When a few moist prickles struck my face as I walked Tucker, I remembered the forecast for "showers." However, as we prepared to leave the house, the "showers" were more a steady rain. Not having a fitted cover for the power chair yet, and not being sure if the tarp we had would do the trick, we made the decision to take the Rollator instead of the chair. Today would be a light day—we have yet to figure out why so few panels were scheduled on Sunday; last year they went until three o'clock, but today the final panel ends at one p.m.—so there wouldn't be excessive movement for James.

It was a wet, chilly ride to Century Center and a relief to finally get inside and have a hot breakfast. I had oatmeal this morning along with the usual toast and fruit and cereal and pancakes (they were out of bacon), and tucked yet another bagel away for later before going to a panel devoted to The Addams Family and The Munsters. It was surprisingly full for a ten o'clock panel, and more than half of the crowd had not seen the series when it was first run. One of the nicest memories came from a panelist who used to watch The Addams Family reruns with his grandmother, who also had a complete collection of Charles Addams cartoons. She used to tell him which sequences in the series was inspired by which cartoon, and in this way he bonded with his grandmother.

I confess a preference for the Addamses. The Munster stories were more slapstick and I've never been fond of slapstick. And even at eight I love the relationship between Morticia and Gomez: delightfully daffy and so potty over each other. (Plus of course Uncle Fester and his lightbulb, and my favorite: Thing.)

The next panel was part of the history track: "What If?" with a Revolutionary War emphasis. What would have happened if Washington had not been able to evacuate at Long Island? or if Aaron Burr had won the election (decided by one vote) instead of Thomas Jefferson (Burr apparently wanted to march on and conquer Mexico)? if George Washington had been cashiered out of the army after his debacle during the French and Indian War? The panelists included the man who roleplays Thomas Jefferson (he did a play off Broadway) and another gentleman who roleplays the older Benjamin Franklin. And we did wander afield of the Revolution—if the colonies had not broken away from the British, would things have changed enough not to have either of the World Wars? or would adding what became the United States to the British empire have ended the first World War (had it happened)  earlier? (I never did get to add my question: if we hadn't broken with Britain, would westward expansion have happened? Or would the west have stayed Spanish and the Louisiana Purchase stayed with France?) The hour whizzed by! I love a good history chat!

I stayed in the room for "Civics 103—The Supremes' Greatest Hits...and Misses," given by "Mr. Jefferson." This was a quiz about the Supreme Court and afterward we discussed the answers and prizes were given. There were only four people in the room, so it made it cozy for friendly discussion. I have to admit my Supreme Court knowledge is not sterling, but I did manage to get the most points: some things I remembered, some things I could work out from the questions (multiple choice), and some things I did guess at. (By the way, most of my answers came via Alistair Cooke's America, so thank you, Mr. Cooke for keeping me educated!) The two prizes were the off-Broadway script, Twilight at Monticello, and his other presentation at the convention this year (done by someone else last year), My Master, My Slave, My Friend, which was about Jefferson's relationship with his personal slave. It was an excellent story and I would have gladly taken both, but I hadn't read or saw performed Twilight, and I did see the other last year, and the young man who got second place wanted Master, so it worked out.

Now that all the panels were over, I did a last turn around the dealer's room and bought some bumper stickers, a grammar one for me, a "Police Public Call Box" for Twilight since we've always said the car is a TARDIS since our 2005 trip to Rhode Island, a funny one for James from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and another as a gift. I was reluctant to leave, and checked out more costumes walking back down the long corridor that the meeting rooms lined to meet James. He'd already bought our memberships for next year (the theme is "the Weird Wild West" and I'm going to lobby for an Artemus Gordon panel!) and we were debating on what to do when we went to say hi to Bill and Caran and ended up sitting down with them and Teri Sears and talking for nearly two straight hours about all sorts of things: our pets, financing homes, the old days at Terminus TARDIS meetings, etc. A friend of Caran's came up with a Downton Abbey-type outfit that she had made from thrift store and Ross purchases, the Rays strolled by, we said hi to a few others, and Ken Spivey and some friends came out to another lobby seat and started playing a combination of Doctor Who music and Celtic ballads. We finally left a bit after three.

Well, we were going to go by Kroger and grab another gallon of milk, some baby aspirin for James, the Sunday paper, and a couple of other things while I retrieved my prescriptions that I put in on Friday, but the place looked like it did last Wednesday before the snowfall forecast that turned out to be a big bust. It was as if they were giving away prizes! We just picked up the scrips and went to Publix instead, where James got some soup for supper.

I'd left Doctor Who running for Snowy and we arrived home to find out "Blink" started in fifteen minutes, so I gave Tucker a quick walk, changed clothes, and then enjoyed this episode all over again. What a great story! I loved the convoluted storytelling, and of course this is where the "wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey" catchphrase came from. This was followed by "Silence in the Library" and its sequel (the first River Song story), to which we ate supper, and then for the rest of the night we watched season 6 of Murdoch Mysteries from Netflix (we don't have to worry about them not having season 7; I've already recorded that off the Ovation channel). And now the weekend's over, and it's time for bed and work tomorrow.

You know, I always get the feeling when I leave a convention that it's reality I'm leaving behind. It's going to work that's the fiction...

Labels: conventions, Doctor Who, food, friends, history, shopping, television

----------------------------------------------------------------
. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:57:00 PM

Comments: Post a Comment