ConQuesT was lovely. The flights back to New York weren't. The same storm that rained out President Obama's Memorial Day ceremony at Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery played havoc with our flights through Chicago.
Fortunately, I was traveling with
benyalow. We only got back to New York because he knows all the tricks of the game. It still took standing on line for 1.75 hours in Kansas City. Most of the people ended up stuck there after our flight was delayed for 35 minutes, then 55 minutes, and then 3 hours, only to be cancelled before it was originally scheduled to depart. Even though US Airways was telling all of the United passengers that they were full, full, full, and to go away, Ben scored us seats on two fully booked planes and got us to New York through Washington National. We arrived at La Guardia less than an hour after our original flight was due in.
The top thing that makes a convention good for me is meeting new friends. ConQuesT is a great place to do that and I left Kansas City knowing and getting along well with at least twice as many local fans as I knew before the convention started. Tops on that list is
athenaartemis. I met her at dinner Thursday night, then kept having good times every time we saw each other throughout the weekend. So neat. Welcome to my friends list, you delightful person, you.
Then there was Jimmy Hollaman's
Room Con. Three cheers for more fans raising the hospitality bar, and
Room Con certainly does that. Thanks, Jimmy! What a fine, fine time. Equal thanks go to
Bland Lemon Denton and his compatriots for the 5 hours of music they made at Room Con. Live music feeds my soul. It was soooo good to hear long time faves as well as material that was new to my ears.
Add to that the good times and
flying, screaming monkeys thanks to
smofbabe,
dlacey,
benveniste,
nkcmike,
dragonet2,
drpaisley,
npulsifer,
erikvolson, Vince Docherty, Mike Pins, and other friends I've known for years; a GoH appreciation by
debgeisler that brought smiles and happy tears to my eyes; two trips to
Jack Stack and two more to
Arthur Bryant's (but only one to
Sheridan's, alas); the surprise of enjoying every minute of my appearance on a literary program item; and more news, gossip, and eye-popping "wow" moments than I remember in the last three conventions combined....
Suffice to say the entire weekend was officially Fannish as Hell. Thank you,
rohanna! Thank you, ConQuesT!
Comments
I'm a heathen, but I have to eat Arthur Bryant's BBQ dry. I love Bone Suckin' Sauce, and am happy with a variety of BBQ sauces from across the country, but even the sweet Arthur Bryant's sauce trips my sodium tolerance alarm. The 740 mg of sodium in two tablespoons of the Original Sauce is poison to my mouth.
Not that there's a single thing wrong with Arthur Bryant's dry. It's utterly fabulous.
Oh and thanks for the kind words on File 770. it made my day. ( I like to hear feed back on the parties... i will pass along the kind words to Bland Lemon, after all with out him, its not really room con :)