Dragon*Con, part 5, Sunday

Sunday morning came all too soon... or should I say Sunday afternoon, coz we all fell asleep so late and then suddenly someone was knocking on the door of our room and Rose panicked coz she'd planned to meet the Michael's at around 11.30 somewhere, and in the end they came looking for her... no big though, it was after 1pm, but they'd just woken up and raced over to find us!! I have a feeling that this was the day I went over to the Atlanta Bakery and discovered that everything in America comes with a side dish! There was a pickle and a packet of chips/crisps with my enormous sandwitch, and just for good measure I ordered cheese grits since they had them... of course once I'd eaten the grits I could barely fit the roast beef sandwitch in so I shared that with Navy... or was it Michael?

What did I wear? Oh yes!! Kaylee again! This time I wore a little top that I hadn't really intended to wear with it, but it worked really well! I remember catching up with Lila, Rose and the Michaels who'd all been shopping, and heading somewhere to meet CallMeSerenity, and since we were early and the 'Q & A with Ron Glass' hadn't finished we popped in for the last few minutes, which was hilarious since Lila was wearing a jingling scarf/belly dancing waist ornament. I remember that Canter asked a terrific question of Ron Glass, who remembered her and told the people there the story of her having ordered copies of Firefly from the UK in order to introduce her friends to it in South Africa. I remember that Dark Jester was there, filming, as always, the Firefly/Serenity related events at D*C, and I started a trend when I asked him if I may take a photo of his camera with it's minature Jayne hat on top! I also bought my, now treasured, CallMeSerenity-knitted Jayne hat! (try saying that three times quickly!!) and I loved wearing it! It was amazing how many calls and shouts of recognition I received for the rest of the day/night as I wandered around the con...

Rose and I had decided to invite folk to our room to hold a 'room party' that evening, so we headed back there in time to tidy up a little )which pretty much involved us sticking all our stuff under tables and into corners and wishing we had more chairs. We'd met up with Jimi and his 'adopted sister' Laurel and her husband (Brian?) (who were truly wonderful and lovely folk) in the food court, and by phoning, texting and telling everyone we bumped into that we were heading to our room for a get together we pretty much spread the word... We had a few there to start with, though the moment he got in poor Jimi was ordered to lie down by MsG, and nobody dares to disobey MsG, so he did, and he slept soundly for the rest of the night! Folks came and went, we watched the 'Costume Competition' on the closed circuit, dedicated TV channel that showed Dragon Con things - I loved the 'bumpers' that had questions and answers, and amusing little film clips! The contest was hosted by two of the gang from 'Mythbusters' and some of it was wonderful and some was cringeworthy and there was a terrific little homage to Firefly in the middle!
At some stage the rum disappeared... I was really cross as it was in my and Jimi's care, and was apparently taken to another room party without even the courtesy of mentioning it to either of us... more annoying was the none of us knew where this other room party was - initially we were told it was in the Boothes room, but this was not the case, so it remains a mystery. (The rum did turn up at Tom's house the following night, but we never received an explaination or an appology...)

Rose and I and some of the others were planning to go to a midnight screening of the Rocky Horror Picture Show but with a few guests still in our room and feeling pretty exhausted from the last few days I decided to give it a miss, but she, Clara and Engie (who were wonderful sports about us having a room party without really having asked them) went as planned and from all accounts had a wonderful time! Canter and I decided to go looking for the rum at some point, and while Michael (AB Michael, not Navy) and Laurel went party hopping with Tommy, Canter and I headed over to the Marriott to interrogate Spartans to see if any of them had our rum hidden on their person! Along the way we met up with Boothe and his adorable wife who was now decked out as a grey angel! I found Jesus at D*C, and we noticed any number of weird and wonderful figures! We searched several Spartans - but hadn't questioned anywhere near all 300 when we came across Naughtyman, Big Rosie and Doc Jubal, who was an amazing Hellboy!! Ah well, we'll have to find an excuse to continue interrogating the Spartan's next year! Some time later... much, much later, we headed back to our rooms, and I assume Canter went to her own bed, but I discovered folk still chatting, watching D*C TV and generally on the go in ours! The Rock Horror gang returned at some point and had had a ball!! In the end we had 7 sleeping the night away in our room... Jimi, Lila and I in one bed with NavySeils, Rose, Michael and Clara in the other! Somehow - sleep was had! Oh - at one stage Rose half sat up and was talking in her sleep (she'd done it before, so I knew the look!), she was lying across the bed with a Glaswegian Michael on either side of her and said "I have everything I need!" and lay down and continued breathing deeply! It was rather funny (even if I was half asleep)!

Dragon*Con, part 2.

We were woken at 9.30 am by the house-keeping staff who wanted to clean our room – I think we freaked out at the thought as we had so much stuff in the room that they couldn’t’ even move. I asked for more towels and left it at that. We’ll put up the ‘do not disturb’ sign tomorrow!

So we giggled and talked and took in the fact that we’re all here in Atlanta together at last! Rose and I took some cute pics of us in bed together then Engie climbed in and there were more pics… then we had to shower and decide what to wear for the day! I wore my Kaylee costume for the first time, and Engie loaned me a ‘tattoo shirt’ that looks to be along the lines of one of the one’s Jewell Stait wore in the film. I just wore my sneakers coz there’s going to be a lot of walking today!!

We went looking for Whimsy first – she and Tommy had arrived early that morning and we found each other in the foyer of the Hyatt in no time! It was so wonderful to hug her at last!! Then we went to lunch with the two of them, and Clara, Engie, Washie (Engie and Jimi’s friend from previous years). Rose, Engie and I had several ‘sisters’ photos taken and there were some lovely ones of the whole group! We had the loveliest waitress, and the cutest waiter who looked a lot like Captain Jack Sparrow! Rose and others had an impromptu sing-along to Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody and there was a guy who was the best ‘Silent Bob’ you would ever wish to see!
When we headed back to the convention we managed to attend our first official event, the “Q & A session” with Ron Glass and Mark Shepperd… only Ron didn’t make it so I got up and asked a reasonably good question and got to flirt with Mark a bit, in front of over 1,000 browncoats!! I also got lynched coz we were saying “Oh have you heard of this little TV series called Firefly?” “Yeah – but how good can it be? It got axed half way through the first season?” Whoah!!! I was just trying to make the point that we’ve all been there and had that excuse when trying to ‘convert our friends’ into browncoats, but the audience turned on me… I was lucky to get out alive!!
We spent much of the rest of the day absorbing the atmosphere. Dragon Con is amazing – there were over 30,000 people there on the Friday, and many of them were in costume of some kind! There were kids dressed up too, and I really hadn’t anticipated that, the cutest kid of the day was one dressed as one of the Power Puff Girls. There was a whole family dressed as members of Davy Jones crew… there were all manner of goth and zombiesque and quirky and fun and creative and crazy and scary and downright awesome! I couldn’t believe the diversity and imagination and dedication folk had put into their costumes and even their robots! Yes, there was an R2-D2 unit that moved and made the appropriate noises…

In the evening there were a couple of ‘room parties’ which I have since learned are the norm for conventions of this type! You get your friends together in someone’s room and share a few drinks, talk, chat, nibble whatever is available, enjoy the friends and atmosphere and if you are really, really sleepy you might even manage a tiny little nap on one of the beds in the room… on the way to the Marriott to enjoy ourselves with many of the 76th I discovered a shy Ninja Kitty... my gorgeous friend, Sara or Hell's Kitten from Fireflyfans.net and the 76th Battalion!
After our first party in Jimi, Washie & Fireflygal’s room we headed across to the International Tower of the Hyatt and joined the Boothes for some more enjoyment! Their room was much, much larger and I got to meet their gorgeous daughter, Audrey! Autumn wasn’t terribly well, but they were wonderful and gracious hosts! It was wonderful to see what people had dressed up as, especially Jack who does a wonderful Badger!
When all was said and done we headed home though I know it took several hours before we went to bed… it was around 4am when I finally fell asleep, I was excited about the parade in the morning and had to make sure all was organised before I went to bed… I had to be up very early and knew I mustn’t forget anything!