CONfabulation

It's Wednesday! And that means, I am officially 53 years old. And to celebrate, I slept like shit again. *sigh* I'll survive, I get like this once in a while, where I'll have a few days where I don't sleep well. It's just annoying that it's happening on my birthday week.

I don't have any huge plans today. I've been going in half an hour early this week so I can leave at 2 today. Then, I'll relax for a bit. Then, once they've opened, we'll go to Kent House Irish Pub and get dinner. They have amazing shepherd's pie, and I've been craving it. Yoda will be fine by himself for the hour, hour and a half it'll take. Then, it's back to have cupcakes and presents and then bed. Not a fancy birthday, but it'll be good. Maybe in a year of two, I can go to Europe and do a Christmas Market cruise over my birthday. Until then, it'll be standard birthdays for me.

Yesterday by the time I got off work, I was dragging, so I decided that I wouldn't cook. Instead, I had a pre-birthday dinner from the Scihuan Bistro. My peking duck was very good, though the pancakes had dried out a bit post steaming and were crispy on the edges.

Jess' presents did not come yesterday, but supposedly today? We'll see. I can't wait to see them, see if they're as pretty as they were in the pictures. Then, I have to wrap it. Plus the ancillary box that goes with it. The tracking says that it's in Baltimore, so now it has to travel to the Towson post office and then eventually to me. I wasn't anxious about it until I got my jams and horseradish cream sauce, and one was broken. Now I'm terrified that Jess' present is going to be in pieces and I won't have time to get another.

I've also got an order from the Chocolate Moonshine Co coming today. They were a the con, and The chocolate we got was SO good. We shared it out, one piece at a time, each of us eating a third of a peice nightly. It was the post whiskey bite.

I had ordered my sister a 12 days of Christmas advent calendar of Irish Whiskey. She had ordered a 24 day wine advent calendar. The wines have been mediocre, but the whiskey has been pretty good.

We each get about a third of a shot. Or we did with the first calendar. We had so much fun trying out the 12 days of Christmas that I bought a second calendar, this one a variety pack. So far, we've had a couple of whiskey standouts. One is the 21 year old sample of "That Boutique-y Whiskey, Irish blend." The other was from the new calendar, a mexican whiskey called Abasolo. Both were very smooth and did not go down like rotgut. There was also one last night that was a double mellowed version of Jack Daniels called Gentleman Jim. It was pretty nice.

I feel like I've fallen so far. I went from not drinking and not doing weed to taking a nightly sleep aid weed pill, and having a mini shot of whiskey every night. (and a sip of wine, ugh.)

I blame Mount Hope Vineyard. We're going to try to get up there this weekend, since I'd like to get some delicious booze to have for Christmas. See if they have a nice sweet red to go with the prime rib.

Okay, time for me to go forth and get myself together, I supposed. Everyone have a super Wednesday!

It's Tuesday!! One more day to 53 for me. That sounds so weird. I am going to be fifty three in less than 24 hrs time. Go figure. I'm solidly GenX, so lets be real, we didn't expect to make it to adulthood. We figured on nuclear war long before then. So this is a little surreal.

It's not a bad thing, mind you. I'm not dreading getting older. I've earned every gray hair and creaky bone that I've got. It hasn't been an easy 53 years, but my scars tell a story, and I wear them all proudly, visible or not. And, all of that got me to where I am now, with a cozy appartment, and Jess,

I've said that this will be my year of yes. If something comes up and there's a chance of doing something fun, I'm going to say yes. Friend says "Want to go see the Lost Boys musical on Broadway?" Yes. "Want to take a cruise?" Yes. "Want to book another cruise after the one you just booked (even though you have no idea how much you'll like it)? Yes. Weekend trips? Yes.

Yesterday was busy at work, but not terrible. I took 55 calls, and squished in a bunch of patients. Today should be a little quieter, I hope. After that, we had perogies and bratwurst with some sour cream and sauerkraut. It was excellent.

Of course, in ordering the bratwurst from Aldi, I realized that there was yet another retailer who had the old address. So my lunch break was running over the house and getting the bag. Jess kindly went up the driveway to get the bag, which I appreciate, since it was a bit icy and I would not like to eat shit again.

I also stayed on this side of the street when we walked Yoda. I am not trying that parking lot at night again until we have a warm snap.

Today, I was thinking about making a nice batch of stroganoff. I pulled the brisket out. I could use half for that, and half to make a regular brisket with potatoes and maybe some carrots. It's pretty enormous, I could honestly probably do a third thing with it if I was so inclined. But first stroganoff. It's one of Jess' favorite things I make but lord is it heavy. Thus why I only do it during the winter. This is the recipe I use. It's really good and flavorful, though a little more work than just dumping cream of mushroom soup over things.

I still haven't decided on dinner tomorrow. Irish Pub for Shepherd's pie, or Sichuan? I did get my cupcakes. Turn out that the place we go to does indeed deliver to our house for an exorbitant fee. They had so many good flavors that I ended up getting almost a dozen cupcakes.

I have not yet had a whole one, but the bite I had of Jess' Sugar Cookie flavor was delicious. I may bave a pre-birthday cupcake today. I think the Gingerbread cupcake is calling me. I'm saving Snickerdoodle for my birthday.

Jess' present should come today, for which I am very impatiently waiting. I wasn't sure it would make it in time for Christmas, so I'm thrilled. Looking at the tracking, we'll see if it actually shows up today. It looks to me like it might be tomorrow. Which is fine. As long as I can do some wrapping on Saturday or Sunday, I'm good. The last of the presents should be here on Saturday, so that'll be nice. I do need to print some images. One of my sister's earrings and one of one of Jess' presents. They'll go in cards.

And Christmas is all set!

I'm actually looking forward to this Christmas. We're going to have fun things, and eat all the good stuff. I ordered a carving plate for my rib roast, and we're going to open the table up, so that it can accommodate all the food. I figure in honor of the holiday, I would actually serve things rather than just bringing out a plate of food. We'll carve the prime rib at the table. The mashed potatoes and peas will just have to be in small bowls, as we don't have a full service set. I did order a carving board and set so that I have something to do that on. This prime rib is gonna be lorge. Probably about 8 lbs with the bones.

And now, I shall get ready for work! Everyone have a excellent Tuesday!

It's Saturday! Yesterday ended up being blugh, thanks to a little stomach bug/general gastric upset. I spent the day vaguely nauseaous and running to the bathroom frequently and generally feeling icky. I cancelled my game and went to bed early, and so far, I seem to feel better.

I don't know how many of our errands we'll get through today, but we'll see. I definitely need to go to the pharmacy. Could push the dispensary to tomorrow if need be. I'd really like to get the wreath. My sister got a cheap light up from somewhere as a placeholder, and I kind of hate it. It's just plain faux evergreen with lights strung on it. The lights won't stay lit, so it's mostly just a ring of evergreen. Not to my taste. Lunch is the most periled item on the list. It's going to depend on how my stomach does today.

Jess has started rewatching Hazbin Hotel on the TV, which means I'm watching Hazbin Hotel. I've really been enjoying it. It's been fun, and has good music. And I'm a sucker for redeeming the bad guys. It's on Amazon prime, has two seasons of very short animated shows. Seriously, they're probably 20 minutes? It's really good and worth a watch.

Keith David (who I've loved since the Disney's Gargoyles days plays a drunk cat like thing named Husk who I adore. He has big slash vibes with the four armed porn star named Angel Dust. I keep seeing things about "we must save Keith David from this horrible show" online. In the meantime, he looks gleeful in recording and has plushies of his character that he makes kiss. It also has Stephanie Beatriz! Patrick Stump in season 2!

Aside from that, we watched a couple of ship videos, though I've mostly run out of them. I can't waait to add my video of the Pinnacle Suite to the list. We're down to 145 days and I can't wait. I want to proceed directly to my vacations!

I'm a little bit worried that this vacation won't live up to expectations. I've planned every inch of this trip, from the beginning to to end, and I want it to be awesome for my people (and me). I want it to be fun and relaxing and perfect, which I know isn't rational. Nothing can be perfect. There's going to be people and crowds and we're probably not going to get to do everything that I'm thinking about, thanks to physical limitations. I probably cannot spend 8 hours in Juneau doing it all. But we'll see how much we can get done.

Paraphrasing from Alton Brown, it won't be the Ultimate, or the Best Ever trip, but it will be my trip, and that's what I need to focus on.

Yesterday, I paid off said trip! We are 100% paid off. I think the only thing we have left to pay is the car back to Seattle and the hotel in Seattle. Other than that, everything was prepaid. I know there will be a hold on the card for the cruise, in case we buy booze or something like that, but otherwise, we're good. Pastries on the balcony are go!

Jess' present has landed in the US from Kiev! It's in Minnesota, with a scheduled delivery date of 12/16. My sister's is definitely not coming before Christmas, so I'll get her a little something else, though I have no idea what. Time to do some trawling on Amazon to find something good.

Okay, time for me to go forth and wake up. Everyone have an awesome Saturday!

It's (finally) Friday! Work hasn't been terrible this week, but it's definitely kept me busy. I don't know if my counterpart is off or if it's just been busy, but I've been getting a lot of emails with patients to call. I enjoy it, because it usually means I have a solution for their problem. Unfortunately, it's not always an optimal solution, so sometimes they aren't thrilled, but most will take it. Sometimes they don't accept, and that's frustrating. Especially the ones who initally say they'll go anywhere. Then you get them an appt at a site 20 min out of their way, and they say no. That just annoys me. We worked to get you a spot, and you don't value your health enough to use an extra hour of your day to go to it? These are all STAT orders!

I did ask my boss if I could come in 30 min early on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, so that I can leave 2 hours early on my birthday. This will allow me to go procure my cupcakes without dealing with dark and traffic. It's not that my sister wouldn't go for me, it's just that I like to go to choose my flavors. I'll probably end up defaulting to a snickerdoodle cupcake, but you never know. There might be something fun.

I've ordered the rib roast for Christmas. It's going to come next Thursday, which will give me a week to let it dry a bit, per Alton Brown. I'm going to try his recipe to see how it turns out. It looked pretty good on his TikTok. Add to that some nice garlic mashed potatoes and a Yorkshire pudding, and some other vegetable and we'll be good. I do need to get the kind of meat thermometer that you leave in the meat while it cooks, just for temperature control. And a turkey baster, which is apparently excellent for the Yorkshire pudding, since you need to retrieve a bit of pan drippings to add to the batter. Otherwise, it's basically a Dutch Baby without the egg, which I know how to make.

Today, we have work, then we shall go forth and have D&D. I'm up super early, so that's going to be a struggle, but I will manage.

For December, we've been opening Advent calendars. The Hallmark Wine advent has been pretty lackluster, but Master of Malt's Irish Whiskey advent calendar has been great. It's not full sized bottles, mind you. The wine is about two servings, split to three, and the whiskey is basically a shot, split to three little tastings. Sadly the Whiskey was only the 12 days of Christmas (we started early), so we've finished that last night. However, I ordered another type. 24 days of glorious booze. As my sister said, it's good that we don't have doctors appts soon for the "How oftern do you drink?" "Nightly!" Yesterday, we also opened the Pink Catawba wine from Mt. Hope Winery. I really have disliked the last two nights of Hallmark, so I needed a palate cleanser. That is wine I can get behind. Sweet and crisp and wonderful. The Catawba may be my favorite of their wines, and possibly my favorite white in general. No more whiskey til Tuesday, though. *sad face*

Tomorrow, I think we're going to go get my prescription, then get our wreath, then lunch. It's not supposed to snow until late, so that's good.

Maybe we'll drive up to Mt Hope next weekend, when I'm not still recovering from a Con. Get some Catawba, Niagra and some spirits. Their liquor is awesome, especially the coconut rum cream. SO freaking good! I would pour myself a shotglass and sip it during game.

Sunday, I have nothing planned. Just a quiet day. And I'm looking forward to that. Last weekend was awesome. I had so much fun at the con, it was great, but it was busy, so no real day of rest. Friday, we drove up. Saturday, we were at the Con, which was very physically demanding, and then Sunday, some con time, then driving home. The drive was about 4 hours each way. At least the drive home was in daylight. That made it a bit easier. Driving up, we hit twilight about 1.5 hours out, and I hated that. Especially since we kept seeing deer by the road. I was worried as hell about hitting one. But things went smoothly, so that was good.

We're at 146 days til the cruise and I'm starting to get excited again now that it's under 150 days. Everyone has their passports and the BIL's suitcase is arriving today, which is the last one to arrive. Camera is ready and we have extra batteries and SD cards. I need to order more socks, but I think I'm okay otherwise on clothes. We've got a ton of outlets, so that'll be fine.

I was thinking about the Neptune lounge and how we have a concierge for the Neptune and Pinnacle suites. I think I'll put in a standing order for a pot of coffee and some pastries every morning. And our free mimosa. Can't forget that. And then afternoon tea, of course. We'll want that.

Our suite has free bottled water and sodas as well as a coffee machine, but a pot would be easier. Plus, then I can get milk and sugar. We've got a dining room that seats 6, plus a balcony with four seats and a hot tub. I plan to take my coffee and pastry out there most mornings and watch the scenery go by. I'm already planning how spoiled I'll be when we get back, but it's all good.

First, we have a Philly weekend trip, though. We're going to go to the Zoo, and then come back at night for their holiday lights. We're meeting up with friends at some point, but I don't know when, judging from games. Maybe Friday night or Saturday after the Zoo.

Then, we have a little break, until April, which is a NYC trip to see the Lost Boys Musical with a friend. Then, the big one in May, and possibly a con later that month.

Okay, time to go forth and get myself together. Everyone have a stellar Friday!

It's Thursday, or as I like to think of it, Friday Eve. I'm a little sore today, but overall okay. BIL brought Greek Cookies (Koulourakia), so I had a couple of them with my coffee. They were excellent.

My subject line is brought to you by the show Hazbin Hotel. Jess loves it and I've absorbed a lot by osmosis. There's a few banger songs, including the finale song, Hear my Hope. Fair warning, it gives some plotlines away, and is WAY too catchy. It will earworm you. And yes, that is Patrick Stump in the middle bit.



We were discussing it, and I think we're going to skip the Yultide Faire this weekend. I'm still a little wiped out from the Con, and I think I need this weekend to take it a little easy. I was mostly going up to Mt. Hope to get booze, so I'm going to do that another day.

This weekend, we will do our errands. Gotta get our holiday wreath, and get some prescriptions and maybe a nice lunch. And not drive 90minutes or spend the day walking miles on end. This may change, but I think we'll stick with the new plan.

Next week, I turn 53, which is mind boggling. I'm Gen X--we expected nuclear war in the 80's. Making it to 50 was kind of surreal, much less beyond. I am hoarding my PTO, so I'm going to work. Though I might ask my manager if I could work a couple of extra hours the rest of the week, so I could take an hour or two off on my birthday to go get cupcakes. The place I like for cupcakes is a little too far away for doordash, and I don't really feel like driving in the dark and fighting traffic to get there. If not, I may just get second choice cupcakes. Which will still be delicious, but I'm picky.

I ordered our rib roast for our Christmas dinner. It'll come on the 18th, which should work out just fine. I ordered from our butcher, so I'm sure it'll be amazing. I'm thinking that I may make some Yorkshire pudding to go with it. Alton Brown had a great recipe that I may use. I probably will sear it in a pan first instead of reverse searing. That leads to the oven smoking, which with our touchy smoke detector could be bad. I do not want to spend my Christmas day waving a towel beneath the smoke detector to settle it down.

There's a couple of things I need to get before then, though. Beef tallow is a new ingredient to me. But that looked really good, so we'll try it out.

Most of my Christmas presents have arrived, though the two big ones are still AWOL. My sister's earrings probably aren't coming, but I'm still hoping for Jess present. It shipped last week. From Kiev, Ukraine, but it shipped.

And now I shall get a big of work on D&D done. Everyone have an amazing Thursday.

First up, hey congrats, you survived Monday!

My monday was considerably more boring than the weekend. I pretty much only did work. Which was fine, busy, but not unpleasantly slow. I spent a good chunk of the day grabbing open slots and finding candidates for them. It's been a challenge, with lots of MRIs and no slots. I got two diagnostic mammos plus a kiddo in yesterday, which was nice.

My order arruved yesterday. I liked Yoda's portrait so much that I had ordered one for Boodle. It turned out adorable.



I immediately put her up and now she and Yoda bookend the TV. I love them.

I have a mystery package coming from China. I'm thinking it's my necklace, but it's coming from a technology company, so I have no clue. That's supposed to be here tomorrow.

I looked at my usual apps and discovered that we are at 149 days until the cruise! I know that's still 5 months, but it's creeping up.

I'm continuing to do research on our hotels. Or post-research, since I booked them before I really did in depth research. I'm watching videos of them and seeing how people's stays went. I'm actually excited about staying at both of them, but especially the one before the cruise. I look at our excursions and I just cant believe that this trip is real. It seems like such a fairy tale cruise. First class flight from Baltimore to Seattle. Pickup from airport in a luxury SUV and tour Seattle for 4 hours. Then, a lovely drive to Vancouver, and to the five star (boggle) hotel for two nights. 5 star? I felt out of place in a 4 star, the one time we did it! I don't know what a 5 star is like! We have a lovely day of exploring Vancouver, then the next morning we hop on the ship.

I really hope I like cruising after all this build up. I'm looking forward to sitting back in the chair and just watching the scenery unfold.

It's early in the season for too much wildlife, so probably no bears, too far south for moose. Hopefully we'll find some whales and maybe some seals and definitely bald eagles.

I just want everything to run smoothly. I think I've accounted for all the probabilities. My sister's passport has been approved, and should be here soon. Jess and I are good. I think the BIL has his in processing. It's starting to feel like it might happen.

I hope that I and everyone have a good time. I want things that I schedule to be good for people. Normally that's just Jess that I worry about. But this is going to be two more people! If it's like Disney, that lasted until we walked through the gates of Epcot on the first day. After that, I let it go. But for pre-planning, I'm awesome. This trip is my special interest, and I will make sure that everyone enjoys it.

My only real concern is how the sofa bed will be for my sister and BIL. I just want that to be okay for them, and the rest is good. I just want things to be fun.

Okay, time to get myself together and maybe shower. We'll see. I hope everyone has an amazing Tuesday!

Greetings from Baltimore! Rather unfairly, it's Monday again, and I must go back to work. It's going to continue to be busy until Jan 2, when it should slow down a touch. How is everyone doing?

Yesterday was a fun, albeit odd morning. We got to the con early and got better, if not good parking. We parked by the photo and panel location, which was still a good 1/3 of a mile to the con. Then, we hiked to the autograph and dealer building to do some shopping.

I finally got a picture of the bag I got yesterday! This is the cute horror icon bag's fabric.



Today shopped around a bit. There was a chocolate vendor that we hit for little truffle bars, which we'd tried on Saturday. So we got 10 of those. They're about 2 1/2" x 3/4" little bars that are pretty freaking amazing. We got a bunch of flavors, none of which do we remember what they are, so every bite is a mystery. A tasty, tasty mystery.

Then, we stopped by an artist's booth and picked up a couple of prints. One for us, one for my sister and one for us. I did not take a picture of the one for my sister, but it's up on the artist's site, called "Be Wary the Silent Night." It's a huge kitty loooming our of a winter forest.

Ours is called "Together in the Malestrom 2021." It's a gorgeous painting of two horned figures standing on a precipice in front of a beautiful raging cloud.



I also got my sister a Snoopy magnet since she did watch the puppy for the weekend. We're sharing the chocolate.

Then, we got a drink, a big insulated mug into wich we put a delicious butterscotch cream soda. We could have had free refills, but we never got around to it.

Then, it was down to the other location, except it wasn't. The local church does services at the Event Center that the panels and pictures were in. And they were having a service. So, we got to stand outside for about 45 min, in a parking lot before we were let in. Once inside, we got to listen to the preacher rant for another 30 min while we waited for our photo op. It did not sound like the kind of church I would enjoy. Eventually, we got our picture with the voice actors for Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) and Megatron (Frank Welker). I got a handshake/clasp from Frank Welker. There was rumors that this was going to be Peter Cullen's last con, as he is 84, so I'm glad we got them now.



The Transformers' panel was supposed to start at 12, but we got done at 11:15, and I had a sneaking suspicion that the megachurch was going to go over. There seemed to be some animosity with the con. So we left before the panel and headed for home. We would have been waiting in the cold again for them to finish up. We were strictly allowed in the building for the photo ops, and they had a narrow roped off area that we were allowed to walk in. We did convince them to let us get coffee from the stand just outside the roped area before we left. There were a couple of churchgoer's at the shop, and they kind of gave us the big sneer as we walked up.

The coffee was themed and amazing. Jess got the Bumblebee, which was honey and cinnamon and really good. I got the Freddy, which was a mocha with a pinkfoam on top follwed by more chocolate sauce and topped with glittery iridescent black sugar that did not look unlike Freddy's blade. I wanted to drive immediately back and get the recipe, I swear.

Apparently the preacher was in the parking lot yesterday ranting about the con being evil. He got into a heated argument with a dude dressed up as the lead singer for Ghost, in full Satanic Pope regalia. I'm sorry I missed that.

A quick stop at a kitch place called Hillbilly's for lunch and we were winging our way home. We pulled in at 4:03, which was nice, because it meant no driving in the dark.

The rest of the night was quiet--Chinese food and a quick walk for Yoda and we were in bed by 9. I had a little trouble sleeping, so I went to sleep around midnight.

Today, I'm achy and a bit tired, but I'm so happy we went. It was a lot of fun, and I fulfilled some of my childhood dreams. Everyone was super nice and made if a fun experience. Absolutely no regrets.

I told poisontaster that this is my year of yes. If I see something that I want to do? Yes, lets do it. If there's something Jess wants to do? Yes, absolutely. We've got a lot planned in the next six months, and I'm looking forward to seeing what other stuff we can get into along the way!

And now, it's time go go forth and think about getting ready for work. First day of leggings directly on the tattoo, so we'll see how that goes. It's healing well, and has hit the itchy stage. But if you touch it, it's still tender. So that stage is fun. Okay, time to go forth and get dressed. Everyone have the very best Monday!

Greetings again from Monroeville as we start the last day of our Comic Con odyssey.

Yesterday was super fun, but exhausting. First up, Comic Con is deeply confusing for new people. There were multiple times that we were standing around trying to figure out where to go. We got there in the end, because the staff were really knowledgeable and good. We got in a bit early, thanks to our three day pass, and walked around the dealers room. We got Jess an adorable Mothman shirt, as they'd forgotten to bring a second shirt and tried some amazing chocolate, that I may get some of today. Then, we got a tote bag with adorable chibi horror icons on it to carry our shirt and coats in. The autograph area was so stuffed and claustrophobic that we didn't really check it out much.

Once we figured out that the photos were in a different building, we headed down early. Probably a good thing, since they'd decided to combine the Session 1 & 2 photos for Fredddy Vs. Jason. We hung out until they called us for that, and then got into a long queue. And stood and waited. And waited. Which, I had been warned was the name of the game for Comic Con. But whoo, once the line started moving, it went at a good clip. They obviously had this down to a science.

As I said, our first photo was Freddy VS Jason, with Robert Englund (with iconic glove) and Ken Kirtzinger (in full Jason costume). We finally get to the room and get the go ahead to go forth. Jess and I had talked about who wanted to stand next to whom. They requested Freddy, which was fine with me, so I made a beeline for Jason. He said hello, and I turned to face the camera, cognizant of the need to be quick. He moved behind me and held my shoulder to guide me into place, and then told me that he was going to lay the fake machete on my neck.

Apparently, Robert Englund, who seemed to be having an excellent time, just kind of spun Jess into a chokehold and laid the claws on, like it was a dance move to him. (They loved it.) I started to open my mouth like I was shocked, and they took the picture, so I look a bit dorky, but I'm happy with it. Jess looks like they're having a blast.



Next up, we picked up our picture, and went to grab a water, and wait for our next photo.

Finally they called the Beauty and the Beast duo, and may I just say, there was SO much estrogen in that line. I saw maybe 5 guys (and of course one nonbinary person, who was standing next to me.)

We didn't have to wait for long before we were ushered in, and holy shit, that was Ron Perlman and Linda Hamilton. I said hello, and might have stuttered that I loved his work, and then he put his arm around me, and I looked at the camera. Damn, he smells good, and his sweater was super soft.

May I just say here that Linda Hamilton is an utter delight? She's a tactile person, so she was rubbing Jess' back during and after the photo, and was just SO sweet.

This was the picture with people with great voices. Seriously, like being wrapped in warm flannel. I was really happy with the picture, too.



Immediately after we got the picture, we got in line for the Terminator 1 duo, with Linda Hamilton and Michael Biehn. That line did not last long either, and we were soon ushered in.

Jess stood in front of Michael, who was...okay. Nice enough, but no real impression made. Just seemed to be getting through it.

Linda made up for it, greeting us warmly and immediately pulling me into a one armed hug. I also got back rubs and when we were done and I was moving away, she grabbed my hand and gave it a little squeeze. My inner baby queer was deeply satisfied.



After that, I was so sore and starving, so we left for the night. I'm sure the Terminator 2 panel was awesome, but I was dragging, so we headed out to grab lunch.

We went to a local chain called Dad's Pub and Grub which was excellent. They had beer battered french fries with cheese sauce and bacon that were amazing. I had a brisket pizza that was also really good, but I couldn't finish it. Jess says their gyro was likewise tasty. Solid A-.

Then we went back to the hotel and laid down until we ordered dinner. This was from a place called Khalil's. Food was good, but nothing amazing. My dolmas were a little too lemony for me. B- average.

Today, we shall go forth, do our Transformers Picture, maybe also do the panel and then head home. There's a little place called Hillbilly's that we passed on the way up that looked interesting.

I'm hoping to be home by about 5:30-6pm, but we'll see.

And now, it is time to put on pants and get ready for another morning of hotel breakfast. The coffee is good, though. Everyone have a stellar Sunday!