ConClave In Brief

[billroper]

daisy_knotwise and I had a good time at ConClave. We'd hired on catalana to help with the dealer's table where she was absolutely essential, given that Katie needs someone keeping an eye on her on a regular basis and Julie is getting to the point where she's less mobile than Katie, but equally interested in our attention. Because of the late Cubs game on Thursday night (or should that be the Late Cubs game?), we got off later than we'd hoped, then got caught in a mass of construction. As a result, we managed to get the boxes out of the car and onto the table on Friday night with help from Erica and Dorotha, but that was about the extent of it for then.

We grabbed dinner with Erica and Steve Salaba, then headed back to the hotel, chatted for a while, and eventually just fell over rather than trying to get down to the filking. (Well, we fell over. Erica kept running into other conversations on the way back to her room. :) ) Saturday, Erica and I got down to the table early and were still setting it up when Gretchen dropped off Katie and Julie so she could go to the DI Business Meeting. After that ended, Erica and I ran to Wendy's to pick up lunch for everyone, which would have succeeded if they'd actually put Katie's meal in the bag. *sigh* I would have gone back and hassled them then, but I was on the Iron Filker panel with filkertom and Wulf. The secret ingredient was "table lamps".

Ooo-kay. Thirty minutes to write a song including table lamps. Each of us succeeded in doing so in our own inimitable style. Wulf won, which didn't greatly surprise me when I heard what he'd written. Table Lamps of Cthulhu indeed!

When I got back, I suggested that Gretchen take Katie and Julie up to the room for a nap (and one herself). This made sense, so Erica and I held down the fort. Erica caught Joey Shoji's concert, we both got a look at the Art Show, and we made a few sales. I think sales were better than last year, despite attendance being down a bit due to the economy. Apparently, if you had enough money to come to the con, you had enough money to buy something.

There had been some confusion about the time slot allocated for this year's SpaceTime Theater show. I misunderstood and thought that it was a 60 minute slot; it turned out it was actually 90 minutes. Since we'd planned an all-improv show, this wasn't too hard to correct -- we just plugged in some of the material that we'd cut. Set up would have been problematic, except that the hotel hadn't taken down the wall between ballrooms 7 and 8, so while Tom and Wulf were holding forth in one room, we were setting up the stage lights in the other room and actually went up approximately on time.

Life at the show was made substantially easier by Steve B. Jr. volunteering to babysit for Katie and Julie. We'd intended to make arrangements in advance, but life managed to get in the way. Thanks, Steve!

Since the show was at 7 PM, the audience was a little smaller than average -- many folks still being out to dinner -- but the ones who were there had a good time. We picked up a number of ideas from the show which we'll carry on to the WindyCon show next month.

Gretchen decided not to try to take the kids to the post-show dinner, so I promised to bring her (and Katie!) food back. She spent the time camped out in the lobby, talking to folks and letting Katie burn off a little energy. After that, we got the kids up to the room and Erica and I decided to head down to the filk room where we found peteralway as the last man there packing up around midnight. Apparently, we're getting old or something. But he decided to stay, we decided to stay, and we spent an enjoyable couple of hours swapping songs before heading off to fall asleep. (Ok, I fell asleep. Erica found another conversation on the way back to her room. There's a pattern developing here...)

The next morning, Gretchen and I got up, got the kids and all the stuff packed out of the room and headed off for our joint concert, while samwinolj watched Katie and Julie. For a noon Sunday concert, it actually went pretty well, starting out with three folks in the audience and ending up with about twelve. This was smaller than the crowd in Dinner Party (one of the songs that we sang), but that was just fine. :)

After the concert, Erica and I went back to the Wendy's where I asked for and received redress for the previous day's missing kids meal for Katie. This time, Erica carefully counted the sandwiches in the bag before we left. Mine was missing, but not for too long.

You know, Wendy's used to have better luck actually filling orders, didn't they?

Back to the con, where I got a chance to wander by Sally's table, pick up a new paperback (Scalzi's "The Last Colony"), hand off the Capricon dealer info for Gretchen, and chat a bit about Sally's new display and the new hotels for WindyCon and Capricon. Before too much longer, it was 3 PM and time to close down. Gretchen took the kids out to the lobby while Erica and I packed up. I answered one silly WindyCon question for Tara (ok, the question wasn't silly; apparently WindyCon was being silly), then we grabbed dinner at the Bob Evans with Erica and headed in our separate directions.

Katie was pretty good about the whole thing except for the last hour of the trip, when she had had quite enough of being in the car seat. I drove a little faster. Had a policeman pulled me over and heard the siren inside the car, he probably would have let me off with just a warning.

And sympathy, if he had any kids of his own.

When we got home, Katie demanded that I start up Talk, the magic gargoyle. Then she ran to the family room and insisted that Gretchen put on the Pooh DVD while I unloaded the minivan.

Sleep? Much later and for the weak and sickly apparently.

It wouldn't have been so bad had I not spent an hour lying in bed tossing and turning from my cumulative caffeine consumption. But the drive time was only about five hours, so we did make good time.

And next time, there's going to be a back seat DVD player for Katie.

And a Pooh DVD.

Or two.

Or three.