Dickens Fair Violets

Every person I've ever met in my profession has a folder in their desk where they print out physical copies of compliments they've gotten. I have one labelled "Kudos" and another coworker has one called "Violets". These make for good readings later, particularly if you're having a bad day.

So let me jot some bits for myself, so I can squirrel them away against possible future need:

Being totally unable to keep from laughing as I was trapped in the window at Dark Garden and serenaded by some of the street folk with my own song.

"There's a girl in the Dark Garden window with a pickaxe. Only Laura could pull that off. Ha, it's totally Laura! I win!"

A few returns to Fezziwigs, in which I was warmly greeted, prodigal though I might be. And the random swingathon that turned into an accidental Irish set, in between the rows of Cavalry Galopede.

Geeking out over primary source reprints with like-minded folks.

I spent a lot of time doing something I don't enjoy, but it had its high points.
A lady who came by and spent literally half an hour talking to me about Victorian cooking, because she was really really interested in what I was doing. She was astonished to find that there were reprints of Mrs. Beetons available cheaply, and more excited to find that (as I hinted without actually breaking accent, character, or language) there are scans for free on Google Books.

Talking to a nice gent who stopped to watch me slicing apples. He complimented me greatly on my knife technique, which I said wasn't really all that great because my knife was dull. He looked at it, looked at another sitting on the cutting board near me, and asked if he could sharpen them for me. I handed them over hesitantly, not sure about the wisdom of handing very sharp chef knives to a random member of the public, but! He swiped them against each other quickly, mentioning that he recognized the brand as having "good hard steel", then handed them back to me, incredibly sharp and now slicing through the apple skin like never before. Turns out, he's a chef at a fancy Mexican restaurant. I was doubly complimented.

"Where are you from?"
"London of course!"
"Really, which neighborhood? Me mum lives..."
"Oh, um, well, this neighborhood!"
"You're Californian aren't you?"
"Er, well..."
"Your accent it so good I wouldn't ever have known except that you tripped up there. I'm from Brighton!"

Showing kids that you can whip cream with a whisk never, ever, ever gets old.

The random drunk guy in a bad Halloween priest's cassock, who was absolutely fascinated by me rubbing citrus zest on lump sugar.

Traumatizing everyone with the unicorn jelly!