Well, at least Willow waited until right before the alarm to start barking. :-)

Anyway, the short, short version: A hurried morning, and then we got stuck in this morning's rush hour traffic, from the I-85 split all the way down past Courtland Street. We finally got off at the Georgia Dome exit and got to the garage through Ivan Allen Boulevard. Had a nice breakfast at Cafe Momo and Laura Hayden and her husband Dale came by as we were eating! They were dressed as Adric and the Doctor.

Since we'd both missed the beginning of what we wanted to see anyway, we joined the Big Bang Theory panel in progress. Talked about favorite moments, and what people wanted to see.

Told James I would be at the ARTC performance tonight and then went on my way to the Hilton for the "Everything Doctor Who Panel," guest starring the three Robs (Ray, Bowen, and Levy), Caro Brown,  and Aaron Sagers. Again, a selection of best and worst episodes, what might come up in the 50th anniversary special. Rob Bowen broke into song. Caro said in exasperation, "This is why I don't want them to sit together." And the usual hijinks ensued, including a mass raising of sonic screwdrivers.

I hadn't seen Mercedes Lackey at a convention in a dog's age, so I went to the panel with her and her husband Larry Dixon. They talked about the possibility of Diana Tregarde e-books, and perhaps more stories in e-book form, and the last of the Collegium Chronicles coming out in October, and the fact that they aren't rehabilitating hawks anymore, but still have an owl named Cheyenne that was thought to be a male until they took over ownership. "He" fell in love with Larry and started laying eggs!

Had a hard choice to make between the Ed Asner panel and the time travel on television panel, but went to the latter. Hadn't had a good palaver about time travel in a long time. This felt like a very short panel as we chatted about all the main series—Time Tunnel, Quantum Leap, Voyagers, etc.—and time travel elements in other stories.

My next panel was conducted by Lev Grossman, who wrote The Magicians. He also works for "Time" and was the only American journalist invited to interview J.K. Rowling. Unfortunately he had only two days to work on the article after the interview, the article came out badly, and he was roundly panned. What he talked about were some questions he asked of her that never made it into the article, including if she was too hard on the Dursleys ("Being attacked by dementors," she said, "was the best thing that ever happened to Dudley.")

Well, on the way down to the panel, I had run into James, who was heading for a panel in the room next door. I had thought about going to a panel at the Westin, but didn't feel like trudging all the way over there, and James didn't have a panel, so we went to the art show and Comics Alley instead. The first thing we saw as we entered was Andy Runton's familiar face and we went to his table and bought the new "Owly" picture book. He not only autographed the book, but drew an adorable picture of Owly, Wormy, and the new character "Batty" on the endpaper, and gave me a "Batty" button along with the purchase. He also told us about being in a haboob in Phoenix with his brother! James also bought me a hand-made stuffed "Lenore" from Bill Holbrook's table. Lenore is the pet raven in the comic strip "On the Fastrack." She's about the size of a cockatiel, shaped like a teardrop with felt wings and tail and big white eyes just like the bird in the strip. How cute! She even has a little charm in her mouth that she is stealing.

In the print shop I bought James one of the reproduction World War II nose art prints, and I bought a cool other print to use as a gift.

On the way to the Regency ballroom we ran into Alice, who was joined by Aubrey and Jessie, and we eventually all went over to talk around the ARTC sales table.

The final event of the night was the new Atlanta Radio Theatre production of "In Need of a Bard," the story of an ordinary guy named Brad, an aspiring musician who is having no luck selling his music. After one discouraging day, he creates a moody song about a "Queen of the Night"...and then blacks out. When he comes to, he is at what he thinks is a Renaissance Faire, where he's kidnapped by Vikings and rescued by what he thinks is a heroic woman—who turns out to be a female dragon! Thus begins his quest to find his way home. Daniel Kiernan particularly convulsed everyone playing a cherubic fairy/pixie cross with a deep voice and a Brooklyn accent (and he was in a green fairy costume to boot!). It was a neat story, even if I did guess the way it would come out.

We didn't stop to socialize because we knew poor Willow was home waiting for us. Thankfully, there was no one without money exiting the garage tonight and we were home safely. I was to go upstairs and "release the hound" so James could take her out, but Willow was already out and wandering around; she'd knocked down the gate. Not sure when it happened, and I didn't have to mop the bathroom as I feared; she used the potty pad to pee and did her other business outside. Cleaned the aforementioned pad off with Dawn and then could relax and watch a few episodes of Lassie.

Labels: art, conventions, dogs, food, friends, pets

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