The Cachinnator and some notorious Cachinnatees went to the Renaissance Festival today. We went primarily to celebrate Don Boscoe graduating from seminary. But since it was my birthday yesterday, we threw that into the mix as well. Why did we go? Amusement. No, we're not re-creators. And although we're dorks, we don't think we're pirates or knights. I must say, we had a blast.

The photojournalistic challenge was to document back cleavage. What's back cleavage, you ask? It's the disturbing crease that appears on a woman's back when she is too chubby and wears a corset too small. Behold:

From there, we branched out to documenting fat wenches not wearing enough clothing. It wasn't difficult. At one disturbing point, I conducted a self examination. I thought, "Maybe it's me. Maybe I was raised with unhealthy levels of body shame. Maybe it's natural that these jiggly, fleshy, drippy chubs aren't wearing much clothing." My doubt didn't last long. It wasn't me. It's them. The others agreed. We posed in front of some of them as decoys for getting the pictures:














But the Ren Fest is more than just fat people. For example, there was deadly weaponry. Here's Gray-ham reacting to seeing a ridiculously sharp knife thingy on a gun thingy:


And speaking of weaponry, we took part as well! We fired bows and arrows. I fired six arrows, hit the target 5 times, and got 3 of them in the bullseye! They gave us stickers that said "Winner."



Then we had a sword fight. It was a three-way fight between me, Parker, and AV. AV's the tall one in jeans, Parker is in shorts with the dark shirt, and I'm in the shorts with the green shirt. Beeki was filming, so the camera tends to stay on me. I fought like a gentleman, refusing to attack someone who was already engaged. AV showed no such compunction as he mercilessly attacked Parker. But the videotape doesn't lie, and the best man wins. (Or at least the best man is able to pop all of his opponent's balloons first...):


I am Sir Cachs-a-lot the Bemused

Then it was on to the joust. We cheered for the bad guy who was from Italy. He was a badass.



We took time for a little relaxation, food, and fun in addition to all the battle.






We saw a glass blower do a show.


But wait... who's that behind him?



Then there were things that we saw that simply defied explanation...:











All in all, it was quite a fun day. We walked around, got some good exercise, got outdoors, saw some weirdos, raised our self-esteem, saw some entertainment, and spent good time with friends. Who could want more?