Lets start with this weekend, The Renaissance Fair, a chance for my wife to dress up like a woodland fairy and me to get a green thumb.

But this year, she did not dress like a fairy like usual. She kept her costume secret and told me to go ahead with some friends of hers and she would meet me there. I was dressed like a Pirate this year

I went with her friends and began my journey by purchasing a large wooden tankard (mug) which I had filled with real home made rum and diet coke. Her friends, three ladies and one man, dressed as pirates also, and the five of us began our quest for gold and booty

As we went from both to booth, one of the girls said to me, "Don't look now but death is following you."
Of course, if you want some one to look, tell them not to and they will, so I did

I turned to find this most elegant of creatures standing ten feet away. Dresses in black from head to toe, a black shawl covering her face, and a mask that was stark white and looked to be made of carved bone. It was a "shadow of death".

I watched the was she stood, the definitive feminine steps she took, her graceful mannerisms almost ballet like, and thought "What a way to die!"

Just then some kids came running up to her and she moved her hands in graceful patterns to explain who or what she was, obviously one of the volunteers, so I continued searching for my wife.

I went to see the Pirate show, a bawdy number that ended with a drinking song "If all the young lasses were sturdy as anchors, I wouldn't be headed home with these wankers"
Still looking for the princess, fairy, or wench my wife was dressed as, I left the show. On the outskirts of the crowd, there was that female death shadow again, only this time two males dressed in the same garb had joined her. They waited silently as the people passed
Most glanced curiously at them, but when I passes I smiled big for the female.

She stretched out a hand and came close to touching me, then pulled away. I continued my quest.

It was time for a refill of my tankard, so I headed over to the Pirates Cove. The rum was good and, being a pirate, I felt at home. As I was reaching for my refilled mug, a hand shot out and sn*tched my hat off my head.
Looking up, there standing on a stone wall was the female shadow of death, who put my hat on her head and leaped off the other side