Mary Kay

05:00 pm: Worldcon
As usual, traveling from West to East was a major pain. At least we were in 1st class from Denver on. There are never 1st class upgrades available out of Seattle I don't know why. Also, an extremely obnoxious and officious gate agent required Jordin to check his guitar. The only time that has ever happened before was when it wouldn't fit in the overheads -- which is a very limited selection of airplanes. And after that, the overheads weren't even full!

We got into Boston fairly late in the evening and checked into the hotel without any problems. After depositing luggage in the room, we hit the bar. First person I saw was Mark Olson who introduced us to Colin Harris, next year's co-chair. Colin noted he'd been talking about Jordin only the day before. Discussing science programming apparently. Also chatted with smofbabe, Ian, and others. Since they had all been working hard all day and expected to the next, the party broke up relatively early.

Since we were still on West Coast time, we had trouble sleeping and didn't wake up until noon on Wednesday. We grabbed a hamburger in the hotel coffee shop -- and a dreadful hamburger it was too. Not so bad as the one in Bristol that time, but pretty bad. Jordin had found out the evening before that NASA liked an idea he suggested to them and they wanted a formal 40 page proposal by the end of September, so he was running around trying to organize stuff with the other members of the team who are spread all over the US. I went shopping. We also picked up our registration stuff and the electric scooter I had arranged to rent.

I got lost trying to find Shaws because the instructions the concierge gave me sucked. It would have been much easier, and cooler, if she'd sent me through the mall instead of outside and around. But I did find it and did most of my shopping for the party there. I arranged to have it delivered to the hotel and walked down the block to the Trader Joe's. It was a Very Small TJ's and they didn't have some of my favorite stuff, but I picked up a few things there and went back to the hotel just in time to receive the delivery from Shaws.

After that Wednesday gets lamentably fuzzy. I remember being in the bar at one point and I think Jordin and I ate at the food court in the mall. I know I stopped at Chico's on the way back and bought a black blouse to wear with my corset because I had forgotten the one I usually bring to wear with it. There was a party in the con suite for committee and staff to meet the GOHs, for which Terry Pratchett neglected to show up, much to the disappointment of many people. I sat on my little scooter and talked with whomever was walking by and we had a fine time.

Alas, we still had trouble sleeping on Wednesday, which made getting up in time to meet ckd challenging. He ran me around to the big Whole Foods and TJs in Cambridge where I bought the alcoholic supplies for the party and a few other items I hadn't gotten the day before. I checked into the suite and posted the party room online and on the party board. And went around handing out cards to folks with the room number. I was afraid we wouldn't get many people because I had so little time to let folks know. Ha ha ha. Hollow laughter.

I started party prep aided by dlacey, kate_nepveu, her husband Chad, blogger Charles Dodgson, and tammylc I think. I had to run off in costume just before 7pm to do the Terry Pratchett trial. I was Nanny Ogg, all in black, with pointy hat, red and white striped stockings, and red boots. My electric cart had signs that read, "Nanny's broomstick. Kepe off." I left those on for the whole con. When I got the the site of said activity, I asked the moderator what the plan was and he said there wasn't one, just wing it. So we did and had a great time. Though I'm not sure the mothers in the audience appreciated my rendition of Nanny's most famous song. Terry was convicted and sentenced to sign books. Which he did all weekend.

I raced back to finish helping with set up to discover that dlacey had done just about everything! A bunch of us just sat and relaxed until it was time to open the door at 9pm. Well, I left a bit before then as I was scheduled for the reading of absent authors. It seemed like a good idea when I suggested it, but only a few people showed up. When I got back to the party it was in full cry and boy was it loud!

Turns out that in addition to being one of the few parties that night, we were the only ones with any alcohol, so it vanished quick as quick. I hadn't the heart to declare it a closed party and only allow in people with blogs or LJs like I might should have. At any rate, there were many people present -- should I try to list them I'll leave out someone so I won't. Long about 12:00 we started making cleanup motions. trinker, betnoir, and aiglet were of inestimable help in cleanup as was my sweetie. Finally around 1am I announced that anyone left in the room in 5 minutes had to help finish the cleanup and it cleared out right quick. We finished the cleanup and collapsed into bed around 1:30. I so appreciate all the people who helped with party prep, funding, cleanup, and hosting. You're just mahvelous! Probably my highlight for the evening was meeting the members of my cleanup crew as listed above, after years of knowing them only online. Golly we had fun!