Not Exactly at Thing

[billroper]

Howdy!

By now, many of you have noticed that daisy_knotwise and I aren't at Thing this year. That's because we ran into an irreconcilable conflict.

You see, our friend catalana is Toastmistress this year at Consonance. We found this out about two years ago and have been making plans to surprise her by showing up here, just as she showed up unexpectedly at Consonance when we were guests here three years ago.

Then Thing landed on the same weekend. Ack!

So we've had to let a few people know that we weren't coming to Thing (like the Suttons, who really wanted an accurate membership count), but mostly we've let everyone assume we were coming, because the more people who know a secret, the better the chance that it'll leak.

It didn't leak. And Erica was quite suitably surprised when she walked into the concert room for the sound check and saw us standing there.

I love it when a plan comes together. :)

For those who were wondering, Uncle Jeff and Aunt Carol are watching the girls this weekend. This is the first time that Gretchen's been away from them overnight since they were born, save for when she was in the hospital for surgery. So Gretchen gets a bit of a vacation.

And, so far, Uncle Jeff and Aunt Carol appear to be surviving...