The Forecast Called For Rain

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

And it did rain. Not like “pouring piss out a boot” (my favorite meteorological metaphor), but just an intermittent sprinkle now and again (much like the definition of “intermittent”). So I had a decision to make: go to the Kentucky Scottish Weekend with my brother (in Kentucky), or stay home with my family (they didn’t want to go since it was raining). I chose Kentucky.

It really wasn’t a bad drive. Yeah, it was nearly an hour, but we stopped for some cheap Kentucky likker and how often do I get to spend time with my very own brother? So we chatted (but no drinking because that would not have been safe), and the time just flew by. Before we knew it we were down at General Butler State Park, which by happy coincidence was where we wanted to be since that’s where the Kentucky Scottish weekend was being held. They had us park in this big field. Way in the back of this big field. But when I pulled into my parking space, what did I see? A free space in the row in front of me. So I zoomed up, so we’d be closer. Hey! Look! Another free space in the row in front of me. So I zoomed up again. Now instead of being toward the back of the field, we were toward the middle of the field. This was a major step up for me an’ Skippy. (Skippy is my brother.) Then, on the way to the entrance I found a penny, heads up. This was my lucky day! Then, because we’re big saps who follow the rules instead of total scofflaws, we paid our admission and went into the Scottish fair thing. (We could have walked halfway around the field and then snuck in the fence. It wasn’t a high fence, just one of those orange plastic jobbies that wouldn’t be no trouble at all to break through.)

The Kentucky Scottish Weekend was fun, if you like that sort of thing. They had a bunch of Clans (with a “C”- this is Kentucky, remember) set up and I thought I just might join up with one. (Can you do that? Just join a Clan?) I couldn’t decide between Clan MacDuff (because I’m a big Shakespeare fan) and Clan MacBean (because it’s MacBean), so I didn’t join up with either.

Then we went wandering around to see what we could see. They had Scottish dancing competitions and bag piping competitions and drumming competitions and Heavy Athletics. It was all fun to watch. I even like the bag pipes. There was a bunch of stuff to buy that ranged in quality from “stuff” to “junk”, but I didn’t buy anything. Neither did Skippy and I tried to get him to get stuff. He needed a sporan. (Why? Dunno. Just so he could say “kiss my hairy sporan!” and mean it?) And one of those Scottish shirts (that Mom could probably sew him way cheaper). And I tried to get him to get a Scottish hat. I think a Glengarry would be good for him. I wanted a Balmoral (You know what a beret is, right? And then the Scottish beret, the Tam O’Shanter? Well, the Balmoral is like a Tam, only it has a slightly bigger band at the bottom and (here’s the important thing) a patch on the left (or “port”) side to pin your Clan pin or other identifying thing onto. Now you know.). But the biggest Balmoral I could find wasn’t quite big enough for my capacious noggin, and the booth-running-guy was helping out a pea-headed guy who couldn’t find a hat small enough. And he was looking at the Glengarries with dicing too. Can you believe it? Dicing. Sheesh. (That was just to show I knew the checkering is really called “dicing”. I even knew that before we went Saturday.)

Before long we ran out of booths to root through and went over to the Heavy Athletics. (I thought Swampy shoulda been there. He would have liked it.) After we watched the big guys heave stuff around the field for a while. we wandered off. (How much heaving can you watch at a stretch?) Right as we left, a lady got on the PA and called the EMT’s over to the Heavy Athletics field “right now!”. Skippy and I didn’t even go gawk. We’re just that kind of guys.

Then it was lunchtime. I’m a big fan of lunchtime. There was a cooking booth with their own ovens and we went over to see what they had. They had incompetent help, is what they had. This girl (poor wee lass) just started working that day for the bakers. She didn’t know anything. It was funny. There was a lady wanting to know what was in the Shepherd’s Pie (they actually sold Shepherd’s Pie, so it wasn’t just a random question). The lady happened to be standing right next to the big board with the menu on it with the ingredients of each menu item right under it. It said “Shepherd’s Pie: ground beef, peas, carrots and mashed potatoes”. If he lady turned her head 2º, she could have read the big board herself. But she had to ask. She had to ask the girl that didn’t know anything. So the girl, also standing right next to the big board (but it was angled so she really couldn’t see it) yelled across the booth the the lady running the show and she yelled back “ground beef, peas, carrots and mashed potatoes” because she knew what was in their Shepherd’s Pies.

But I didn’t have a Shepherd’s Pie for lunch. I had a Cornish Pasty. I really only had a Cornish pasty since I read Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, and that one guy (Shadow? Yeah, Shadow.) ate pasties when he was in that one town. So I thought I’d try a pasty. Since I read the book, I knew I should ask for a “past-ee”, so I did. I got a wad of meat, carrots, peas and potatoes all wrapped up in a crust. The weird thing was, there was no corn in my Cornish pasty.

Skippy tried to have a pasty too since he’s never had one. Only he doesn’t know nothin’ about nothin’ (unlike me) so he asked for a “paste-ee”. He got a stripper’s nipple cover for lunch. It didn’t make for good eating. He was also dissapointed there was no haggis. I didn’t much care, myself, since I’ve already had haggis a coupla times and I like goetta (the Cincinnati pork-based haggis analog) better anyway.

Then for dessert (because we ate all out lunch right up) we went down the row and got some Welsh Miner’s Cakes which are weird little cookies. But they are good weird little cookies, so now I have to Google up the recipe and maybe make some my own self. We’ll see how that goes.

Even after we left the Scottish Weekend, the fun still didn’t stop. On the way home we passed Markland Dam. Only we didn’t just whizz on by, we stopped. (Technically I stopped since I was driving. Skippy had no choice.) I wanted to scout the joint out to see if maybe I should take the boys down to the locks and dam sometime this summer (probably not, except maybe to throw them in) (Ha ha! I kid). There was a big lookout tower so you could see the locks real good and we even saw a (little-ish) boat go through the locks. Then we went home.

It was a big day. Even if we got rained on some.
-Rue. (MacBean. No! MacDuff. Eh, just “Rue” I guess.)

Note: go see the All Beckwall Symapthy thread, and leave a heap of sympathy if you haven’t already.

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So you didn’t toss a caber, huh? Probably a good thing - if you got smooshed, who’d entertain the rabble here?

Ren Faire season is fast approaching. This makes me very happy indeed, as I otherwise rarely get to see hunky men in skirts. Normally I don’t get to go to faire until July, since that’s when our local one opens, but this year — this WEEK, in fact! — I get to go to another faire in St. Louis, so I get my faire fix early. Bad news is, my daughter has outgrown her bodice. I mean really outgrown it. She’s just a baby! WHERE did those bosoms come from??? I laced her into it last night to see if it needed any adjusting and holy crap. So now I gotta dig out my bodice patterns and sew like the wind, since she will need it on Saturday morning and I gotta drive six hours to get where we’re going Friday!

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Mmmmmmmmmmmm, men in skirts. :smiley: What? Nothin’ wrong with us gals likin’ a good pair of nekkit hairy gams, is there?

Nothin’ excitin’ to report from the Anachi ranch this weekend. I did make some excellent ratatou, er, eggplant zuchini type stew (however the hell that’s spelled) on Saturday nite. It was nummy.

I just specked out the swampfest pics that taters posted. What a great lookin’ group! Somehow everybody looks pretty much like I imagined. :slight_smile:

Tomorrow I’m bringin’ the Grumpuses in from the country to sign up for the assisted living facility nearby. It’ll be an all day affair for sure, but what a relief to get them in closer.

That’s all I got for now.

Tupug

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Every woman in ren dress I have ever seen has apparently outgrown her bodice. :wink:

Sounds like a fun day, Rue. I’ve been wanting to go to a Scottish fest for quite sometime, there’s usually a big one up in Dunedin (Dune e dain) every year but I have yet to get to it.

By the way, my Scottish clan is Gordon, you are welcome to join but we don’t have the Mac.

5

Quoting Robert Cray, are we now Rue? Cool beans.

Sunday night (meaning yesterday if you are reading this today, or Sunday if you’re reading it on some other day than today) it did rain like your favorite meteorological expression. Only it smelt like rain, not piss. Which is always a good thing.

My ex-wife used to make Shepherd’s Pie. But it was different every time. And I didn’t like it any of the times she made it. Maybe she was working at the Fair this weekend (but she’s no wee lass.)

I have a Greek Fisherman’s cap that I like to wear a lot. I get funny looks and all. But I don’t care. That’s just the kinda guy I am - happy with what I wear and don’t care what others say when they’re pointing and laughing. I don’t think those five guys on Bravo would like me too much. I wouldn’t listen to what they’d say to wear.

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Wow Rue you had quite the busy day! I read incorrectly and thought at first you were going to say you “whizzed” on the dam. I sitting here thinking, “huh”? Then I read the stuff correctly and everything made sense. I’m still a mite groggy this morning.

Anyway, **Swampfest ** was a smashing success. We had lotso fun! **Swampy ** told me to say hi to y’all. He also said to tell you the Underground Tour was “jakely jake”"! It actually was very cool. There isn’t much to see, but the history is fascinating!

For instance, didja know that at one point the sidewalks were below the streets! Anywhere from 10 to 32 feet below the streets! Ladders to cross the street were located at intersections. Imagine ladies trying to climb these ladders with their late 1800 dresses and little high heeled boots on. Many a drunkard took his last walk on those streets. He’d make one mistep and “bam!” it was his last cause he had just fallen 10 to 32 feet! There was also a problem with chuckholes. Great big, ginormous chuckholes. Chuckholes that were 10 feet deep and many feet across. Kids used to raft across them. One kid drowned. He was poling the raft along, the pole got stuck in the muck, he chose to stay with the pole, not the raft, and drowned! Do you know what those smart thinkin’ men at the newspaper said should be done to curtail these drowning deaths? Teach the kids how to swim and put life preservers by the chuckholes! Not fix the roads…yup those were some “forward” thinkin’ men back then. :rolleyes:

Also, there were some serious um…crapper problems in the city of Seattle way back in them thar early years. It seems you were in for quite the surprise if had the bad luck to use the bathroom in the “business” district while the bay was at high tide and the folks who lived up the hill from you did their business and flushed. This caused a great amount of pressure on the toilets in the business district. Sewage and salt water regularly erupted on the poor soul who was sitting on a toilet in the business district. Yeeeee-uck!!

There were so many facts and quirks to learn. I can’t remember them all off-hand. The tour was an hour and a half. Did I mention the tour was jakely-jake?

Swampy seemed to be havin’ a good ol’ time and really enjoyed the tour. He even bought the book they recommended there. I would’ve bought one too, but well, I dunno, I’m behind enough on my reading anyway. I will probably get it later though.

After the tour, we all drove to the restaurant. We had to sit and/or stand in the bar for quite awhile because they just weren’t ready for a party our size. There were eighteen of us there; nineteen when picunurse’s hubby joined us.

picunurse painted a wonderful Seattle, Northwesty looking placard for Swampy . It was really very nice and he was just so pleased! He made sure that every one of us signed the back.

Bumba and Mrs. Bumba brought samples of their soaps. They smelled very nice and everyone took some home. I think that was very nice of them to share like that.

The conversations we had were lots of fun and I don’t think there was ever an uncomfortable silence. We laughed and laughed and laughed.

Okay, this is turning into a very long post, so I’m gonna give you the URL now for the pictures. I’ll try to remember more stuff later.

http://groups.msn.com/Taters/shoebox.msnw

7

My mother’s a big Scottish festival fan. They are fun and the bagpipes are cool.

I did lots of rollerblading this weekend and now I’m kinda sore.

But it was a good food weekend so that makes up for it. I made a big batch of spaghetti sauce, a stir fry to bring for lunch for the week (Sandwiches for lunch?? NEVER!), and a cool creamy spinach and basil pesto recipe that I made up.

The real excitement though is that I’m meeting my new Doper guy Friday!! I can’t wait! I’m still like this :smiley: all the time. It’s just great.

Is it Friday yet?

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Shepherd’s pie is yummy.

I almost married a Scottish guy. He sometimes wore a kilt. He had a sporran, too. But then I met Mr. Lissar (and all the other wonderful husbands) and I married him instead. Mr. Lissar is English. There are maybe thirty people in the world with his last name, and I am now related by married to all of them.

No, I know that’s not interesting.

Did I tell you about the amazing dark chocolate coffee and cayenne pepper ice cream I had last week? It was beyond good. Spicy and rich and smoky.

9

A little surgery would take care of that problem.

Hey MacRue, where was this Scottish Weekend in Kentucky? My brother might have been there, if they had a petting zoo. He took the baby goats and lambs to a petting zoo at another Scottish-games kind of thing a couple of weeks ago, so I wonder if he went to that one, too. He wouldn’t have been wearing a kilt, so he’d probably stand out from the crowd.

Were there lots of men in kilts? I like men in kilts! Specially when the wind blows, and you can see under the kilts. :smiley:

taxi, it sounds like your Friday will be much funner than mine! I’ll be hanging out with my mom and grandma on Friday (which is nice, but they go to bed very early, so I’ll just be hanging out by myself most of the evening).

It looks like everyone had a great time at Swampfest! swampy, how does a North Carolina Swampfest sound? It’s really nice here in the spring! And we have a Great Wall of Chocolate. Isn’t that tempting?

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I love Scottish games and festivals - probably because I’m about half Scottish.

Taters, that list of attendees is like a who’s-who of Dopers I’ve been amused by. LUCKY! And I’ve met Johnny LA before (when his name was accurate to his location) and I have to say that those are awesome pictures of him. He’s looking good.

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My maternal grandfather was very Scottish, he was born there and everything, although the last name is not Mac- anything. (I’d tell you what it was, but it’s unusual enough you could figure out who I am IRL) I have a picture of him in the backyard of the house in Pasadena (CA) in full regalia: kilt, sporran, bagpipe, the whole nine yards. I’d post it somewhere, but I don’t have a scanner. (And, come to think of it, I’m not sure where the photo is)

We are proud members of Clan Murray. I’m also told that we could wear the Royal Stewart tartan, being very distant relatives of Queen Mary herself, but I figure that’s true for anyone of Scot heritage if you look hard enough.

They have a fairly large Scot Festival in Bethlehem every fall. I’ve gone several times, but have so far resisted the urge to buy either tartan or sporran.

12

I haven’t really done much physical activity for the past few months because I pulled my hamstring. Then Sunday morning I went out and decided to see the Upper Hillsborough trail. I figure I did roughly 10-12 miles (this was on blades). At the last mile or so my legs were like rubber. But I didn’t ever crash, despite taking one tight turn a bit too fast, and got to see a very large owl fly across the path at one point. A nice Sunday morning.

Then I spent about an hour playing with the kids in the Gulf yesterday afternoon, so now my arms and shoulders are beat as well (nothing like holding up 130 pounds for an hour, even if it was sometimes abetted by the salt water).

I need a rest.

13

I spent a beautiful weekend indoors, packing. I’m beginning to hate boxes, newspaper, and tape. I had to miss the Langley AFB Air Show, too, although we got buzzed often enough by the Thunderbirds.

Stoopit moving.

No poison ivy, though, or ravenous weasels.

14

The only quote I pulled on purpose was from the Pasty booth. So, sadly, I guess the beans are warm.

Eyes, Eyes, Eyes… you don’t read too good, now do ya? Where was the Scottish Day? Why General Butler State Park just like it says in the OP. (Wait… I’d better check that I actually put it in there. Yup, there it is in the second paragraph.) And as far as I know (which isn’t all that far) there wasn’t a petting zoo. They had some sheeps and some ducks for the sheep dogs to chase around, but I didn’t notice the petting zoo. (There was a bounce castle, but they wouldn’t let me in. And it was all wet from the rain, so I didn’t want to anyway. Yeah.)

Taters, don’t tell anyone, but I have been known to “whizz” on dams. And off bridges. Not on an electric fence though. Sometimes you just have to know when to draw the line of whizzing. But while I was standing up on the lookout tower I did think about whizzing down into the lock. I probably could have made it too. But it wouldn’t have been the Right Thing to Do, so I didn’t.

15

I went to two different Japanese hibachi-style steakhouses this weekend. One was planned, the second was spontaneous.

The first was probably better because we were celebrating an engagement (no, not mine) and we went to a Coldstone Creamery afterwards. However, the knife-wielder at the second place was better than at the first.

16

It was s’posed to rain in Seattle on Saturday too, but it didn’t, it rained Sunday, while we were driving home. We had a wonderful time with everybody Sat., even though some whore-breathed pig-fornicator stole our digital camera from Doc Maynards. I’m not POed about it enough to write a pit thread, but if curses actually worked, and I’m pretty sure they don’t, the thief is gonna spend a very long, miserable life as an impotent, syphlitic leper. Anyway, we went to dinner at a place called Chinooks, where the food (you knew there was gonna be food involved, didn’t you?) and drinks were fab-u-lous! Ther were too much of us even for Chinooks, so they opened the patio just for us and we had it all to ourselves. A good time was had by all. (not to be confused with my first wife, who was the original good-time-that-was-had-by-all[sup]TM[/sup].)

I, as is my custom any time I have an important event coming up, had a sinus infection, and was breathing heavily and sonorously. So if any of the doper wimmens in attendance thought I was panting at them, (not that they didn’t merit it), I wasn’t. I’m just a sicko.

We stayed at the same hotel as Swampy, but we didn’t get to see him in his pajamas, 'cause he didn’t wear any. <snerk> I keed, Swampy is a much more reserved person in person than he is on-line. Anyway, we took Swampy for a walk-about Sun. morning. We rode the monorail over to the space needle and looked at cheap (actually not so cheap) souvenirs, and Swampy got a postcard and a present for ACBG. Then we rode the monorail back and walked down to Pike’s Place and Swampy got to see them fling fish. And then back to the hotel, where there was much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, but Swampy made us leave him alone anyway. So then we drove home. That’s where the rain came in.

It was wunnerful to meet all the Seattle Dopers, and 'specially Taters, who’s a sweetheart. And I got to meet my old pal Scotti, who is even nicer in person than you think she is, and cheerful too. I should go on and heap accolades on everybody, but I’d surely miss someone and make them sad, so I won’t. I’m glad I got to meet you all. Good times.

-Bumba (breathless)

17

P.S. my fambly is somehow related to the Campbells, I think. Not that I get free soup or anything. Anyway, I got excited enough about it a few years ago that I bought a chanter. That’s the business end of the bagpipes, but without the bag. You,or I in this case, blow into it like a recorder. Pipers use 'em to practice with sometimes, instead of stoking up the entire bagpipe assemblage, I guess. So now I have another musical instrument lying around the house that I suck at. (the instrument, not the house. How would someone suck at a house?)

=Bumba (sucky)

18

My weekend was spent doing absolutely and positively nothing.

Aren’t you all jealous? :stuck_out_tongue:

19

Bumba, I might be wrong, but I believe that you are supposed to blow into chanters, not suck at them. Then again, I’ve never even seen a chanter up close, so what do I know?

20

Aw, damn Bumba! I really hoping against hope that someone turned that camera in. I didn’t mention anything about in my posts 'cause I figured if you wanted to, you’d mention it. I liked the insult you used, that was good…I’ll have to remember it.

So, you got spend another day with Swampy? I’ll bet that was fun. I love Pike Place Market and you’re right, there is nothing inexpensive about the cheap souveniers.

We didn’t go out in the boat yesterday. It poured down rain most of the day here, and although we have a canopy and stuff, it was that miserable, windy kinda rain that nobody really wants to be out in.

We’re not Scottish or anything, although Mr. Taters did volunteer to work at the beer tent once at the big Scottish thingy they have here in Washington every year. Once of his co-workers is Scottish and they needed volunteers. I’ll bet that just a very tough job. :rolleyes: