Shopping Tips and Guidance by Mandy Claire

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" Boy, was I ever grumpy the night of that beautiful full moon! Well, I got over it, and went out in the lovely moonlight, and thanked the bored Goddess Luna for being so full so late. I might be wrong (probably am), but doesn't this make Easter as late as it ever can be?

Next to being Buzzy at the East Coast Vulture Festival, my second-favorite yearly role is co-leader (with Spare) of the Mountain Tribe at the Spoutwood Fairie Festival. This year will be our third anniversary of receiving this honor.

Ah, but there's always a catch. Right?

For our first two years, we Mountain Tribe maniacs only had to show up and act rowdy. This year the festival wants to expand the role of the Tribes.

And. That. Means. I. Have. To. Make. A. Fancy. Table.

So that visitors will know what the Mountain Tribe is, and whether or not they belong in it.

Those three of you who have read "The Gods Are Bored" these many years will recall that if hot glue guns are involved, Anne bows out. The very word "craft" makes me break out in hives. Just ask any church lady who ever asked me to make centerpieces for some churchy event. I'm sure my clueless crafting is still the talk of the Bible Circle.

This new Spoutwood challenge is not just some thing I can fudge, either. Some of the other Tribe leaders are professional artists who can hot-glue letters and flowers to a fabric sign from 50 yards away. I don't feel particularly competitive with them, but all the same, it will look pretty shabby if my table contains a TARDIS and little else.

Adding to this, Spare and I are not in agreement on what to do with the table. That's bound to happen when one leader is in her 50s and the other is 17. We do agree on a TARDIS. Beyond that we go our separate ways.

Life throws us these challenges, though, and one must sigh and rise to them. It's the burden of leadership, I guess.

Anyway, over the next week we'll be having a discussion here at "The Gods Are Bored" about the new, crafty, artistic, eye-popping, and otherwise fabulous Mountain Tribe table. Your input is desperately needed. Desperately. Needed. Think of your input as what it would take to talk Anne off the ledge of some high-rise building in Gotham City.

The Fairie Festival is April 29, 30, and May 1. If you have a vision, please share it. If you can make things like paper-mache mountains, I will be your slave until the end of time.

If the Second Amendment covered glue guns, I would be out there lobbying to have it removed from our Constitution. *sweaty palms* Oh! Glue guns! Calgon, take me away!