Weekend Catchup: A Let-Down Followed By A Pick-Me-Up

I know I write these Weekend Catchups mostly for me, just so I can go back through this 'ere blog and remember what I did last week (I'm getting old), but I hope you enjoy reading them, too!

Friday morning I had a lovely review (mostly) from my manager.

I say "mostly" because this year the faculty and staff of our department were given the chance to anonymously give reviews of our "customer service".

99% of these reviews consisted of folks talking about how they can't live without us down here in the office, but 1% (these are crap percentages... it was 2 people out of 30 or so reviews) used the opportunity to say that I'm crabby sometimes and that I "tend to be somewhat inflexible and use the rules to decide how to do things rather than try to do things that will accommodate the rules.".

In other words, I do my job and won't call the vendors they deal with for them when a billing problem arises on their credit cards, a task which if I did it for one person I'd have to do it for all 250 and which would then become my new job.

Yes, I'm horrible.

That little bit of unpleasantness was, however, canceled out by taking the afternoon off to bake cookies and putz around the house, courtesy of my manager's thankfullness in regard to a project I've been working on.

I made these...


Photo & recipe courtesy of Giggly Mama

...and Lo, They Were Good. They're more like little mini pumpkin bread blobs than cookies, especially after they've cooled, and I plan to make another batch this weekend because oh yeah.

Friday night I went by my friend/boss Wendi's house.

Wendi has a 7-year-old boy-child in her house, and he loves pirates, and is the proud owner of a brand new bunk bed.


Click to see the awesome pirate lights up close... also, that cat was the funniest creature I'd seen all day!

We spent the evening beating a large black piece of cloth into submission, or rather into 2 curtains which wrapped themselves around the bunk bed's bottom half, creating a PIRATE CAVE OMG.


With the lights off and just those awesome pirate-lights for illumination, this became the coolest room ever

To you and me, it's just a curtain, but to 7-year old boy child?

Bliss itself.


Think he likes it?

Saturday morning I headed out rather early for Mile-Hi Con 41 and...

And...

Hm.

Let's just say it wasn't what I was hoping for.

I knew last year that it wasn't the same as the conventions I'd attended before.

All the elements were there, the normal things you find at these shindigs...

People in carefully designed costumes displaying all the minutiae of the show/movie/genre they love best, a whole room full of fan art and paperback copies of 20-book-long series about dragons/elves/mages/etc., discussions going on here and there about the science behind sci-fi and whether or not Worf could kick Chewbacca's ass...

Girls who, just for example, have watched all of the Firefly episodes so often that they can almost curse in Chinese and who laugh maniacally every time they see little plastic dinosaurs.


Mine is an evil laugh!

The problem with these things is that they are a social event for a group of people that run in a very tight circle, mainly because they often can't find anyone who understands them out in the "mundane" world, and many if not most of the attendees at any one convention have probably been going to that event for years upon years or, and here's the key, are attending it with someone who *has* attended regularly and knows everyone.

This, at other cons, has been remedied easily on Friday night by a stroll on the party floor...

Mingling! Social networking! Strange drinks in test tubes! All the elements are there to make some new friends.

At Mile-Hi Con, however, it seems that unless you're in with the in-crowd, come with a group, or are an author with a reading, you're going to end up sitting at the back of a room listening to 3 or 4 people discuss Steam Punk and walk away feeling like you probably could have just stayed home watching Serenity.

Again.

It's not a *bad* convention, it's just not for me... I knew that after last year, and wasn't going to go this year, but I had promised to help with the kids stuff so I did.

Remember, I have volunteeritis, it couldn't be helped.

Luckily, I had dinner with TR to look forward to, and as soon as my shift was over, I headed to his place, and do you know what he had waiting for me?

A Firefly licence plate holder, that's what.


He even put it on for me

Who needs conventions when you have people who understand your weird Joss Whedon thing right here in the real world?

I don't think I'll bother with them again, honestly. It's too bad, really, the Chicago ones really were fun, The Kid and I would go with friends who had kids her age, and they would have sleepovers in the hotel rooms while we went out and mingled... here, it was just a chore.

I guess it was a fleeting thing.

At least it was free, but I'm glad TR didn't take me up on my offer to attend... I would have felt terrible! It was a selfish invitation, I'll admit... I think deep down I knew it was going to be a lackluster experience, and he tends to make things more entertaining.

Saturday night's dinner of Thai food made my tummy sad the next day... don't get me wrong, everything was flawless, but the hot soup was maybe a mistake. It was not hot as in "ow my membranes are gone now" but rather hot-due-to-being-loaded-with-chili-oil hot, and man did I pay for that one, but it was totally worth it.

I took the leftovers home with me and had the unexpected but delightful bonus of another chance to appreciate my kid, who when we shared the leftovers lamented the lack of good Thai food in Longmont.

Do most 13 year olds like curried chicken and satay-sauce-covered broccoli? I hope so.

Sunday was the laziest day I've had in awhile, and it was delightful... up at the crack of noon, a yummy breakfast featuring some fantastic coffee and bacony perfection, and then back to bed for a few hours to digest and watch the snow fly outside.

Then it was off to my friend Melissa's for chili and cornbread and conversation.

Perfection, and I didn't even have to cook... well, except for the cookies, but those were by choice.

How was your weekend?