DRAGON*CON DAY FOUR (SEPT 1)

When I got up in the middle of the night, I had noticed the bill to check out slipped under our door. This was odd because we weren't leaving until Tuesday. I put it on the desk and went back to bed.

First stop in the morning was front desk to have them reactivate our keys and make sure we still had a room for the night. On our way to the M store, George Taki passed us on his way to check out. Or beam up, whichever. We had breakfast at the booth while I rearranged to (happily) fill in the hole that were made by us selling out of things. Yea!

I took the opportunity to walk around the dealers' room for the very first time that weekend. i spent an hour and a half doing so and came back about $100.00 lighter. (Yikes!) Did I then stay and work the booth? Nope! I had a lunch date with college friends of mine who recently moved to Georgia. (Hi Tim! Hi Joanna! Hi babies!)

At lunch we talked of many things and they asked lots of questions about Dragon*Con and such. Joanna said they used to make so much fun of Dragon*Con when she was growing up (she's originally from near Atlanta). Shortly thereafter I told her I saw the whole Sean Astin panel she said "Sean Astin was there?" Then turning quickly to Tim said, "We're going to Dragon*Con next year!" So much for making fun of it, eh? We had a very nice, albeit brief lunch visit (and a shout out to the two bestest twin nine month olds ANYWHERE!) and then they dropped me off at the hotel once again.

I was going to go back to the booth, but took the chance to get back into the Hyatt. The numbers were way down on Monday-- like the attendance at a "normal" convention, and getting to and fro was much easier. There' s a really cool illuminated Dragon*Con sign in the front of the Hyatt that I wanted to take a picture of. I had seen it in passing one of the other days, but Directionally Challenged me couldn't find it again. What I did find was two Bards hanging out in the Hyatt. I ended up talking to them for an hour, which was nice.

FINALLY, I got back to the booth and heard FanGirl's report of seeing Walter Koenig in the Starbucks and also discovering that all the people that were in the hotel lobby all weekend long had turned into suitcases! (There were so many people checking out that morning that concierge had the suitcases lined up around the lobby in an orderly fashion- at Dragon*Con, even suitcases stand in line!!)


The booth was very busy and the ladies held their own. I had begun counting up inventory to use as totals on the customs paperwork. I was not looking forward to dealing with THEM again! I tried to make everything as accurate and thorough as possible. I was also tidying up and packing up what I could while I did this.

At 5 pm there was a mass destruction of the Dealers' room. Half the boxes that were full at the beginning of the show were packed empty in the crate (yea!) We took the Bards' stuff to them and helped load up their truck (which they call Vera) and said good bye to them (big frowny face)- only until October and The Browncoat Ball. (huge happy face) Then back to the crate. It got packed up and sealed in. Then- I hit a wall. I was soooooooo tired. I had some difficulty finding the Freeman representative in the exhibit hall, and there was some miscommunication, but all the paperwork got to the right people. Eventually.

I told the ladies I was done making decisions and wherever they wanted to eat was fine by me. We ended up in FanGirl's hotel room (since hers was made up and ours never did get that way this day) and had yummy pizza room service. We were all tired and got punch drunk and silly. Massive giggles ensued. Such fun. After this, my sister and I rode to the 47th floor of the Marriott just cause we could. We weren't the only ones to do so and the rapid glass elevator ride was good fun. We, naturally went all the way to the bottom floor just cause we could. We took some lobby pictures and then shared a brief elevator ride and conversation with James Hong

We then went ot the room to pack our stuff and try to get some sleep. Before drifting off I looked at teh clock. It was 12:03. I said, "Hey, Mar'e" She replied wisely, "What?" I said, "Happy Birthday!" She laughed and said thank you. and then we pretty much dropped to sleep.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: "We now return you to your regularly scheduled hotel."