One of the Informatician Extraordinaire's guilty little secrets is that she likes to get dressed up in historical costume and go to various reenactment balls. Yes, some of you are shaking your heads, but no matter! She is quite partial to the Virginia Reel and has been known to commit the heinous crime of reminding her escort that they have just announced the reel and that they must get out onto the dance floor posthaste! As you know, The Extraordinaire does nothing important to her by halves and so she is usually tricked out with a six-hoop-skirt, false braids, and a low cut ball bodice. She always attracts attention in this get-up but this time the attention got a little up close and personal.
This event took place at the re-enactor's ball in Jefferson where, during the Virginia Reel--in the middle of the set, mind you--a middle-aged woman and her friend approached The Extraordinaire saying, "
Are they real?"
When this question is asked, the speaker usually references particular anatomical features. While The Extraordinaire is endowed amply enough, no one would suspect that her décolletage is "enhanced." This being an unusual and rather impertinent question to ask in the middle of a dance, all The Extraordinaire could reply was, "Pardon me?"
The woman clarified her statement, "Your shoulders, are they real? They're so white, like porcelain, we thought they were covered in some kind of fabric or gauze or something."
"Hmmm," thought The Extraordinaire.
The speaker turned to her friend and said, "They're real!" and the other woman reached over to The Extraordinaire and ran her finger over the porcelain shoulders and crooned "Oooh." Both these women had been among the party that had snuck the flasks in. Teenagers, you are not the only group that works hard to get around the laws of a dry Texas county...
"You are beautiful," said the interrogator then she turned and floated off with her friend hobbling after her.
The Extraordinaire has been waiting for the public to acknowledge what she has known all along, but really, why come over and state the obvious in the middle of a set of the Virginia Reel?!
Yet in the end, even The Extraordinaire's lovely shoulders could not stave off disaster: before the reel was completed, her beautiful hairpiece came off in her hand. (See "
All is Vanity" in
Miss Elodie's Diary) Exhibiting all the Presence and Verve for which she is famous, The Extraordinaire popped off the dance line, threw the braid at her seatmates, then dashed back and led the final set of the reel with her own short and now messy hair. The Extraordinaire takes her responsibility as the lady of the lead couple very seriously and was not about to shirk her duties to her partner or her admiring public. Her shoulders are real and squared in adversity even if the hair on her head during the reel isn't!
blogroll
This spring I've been helping out my employer-public agency at a series of conferences and symposiums. We sell digital copies of maps from our archival collection as well as property and military records. There I sit at my laptop and do on-the-fly research for historians and historienteds <--Hey, I've just invented a word!!> who want to know about their grandfather's land grants. My years of training in the crucible of a checkout desk at a busy public library branch BARELY get me through the events. There's nothing like a bunch of middle-aged and elderly men crowding around simultaneously telling ancestor stories and giving me random names to look up while I and my colleague desperately try to write the orders in the arcane format required by our scanning lab! Ah, but I digress...
This is a new program wherein our agency promotes resources tailored for the given audience and potential customer. It seems to be working and I think I can take credit for some of its success. Thus far we've appeared at the Texas State Historical Association (where we presented a series of papers), the Hill College Confederate History Symposium, and the conference sponsored by Friends of the San Jacinto Battleground. There are more in the planning stages. Meanwhile, until you get a chance to chat with yours truly, the Extraordinaire, visit Save Texas History!
