Mostly home from ConQuesT

ConQuesT was lovely. The flights back to New York weren't. The same storm that rained out President Obama's Memorial Day ceremony at Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery played havoc with our flights through Chicago.

Fortunately, I was traveling with benyalow. We only got back to New York because he knows all the tricks of the game. It still took standing on line for 1.75 hours in Kansas City. Most of the people ended up stuck there after our flight was delayed for 35 minutes, then 55 minutes, and then 3 hours, only to be cancelled before it was originally scheduled to depart. Even though US Airways was telling all of the United passengers that they were full, full, full, and to go away, Ben scored us seats on two fully booked planes and got us to New York through Washington National. We arrived at La Guardia less than an hour after our original flight was due in.

The top thing that makes a convention good for me is meeting new friends. ConQuesT is a great place to do that and I left Kansas City knowing and getting along well with at least twice as many local fans as I knew before the convention started. Tops on that list is athenaartemis. I met her at dinner Thursday night, then kept having good times every time we saw each other throughout the weekend. So neat. Welcome to my friends list, you delightful person, you.

Then there was Jimmy Hollaman's Room Con. Three cheers for more fans raising the hospitality bar, and Room Con certainly does that. Thanks, Jimmy! What a fine, fine time. Equal thanks go to Bland Lemon Denton and his compatriots for the 5 hours of music they made at Room Con. Live music feeds my soul. It was soooo good to hear long time faves as well as material that was new to my ears.

Add to that the good times and flying, screaming monkeys thanks to smofbabe, dlacey, benveniste, nkcmike, dragonet2, drpaisley, npulsifer, erikvolson, Vince Docherty, Mike Pins, and other friends I've known for years; a GoH appreciation by debgeisler that brought smiles and happy tears to my eyes; two trips to Jack Stack and two more to Arthur Bryant's (but only one to Sheridan's, alas); the surprise of enjoying every minute of my appearance on a literary program item; and more news, gossip, and eye-popping "wow" moments than I remember in the last three conventions combined....

Suffice to say the entire weekend was officially Fannish as Hell. Thank you, rohanna! Thank you, ConQuesT!

Short roadtrip through smoke, deluge, and lightning

I'm safely and happily all the way home. The 140-mile drive from the Bronx barely qualifies as a roadtrip, but it turned out to be enough of a driving adventure to earn the appellation.

Heavy rain hit the Saw Mill shortly before I was on it. The road was throughly wet with a few puddles good for soaking the brakes, but none of the flooding that parkway is so prone to. I counted myself lucky and drove on.

Last night, debgeisler mentioned the smoky skies from forest fires in Quebec that welcomed benveniste and her home. This morning, I saw a report that the smoky haze stretched all the way down into Rhode Island and Connecticut. I can tell you it wasn't limited to northern Connecticut. Not only did the haze make for interesting vistas on the drive north, the view in my rear view mirror around New Haven was as smoky as the road ahead.

I drove just to the east of another large storm. That much black at 4 pm is just plain wrong this close to the solstice.

My storm-avoidance luck ran out just past exit 67 on Hwy 84. Deluge, with lightning. Lots of lightning. Most of it was aimed straight down. Yowser.

I moved into the right lane, put my flashers on, and slowed down to 40-45 mph for all but the last mile or two before exit 70 and my road home. For the first couple of miles, a mere 5 cars passed me in the other two lanes. Even they weren't going much over 50, and this on a road where I get passed a lot when I'm doing 75.

The Zeppelin Hangar is still standing, though the garage circuit breaker had tripped. It's done that 2 other times in 6 years. Hmmm. No sign of interior power problems. No sign of any brownies either, alas. I'd most welcome the brownies who clean and organize houses. I'm still full enough from the weekend that it's even easy to say that.