Let me start this journal like I start most of them: Arizona, Shorts and Batman shirt, Scooby Doo and 13 days late for the win.
We’re still parked in our very comfy spot at the Arizona Renaissance Festival. We haven’t flooded out in a while but the day is young. I’m currently wearing shorts and a Batman t-shirt. I think I will officially launch “Flip-flop season†on Monday. As Scooby Doo plays on the TV; sun is setting in the desert. Our yard and “Spice Trader’s Café†is already set up with an even more beautiful garden than last year. This is my first real free time in about sixteen days… that doesn’t really explain why I am thirteen days late – but I’ll take whatever I can get. Before we go any further let me also point out a pretty funny sign I found on the internet.
We’ve enjoyed having the desert all to ourselves
Heather, Scarlett and I have been here in the desert outside Phoenix since before Christmas. Flooding notwithstanding, we’ve had a great holiday season. Being some of the very few people on the massive Arizona site, we enjoy the privacy and begin to think of the whole place as “oursâ€. People have been showing up over the past week or so – more are to come as we approach opening weekend in four days – and we’ve become a little resentful. Prior to the influx of hippies our only neighbors outside of a small skeleton crew of support staff are coyotes and many, many rattlesnakes. These self-same rattlesnakes will be collected by security over the next few days, deposited in a huge trash can  and eventually let free further out in the desert.
We took a trip to our “Western US, Zombie Apocalypse Sanctuaryâ€
On May 2nd 1989 I departed for my first “On the Road†Renaissance Festival. It was Scarborough faire, outside of Dallas. Travelling with me also for their first real festival touring experience were Julie, Jon-Jon and beautiful Wendi. Flash forward 23 years and not only am I still friends with Wendi… Not only do I also adore her family (and won’t mind at all if my daughter turns out like hers have so far) but if the Zombie Apocalypse happened today – it would be to her family’s property up north that my family would immediately go. We brought guns to shoot and dogs for company but no evil zombies dared to show their rotting heads. So, we had picnic. We were recently presented with an option of buying a piece of property adjacent to the land that Wendi and her family owns.  It is a beautiful tract on the river with springs on the property as well. I envision building some modernistic zombie proof, off-grid palace… Kind of like the one which is (apparently) right across the river, only, maybe, less glass.
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Since the Zombies didn’t show up, again… We went to look at wild animals.
So my claim that the Zombie Apocalypse is inevitable still stands – but apparently it wasn’t scheduled for this particular outing. At the suggestion of Wendi and Ryne, which followed suggestions last year from Byron and Arlene - We went to Out of Africa. For those too lazy to click the link, Out of Africa is a huge wildlife park and big cat sanctuary just twenty minutes from our zombie retreat, near Jerome Arizona. The place is both cool, and a little surreal. Especially in the chill morning air, the African and Asian critters seemed very out of place in the Arizona scrub country. They had a fairly broad variety of exotic animals as well; oodles of tigers and plenty of lions, some sharing cages together. There were hyenas you could feed.  With all the laughter, I felt right at home. Scarlett loved the giraffe and Tiger Splash Show – She seemed unimpressed with the white tiger  – which I didn’t understand. We timed our trip for feeding day. We finally figured out, after we saw them toss the head over the fence to one of the lions, that the meat featured in the photos  used to be a horse. Good-bye, My Little Pony! The family had a blast, though somehow I ended up wearing Scarlett’s hat. She’s going to be so proud of her father as she grows up. Finally, regrettably it was time to say good-bye to the lions, and tigers and bears (bye-bye!)
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We also explored the lovely, artsy town of Jerome.
We ate, we shopped, we took photos and we explored… I even did something which I cannot write about right now because Heather reads all of my journals and it will spoil the surprise… I will tell you that we ate at The Asylum, the restaurant for the Grand Hotel - where not-surprisingly we did find something that looked rather like a Zombie!  Really what the family most got to do was to chill out, kick back, relax or Bat-lax if you want to believe the amazingly silly photo I found. We stepped away from the phone, the computer, and any real responsibility – even if only briefly.
As my time off for the winter was nearing its end I was really enjoying my routine.
I was spending an hour each morning writing for my various projects. Monday I work on my advice column for Renaissance Festivals’ Facebook Page. Tuesday Riki and I have been writing – and have nearly completed – a brand new Christmas show that we hope to premier this winter in Charlotte. Wednesdays are devoted to writing and polishing my routine for the stand-up show I have to force myself to do. The routine is done – I just need to start rehearsing and then performing it. Thursday is for my Zombie Novel; it is now outlined and I am beginning to dialogue scenes and characters. Friday is set-aside for working on what eventually will be articles for Cracked.com. I’ve been very productive. Evenings the whole family takes a 35 minute walk around the festival site. When Heather and Scarlett aren’t interested, I walk even quicker, twice ‘round the site. In between those two events I was blissfully, joyously relaxed. I made some calls, read a little… but with a day so productive I could actually afford to slack off a little. I even made sure to take time to eat cupcakes from my cupcake maker.  You knew it couldn’t last though right? I took on another construction job with Jamie Harvey. Over about ten days we stripped off and old, small leaky roof, framed up a much nicer, bigger, sturdier extension. Sheeted it. Shingled it. And generally created a damn fine looking building.  The Ronn who does construction – or to be fair – Helps Jamie do construction, looks a little different than the guy you see on stage.  I was up every morning before dawn, worked ten plus hours swinging a hammer – or, since this is the 21st Century pressing the button on an air hammer and then was usually asleep before 11 pm. Listen I worked fourteen days straight at this schedule before I got my first break – a half day for Scarlett’s Birthday – it made me really appreciate my life and schedule that-much more. After a ten + hour day it was really hard to come home with the energy to not only eat, and take care of the household and family stuff but to also write and keep the machinery of the Tortuga Twins going. My respect for people with real jobs that still get things done really rose. The construction’s end result was beautiful. Jamie designs and builds striking stuff and I am glad to help. After the booth remodel there was another roof to do – more shingling work on the roof we rebuilt last winter. I can actually see it from my stage! It now looks like we might have even more roofing work coming along during the run of the show. I don’t do it for the money… though I like the extra scratch. I do it for the exercise and so I can learn to build things.
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As I am finishing this Journal off, opening day is only two days away.
Yesterday, as I began this journal was also my final day of construction before opening. I’ve had a little personal time. We took Scarlett to her first-of-two birthday celebrations. This one was a small, semi-private just family and Aunt DaKitty. We hit Chuck E. Cheese’s where Scarlett rode rides played games and even experienced some form of “Dance Revolution†with Aunt Dakota on the assist.
I mentioned that our garden is even more beautiful this year than in year’s past, and it’s true. One of our courtyard neighbors is named Rose. Rose wanted to spruce up the garden a bit so she used her influence to have the faire replace the fencing. Heather and Meghan added a lot of beautiful touches and art and Voila! We possess a gorgeous garden.  There is one sad note however. Beneath that laughing Buddha in the second garden photo  is buried poor little Batmanuel, our Chihuahua. He was less than two years old. I turns out that he had a host of problems including some sort of kidney ailments and seizures. He passed away after one especially bad attack. I never liked the dog, but I have been hit harder by his passing than I would have ever imagined. It’s been interesting trying to figure out what to tell Scarlett. In the end, we just told her the truth. “Manny got sick and Manny died.†She seemed to sort-of get it, though she did call for him a few times the next day. Some days later Heather was crying over a photo of the little beast. Scarlett came up to comfort her. “Mommy don’t cry he be backâ€. “No honey Manny died, He’s not coming back†Heather explained. Scarlett looked at Heather and said “No mommy, he come back, he be ZOMBIE dog!†Man I love that kid. Rest in peace puppy. Don’t make me have to shoot your animated corpse. I don’t want to leave you with such a disturbing image so pleas enjoy one final photo – until next month!
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