It was a busy, busy day, which we began by sleeping until nine (I set the alarm for nine, figuring James would be up earlier as always—good thing I set one at all, because for once he slept in; he even slept through his phone ringing). I was hardly through breakfast when I ran to Kroger to finish the shopping for the weekend. It took me forever to find the three tiny rows of sesame oil, lost among Asian sauces, wines, marinades, vinegars, etc. Milk, bananas, and various other small things filled out the order. At home, James made some lunches for me for next week.

Then I had to rush putting it all up because we had to leave for James' nurse appointment at noon. We got our backpacks loaded with juices and low-cal snacks and the chair loaded, and it barely took us ten minutes at Kaiser, but by the time we got out, Panera, which had been virtually empty at 11:45, was so crowded we couldn't even park. So we went to Tin Drum for lunch, then made tracks to the Marriott Century Center and Anachrocon. This year's theme was "the '60s" and that meant all the 60s (1860s, 1760s, and so forth), but mostly the 1960s.

Surprisingly, the line for pre-reg at Anachrocon was deserted, so we got in very quickly, and neither of us having a panel at that moment, just wandered around the dealer's room. This is chiefly "steampunky," but we were quite taken by the gentleman selling unique cuff links and tie bars, and James drooled over one dealer with a 3-D printer. The hat dealer had no deerstalkers, so I lost interest.

We both went to the 60s SciFi Shows panel, which was okay but got wildly off-topic, and why in the frak were they talking about Land of the Lost when it was a 1970s series? This was due to one particular panelist, and this panelist also disrupted other panels I went to (at least once again talking about Land of the Lost). I was quite annoyed with the way they kept dissing shows like Space: 1999 and Thunderbirds. You're supposed to discuss them, not put them down.

James went off to a panel about 60s food fads, and I went to "Creepy, Kooky, Spooky: 60s Television," which turned out to be an extension of a former Addams Family/Munsters panel with Twilight Zone (more properly 50s), Outer Limits and Thriller thrown in. No one mentioned anything else and the conversation was pretty much Addams/Munster. Right in the middle of the panel I took off my glasses—and the frame snapped right over the left side of the bridge. I pocketed the left lens and spent the rest of the day either walking without them or using them with my left eye closed, because having both eyes opened was rather like being drunk.

James emerged from the panel with half a Fluffernutter for me ("Marshmallow Fluff and lots of peanut butter!") and went on to a leatherworking panel while I sat in on "Victorian Mourning." It was an all-woman panel and it got a bit silly as we went from the lady hiding her great grief behind a nearly opaque mourning veil (which is what it was for)—one woman had an authentic one and it was definitely not the gauzy things you see elsewhere; you couldn't see her face when she put it on—to hiding her great glee in having gotten away with poisoning her husband! ☺

Had nothing to do at six, so wandered about and stopped to talk to Caran and John at the ARTC booth, said hi to Anthony Taylor, walked around the dealer's room again, and finally caught up with James. I went with him to the Early Cold War Technology panel, but was pretty much reading during the entire thing. (I had an ARC of the newest Librarians novel. Greg Cox did a crack job on it; he had all the voices just right: even Jenkins sounded correct.

I'd been exchanging text with Clay most of the day, and we met up with he and Maggi for supper. The hotel restaurant is priced for executives on expense accounts, which is why James and I tried to stuff ourselves at Tin Drum. He ordered some vegetable soup which came with two breadsticks, and I had a big green salad. His vegetable soup was pretty much not more than a mugful, so I let him have about a fourth of my salad, which I traded for part of a soft breadstick. Clay had some type of bourbon and then when he saw the check said he sure wasn't going to order liquor there again! We traded dog stories and Maggi filled us in on adventures in making homemade ravioli.

And then we had to head home; Tucker practically teleported down the stairs to go outside. I had some milk and headed to bed—I was pooped!

Labels: conventions, food, friends, shopping

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:14:00 PM

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