Miss Pettigrew Goes To Comic Con

The list of duties for my replacement is posted on the refrigerator door. I've done the laundry and cleaned the house within an inch of its life. Had a complete physical including an unexpected UGI. Finished two pirate shirts for closing fair weekend, and prepped for the sewing I need to do when I get back. Broke down in tears on Saturday. I think to say I'm feeling a bit frayed around the edges would be accurate.




The bags are packed. Actually, they've been packed and unpacked, double and triple checked, and every time I think there can't possibly be one more thing we need, I remember something else.

1. Boarding passes, Comic Con ticket receipts and daily schedule, check.
2. Camera, cell phones & all necessary cords, memory cards & batteries, check.
3. Lara Croft guns, holsters, outfit, braid and boobs, check.
(boots won't fit, so Brenda Starr will be wearing them, TSA wll love that...)
4. Entire Laura Mercier makeup counter, check.

I keep thinking about those signs at the airport that talk about smart travelers packing light and being prepared for screening with their one quart ziploc bag containing 3 bottles of liquids and I want to just throw up in the roller tray. I know that every woman traveling in the airport at that moment must have checked a trunk containing her makeup, facial products and shoes alone.

(Have you ever noticed how all women travelers at the airport look? Their clothing is color coordinated, their makeup impeccable, their hair is coiffed and their wearing heels. They aren't even sweating. I'll be puffing like a freight train, sans make up, my hair in a clip, and wearing flip flops so I don't have to struggle with my shoes at screening. I'll look like I haven't slept for a week and must be rushing to the bedside of a dying friend. I must have missed the class on "How A Lady Travels" in girl school.)



We've had our spa day with hair coloring, highlighting, hair cuts, manicures, pedicures (open toed shoes) What must it have been like to get ready for a transcontinental oceanic crossing and European tour in the 1890's? They had to change clothes several times a day and "dress" for dinner every night.

Once a schedule contains a cocktail party, a red carpet party, and chance of celebrity interviews, all hope of traveling with just a few pairs of jeans, t-shirts and a pony tail holder vanished faster than you can say push up bra. Even if you only take one pair of heels and three dresses, there's the necessary underpinnings, jewelery and smoky eye "evening" makeup. All hope of fitting everything in a carry on size suitcase are long gone. We're just hoping we make the weight limit.



I'm feeling very relieved that I'm only the social secretary and therefore not required to make an appearance at anything where I may end up wearing my food. ( I do have a secret weapon that ladies in the 1890's wish they'd had, a Tide stain stick) However, Brenda Starr says it is quite possible she may be allowed to bring a guest, so Miss Pettigrew must be prepared for all eventualities. I think I may need a bigger suitcase for the anti-wrinkle cream...

Pretty women, Fascinating...Sipping coffee,
Dancing...Pretty women are a wonder. Pretty women!

-Tigerlily

Weigh anchor and hoist the mizzen!

We've entered the silly season for us folks who like to dress up and pretend we are someone else. The Colorado Renaissance Festival is in full swing in Larkspur and the shire is looking especially pretty this year. After spending a few days with Mike in Orange County, CA ( We went to Disneyland!), I rushed home and spent 2 days of non-stop sewing. The waistcoat came off like a dream, but the first pair of breeches were too small. I was up till 2am finishing the second pair along with 23 buttons and buttonholes! Saturday dawned cool and crisp, perfect fair weather, and we had a great time.


I'm not sure if it's the fact that Sarah is dating Jack Sparrow, or that we long so for the sea that we just can't get the smell of salt water out of our noses, but we have set aside more regal courtly attire for pirate garb and we may never go back. No plaids for Highlands Weekend, no breath restricting corsets, we've traded them for tricorns and cutlasses. Why fight with skirts when you can have drop front breeches? Besides, pirates live to accessorize!


With belts and baldrics, boots and sash, flintlocks and cutlass, their is just no end to the ways in which a pirate can make her kit her own. And one can never have to much leather and buckles or feathers... But tis too true, we are naught but humble pirates!


Unfortunately, it looks as though our faire may well be about to embark on a voyage that may bring changes that don't suit us pirates. For more information on the bilge sucking scum, you can read this article. In protest, our scurvy crew may just set sail for other ports next season like New Orleans for Pyrate Con. It's going to prove a bit difficult to haul the ship overland till we hit open seas, but maybe we can enlist the help of Calypso...


I think this is all just great practice for our future. With global warming and the melting of the polar ice caps (the North Pole is predicted to completely melt this summer for the very first time) and the subsequent rise in ocean levels, we figure it won't be long before life could look a lot like Water World. Why not plan ahead and take up piracy? Imagine if you will, a vessel under full sail pulling up alongside a Carnival Cruise ship, and its swarthy crew of buccaneers climbing aboard. The passengers would think it was all part of the entertainment and gladly hand over their money, rings and watches. But the bilge rats (that's us) would take off with their plunder, leaving the shocked and now empty handed party goers alive but broke. High seas adventure with grog and open buffets. Sounds grand doesn't it lad?


Here's Beth's version of Elizabeth Swann, brandishing her Chinese sword and looking very sexy for a scallywag. Blimey! And who knows, with the world in such bad shape it could be we'd become privateers, letters of marque in hand, working for the government as it were. Aargh!



Sarah debuted a new look this year. Her pirate cast away, dressed in tattered clothes, complete with crab on a stick. She had a bag of sea creatures for the kids and had crabs and fish bones tucked in all kinds of unexpected places. She walked around sunburned and dazed, shouting I've got crabs to the crowd.

Hoist the Jolly Roger and weigh the anchor. It's time we left this port. Better were the days when mastery of seas came not from bargains struck with eldritch creatures... but from the sweat of a man's brow and the strength of his back alone. You all know this to be true!

-Tigerlilly

P.S.
(Sarah made this Jack Sparrow flag, complete with raveling edges, and it's double-sided.)