While searching through a storage room yesterday, I came across a medium size shipping box, addressed to me, shipped on August 16, 2007, the box had come from Primal Visions Design Studio, what came in that box changed my life as a rennie.

A full year prior to receiving that box, I was at a Border's Book store, looking at military and WW2 battle magazines and I came across a book for pirates. Back in 2006 "Pirates of the Caribean" was still a big deal and lots of people going to faires were dressing as pirates. This magazine was full of suggestions on how to "be a pirate" at the faires, what kind of equipment, swords and clothes to buy, which faires had good pirate themes, but in the middle of the book was an add for a one-time fantasy faire called "Meridian" and on the poster for the "Meridian" faire was a wolf and a fox in renaissance garb, the most realistic wolf and fox heads I had ever seen.

I took the magazine home, and checked out the Meridian site and found a link to a place that made the masks, Primal Visions Design Studios. I looked at all the types of masks they had, and knew immediatly I wanted a fox mask. I sent them an email on how much a fox mask would cost, I was told a basic mask with no eyes and a moving jaw would cost $800.00, I had that amount but was worried about such a big one-time purchase.

Over the next 6 or 7 months I sold a lot of old board games that I had collected over the years on Ebay. During that time, the cost of the mask had gone up to $1,100, but at the end of 7 months I had $1,100. I sent in a form that had about 10 measurements of my head, so the mask would be fitted just for me. I was sent two pictures while waiting for the mask, I had seen how streamlined the vixen and "Valentine" masks were and thought my mask would be like that, I was surprised when I first saw the pictures, but accepted that my mask would be unique when compared to other fox masks.

On August 23rd, the box arrived, I opened it and put the mask on , tested the jaw and the vision and started to work on a design for a costume suited for the mask. I decided on a noble look for him because I wanted as little skin as possible showing. My mother makes all the renaissance clothes for me and she help with the sewing on the tunic and shirt for me.

A name, what would I call myself when I went to the faire? Since I am a big ALBEDO and BIRTHRIGHT fan, I decided on Alphonse, after the fox in BIRTHRIGHT. The first weekend in October of Texas Renfaire, I went in as my simple peasant, carrying one of my puppets, as I had done for 7 years, but had a mission, I had trouble walking with the head, so I needed a cane, I found a beautiful sword cane with a dragon head. I needed to cover my hands, so I got a pair of gauntlets, and I needed a tail, I bought the longest tail availible at the faire, but it was only 2 feet long.

The next weekend we went to the faire, I was very worried that day, in September, the t.v. show "CSI" had an episode about furries, and it was not flattering, I was worried people would see me as that. And I was concerned that the staff might turn me away from the gate because my costume was not to their liking.
That did not happen, from the moment we walked in, we were surrounded by so many people wanting to get their picture with "Alphonse". From that moment on, my life as a rennie changed, thanks to that special box I found yesterday.