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Posted by julival on October 17, 2002 with additions by Alle
Here is my version of the events of October 10-13, 2002.
But first some background. *g*
For any of you who don’t know, Jeff and I met Alle and Carl in person for the
first time in summer of ’01 in sunny Las Vegas at the Freakout there. We had a
grand time and were looking forward to seeing each other again for freakout ’02.
But then life intervened, as life will do, and neither of them was able to make
it to DC this summer for various reasons. I was very sad and missed them. :-(
I missed you guys as well...
But then, YAY! Alle asked me in chat one day how close I lived to downtown
Columbus. I thought that was an odd question, so I questioned her further -
turned out she had to go to training for work and had a choice of cities, one of
which was Columbus, Ohio. *happy wiggle* So I invited her to come stay with me
after the training seminar was over. She made all the arrangements with her boss
for an extra day off after the seminar and we had a long weekend all set to go!
*bg*
Then, of course, our plans were made known and Alle’s warder (and my idol),
the illustrious Rhodric, aka Carrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrl, very sweetly requested to
join us. *joy* So we made all the plans and I got things organized on this end
and counted down the days...
Carl had some last minute transportation issues, but he called Tuesday night
to say it was all ironed out and we made plans for meeting at the airport on
Friday. That boy really needs a new car. Maybe we should start a collection. *l*
Alle got into town on Wednesday and left me a message on my answering machine
that she was safe and sound and checking out downtown Columbus. So I gave her a
call and we talked for about an hour *l* she’d been to the downtown mall and
stuff. Whoohoo! *l* We made plans for me to pick her up at her hotel after I got
off work on Thursday and she was out of her seminars.
Julie very nicely neglects to mention that I copied her
cell phone number down wrong, so when I tried to call
her cell, I got an out of service message. At least I
copied her home number down right. Things would never
have gotten started, since I didn't have her address
with me, and couldn't remember the name of her town.
*l*
I did not lose alle. *bg* I was _slightly_ late because of traffic, but I
went to the right place and she was waiting patiently and she and I got to talk
a lot about Columbus and her seminar and stuff as we slowly but surely made our
way back out of downtown in rush hour traffic. *l* then we came home and she had
Presents for us! I got some heavenly chocolate macadamia nut coffee, the boys
got candy, and Jeff got a hilarious wiggly hula dancer for his dashboard. *lol*
We had a pretty simple dinner - jeff grilled chicken. And alle and I played
in the chat. It wasn’t easy working the two different chat windows *l* I kept
accidentally saying things under alle’s handle. And there was a newbie in chat
that night! *lol* I think she probably thought I was really really weird. (shut
up). Alle thought it was all very funny. I have found no evidence to refute her
reputation...
I must take exception to this remark...I was very well
behaved the entire time. *nods* i don't know why
Julie kept flipping me off though.
Somewhere in there, we also had phone chat with a certain smitten
kitten. First we called (on direct orders) then she called. We figured it was
safe, seeing as how germs can’t travel via phone line. But somehow, Carl ended
up with TK plague this week anyway *l*
Alle was pretty jet lagged and I had to get up at my normal weekday time on
Friday since the boys had school and jeff had work, so we didn’t stay up
particularly late.
I'll interupt the narrative here just to mention
something about jeff. Thursday night was the fist
hockey game of the season, so of course, jeff watched.
He is a very vocal and restless fan. *l* He hums,
sings and whistles, claps, cheers, gets up, paces
around, sits down, and then starts the cycle all over
again. *g* I am glad his team won, he gets quite a
workout rooting for them.
We made a plan to leave the house at about 9:15 and we had a
little breakfast and whatnot. I had some of my yummy new coffee. *bg* I was
wired.
There was some very minor hilarity on the way to the airport as I took great
pains to prepare Alle for the scary merge we had to get through while highway
changing to get where we needed to be and to ask her not to scream and to help
me watch for cars. Then there was no problem with the merge at all. Alle said
‘was that it?’ and then when I sheepishly admitted that it hadn’t been like it
usually was, she screamed. I almost had to whap her. But I’m a good hostess, so
I didn’t.
*snicker* where I come from, the scary merge she
refers to is called a lane change. *g*
The first entertainment at the airport was our vehicle search as we entered
the short term parking deck. There were men waiting to search the back of the
cars in front of a blocked gate, so I had to open the back of my minivan. *Weg*
my new minivan has a really fun feature. I can press a button in the car or on
my keychain and the back hatch door makes a really loud beeping sound and then
opens hydraulically. *chuckle* it scared the inspection man. Made him jump. In
retrospect, it’s probably sort of a poor idea to make an airport security man
jump these days. Heh. But no one got shot.
Now Columbus airport is not very big at all as metropolitan airports go. But
it’s big enough that we had to check around and get information to find Carl’s
baggage claim area. It was waaaaaaaay at the back of the downstairs baggage
claim and there was absolutely no one around when we got there. So we just stood
around hoping we had the right place and all. We knew the flight was on time, so
it was just a matter of waiting.
We sort of stood around wondering if he’d actually made it to the Atlanta
airport and freezing. Or well, I was freezing because the airport was really
cold, and alle was not because she had on her leather coat. Stupid Columbus
weather. Then there was this really weird little old lady...
Alle and I were just standing there minding our own business and this little
old lady wanders up to us and asks us in the most astonishingly slow voice if
this is where we’re waiting for those people from Atlanta. And I’m not joking.
It was like a Saturday night live sketch. It was like someone zapped her with a
slow talking ray. "are....you....waiting...on....those....people...from...Atlanta...?" I was
afraid she was never going to reach the end of her sentence. Seriously. I was
worried about her! So I was as helpful as I could be. *l* and we heard her whole
life in slow motion. She was waiting for her daughter and granddaughter. They
had been coming from Seattle? (somewhere out there in the northwest corner) and
had to go through Atlanta and missed the connecting flight the day before
because "you...know...that...airport...was...closed [*panic* oh dang dang dang, what if
carl had no flight?!]...for...an...hour...yesterday..." [*relief*] so "they...gave...them
...a...room...and...she...called...and...they’ll...be...on..this...one" I wanted to
press fast forward. Her granddaughter turned out to be a teenager and they were
out there looking at colleges because "you...know...she..graduates...in...june..."
*nodnodnod* want some coke? Coffee? Amphetamines? Cocaine? Gaaaaaaah! Then she
wandered over to a storage closet to wait for them to arrive. Meanwhile, alle
and I watched the down escalator next to the baggage carousel. Heh. But I did
call the lady back over when people started coming down the escalator.
Naturally, Carl was practically the last person down the escalator. Alle and
I noticed a huge preponderance of potbellied men (and women) coming down the
escalator. See, our vantage point allowed us to see people from the side, feet
first and then coming slowly into full view as they descended. We were watching
for Carl’s jeans. *g* we kept seeing potential carl legs and then there would be
a huge belly creeping in the view that would just ruin the whole thing. So it
was like ‘ooooo! That might be him! Ewwww. No." and then _finally_ "ooooo! There
he is!" *bg*
Hugs all around and off we went to collect the car, stow the baggage, and
head up to Easton Towne Center (one of columbus’s new hoity toity malls) to
wander around and meet jeff for lunch. I also had the opportunity to make some
more people jump as we approached the van. *weg* I love my remote control door
opener. And that loud beeping just really clinches it. *snicker*
That isn't quite the whole story. As julie goes to
open the door remotely, she has a very eveil grin and
when the poor woman jumped in the air, she laughed.
She was scary. *nods*
Easton is owned by this disgustingly rich guy named Les Wexner, who also owns
Victoria’s Secret, The Limited, and all the related candle, bath product, and
clothing stores AND a small town on the east side of Columbus. It’s a nifty mall
area with half the stores and restaurants outside in an old timey ‘mainstreet’
type set-up and the other half inside a big mall made to look like an old train
station. It has a big Barnes and Noble on the outside part, so we spent quite a
bit of time wandering around in there laughing at book covers, discussing
fantasy, and being silly. I even bought some books! Alle talked me into getting
a Dorothy Dunnett - the first Lymond.
hehe...julie kept trying to talk me into buying a book,
but it didn't work.
So I’ll be getting around to that after I finish my Carol Berg books and my other new purchase - GGK’s Sarantine Mosaic.
(sp?) Got alec some books, too - Pullman’s Dark Materials trilogy. Alle and carl
gave me many many warnings, but it’s so hard to find good challenging books for
alec and I said I’d read it with him, so we’ll see. I’m not ready to give him
Jordan or Martin. If Jordan only went through book 3, I’d say fine. But beyond
that it gets a bit kinky for a 12 year old. My 12 year old, anyway. *l* (Course,
very little can faze him after he read Fiest’s Faerie Tale without my knowledge
*grimace* but I try not to think too much about that. And I refuse to read it to
see what he read.)
*l* It wasn't _that_ bad.
We met Jeff for lunch at an Italian place called Brios. The lady who seated
us was about to fall out of her dress and she was intrigued by Alle’s shirt,
which said something like "Are you a Good witch or a Bad witch" on the front
(maybe it was ‘am I a good witch or a bad witch. Or maybe it was just good witch
or bad witch...). I had told alle earlier in the day ‘but you are not a witch at
all!’ and she said ‘exactly!’
The shirt reads "Are you a good witch or a bad witch?"
*nods*
I was still hyper from my coffee and excitement, but the other three were a
bit sleepy. Alle was still on Hawaii time, Jeff hadn’t slept well the night
before, and Carl had been up since about 4 am finding his way to the airport. We
had yummy Italian food while Jeff grilled Carl on his studies and what his plans
for after college might be and whether or not he’d like to move to Columbus to
manage various businesses that Jeff is considering starting. *l* It made me so
happy yet again that we don’t have daughters. No prospective boyfriends would
last ten minutes under Jeff’s inquisition. But, fortunately, I think Carl was
too tired to even care.
After lunch, Jeff headed back to the office for a little bit and we three
headed home to my house. We’d barely walked in the door when some narcissistic
xy female with a Napoleonic complex called to talk to Bushy - she was on a fire
drill or something *l* Then I showed Alle and Carl some of the prints of photos
from DC and gave them my personal observations on various people. *g* And then
it was almost time to call Caly and Mikey and see how they were doing. While we
were taking turns talking, Carl and I played some warriors and compared equipage
and whatnot. When it was my turn to talk, I ran a couple of possible vow sets by
Mikey, but for some reason he didn’t think Caly would want to go with the one
that said she would love, honor and obey, as Mike was the head of the house,
etc. I had just gotten my official Ohio state license for solemnizing marriages
and was showing Alle and Carl my kit of Universal Life Church supplies *g* I
even have a parking pass.
While I was on the phone, Carl and Alle took a little nap on the couch.
Later we got dinner ready - burgers and hotdogs on the grill. Oh, and we did
have to make a grocery store run, too. Needed limes, chips, and salsa. Alle and
Carl were much better behaved in the grocery store than Uli and Shaun were.
*nods* But they made friends with the express lane checkout guy. He started
giving them grief about wearing leather coats when it was only about 50 ° F out
and then when I told him they were from Hawaii and Georgia he was all "oh, yeah,
I understand - I’m from California and it’s cold to me, too." I’m pretty sure he
was flirting with Carl. He looked like Tom Cruise’s boyfriend. *nods*
Right in the middle of dinner, I suddenly remembered that I was supposed to
have called Louis and Uli, too. Heh. So I went charging in here to see if they
were on line, and luckily caught Louis. Turned out that we were better off to
call on Saturday anyway, so we got that all arranged. The Miller Friday Night
Video was an interesting selection. There was nothing new out that looked good,
so Jeff called me from the video store and read me a few descriptions to choose
from. I went with CQ, a
fun little flick about a young aspiring director who is doing special effects
for a 1960’s sci fi movie filmed in Paris and Rome. It’s about his angst and his
relationships - the real one with his sweet, cute, brunette stewardess live in
girlfriend whom he ignores, despite her attempts to entice him, and the fantasy
one with the Barbie starlette who plays the lead in the film he’s working on. So
we have a film within a film and the sci fi film is hilarious. It’s almost
Austin Powers-like, but not gross. The Barbie chick runs around in a skin tight
pink leather catsuit and is named Secret Agent Dragonfly. Her mission is to
retrieve The Weapon from the rebel hunky guy on the moon. *lol* It provided some
good fodder for humor the rest of the weekend.
While we were watching the movie, I learned that corona with a slice of lime
is pretty good. And that Carl doesn’t exaggerate when he talks about the amount
of alcohol he consumes. It was astonishing. And he was still functioning!
But you did help! *g* And I notice you don't mention
your full proof method of climbing up the stairs.
*weg*
I don’t remember exactly what we all did after the video, but it involved a lot of
laughing. I think jeff went to bed around midnight or one or something and I
think we went to bed around 2, maybe... or it might have been three. Actually carl
and alle stayed up later than I did. I think she read some to deal with the jet
lag and I know he came back downstairs and played on the computer. Then jeff had
to get up and take rob to soccer and the rest of us got up slowly but surely and
got ready to go out for the day.
The plan for the day was lunch at the mall food court so carl could have his
chick-fil-A fix and then the zoo. Carl and Alec got chick-fil-A, I got Chinese,
Alle got a really yummy looking stuffed baked potato, and jeff and rob got
pizza. Jeff also got some lo mein. We all had to watch Carl eat waffle cut fries
with pepper dipped in vanilla softserve icecream. He even convinced Rob to try
it! And rob liked it!!! *grimace*
After that it was off to the zoo for an afternoon of watching the animals do
it like they do on the discovery channel. Well, there wasn’t much of that,
actually, because it’s the wrong season. But we did get to see one of the
teenaged male gorillas intentionally scare the [expletive deleted] out of a
young lady. He had been lying quietly on the floor of his indoor enclosure
staring at people and then after our group moved to another enclosure to watch
the new baby gorilla that was being fostered into the troop, he suddenly jumped
up and charged the glass and smacked it right in the face of this poor girl.
*chuckle* the docent told us he likes his victims young and female.
After the gorillas and bonobos (sort of like chimps only smaller), we stopped
for the traditional zoo
photo with the gorilla cut out. I told Carl to kiss the man in the
middle, but he chose to kiss alle instead. _Then_ when I was resetting the
camera, he kissed the guy in the middle and got away before I could snap the next picture. *l*
We also saw the manatees, the fishes (I’ll say no more, cales), the tigers, the
elephants, and the new baby rhino. He’s not as cute as the baby elephant at the
DC zoo, but Klyde’s still pretty sweet. He has a tiny nub of a horn on his nose.
*l*
While we’d been at the zoo, my trusty vcr had been taping the OSU football
game for Jeff. So when we got back, he scurried upstairs to watch it in speed
time while we called the swedirish pair. Then it was off to Dave and Busters for
dinner. D&B’s is a restaurant/arcade. Usually we have to wait for a table
and we play games before dinner, but this time the table was ready fast so we
ate first and then gamed. Jeff got zillions of tickets on this one video card
match thing. Alle was going to play Pop a Shot (basketball) but they were all
occupied and very popular.
i got to play only once, because I had used up all my
credits :-(
I used mine and Jeff’s combined tickets to get a
really cute little white stuffed bear and Alle used hers to get a Monkey *l*.
She can tell you more about her monkey later.
well, there isn't much to tell. He's a stuffed monkey
after all. He now resides with the rest of my
managerie on top of the bookshelf in my office at work.
He is hanging out of my bamboo tree. His name is
Jefarlie, and he's gray and very cute. *nods* And I
think I won way more tickets then jeff...combined you
guys had 596 and I alone had 475. :-P
It was still relatively early when we got home and we ended up spending most
of the evening watching random comedy skits on comedy central, old sat night
live episodes and The Man Show (that is the most disgusting show ever).
Meanwhile, jeff was chatting up chicks at visions. I think he was keeping Cyn
and Kitty entertained. Maybe Gils, too. Can’t remember for sure. Then we talked
about playing cards, but carl had forgotten his phase ten deck and I didn’t have
two normal decks of cards and we almost played Gin rummy but none of us could
remember exactly how, so we got out the scrabble instead. Oh, there were more
photos in there somewhere...
and Carl with my new
white teddy
and Carl and
Alle
Alle _tried_ to get some evil photos of me with the bear but I resisted and
the result was unpublishable. Since it’s my camera. *g*
They were only evil because you wouldn't sit still.
*g*
I have to say that scrabble at 1 AM
when everyone is tired and goofy is an interesting challenge. Alle is _quite_
the competitive scrabble player, however and pretty much demolished both me and
Carl. By the last few moves, we had her taking our tiles and making words for
us. *l* But I did my best to keep up with her for a while there. I had some
really good letters, too!!! She’s just devious and she was always convincing
Carl not to take her space. Technically, she didn’t tell him where ‘her’ space
was each time, but I think they used the bond to transfer the info.
Damn...you're on to us. *l* Oh, I'll mention here
that julie makes the oddest face when she tries to
either embrace the Source or channel the One Power.
*weg*
At one point, I had the letters B and I and T and C and H and Y and another C and I
really wanted to make a particular word with them, but I couldn’t find a good
spot for them.
*lol* Too bad...that would have made a more
interesting scrabble photo.
But then I spotted an open K and I went with CHICK instead.
*sigh* I ended up sticking the Y on the end of EGG in desperation near the end
of the game. Heh.
After that we still didn’t want to go to bed yet, so we had to do it. I got
out the blue nail polish. *BG* Alle did the left and I did the right. We picked
the blue because it matched his eyes. *lol* isn’t it lovely? it
had been my plan all along to give him my little bottle of travel nail polish
remover so he wouldn’t have to arrive in Atlanta with blue nails, but the brat
went upstairs shortly after and peeled it all off! Bah on him. *l*
We all finally wandered up to bed around 3, iirc, and again, alle and carl
were up a bit later than I was. Then we had to get up at 7:15 to get ready to
leave by 8:30 to get to the airport. Bleh. It was sad and depressing and cold
and rainy and glum. Saying goodbye sucks. :-(
goodbyes suck worse than escalators. I had an
uneventfully horrible trip back - mainly due to it
being crowded, late, no air while sitting at the
gate,long, and accompanied by a hyperactive and
extremely vocal toddler in the row behind me, and a
screaming infant 2 rows back. Thank god for portable
mp3 players and a nice supply of batteries.
Still, it was soooo worth it. I enjoyed my all to
brief stay, and can't wait to meet up with more freaks
at the greatest freak event ever...the wedding of two
freaks. *g* So there you have it.