Prologue was fun, albeit tiring

Right now I am grumpy and worried about where a few of my files have gone; it's one of those recursive things where I have to find something to tell me what piece of the Time Machine backups might contain the files I actually need. But that will blend into lots of other memories of minor computer issues, and I want to remember hanging out with people.

Prologue was a small pre-Worldcon relaxacon in Renton, Washington; conveniently, a bus that starts two blocks from my home stops near the con hotel, so cattitude and I decided to save money and enjoy sleeping in our own beds and such by commuting. Friday was, well, wet and messy (steady rain mixed with thunderstorms, leading to lots of traffic problems), and we got soaked walking from the bus to the hotel, but Mary Kay Kare lent me dry socks, which helped a lot.

We had dinner Friday with Mary Kay; Nina Horvath, the TAFF delegate; and Jeff and Liz Copeland, who it turns out also live in Bellevue (though not in our neighborhood). Both the conversation and the food was good; I wouldn't go out of my way for Lemongrass Grill, but it was better than the con program/local guide led me to expect. Since Nina is from Austria, I donated some euros that have been sitting in my dresser for a dozen years to TAFF, because at some point it feels silly to hang onto cash because "I might go back sometime." If I do visit the eurozone again, I'll almost certainly want more than 15 euros in cash.

Saturday I woke up early and worked out, and then we took it easy for a bit before going to the Farmers' Market. So we now have plenty of blueberries again, and some carrots and peaches. I also got a chocolate orange cupcake, because I'd thought about one buying two weeks earlier and then got pie instead. We took the bus to Renton after lunch, and got there around 2:00. Cattitude spotted a blackberry patch next to the sidewalk, once it wasn't pouring rain, so we could actually see, and stepping aside to gather a few berries didn't seem absurd.

We talked about a bunch of things, including the sort of catching up with old acquaintances that involves a few-sentence summary of the last n years of my and their lives; complications of working freelance; the role of odor in bee-flower coevolution; durian; and even a bit about the Hugos. I was wondering, today, whether the durian-flavored candy in the con suite was intended to be eaten, or only as a conversation starter. Cattitude went to one program item, Charlie Stross's reading, but the only programming that appealed to me was at 11 a.m. Sunday. The "old acquaintance" bit included a few variations on "I think we met at the Vegas Corflu" [more than two decades ago] and "I recognize your name from print [i.e., fanzines]."

On Saturday, Jane Hawkins was making fudge on a hotplate in the con suite, and wanted someone to guard it while she went outside "to smoke some tobacco." Welcome to Washington: I'm not sure whether that was admitting to her vices, or reassuring me that it would be fine for her to come back and deal with extremely hot liquid. (My task wasn't to stir, it was to make sure that nobody touched the fudge, for safety reasons.)

Cattitude and I had dinner with Sandra Bond and Aileen Foreman; Aileen has been living in the Seattle area for the last few months, but is moving [back] to Las Vegas right after Sasquan, and we hadn't touched base until now. that, again, was a good if not spectacular meal: a "roadhouse" with lots of pork and beef on the menu, but the crabcakes sounded good, and were. I was glad of the chance to eat with Sandra, on top of having her visit us for a bit on Thursday.

By the time we left to catch the next-to-last bus home, I was fading. On our way to the bus, I decided that it had been fun, but I'd had enough for one weekend. (I had hoped to get more useful things done today, but so it goes.)

Summary: a lot of time hanging out in the con suite chatting with people, some of whom I'd met before.