Overture, curtains, lights

To start Saturday we went to the Fursuit Parade, of course. bunny_hugger would march in it. I'd just try to watch, and to record the thing on my phone. I got a spot near xolo and a couple other folks who were interested by the description of one of my panels. That was old-fashioned online interacting like by mucks and IRC and whatnot. So I hoped that'd bring more people out to a panel I was running for the first time.

The parade was somewhere around 75 costumers long, which isn't bad considering the con is (deliberately) about 350-people strong. It took about two and a half minutes to get past us and then we ran outside for photographs. bunny_hugger's strategy of waiting in the prep area to be one of the last people who gets in the parade paid off. There were a few people crowding her in the group photo but she was pretty visible. And the handful of times someone got in front of her, at least her rabbit head could be staring ominously over someone's shoulder.

It's been joked furries only have kids as costuming projects. Someone was apparently living up to that goal: they had a maybe two-year-old dressed as Rocket Raccoon. The kid was exactly the right size; he looked like a raccoon standing up. Also since he was wearing a raccoon mask in the bright sunlight and hot weather he was just a little fidgety and cranky and so was perfectly cast, right up to the point he yanked his mask off. He'll probably be able to play Rocket come Halloween, but he'll be a touch big to be a perfect raccoon by then. The moment was just perfect.

For lunch we resolved not to drive across the highway and the traffic jam there. We went instead to a mediterranean restaurant in the strip mall across the regular street. There we discovered it was a much nicer restaurant than we figured and that the mall had an indoors too; it's just surrounded by a strip mall. And though we worried the restaurant would be so nice it'd serve us slowly, it was perfectly speedy.

Then we blew that time-saved. We had repeatedly seen a costume shop in past years, in a strip mall near the burrito place. We figured to get glow sticks and such for the dance that night. We forgot that the place was north of the highway and got caught up in the traffic jam anyway. Still. Maybe you wondered what kind of costume shop operates year-round north of Worthington, Ohio. It's pretty near the same costume shop that pops up in empty storefronts in October, just, they're around all year apparently. We did get a fair bunch of glowsticks and were tempted by but didn't actually get any other costumes or props. If we had more time we'd probably have brainstormed something to get.

Among the flyers at the shop was one for an alien-encounters convention. I'm honestly sorry I didn't take one. Who knew Columbus hosted alien-encounters conventions?

Trivia: While stricken with smallpox in 1562, Queen Eliabeth commanded the Privy Council to appoint Robert Dudley as Lord Protector of England, at a salary of £ 20,000 pa. Dudley's assistant Tamworth was also to be given a pension of £ 500 pa. Source: The Life Of Elizabeth I, Allison Weir.

Currently Reading: Hierarchies, John T Philliphent.