Grab yer booty and say "aaaaarrrrrrrrrrr" + VIDEOS!

You know what time it is....

Pirate Ball Stuff time.

Here are some photos and words and stuff and at the bottom of the post are two videos of my performance. Enjoy.

About the outfit:

I'm wearing a long sleeve sheer wrap top but despite the top being a 2X it still wasn't enough to cover my bosoms. So I wore a bodice over it for support and extra color. I tucked the sleeves upwards into my bra straps to keep the bodice straps from slipping down when I dance. Make sense?

The sheer top and 35 yard skirt are from eBay. Yes the skirt is made from 35 yards of material!

The yellow bodice was handmade by a friend. I'm wearing it inside out since the outer part is a dull orange - just not bright enough.

Me and husband.

The turnout was bigger this year. There were a lot of unfamiliar faces and many people came from out of town. Yippee! We did our usual live music, silent auction and costume contested hosted by Jack Sparrow.

Here is the official crew of the Pirates of Texaaaaarrkana.

And you asked for it so here it is. Me dancing!
I am performing two Russian Gypsy influenced dances.
(Prepare for my list of excuses)
As my skirt is too gathered, I was robbed of a little yardage from my skirt and I was unable to flourish as much as I would like. Had I have known that beforehand, I would have had a much bigger skirt made.

In the video you'll notice a distracting bosom gap in my bodice. Sorry - just giving you warning. I loosened the side laces of the bodice and ran a dress rehearsal and realized I needed to let it out more so the front would fully close... but I forgot to do that. So yeah... bosom gap.
A no no in rennie costuming.

The first  dance is to a traditional Gypsy song, Hai Ne Ne Ne.

The second dance is to Gogol Bordello's "Start Wearing Purple".
I just couldn't give 100% in this routine.
At the very beginning of the dance my feet cramped up horribly and I was extremely out of breath from the tightness of the bodice. I pushed through this routine praying I wouldn't black-out. I was getting tunnel vision and my chest was aching but dang it I made it. I clipped out a little bit of the dance and improvised with some crowd interaction to give myself a break.
Improv.
That's the business of show folks.
And lesson learned:
I will NEVER dance in a boned bodice ever ever ever again.



The part with my husband was improvised as we decided not to do the "pull purple scarves from wife's bosom trick". I failed to replace that gag with something else.  He had no idea what I was going to do and neither did I.  I saw his standing there and thought,  "Sure, why not?"
SMOOCHY TIME!

Bodice free is the way to be!!

(end of the night strip time)

Bragon Doat

Saturday we went to our town's first dragon boat festival. I had never heard of dragon boat races until  I saw the event being advertised and thought it sounded pretty cool.

 Local businesses form a team of 20 - plus 1 person to beat a drum rhythmically at the front to sync to rowing. 

And then they compete against each other in these beautiful long boats - just a few at a time and then they move on to the next round and then finals and then...

Well... I don't know. We only saw the end of one race and the next one wasn't for another hour.

It was hot as eff out there and we didn't plan to stick around an hour more.

The event wasn't really my ideal festival (are they ever?). There were some bounce houses, and just a couple food vendors and a few others selling crafts but there was no live music or anything like that. It felt like the event was really more for the people participating in the actual races.

Each team had their own tent and chairs and barbecue pits and food so it was kind of hard to tell who was an actual vendor and who was just chillin' with their teammates.

The turnout for participants was massive though! I wouldn't think that this kind of event would stand a chance in Texarkana because it's so new to us -  but with it being fun and sporty - it was perfect for this town. 

I forgot to charge my camera's battery before we left so these are pretty much all the pics I managed to get.  We didn't have a blast of a time or anything like that but it was a nice family outing. Since the event was by a lake and in a well maintained public park, the scenery was pleasant enough to make it worth the stay.

ON A VERY SERIOUS NOTE:

As many of you have probably already heard, one of the worst mass shootings in US history happened last night at a gay nightclub in Orlando, FL.

50 people were killed and over 50 were injured.

It was an Islamic terrorist attack conducted by one man.

He gave warning of his attack three days in advance but no one listened.

I've heard claims that a man in California was stopped by police and was found to be carrying large amounts of ammo and pipe bombs. He possibly could have been headed to a gay pride parade.

I'm terrified there might be other attacks planned as this is Gay Pride Month.

Please keep our nation in your thoughts and prayers.

...but do you REALLY know the muffin man?

Hot diggety dawg. Watch out ya'll - she's wearing pants again!

These pants have been in my closet for a couple of years and I was mostly just hanging on to them for costuming purposes. I'm not sure what kind of costume I would need them for but if you know me - you would know that I would need them for a costume. That's just how things work around here.

As you already know - I hate pants but I've got nothing against and nice pair of loose fitting trousers every now and then. The problem with these is that they're white with pockets and the pockets show though horribly and my undies show though no matter what color I wear and I've never had a top long enough to cover that fact...

Or so I thought.

I totally forgot about this dress shirt thingy.

The pants and top were handed down to me and I'm not a fan of either items but together I think they did ok. I got a lot of compliments on this outfit today after church though. I think it was the shocker of seeing me in pants. Do pants make chicks more attractive?

...or is it just me?

Let's choose the latter.

So in other news, the fruits and veggie diet didn't go as planned. 

Eating that much fruit and bland veggies drove me to the point of break after just two days so I just started throwing it all in my juicer.

So now I'm juicing and eating a super low cal vegan cabbage soup for substance - sometimes a simple paleo meal like a veggie-egg scramble if I'm too too too hungry.

Although I've cheated a few times, it's actually a pretty easy diet to follow. 

 And the cheating as for a reason! I was sick to death of having to go to the bathroom every thirty minutes and I don't mean to just go wee. But things are kind of starting to erm, balance out I guess you could say.

I have no idea how much weight I've lost - that is if I've lost any at all but I do feel a little happier and more energetic. I'm going into my second week and I'm pretty sure I can keep this up!

In other news, my city got an Asian market!

If you know anything about Texarkana then you'd know how impressive that is!

This town is LACKING in culture so hard it hurts so everyone has been totally flipping out over this place.  Yesterday I totally broke my diet with some canned eel and shrimp chips but hey, I say it was worth it! I was cerebrating! 

And plus it was like 100 calories for all of it so no big D.

Do you have an Asian market where you live? Do you go to it?

If a theme song played every time you entered a room, what would it be?