February 2012 – Let’s get this party started!

Here we go. The start of what looks to be the blue team's first "full" year of touring. February saw the start of the blue team heading to the Bay Area Renaissance Festival in Tampa, FL.

Now I'll admit, I was a little nervous going there.  For those who don't know, Tampa is the "home festival" of the Tortuga Twins.  As in where they started the show!  And they had a huge following down there.  Now granted, it's been over a decade since they've done a full run down there.  But more often than not they've done at least one weekend.  So they've definitely stayed in the festivals psyche.

Fast forward to this year, and they sent us down for the full run.  Not only that we were doing the R-Show.  Now each of us has done the R-Show before, but never as a unit.  Always with the safety blanket of two of the originals.  And not only that, in Tampa, it's not the R-Show.  It's the Beer Show!  And those audiences do their best to get us as drunk as they can manage!

It actually turned out quite well.  We only got the usual amount of heckling, mainly from a few older boothies. The audiences themselves welcomed us with open arms, and wallets. 😉  The shows are going very well.  Robin Hood and Big Bad Wolf we have down pretty well, and have made the shows work for us.  And while the Beer Show is a blast to perform, and greatly being enjoyed, we're still playing around with it and figuring out how to make it "ours" and work as best as it can for "us."  Come on out and check it out!

Friend's Surgery

This month was also a stressful time on a personal level.  A very dear friend of mine had a very serious surgery.  She was in a bad automobile accident over a decade ago.  One of the side affects since then has been petit maul seizures.  And unfortunately they've continued to get worse, including a couple grand maul.

But thanks to Obamacare, she was finally able to get health insurance that would help.  She went to the doctors and they started doing what they could to map out her brain and see where the seizures were originating from.  Several months back she did the scan where they place the electrodes on the outside of the skull.  This revealed she was having dozens of micro seizures a night.

Then they drilled holes to place the electrodes to get a better map.  And the in February they finally removed a second of skull to place electrodes directly on the brain.  Unfortunately at this point her body decided to not cooperate and for days she didn't have a single seizure.  The docs say that it's not uncommon for that to happen at this point.  At this point a friend or family member is required to be with her 24/7.  Doing everything they can to help induce the seizures.  Keeping the room hot, not letting her sleep, using strobe lights.  Heck they even got a doctors prescription for her to drink a couple beers, as hangovers have caused them in the past.  As a side note, I told them they needed to save the receipt for taxes.  How often do you get to write off beer as a medical expense?

But she finally had a few, and they were able to operate.  So far there seems to have been no collatoral damage from the surgery, and she's home healing.  Now it's the wait-and-see-what-happens game.  Please send her your love and best.