To begin with, I got up before noon on Saturday. Believe me, this IS one of the signs of the Apocalypse...and a sign that I was looking forward to this weekend! For a while my plans were a bit up in the air as I wasn't sure if Laersyn (I know him as Chris, but I'll use the name you're most familiar with for the duration of this) and I were going to have to pick up David Amaya from a bus stop somewhere, but he settled matters at the last minute and I got to grab a bit more sleep (a priority, you know) before being hauled off to the restaurant. For the record for you non-SConers, we secured a big table at the Denny's across from the street from the hotel where Kerri had nailed a nice room for the night, on my recommendation. Ulterior Motive Woman has a long-time chum who works at that hotel who might have come in handy if we'd needed another room...
Oh yes, and on a last-moment whim I grabbed my stuffed red panda Chester off of the dresser to bring along. This comes in important later, as you've already guessed. No, I don't know why his name is Chester -- he just looked like a Chester to me...
Anyhoo, the Evil One and I arrived at Denny's to find that David had beaten us there after all. David looks a lot younger than you'd expect, young enough to get carded regularly, and my oh my the fellow can talk. This is not a bad thing -- what he had to say was interesting, and hey, SOMEONE had to talk, because I couldn't think of a blamed thing. ;)
I was happy to recognize Trisha's cheerful face not long after we settled in, though the faces behind her looked a bit terrified. (I didn't know until some time later that Mice had only just whoopsed onto passing traffic, and I was half-convinced for about an hour that she was going to slide under the table to escape from us.) My first impressions? Well, lessee...Jade/Sparks (try calling her that all weekend -- "Ja-- I mean Spar-- er, HEY, YOU!") reminded me a bit of my kid sister Kari, which is a good thing, 'cuz Kari's quite pretty when she's not frying herself umber on a tanning bed. Pebbs wore a look which at the time I mistook for shyness and only later discovered was probably just her charming way of sizing up the social field before storming onto it like the Tasmanian Devil on crack. And Neva, aka Mice ...well, I'd seen a picture of Mice before, but that was in her semi-Goth stage, so the first thing I noticed was the much lighter shade of hair. Okay, it's shallow, but that's what I noticed. That, and the ghastly shade of green she was just recovering from, the poor dear.
The discussion got off to a rocky start, I think -- David and Laersyn had bullied me into sitting at the head of the table <glare in their direction> so I was a bit uncomfortable to begin with, which was compounded by the fact that I couldn't hear a thing down Pebbs/Jade way and the fact that everyone still seemed a bit shy except for David and Trisha, who are about as shy as Acme mallets. (Again, a good thing. :) This was about the time Trisha grabbed Chester, clutched him fervently to her chest (in a manner that would have made Dex give what little remains of his tarnished soul to be a stuffed red panda at that exact moment), and started speaking for him...in an outrrrrageous French accent. Lord have mercy on us. Luckily the rest of our party for the day showed up about then...
Okay, it would have been lucky if it had made Trisha forget that Chester was abruptly French, but alas, it was not to be. Still, it was great to see Kerri and Mary/Rogue (aka "Ro-- uh, Mar-- er, HEY YOU! NO, JADE, THE OTHER YOU!"). Poor Kerri looked a bit wiped out after so much driving (roughly to San Diego and back, from what I gather) but she seemed like a sweet gal from word one, despite what one might think from she does for a living, which is something I'll let her tell you herself if she so choses. Let's just say that we're glad she's on our side. ;) Rogue settled right in and promptly toppled David into second place for Most Talkative Ficcer On the West Coast, which was good timing because she was down at the quiet end of the table -- it got things moving over there, and we could hear her at the other end too!
However, despite best efforts, things just weren't quite pulling together...so we got a brilliant idea (well okay, I got the brilliant idea <bap> OW! all right already!). Instead of sitting around Denny's all day shouting "Whaaat--?" down the table, it suddenly seemed like it'd be fun to get up off of our duffs to go do something. "Doing something" turned out to be mini-golf, so after a brief huddled conference we all shuffled out to various cars and headed down the freeway to a place called Palace Park. Okay, so that part wasn't my idea. But it turned out to be FAR better than my idea, so I'll happily swallow my humble pie now.
(I should mention that before we got to the amusement center we stopped off at the the hotel to drop off some stuff, and wound up staying for a while to gossip. And with Rogue in the room the conversation invariably swerved to erotica. Yes, ten HOURS before midnight--! Pretty amazing -- Kerri was trying to meld into a shadowy corner, and I didn't know Jade could turn that shade of red...)
Palace Park is a kick -- I'd only been there once before, on a company outing (back when I worked for a COOL company mind you), and I'd been hankerin' to go back ever since. First up was a round of minigolf, which turned out to be a troublesome thing as the afternoon waxed hot and sticky, but I think the fluid, informal setting really worked to get people to know each other better and to loosen up. Being on the other team (in relation to the one Trisha described on the main page), I can say that on our part we had a lot of fun! You should have seen the gleam in Laersyn's eyes when he secured a black ball AND a black club...I thought he was about to go into Full Gloat Mode (TM Nathaniel Essex). Kerri just gets funnier the longer you hang around her, but as I was suffering from the heat at the time I'm darned if I can remember any details except that by the end of it I felt like I'd know her for years...though that could have been the heat speaking. ;) Rogue brought her wheelchair/cart/gocart thingie (we STILL say she could have kicked some tail on the bumpercar track!) so we worked out a pretty nifty system of working around the course with it, which was something new I'll say. Kinda gave the game a dignified parade-like feeling. ;)
And yes, Pebbs named her ball Pedro. I don't know why. I don't think SHE knew why. But her love/hate relationship with the bloody thing was bloody hysterical. Okay, so I laugh easily, but I about about choked several times out there...believe me, you had to be there. The gal's a natural. And guys? I STILL swear that I've only mini-golfed about six times in my life -- maybe it was the bowling classes...? Stop glaring at me...!
(It should be mentioned here in passing here that it seemed like David
was everywhere with that camera of his despite the fact that he was on
the other team and half the time we couldn't even see them from our half
of the course. A lot of his roll wound up being blurry shots of racecars
zipping past ;) , but he got some great ones of the golf rounds and such.
I'm so glad he and others remembered to bring cameras. Next year, I
promise.] [Editorial note from Trisha: Oh dear lord, that means there'll be more
pics of me....]
After getting a random passerby to take a group photo of us, the group
decided to try out the LaserTag course -- my incessant whining and
pleading may have helped hasten that decision, but goldurn it, I wanted
to shoot some people with toy guns. It's an expression of love in
Casa de Newcomb -- and yes guys, I didn't dig up the Nerf weapon stash
for a reason. ;) At first it seemed that we would all be on the same
team, but that's no fun...shooting at a handful of confused strangers who
looked like they didn't know which end of a laser pistol to hold?
Shyeah! So yes, it's true: I turned traitor faster than Mondo, and my
loyal lackey-- errr, my bud Laersyn followed suit. Hey, I thought it
would be fun to be a target. And to see how many shots I could bounce
off of fellow ficcers, of course. Shooting Mundanes is boring.
To tell the truth, I have no clue who won...darn. It was still fun, though. Too short, but lots of fun. We're going back next year. <threatening glower> Right guys? We ARE going back... But the day was not yet done! Pebbs, Mice, Jade, and Trish (I believe) wandered off in the direction of the racetrack while the rest of us staggered to the drink counter to recharge then scattered. I flattened Laersyn's ego in a literally smashing round of air hockey (it's an ongoing challenge with us -- we play so hard we attract spectators!), tried out the new Gauntlet game (oooo), and then shuffled back over to where Kerri was bravely holding down the fort at the in-center McDonalds with the air of a truly veteran mom. She looked wearier than we felt. :) It was getting a bit late by thie time, about five pm, so Laer and I headed back to Denny's to get our table set back up before the gang arrived. It turns out that in our absence my friend Kitarra stopped in to see us but was told by the staff that we did not exist despite reservations and a note left with the manager. ARGH! Forget a tip, buckos. Man, was Kit ticked at me the next day...things got even worse, actually, but more about that then...
The gang straggled in eventually and we had dinner -- we'd really worked up an appetite. Well, I know I had! Palace Park was a complete success, IMHO; everyone was talking and laughing and goofing around at this point like old friends, hurrah! And when things quieted down, I world-premiered the notorious X2-MST3K -- printed copies for everyone! Okay, that sounds really egotistical, but a) I thought it might be a nice thing to debut at the get-together and b) they made me sign it. Honest. We also had our mascots Chester and Mini-Laer (picked up on a side-trip to Chez Laer) to mess around with, as you can tell by the photos. The Denny's staff must have thought we were quite entirely mad.
We actually didn't have too long to wait until JB McDragon (aka McDonald) showed up with her really nice family in tow. Yes, really. I'm not sucking up. Honest! She was unable to extract her partner-in-crime Nony from the Parents Of Doom, but she was able to introduce her own 'rents, and they were quite pleasant. Actually, I think they were making sure that none of us were axe murderers, but hey, it's a reasonable thing to check up on. ;) And I didn't think her sister was THAT annoying, thought I thought Laersyn was going to choke on his tongue when said younger-than-JB-who's-18 girl told him how much she'd enjoyed his work. If you've read any of his work, you know why!
BTW, I'd met JB the previous Saturday in the San Diego Comic Con, and I found out that night that my assumptions that she was perpetually chirpy and bouncy was because she was wearing elf ears at the time. I was wrong. She really IS perpetually chirpy and bouncy, elf ears or no. And she brought with her Freddybob the beanie tiger, who promptly joined our growing menagerie of stuffed mascots. It's funny, but the group really felt complete with JB there at last!
A few long rounds of gossip and stuffed-animal-posturing later, I admit I was ready to call it a night. In retrospect I wish I'd gone back to the hotel to sleep, as I love late-night lights-off comfy-in-jammies conversations, but at the time all I could think of was my own bed and how it'd be the last night I'd have to cuddle Greg before he went camping for a week. So I went home. And I SHOULD have gone right to sleep but I couldn't resist checking my e-mail, and then I couldn't resist checking IRC, and lo and behold who should I find in #subcafe despite being out all day with real live ficcers but...Trisha. So I see I'm NOT the only junkie around here. <G>
Soon after I got home I received a call from Dandelion, who (Murphy's Law) had JUST arrived at Denny's after we'd left (she'd been out at a Blondie concert, a birthday gift from her sister), then went over to the hotel to find that the late-night guy (who was NOT my pal Jeff) wouldn't let her in! I straightened that out, I think, as everything's a bit fuzzy beyond that until the next morning...