I can't have anything nice. :-(

It's a sad, sad time.
The mug you see on the left was a keepsake of the time Lisa and I went to the Sterling Renaissance Festival in upstate New York.

The year was 1997. A newly acquainted Lisa and I traveled to her old stomping grounds of Ithaca, NY to partake of the beauty of Lake Cayuga and the Finger Lakes region.

It was a giddy and carefree time. Lis and I had been dating for a couple of months, I had just been hired with the fire dept and neither of us knew anything about children, debt or autism.

Once there, Lis convinced me to shuck my machismo and rent a ren costume along with her. It was a little awkward at first, but by the end of the day I had been swept up in the spirit of faire; I was singing old sea shanties and parlaying with the locals in the Queen's English. (Something tells me the four hard ciders and two shots of mead had something to do with it, too.)

Lis and I gelled like never before. By the day's end, I knew that this was the eccentric little dreamer that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. As we walked towards the exit, I had the sudden impulse purchase a momento to help me remember one of the greatest days of my existence. The cup in the image above was that momento.

Sadly, Old Cuppy met its match while being chilled in a freezer.
(Yes, yes. NOW I know it was a big mistake. Gimme a break. I'm not a ceramics guy.)

But when I expressed my forlorn lament to my Mrs, she took the whole thing in stride.
For her, the most important keepsakes were the memories we made that day and all the other days we went to faire after that. (8 different faires, over two dozen visits.)

As usual, I felt better after talking to her. She's pretty smart about this kind of stuff.

Still, I am a little bummed about Cuppy's demise.
HA! I know what to do!
I'll just glue it back together and use it for a pencil/pen jar at my TA desk next semester.

Hoo-ha! Everything old is new again!
(Until it breaks.) ^_^;;;

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