...aka "They're Freezing Their Butts Off In NY"
A bit of backgroundIn late December/early January, Kath and I were chatting on IM and I commented to her, "Do you think this sounds too crazy?" and proceeded to tell her my idea for a Wesley luncheon like what the FINNatics have done in years past. She replied that she had been having similiar thoughts. So I was like, "Well, why don't we try doing it?" After months of planning on both our parts, along with lots of help from Dub and other sources, we had a pretty good group going and had decided to donate money to charity (link in Sunday's part). Then Kath got a call on Saturday, the 7th, from Alexis(!!!) saying that he wouldn't be able to make it because of scheduling conflicts and that he and Aly would be in New York.
And in conversations between Dub, Kath, and myself, the comparison between us and the Troika (on Buffy) came up and it's scary how close we really are. Dub's the creative one (Warren - although she doesn't like the comparison), Kath's the researcher/knowledge-gal (Jonathan) and I'm the doer - (Andrew). (Although, if it wasn't for me being so gung-ho, this whole thing wouldn't have started in the first place.)
ThursdayThe day started out kinda like, "okay, let's see how many different versions of transportation I'll need to get to LA." My dad drove me down to the Perryville, MD, train station - where I caught the MARC train into the BWI station - where I caught the shuttle to the airport, went on two different airplanes before getting to LA, then another shuttle to our rental car. (A Toyota Corolla - I love that car.) Ended up talking to Mark, the guy sitting next to me from Dallas to LA, for most of the trip. He was really nice. (And looked a lot like the fiance on
The Wedding Singer.)
Ended up picking up Tamz in the airport and giving her a ride, since her friends pulled out last minute. It took us about two hours to get to the hotel from the airport because of the traffic, but it wasn't as atrocious as some people made it sound.
I've also found that it takes a certain attitude to drive a pick-up truck, and that it served us well as I was driving. According to Dub, I have "mergeability". But it is very easy to confuse her. :0) At one point, I asked if she thought I should move over a lane, implying - but not saying - to the left, since we were already all the way over to the right, she replied, "Move where?"
It's also very interesting driving in LA - sometimes the right lanes just end. You'll be driving along and if you're not careful at intersections, it'll turn into a parking lane on the other side.
Rose, Dub, Kath, Sionell, Lugnut, and I went out for dinner at this diner called Swingers - which is supposed to be known for something, but we weren't exactly sure what. Kath had an ostrich burger - which I had a little taste of and it actually wasn't bad.
FridayDub likes my merging ability! ;0P
Ventured down to Santa Monica in the morning to check out the place for the luncheon and make sure we know where we're going and all that. After going the way of the Mapquest directions, we decide to look at a map and find a better way to go. Figures, right? But it was fun to go down there. And now I've seen the Pacific Ocean! :0P
Got to see T for a little while. He came over while we were having our pizza party with a friend and I think he was a little surprised by the reception he got. Sionell came over with some pizza and asked if they wanted any and got introduced and then introduced him to everyone and everyone was like, "Hi!!" and he was blushing a bit, I think because he didn't expect it and possibly because "Doublemeat Palace" isn't exactly a favorite episode.
The Pre-Party was fun. Did some dancing - lots of fun. Also did the raffle thing and got ended up winning a copy of Tony's "Music For Elevators" - and it was an autographed copy. The lady that was checking my ticket was like, "These two are signed and these two aren't - which one do you want?" And I was thinking, "What do you think?"
Also got to have an 808 (drink made in honor of our hotel room at CreepCon this past summer) - yummy drink.
SaturdayWent on a Buffy tour -
*very* cool. Saw the Los Altos apartment building (exterior of the Hyperion), Pier 94 in San Pedro (the dock and ship in "Surprise"), Buffy's house, Torrance High (Sunnydale High), The Sony Building (Wolfram & Hart), and Kenneth Haim Park (from OMWF).
When we were at Torrance, someone found an open gate onto the grounds. So we went to check it out and around one corner was the balcony, steps, and courtyard that's been in so many of the Sunnydale High scenes. As soon as I saw it, I was reduced to pointing and making sounds. Sionell was like, "I wish I had been able to capture your expression." And it wasn't like [insert celebrity's name] was here, it was more like remembering all the stuff that happened there in the course of the show - like some of the campaigning in "Homecoming" or Xander talking with Buffy and Willow on the balcony ("The Pack"). The nostalgia was very nice. But on the way back to the hotel, we got as far as Hollywood (maybe six blocks from the hotel) and were stopped by the peace rally.
While we were trying to figure out what to do for dinner, I found out that Sionell's family's from Tamaqua - same as my dad's. And when I brought it up to my dad, he's pretty sure he knows them.
The PBP was awesome. We raised $30,000 for the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Yay us! Got to meet X-Lander and got a hug, but didn't get a picture. Got a picture of Vladimir Kulich with someone else made up as the Beast, but didn't actually talk to him. Got to hear Four Star Mary - very cool. At one point during their set, I wandered out into the lobby (I had been in there for a while and I didn't want to go completely deaf yet), and I saw a knot of people for James Marsters. I got to meet him this past summer, but I wanted to get a picture and a hug. While I was waiting, I heard "Pain" - my favorite FSM song, so I go sprinting back into the auditorium (trying not to fall with the boots I was wearing), thinking that James will still be there when I get back. I stop not far from the stage and there's a group of people next to me, so I look over and two people over from me is Eliza Dushku. So I follow her and her little group off to one side (by now FSM's done). Joss Whedon comes over to her and when they're done talking, I follow him back to the other side of the room, since his group had dwindled. As I was waiting, I see Summer Glau (the dancer in "WITW in "Angel" and River in "Firefly") and was being nice and taking pictures for other people. Before I talked to her, Ron Glass (Book) came in. I snapped a quick picture and wandered off, not talking to either of them, Joss, or Eliza (who's very pretty in real person). So I wander back out into the lobby and got back in the knot around James. He goes to leave to get ready for the check presentation and I, along with a bunch of other people, follow him. There's a bunch of people by this support column that's near the door to go downstairs, so I figure that James is right there. I see Alexis and let out a small shriek (which Dub later told me she heard) before clapping my hands over my mouth. Dub and Kath were talking to him at the time. When they came out of the group, Kath was like, "He's looking for you. He said that he dropped some stuff off at the hotel for us. He said, 'The room wasn't under your name, so I put it under Adrian's name. Is she here?' When I told him you were, he was like, 'Where is she?' and tried looking for you." I made it over between him and the door because they said that he was getting ready to go downstairs to get ready for the check presentation. When he came through, I quickly said, "Hi, I'm Adrian." He was like, "Oh! Hi!" and immediately hugged me, then he really had to leave. After the check presentation, I was listening to Andy Hallet sing and working on changing the film in my camera and had my lei around my neck and Mark Lutz was nearby. He finished talking to someone and saw me and was like "Oh! Hey!" so we talked for a bit and I got a hug from him when I saw him later on. I tried getting to James again, but again it didn't work. I think I tried to get to the man 3 times and each time I couldn't. One day I will get a picture and a hug from him. I wandered into the room that had the raffles and some bands' tables and got to talk to Erica and Jeff from Velvet Chain. (I met them this past summer at CreepCon and they're both great.) I also got to talk to the lead guitarist for FSM - very nice. I wandered back into the auditorium after Andy's set and Alexis was there with a small knot of people around him. Just as I got up to him and the group, the lights went down for Common Rotation's set. So we all went out to the lobby. When I finally got up to him, he signed my notebook and I got some more hugs and he leied me and I have a picture. When I asked him, he just smiled and did it. I didn't actually talk to him - which I'm kicking myself about, especially since there's so many things I could have said and not sounded all fan-girl. But I still got to meet him!
Almost got to meet Danny Strong. And he's shorter than I thought. I was wearing boots with 3-4 inch heels, and he came up to just above my shoulder. So I quickly took the boots off, so there wouldn't be such a big discrepency, and he was up to about eyelevel. I did get a picture of him, but not actually meet him. He seemed like a sweetie, though, because they were trying to pull him away and he kept staying as long as he could to sign autographs and all.
I saw Andy Hallett a bit later and he was like, "I remember you!" and because he was trying to make sure everyone got to meet him and all, he put his arm around me and was like, "Okay, where are we looking?" for a picture. I responded, "I don't want a picture, just a hug." So he hugged me and kissed me on the cheek and at one point called me "boo". And he had some type of hernia - which hurt lots, so don't get hernia.
After the PBP, we went back to the hotel to hang out and share "war stories". We had invited a bunch of people to come back to the room, but hardly anyone came. But Sionell and her hubby brought some more alcohol and a really nice chardonnay back to the room.
I wish Christian Kane had been there. I really wanted to meet him. I know his last episode was "Dead End", which was Season 2. But Eliza was there and her last episode on either show was "Sanctuary" in Season 1 of "Angel". (Yeah - I know, I know - she's coming back to "Angel" in a couple weeks, but still....)
SundayAs we were getting ready to leave for the luncheon, Kath's friend Chris called and told her that there was a blizzard on the East Coast and things were pretty bad. But we went to the luncheon (what else could we do?) - with many jokes about how I shouldn't drive within 24 hours of meeting Alexis ("Alexis-intoxication" Dub called it), although parts of my worse-than-normal driving were to make sure that FaFo and her mom okay following us. Once we got to Santa Monica, we called the cake place to get better directions. Upon driving to get it, we find that we're going most of the way back to the hotel, so we turned around and headed back to Santa Monica, cutting our losses. It was probably just as well, considering how full we all were when we had finished eating. The Library Alehouse is a really nice pub - definitely recommend it. We also auctioned off some stuff and took donations for the
Los Angeles County High School for the Arts Foundation and we're donating it specifically to the Theatre department. We haven't gotten a final total yet, but it seems like it's going to be around $600. And Alexis is going to match it - yay! The stuff that he dropped off was a bunch of autographed sides (call sheets and parts of the script) for "Spin the Bottle". He wasn't able to make it, which it might have been better that way - we were more relaxed and all. (Not that we would've minded one bit if he had come.) There was about nine of us and we had a lot of fun. We decided to forgo sight-seeing so we could get back and find out what was going on with the blizzard.
We were on the phone for three hours waiting for someone to pick up at American Airlines, but we were on hold the whole time. (We found out later that because it was a holiday weekend, no one was manning the phones.) While we had Kath's cell on its speakerphone thingie, we hung out in Dub and Rose's room along with Lester. It was flipping through the channels trying to find either CNN or the Weather Channel (which they don't seem to have) to get an update while the others were talking when I stumbled across the "Buffy" episode "Superstar" (season 4). We all got quiet so we could watch - lots of fun, even if it was a rerun.
Kath and I decided that we were still going to go to the Common Rotation concert and then leave early for the airport and try our luck with getting home. We got to the club at about 8:30, half an hour after it was supposed to start, and there was a long line outside. So Kath and I decided that we weren't even going to try and left. We ended up driving down Sunset Blvd for a while. On the way to the airport, we stopped at the Santa Monica Pier - which is very cool. I also go to go down on the beach and stick my feet in the water. :0) (And had a couple more moments of "That's where Angel came out from under the Pier with the Gem of Amara", "That's where Gunn and Fred brought Connor".)
As we were leaving Santa Monica to head to the airport, we decided to stop and get gas at the station at 4th and Pico. It was bloody gorram hard to pump gas there. Rocket science or fixing Gunn and Wes' relationship would've been easier than pumping gas there. First, they didn't take credit cards. Then the machine wouldn't accept my cash. Then when we finally did get it to work, it would stop every couple of cents, so it took half of forever to get the 1/2 of a tank we needed.
When we got to the airport, we got the last two seats on the 1:30 flight to Washington-Dulles and told of an earlier flight to BWI, if we wanted to try to get on standby for it. As we were waiting to hear if our bags were cleared, I remembered I left my fleece in the trunk of the car and had no way to get it. Maybe if I get really lucky, they'll mail it to me, but I'm not holding my breath. But if not, it's only a jacket, and I didn't have anything important in the pockets.
MondayWe flew out of LAX at 12:30am Pacific Time, and flew into DFW (in Dallas) at 5:30am Central Time. We camped out in the seating area between Gates C2 and C3 for a few hours so we could keep an eye on CNN and the departure monitures. The flight to BWI and an earlier flight to W-D was cancelled, but, luckily, ours wasn't. It was kind of scary flying in because there was a huge cloud that we had to fly through as we were landing and there was, like, no visibility - all I could see was the wing and white. After a total of 25.5 hours (starting at 10pm Sunday night), I finally got home - although this included dropping Kath off and finding a place to eat.
And I got my pictures back and they turned out great!!! Will be posting a link as soon as I can get them scanned.
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