FenCon

Typing one-handed sucks – I just lost my lovely post and must now reconstruct it. Ah well. here’s hoping I can be as witty as I was.

FenCon 2010 was a very nice con, indeed.

Friday started with a visit to the doctor’s office for pre-surgery testing. They found one class of anesthesias with minimal reactions, so they’re going with that one.

We arrived at the hotel before rush hour – always a happy event! We checked in and were put on the party corridor. Then we wandered and met friends and talked way too much. In the ConSuite (the Ambassador’s Room), we met up with John, a happy circumstance. We ended up in the bar, where I had a very immature beer that was improved substantially by the addition of cranberry juice. We talked of books, science, tea, projects. Eventually, we went off to our respective rooms for the night.

We met up briefly the next morning, where John gifted me with a loaf of cheddar bacon bread. I immediately began to make plans on how to include it in the Tea that afternoon, but I had to conclude I lacked both the right equipment and the right ingredients to make it a successful addition.

John went off to his panel (I guess, because I didn’t see him for a while) and I wandered, talking to various people. I met up with the Captain of the Steel Rose and we talked Tea – her aethership was hosting a Tea in the Ambassador’s Room at the same time I was hosting a private Tea for pictures for my Steampunk Tea Book. Then I got waylaid to let Itzl get his picture taken – him being in is steampunk gear – tailcoat, top hat, goggles.

Then I retired to the room to put together the Tea – boiling eggs and making cucumber sandwiches and such.

The Tea went off quite well. I had 8 tea sets, and Mel White very kindly went to the Con Suite to get styrofoam cups and paper plates for everyone else. Jas, Libby, Bev, Barbara, Rie, Mouse and Spouse, and others were there, which made me happy. I got a couple of usable pictures and a lot more that make for great scrapbooking.

I passed around my Autograph Book, and Bev passed hers around, too. Autograph Books were a Victorian tradition that lived on in autographing yearbooks. These are a combination memorabilia book, guest book, and collection of witty sayings and such from friends and other people attending the same event. You might have the same person signing the book many times, not a hardship for Victorians who memorized epigrams and pithy quotes and sayings just to share in these Autograph Books. I hope to revive the tradition, because while social networking media is great for connecting with people, it’s kind of hard to paste your name badge, concert tickets, menus, scribbled napkins, and such into them or collect signatures of friends and others.

So, the Tea went well, and Jas and I ended up in the bar again, where we ate dinner with The James Burk. Then Jas went to a panel and I met up with John again. I’d just eaten, but he was starving, so I joined him in the bar where he ate his dinner and I drank another weak beer improved with cranberry juice. Then we sat together with Jas and Mouse and Spouse at the Masquerade. Jas went off to do her thing, so John and I hit as many of the room parties as we could, starting at one end of the corridor and working our way to the other end. We talked to people, sampled teas, watched movie clips, and John committed (no, not “was committed”) to doing a panel or so at a Houston convention.

Then we went off to our rooms and met back up again briefly the next morning, where I learned John missed the Tea because of car troubles, so I dragged him off to the Con Suite and made him tea and fed him macaroons. We discussed a wide variety of things, wandered through the Dealer’s room, where we discussed the good and bad points of giving his Nonny a dragonfruit plant from the Texas Triffid Ranch.

He left early to get home before his car died on him (he made it, I learned, and did so in good time).

Jas and I left to shop at Whole Foods. We're going to be getting one here in the City soon, and I can't wait. I didn't buy anything because everything I wanted was too perishable to make the trip, but Jas bought a few things, and we ate there.

The trip home was long but uneventful. Construction was annoying, as always because there was always a semi way up front who slowed to 30 mph in a 60 mph highway zone and left a string miles long of cars trapped behind him.