seem to translate – though my daughter loves it. We have jokes about the capsized cruise ship and Whitney Houston has replaced Amy Winehouse as our Dead Celebrity of Note. I am pretty sure that we manage ten or even fifteen more years doing our show. I’m also equally certain that it’s going to change over that time. I’m really curious what it will become.
One great Valentine Gift. One guy’s trip.
We celebrated Valentine’s Day during Student week. I got heather a nice card and what I thought would be a pretty swanky gift. We discussed our budget beforehand and I thought that we agreed. My card had some money in it. We don’t normally give money – so I was confused. Then I looked again my card (which said on it “Bang Bangâ€) held a LOT of money. I had wanted to buy a specific gun this winter. I couldn’t justify it because I had paid-off enough of our personal debt yet. I then worked a LOT this pre-season, more than enough to buy the gun I wanted – but also just enough to cover what we’d spent over budget. I’d let my responsible side prevail. No gun. Heather the crafty entrepreneur had done some resale stuff on eBay and squeezed some other money out of here and there. Happy Valentines honey, go buy a pistol! I’m making arrangements for the specific gun as we speak. We’re also getting our Concealed Carry Permits from the brother of and Ex-girlfriend while we’re visiting Florida during the Atlanta show. Yay guns. Byron and I have only had one kayak trip so far but we combined it with a window-shopping mission to Scottsdale Gun Club. We were told they had the gun I wanted; the STI Trojan 5.0, but we were misled. What they did have was an ass-load of guns for sale and rent. We are probably going to rent an m-60 light machine gun. There is a room at the gun club which we couldn’t access. They had a no-shit retinal scanner to enter.  This intrigues me. They also had one of the few dream guns I really want to fire. A mini-gun!  I do not recommend the mini-gun as an anti-zombie weapon… though if you have enough ammo it will serve. You won’t have to hit the zombie in the head to kill them you could just chop them down like trees or providing you had a helicopter rain fiery death upon them Daddy wants!
Before I sign off I want to ruminate on princesses…
My daughter is an interesting creature. Like every little girl she loves to play house, wear pink, and play dress-up. She loves princesses and periodically tells me she is one – I always agree. But she’s also into Batman, Zombies and race cars. She tells me she is going to marry her friend Lilly, the daughter a crafter friend out here. She could do worse. I don’t worry about gender roles – these things will sort themselves out. Disney has crippled a bunch of women – giving them very odd and sexist expectations. There’s an Artist named Ryan Astamendi has turned those expectations around by photographing Disney’s princesses in a much more realistic light. Messing with pop culture, gender, and princesses seems to be transcendent. I never had the Slave-Leia-bikini kink that so many others possess – but I do appreciate it in hentai form. Scarlett is cut form different cloth as is her mother and her father… My mother may see her as a little princess – I see her as potentially something much tougher.
Good night and good luck
That will wrap up this only two-week-span journal. I’m back on schedule again and less busy, so I should have more to write about next month. It’s windy and rainy tonight in the desert. Though I’m sick, and got no sleep last night I am burning the late-night oil to finish this journal for you. It is time to take some NyQuil and climb my butt into bed. As I sign off – make sure you check out our family’s newest member. Senorita Oona KeeWee (short for Key West) Muffinpants. Yes we have another dog. I’m going to try to like this one. – It sure is cute.
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