Third verse, same as the first. Got up ten minutes earlier this morning, though, and still didn't leave until eight. From Spring Road until we passed the river, we were driving through dense fog—if it had been Christmas Eve, Santa Claus would have needed Rudolph to light the way. :-) The line at Cafe Momo was a little shorter today, and I got a wheat bagel for variety. I've got Momo-meals down pat: in the styrofoam container, oatmeal in one of the small partitions, roast potatoes in the other (they're outstanding), two slices of French toast, no more than three slices of bacon, three slices of orange, three of kiwi fruit, a bagel and cream cheese, and a pint of milk. Super.

James and I went to our first panel together, a Babylon 5 21st anniversary tribute featuring Walter Koenig. Of course the questions were mostly about his character, Al Bester, the sinister Psi Corps operative. He had nice things to say about the cast, especially Jerry Doyle, but admitted to being intimidated by both Doyle and Bruce Boxleitner because they were so tall.

I made certain James got on the elevator to go back to the Hyatt—people were much friendlier today than Friday—then stopped by Lost and Found to see if someone had turned my owl visor in. No luck. So I went off to the Sheraton and the Colin Baker panel, which was conducted by Alan Siler. Alan had collected a bunch of clips of Colin, the first from Blake's 7, the next his guest starring role on Doctor Who as Commander Maxil, and finally clips of him from his various seasons. After each clip Colin would comment about it. Despite what people may think of his Doctor Who tenure—and I admit I recall very little of it—Colin is a super guest. He's grown a beard and reminds me so much of Timothy West when he did Edward the Seventh. Alan even played the very funny clip from the Big Finish audio production where the Doctor sings about being a "Gallifreyan buccaneer" to the tune of Gilbert and Sullivan's "Model of a Modern Major General," and a film clip of Colin and Nicola Bryant in much different circumstances from the series "The Stranger." They were in a bed and doing things a Doctor and a Companion would not have thought to do in the 1980s!

Next it was a hike all the way back to the Hyatt to go to the animation track panel tribute to Rankin-Bass. I sat with Kelley Ceccato and we enjoyed the clips the track manager showed, not just the Christmas specials, but the Saturday morning cartoons they did, like Jackson 5ive and The Osmonds, and dang, we sang along to King Kong. There were also clips of the sublime, a.k.a. The Last Unicorn, to the interesting (Return of the King) to the abysmal—an absolutely terrible cartoon called The Red Baron with an Alsatian baron, a cat mechanic, and a doddery old dachshund. Still, I wish we'd been able to discuss the work, not just watch clips.

And now the course reversed back through the Marriott and all the way to the Hilton where the Sherlock panel was being held. I waited patiently for the end of the line and was rewarded by a seat at the back of the panel. And it was an interesting panel, with mostly talk about season three, the surprise of a likeable Mary Morstan, the Moriarty appearance, etc. Sadly, it was so warm in the room that I dozed off for about ten minutes, leaning on my backpack. I was glad, at least, that the person who was sitting near me who apparently drowned him/herself in clove-scented perfume had left early!

Then I hiked back toward the Hyatt, but took a left turn at Peachtree Center so I could spend as little time as possible outside, where it was a burning, hellish inferno made worse by concrete streets and sidewalks. I'd gone crazy looking for a panel on Sleepy Hollow this weekend, and ended up finding it in the Horror track. Keith DeCandido, of course, since he has written a Sleepy Hollow novel, was on the panel, and it was a good lively one, about the mixing of history in with horror elements, and the fact that most people don't consider this a horror series. The news is that second season has a few more episodes than first season (at thirteen) did. We're still waiting to see how Abbie and Ichabod get out of being tied to a tree by the Second Horseman of the Apocalypse, who turns out to be the son of Ichabod and his witch wife Katrina!

I'd thought about going to the Casey Kasem tribute panel, but instead I wandered back into the Merchandise Mart. This time I was not thirsty and sunstruck, so I actually did wander around the dealer's tables and bought a lovely 2015 Doctor Who calendar which even includes the Eighth Doctor and the War Doctor. It's very spiffy. And a TARDIS necklace to boot. And, of course, despite what I said yesterday, I went back to McFarland and bought two books, Anti-Foreign Imagery in American Pulps and Comic Books, and Diversity in Disney Films.

From the Merchandise Mart I crossed back over to the Hyatt and went back to the Art Show. Actually I went to Comics Alley first because I thought Andy Runton wasn't here this year, but I saw someone with two of his books yesterday. So I found him and he had the most adorable drawing of Owly dressed as the Eleventh Doctor, with Wormy as K-9 and Owly's other forest friends as Who characters including the rabbit as River Song. And then I saw a smaller piece of art that was being sold as a charity benefit for an animal shelter. Pictured on it was a little dog, a wheaten-colored Cairn, who was being treated there, and the real-life dog's photo looked so much like Willow that my heart melted and I had to buy it as well. I mentioned to Andy that Willow had died and he remembered petting her at Timegate. That was so sweet.

And just before the art show closed, I went into the print shop and bought the small artwork of the winter stag I liked so much.

Then I just went over to Regency VI-VII to wait for James to meet me at the ARTC performance. I sat next to a lady named Megan and we chatted for awhile until James showed up. Aubrey and Jessie showed up both with those little fur dragons you perch on your shoulder and there's a little cord which makes it move its head up and down. Jessie's looked more like it was out of Dark Crystal, but Aubrey's resembled a dragon that had been crossed with a furry grey cat. Quite adorable.

ARTC did two performances tonight, a very short, funny "Rory Rammer, Space Marshal" where Rory and his sidekick Skip Sagan are called to a crime scene where a bunch of visiting detectives are making totally wrong deductions about a dead Martian. The longer dramatic production was "Call of Cthulu," which always makes one shiver. Ron mentioned so many familiar places in his adaptation (Providence, a professor Angell [Angell Street is on the East Side of Providence, which used to be a swank neighborhood], and even Waterman Street, which was where my allergist used to be) it was like old home week—if you want to go to an old home haunted by Cthulu, that is. LOL.

James got a three-wheeled cart this morning instead of a four, and it went wonky the first time we tried to get on an elevator to head home. The second time everyone helped us and it was very nice. Instead of going over the bridges and possibly running into crowds, we just went out the lobby door and down John Portman Street (formerly Harris Avenue) back to Courtland Street. As I was scouting the pavement ahead—the Atlanta sidewalks are in horrendous shape; I've heard more than one story about people tripping on them today—James was behind me coming up the little "ramp" that they put on the corners so that wheelchairs/scooters can get up on them at Peachtree Center Avenue. His scooter hit an uneven patch on the "ramp" and the scooter tipped over. I heard a thump and people exclaiming and turned to find the scooter on its left side and James down on the street. Three strong guys helped him up and a couple of other ladies picked up the plastic basket at the front and James' backpack, and he was all put together and we were back on the way down in a trice. James has a scrape on his elbow and his knee, but nothing worse.

Ironically the right armrest on the scooter dropped off a minute or two later, not the left one that the scooter landed on. The attendant at the scooter rental told him to definitely request a four-wheel scooter tomorrow; James is really too long-legged for the three wheeled one anyway.

So we're home, and only one more day is left... ::sob::

In better news, tomorrow is September! Fall is coming! Hopefully that means better days are coming as well.

I sure hope so.

Incidentally, I can't mention how many steps I walked today because about two o'clock, after I was almost at 10,000 steps, the battery in the FitBit died. I've had it since last week and hadn't charged it in all that time!

Labels: conventions, events, food

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:26:00 PM

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