November 11

       I woke up on Saturday feeling well-refreshed. Friday had gone smoothly enough. I'd turned in the rough draft for my essay and Odin promised to give them back to us on Monday. I'd also managed to do all of my homework on Friday, so I was pretty excited about the weekend.

    I went downstairs to have some breakfast. I made some scrambled eggs and while I ate them, I texted Blitzen and Hearthstone and asked if they wanted to meet up tomorrow. Blitzen replied first, typing "YES." Hearthstone replied secondly and he said there was a Renaissance Fair we could go to if I wanted. I asked Blitzen about the idea and we decided to go to this Renaissance Fair tomorrow. It was about an hour's drive from Boston, but it looked interesting enough. I just hoped they had dragon costumes.

     After breakfast, I watched some episodes of Doctor Who until it was time for me to get ready for my visit with my father. It was weird seeing him weekly after never seeing him in my life, but at least he was trying. I just didn't think anything could really make up for his absenteeism.

     My mother dropped me off at the mall today because that was where I was meeting my father. His wife wasn't here today. "Just a man's day," he said. "We'll have lunch and go shopping."

     We are at Fadlan's Falafels. My father had a gyro and he really liked it. "You know," he said. "People think of Norsemen as living all up in the north and just raiding places, but they also had contact with places like the Byzantine empire."

    "We read about that in AP English," I said, shutting him down before he could give me a history lesson.

   My father chuckled. "I see they're still giving you kids good educations at Valhalla High."

    After lunch, we started shopping. Usually when my mother took me shopping, we were very quick and meticulous. Shopping with my father was not like that. First of all, he suggested things for me to try on and wanted to see how they looked on me. "Spin around," he said once when I stepped out of the dressing room wearing a bright yellow sweater.

I spun around with the grace of someone who has watched two YouTube videos on ballet. "It looks magnificent on you," my father said. "You'll stun everyone at school."

"Yeah," I said. "I would probably unintentionally blind everyone."

My father clapped me on the back. "You don't have to get it if you don't want it."

Good, I thought, because the only thing worse than your parents asking you to try on things that are totally not your style was when they wanted you to actually wear said things outside the brightly lit dressing room.

      My father took me to a lot of other shops. I probably tried on a hundred pieces of clothing. Some of them were ridiculous like this one puffy, teal and vomit-green colored sweater. Some were too long or short or big or small. Others were uncomfortable or just plain weird. My dad ended up buying me two new pairs of jeans (one grey and the other black), a sweatshirt, an olive-green sweater, and a "Make Way for the Ducklings" t-shirt that I got ironically. I couldn't wait to show it to Blitzen.

     "You sure this is all you want?" my dad asked as he drove me home.

     "You got me loads of stuff," I said.

     When my other and I went shopping, we usually got one piece of clothing at a time of maybe an outfit.  My dad dropped me off and I said goodbye.

***

November 12

    Hearthstone was not amused with my fashion choices. I'd decided to wear grey jeans paired with a jacket over my "Make Way for the Ducklings" t-shirt. "That is not Renaissance fashion at all," he signed.

    At least, I think that is what he signed because I didn't recognize the gesture I'd translated as "Renaissance." Blitzen patted me on the back and signed to Hearthstone. "He's just referencing the famous statue downtown."

    I returned his smile. Apparently, Blitzen was really into the statue. He was also into ducks. He told me that under pressure, he often reverted to making ducks.

Hearthstone was reading a book on alchemy in the Renaissance period while Blitzen drove us to the Renaissance fair. I listened to some music on my phone. When we got there, I realized there were two kinds of people at the Renaissance fair: there were those who went all out (like Hearthstone) and those who were dressed as if they were going to the grocery store (like me).

There were men wearing elaborate tunics and doublets over hosiery like Hearthstone. There were women wearing long dresses with bodices. The air was thick with a jumble of scents and there were so many sights and sounds. Hearthstone enthusiastically showed us around the place. We watched a man dressed as a 16th century blacksmith make a horseshoe, saw a woman making candles, and looked at all the stalls. There was everything from hand-sewn historical reconstructions of clothing to piping hot meat pies.

      After walking around and looking at the shops for awhile, we watched a duel. Two men were dressed as Venetian gentlemen and they sparred with their swords until one disarmed the other. Then, there was a costume contest. I decided to join in on it as a joke. Everyone else entered seemed to be some serious history buff and people laughed when I showed up with my duckling t-shirt, but I ended up winning an award for "funniest costume." The prize was a $25 gift voucher for one of the stalls and a basket of soap and handmade lotions. I decided to give the basket to my mother and the gift voucher to Hearthstone. As he gave me a huge smile, I thought of how great it was to hats friends like these.