I Saw a Unicorn and Got My Playbill Signed By the Gods in New York City

New York City is a crazy place. Why is there everything that you'd ever want to see or do there, and it's all easily accessible via public transportation? And people just LIVE there like that's a completely normal way to exist!!! 

A place like Indiana must seem absolutely fucking miserable to a New Yorker. When a New Yorker is bored, they can go get cheap dumplings or ride the subway somewhere cool or visit a museum or go to a show or just walk around and people watch. When I'm bored, I have to resort to stupid shit like poking around in my garden or taking the dog for a hike or wandering around the mall and not buying stuff. Our lives are NOT the same.

Ah, well. One more full day to pretend to be a real New Yorker by doing all the touristy, non-New Yorker things I can fit into the schedule!

On this day, after the obligatory bagels for breakfast (you put too much cream cheese on your bagels, New York!), my partner polled the kids to see if they'd rather go see Stonewall National Monument or the unicorn tapestries. I think they'd have loved both, but unicorns were the winners this time. 

We'll pay our respects next time, Stonewall!

The Met Cloisters was quite the hike from our Times Square-adjacent hotel, but I think it might be my favorite place in New York City. Y'all know what a freak I am for the Medieval period (if you want me to send you Margery Kempe memes message me your cell number!), and here was a lovely little museum simply chock-full of Medieval and ONLY Medieval art! 

I'm especially fond of Medieval depictions of critters, such as this completely realistic lion that the artist has definitely seen before:

Spanish, Castile-Leon, circa 1200. My favorite part is its mustache!

Also, a dragon that is literally eating a guy!

North German, circa 1200

Another dragon, but this one's got chicken feet and a very sassy expression on its face:

Spanish, Castile-Leon, circa 1200

We apparently don't quite know what the deal is with this particular two-headed critter, just that William of Orange is stabbing it:

There are two types of museum-goers in my family. The first type looks at everything really fast and then sits around, bored, and contemplates killing the rest of us. Thank goodness for my museum buddy who's also of the second type!

We look at EVERYTHING. AND we read its label. And we take each other's pictures looking at the best stuff so we can prove we were there. 

King Arthur!

This is supposed to be either Hector of Troy or Alexander the Great.

I also like Medieval manuscripts:

The Romance of the Rose, French, 1340

This stained glass window apparently used to live in Canterbury Cathedral!

Martyrdom of St. Lawrence, 1180

But here's what we really came to see:

The Unicorn Defends Himself

These were astounding, although I wish the unicorn would have kicked those hunters' asses rather than getting killed. I love how it's depicted as A Definitely Real Unicorn That Really Exists, and in the corner of the gallery was also displayed a narwhal tooth, which I would certainly have 100% believed was a real unicorn horn if nobody had told me about narwhals.

I'm so curious about this mending. It's very visible, so perhaps it's also historic, or perhaps it was done purposefully so you could see the evidence of historical wear:

The Hunters Return to the Castle

The peaceful scenes are the best, though. Fuck those hunters!

The Unicorn Rests in a Garden

The Unicorn Purifies Water

Love this guy:

As the other two were finally dragging the big kid and I by our ears out of the museum, my partner said, "I wonder if anyone ever comes here twice?", thinking, I guess, about how out-of-the-way and very much up-the-hill it is. But I swear that if I lived here I'd come to the Met Cloisters every day just to say hi to the unicorns, maybe take a little peek at St. Michael slaying the demons, sneak into a guided tour or two, and then head back down the hill and down the block for this huge slice of pizza that was so freaking delicious and I swear to god it cost four dollars:

Sufficiently fueled, we took the subway back downtown and back to this Times Square-adjacent location just cattycorner from our hotel, because no matter that I'd already seen unicorns and eaten pizza--my day was about to get even better!

This trip was the coming together of a couple of dreams. Y'all already know that I love musicals, and that Hadestown has long been my favorite by far. Y'all don't need me to start waxing tearfully poetic about how meaningful I find this work of art that celebrates the beauty of knowing that your efforts are futile, but nevertheless trying as hard as you can. You don't need to do something because you think you'll win--you just need to do it because it's the right thing to do. Also, the beauty of telling the same story over and over, even if you don't like the ending, because the meaning isn't in the ending--it's in the telling. 

Ugh, you guys, I just love Hadestown so much.

And currently, the little kid's favorite actor is playing Orpheus. How could we pass up a chance for her to see Jack Wolfe in person, and for me to see Hadestown again, and for the other two to also come and hang out with us in New York City?

Money comes back, but life is made of memories:

Jack Wolfe didn't come out to the admittedly absolutely madhouse-level stagedoor afterwards, which was a bummer but omg COMPLETELY understandable, because OMG that crowd! However, we were super excited to see Paulo Szot--

--and Kurt Elling--

--and Allison Russell--

--which means that we got our playbills signed by all the gods!

Interestingly, the news just dropped last week that this cast's final performance of Hadestown is March 1. As the little kid and I were talking about it, I theorized that wouldn't it be cool if Jack Wolfe was headed back to the West End, where The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry is now running. Wolfe played The Balladeer in a previous run of the show, and I joked that if he ended up as The Balladeer again I'd have to start looking for plane tickets.

"You wouldn't go without me?!?", the kid gasped.

Money comes back, but life is made of memories!

P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, road trips to weird old cemeteries, looming mid-life crisis, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!

A Maiden and a Rogue Walk into a Medieval Fair

You know you've homeschooled correctly when your teenager brings up the term "medievalism" all by herself, AND when she gripes about the term "Ren Faire" because everybody is cosplaying the Medieval period there, NOT the Renaissance.

It's been a whopping four years since we last went to this nearby Medieval Fair, a length of time that I can hardly believe since we had so much fun last time! This time, though, I think we had even more fun, especially because this time I wasn't the lone cosplayer. In fact, I actually gave my costume to Will, so while she looked awesome as a maiden and Syd looked awesome as a rogue (wearing the Halloween costume she sewed for herself also four years ago), Matt and I were the boring, modern-day tourists.

There was jousting-- 

--combat--

--and mounted archery--

--and in between the shows we wandered the vendor tents (I bought a book with a hidden compartment in it from Peddler's Chest, but Syd did not find the corset of her dreams--I think I'm going to have to sew one, ugh)--

--did the Scavenger Hunt--

--ate turkey legs and pulled pork, and sat in the sunshine and enjoyed ourselves:

Guess who's the most delighted person at the entire Medieval Fair?

Alas, for I did not use my time wisely, so in the afternoon I had to choose between the final show of the sword swallower and the final show of the fire breather, dang it.

I chose FIRE!!!

When it's not hosting a Medieval Fair, Clayshire Castle is a bed and breakfast and event space. It's fun to walk around inside it and pretend that you're a noble family with the festival going on outside your castle walls:

I LOVE the castle's own collection of cosplay garments!

At the ticket booth, the kids had to choose sides in order to receive their Girl Scout fun patch (they also had to give the Girl Scout Promise to the ticket agent, which was apparently horrifying, but they both did it!), and they both chose the just cause of the House of York. Here is their queen, standing next to the Lancaster queen:

I think my maiden dress must be cursed, because Will also got an awful sunburn while wearing it, oops. Or it's the fault of that tricky autumn weather--so hard to remember to reapply sunscreen when the temperature is so lovely and cool!

So after one last walk past the axe-throwing arena and the drinking horn vendors (so tempting!) and the chain-mail artisan, we headed home to put cold, wet washcloths on our red faces and eat Hostess Scarycakes (because yes, I DO have to buy every holiday-themed food that exists) for dinner while watching Monty Python and the Holy Grail. 

Because obviously your post-Medieval Fair chill-out movie can ONLY be Monty Python or A Knight's Tale. Do not even try me with any subpar non-Medieval alternatives, because I will not have it!