drunk and happy

August 5, 2000

Drunk and Happy

I have this tendency to wake up early. In fact, in Shaye's glowing recommendation of me as a roomie, she included my ability to wake up early without the need of an alarm clock. She
thankfully left out some other *interesting* details. So I'm up at six am, with the fact that I'm used to Eastern time. I shower, get ready and sit for an hour or so reading the St. Louis travel
guide next to the ice box in the breakfast nook. I woke up Natalie, not in enough time I fear since I forgot when exactly was supposed to wake her up so we could make the early trek to
Target with Sarah. We met up with Sarah anyway, and I met Paulie of the Screengrabs and Kelly of the Really Really Good Fic. Ignore the titles, you're safe until I start singing minstrels.
While at Target, part of our mission was to pick up breakfast since the majority of us would be working registration until 10 or so. I walked into the food sundries aisle and located Sarah
and Paulie eyeing a display of pre-packaged muffins. “So what are we supposed to do about breakfast, eh? Oooo, chocolate muffins!” <snurch> <continue on down the aisle>. Returning back to Ye Ol’ Serpentine Hotel, Natalie and I raced back to our room to grab cameras, DRD tags and whatever else we could remember before heading off to work registration.

When we arrived on the right floor, and had made our way down the maze of hallways, we were met with an already impressive line of Scapers waiting outside the Clayton Ballroom. I got a nice little ego boost when Tinka and Corde spotted me from their position on the floor and yelled out “Kathe!” so the entire floor could hear it. Thanks guys. I didn't find out until later that I had also been making unscheduled appearances due to Corde quoting my most infamous line from ShipperCon, “I need to get laid.” It's sooo good to be known for these things. <snerk>

So Natalie and I got to our stations behind the “flyer desk”, with me ducking under the table. I note this only because I seem to get goofy when I duck under tables resulting in stupid Kathe
screams of “Help, the table cloth has got me!” “If we go a little further, we might reach China.” and “Wow, so *this* is Middle Earth.” Natalie got real good at passing out the flyers, leaving
me pointing at the Raffle Box and pretty much brow beating people into entering.  The coolest thing by far about working registration was getting to see nearly everyone attending the
con, and while I didn't really know anyone outside of the Shippers List, it was still really cool just to see up close the kind of people that love this show and make up this tight knit
fandom. I think my favorite introduction was with Rachel S. from the Shippers List. For weeks before the con, we had been sending in descriptions of ourselves and what we would be wearing so other attendees could recognize us. I remember Rachel's specifically because she said she would be wearing a blue t-shirt with “Boys Lie” on the front. And sure enough, there was Rachel in said shirt, “Rachel! Boys lie!”

When registration was finally done, we gathered in the Clayton Ballroom for Opening Ceremonies a.k.a. The WarriorWoman and SmushyButt Show. Scapers have a plethora of various talents, but the most noticeable to me was general comic genius that seems to
present itself in so many of our group. Now if we can only turn this into something *profitable*, like my idea for a Shippers Vaudeville show to raise money to send all of us to the Con next
year.

After Opening Ceremonies, I hightailed it to the Viewing Rooms since Clayton was being taken over for the Farscape Anyone meeting [where mivonks and Calvins were snurched and procured]. There were some slight problems in setting up all the equipment but I settled down with Rachel G. [fellow Iowa attendee] and Ellie from the Shippers List, and Mark [CrichtonAsThesesus] and his sister, and Fishy [yet another one of those gorgeous women
that populated the Con]. I was all pumped to see DK in Premiere again, but alas the ScaperCon Gods of Hilarity were to strike again.

Suddenly there came this loud fog horn like sound from everywhere in the room and out in the hallway. Fire alarm. Continuing the fine Lincoln High School tradition, I stayed put and waited to
see Ben's eye start to twitch like in I, E.T. Unfortunately, the rest of the room had not attended Lincoln and so did not understand my conditioned response to fire alarms, so we all tumbled out into the hallway. Dabee comes running down the hall telling us to get out of the building. Okay. I spot the stairs and start going for them. Dabee screams at us not to go down the
elevators…. “The stairs are this way too.” We trot down the stairs, come out into some part of the lobby and some of the staff informs us it's just a false alarm, and the alarm had been
set off by the smoke machine in the PK Laser Tag room. We trot back *upstairs* only to meet Dabee in the hall again. “What?! What are you doing back here?” “They said it was a false alarm.” “Who?” “The staff.” “Oh.” So then we set about trying to find a place in the view rooms where the sound was diminished. At some point it occurred to me that we had set off the Paddac beacon. Hee.

Finding that there was no good place in the building [or so we thought] to escape the Paddac Beacon, Rachel and I went back downstairs and outside where some poor members of the Committee had gathered to meet the fire truck that was now arriving. I think I mentioned to Rach that now ScaperCon had officially been kicked off. Rach and I walked around for a while until the FA meeting was over and we could get back into Clayton.

Up next was the PK Warrior Demo which was very well done. Everyone did a great job and it wasn't hard for me to believe that Heather could've been Aeryn's mom [even with the whip.
“Dude, Aeryn's mom was an S & M queen,” I whispered to Natalie.] but Matthew as Talyn did give me cause to shudder- but only because he looked so much like Crais. Draw your own conclusions on that, kiddies.

The Shippers dominated Saturday's round of the Trivia Contest, but then again, I think we go around dominating everything whether we mean to or not. It's our charming personalities.
<snerk> Some questions were horribly easy compared to others, and some people had the bad luck to get all the bad questions over and over again. I did okay until I got momentarily stumped on a question about Staanz. Frell me, I almost missed a question about my own damn muse. When I finally did answer the question, I was really surprised that I didn't have everyone hitting me on my damn head.

The astronomy lecture came next but, we, being about to pass out from hunger and carrying less about a black hole trying to gobble us down than where all our lost socks had gone over the years, decided to head down to the Fonty Bar and Grill for lunch. We got our same waitress again, poor thing. We asked, or apologized, about our behaviour the previous night. She said that we were fine and she thought this was all rather fun. We left her an extra big tip. Corde, Tinka, and I do *not* need to sit at one end of the table together, that's all I need to say, but, frell, I'll elaborate anyway. We could've been hatching plots for world domination with fortune cookies for all you know. More likely it was more Neurotic Twin Bonding and Monkey Intoxication.

We made a special call to Becca and made her Special Service Shipper List Mommy for the duration. The phone kept getting passed around the table and I always had food in my mouth when it got to me--nothing against Becca mind you, I'm just one of those Focused Eaters--don’t distract me while I'm eating. Comes from my mother's dinner table conquest of my plate.

I got stuck counting out the money, but made Aileen or someone else make change and do all that crazy math stuff while I worried about all the bills being in sequential order and facing the same way. See, neurotic. After that was taken care of Natalie and I booked it to our room so she could straighten out her hair, seeing as we wouldn't have any time that evening to do it before the banquet and dance. We booked it back to the Clayton, with me demonstrating my Aeryn Strut to Natalie and half the hotel. “The couple that struts together, stays together.” ~ Natalie on John & Aeryn.

We were a bit late arriving to Clayton so we snagged  a couple of seats in back for the Kent McCord chat. I sat there agonizing about what to ask this guy since these webcasts had only been announced the day before and normally I need like a freaking week to think up a question. Kent was great, but the reception was poor so at times it appeared to me that Kent was really Johnny Carson in a really bad shirt. I thought of my mother as well, since she would probably be thudding over Kent as hard as I would about Kemper the next day. Natalie's taping the chat of course, but at some point she books it out of there leaving me to hold the tape recorder for the duration. Then someone asks Kent what he thinks happened to Crichton's mother since it's one of those great unanswered questions of the show. I immediately tense and start a frantic search to find Sarah, Corde, Tinka, Cristin and Rachel, and start cursing that Natalie isn't there…and this is the reason why:

ShipperCon 2000
Waterloo, Iowa
Fairfield Inn
2 am

Scene: Kathe on the floor, having had the margarita finally hit [Or she's just really tired. Either way, she's loopy as hell.] and the group is relating odd drama stories like Tinkerbell getting smashed into the proscenium wall. Kathe was never in drama, but throws a bit into the conversation anyway:

“Have any of you ever seen Auntie Mame?” Of course no one has. “Anyway, there's this character of Mother Burnside and she's this giant old Southern bat that goes around breaking wind and just raising cain among her assembled relatives. At the best scene in the entire movie, she's out in the garden watching the fox hunt go awry when she belts out, 'Mother of Jefferson Davis! She's passin' the *fox*!' That's the only character I think I could ever play.”

So somehow it got carried from there that Mama Crichton was this old cranky southern women. Then she was cranky and a bit of a drinker [think Maryann from Cybil] and then she became Mrs. Robinson from the Graduate trying to seduce DK. Here Kathe actually demonstrates the scene from the movie. It finally winds up that Mama Crichton is in the Florida State Mental Institution in Chatahoochie and when John finally does come home, she's the only one that believes him.

Now getting back to Kent….He says that he believes that Mrs. Crichton is currently having a nice stay in an institution, The Betty Ford Clinic to be exact. I totally spazzed right there, and
as soon as the chat was over I was jumping up and down like some psychotic Sci-Fi cheerleader. Sarah and the gang found me and screams of “You pegged it!” rang out over that spot. While not pegging it exactly, it's pretty damn cool that psychotic babblings at 2 am could be that close--especially where Farscape is concerned. Yeah, I still don't trust the Mother Memories in Won't Get Fooled Again. I know Dixie Carter is out there somewhere polishing up her flask to play Mama Crichton and whack Kent McCord upside the head for never being around while John Boy was growing up. Hear me Kemper? I want it, and if the casting
couch is open I think we can work out a deal.

The costume contest came next, with hilarious performances by Ticker as Chiana and her accomplice Truthie as John in Aquaria garb complete with what looked like Sebastian the Lobster [The Little Mermaid] on the end of a spear. We even had a PK/Nebari hybrid that was in a band with Scorpius…I thought it all sounded a bit like Spinal Tap…but then I've never seen the movie. But I still think of it that way. Frelling hilarious y'all.

Then came the next chat with Wayne Pygram, Lani Tupu, and Brian Henson. Wayne apparently came out before he was supposed to but we got a very nice shot of his leather clad legs anyway. I know I was among those that were quite weirded out to be thudding over
Scorpius… Natalie and I decided to bite the bullet and ask Wayne if we could call him Dadoo. While waiting in line we had Sarah come over and spaz out a bit more about talking to Brian Henson. I hugged her and told her it would be all right. I swear, I’m not a huggy person. In my book most forms of physical contact are *bad*, so being all affectionate at the Cons is something new and frankly weird for me. Anyway, Natalie and I finally get up to ask our “question” after working out who should say what part. Well, Wayne got freaked we were told later, [Hello, Yoda Sentence Construction!] so I went into Competent Mode and proceeded to
give an all too brief explanation of the whole Dadoo thing.

[One day we on the Shippers List heard that Wayne had accidentally scared some kid on set while he was in his Scorpy get up. Somehow that got mixed up between Natalie and Kathe with
the Animaniacs episode where the Warner kids called Death with a Swedish Accent “Dadoo”, and it greatly annoyed him. <snerk> See, out in the Real Uncharted Territories of the Farscape Fandom where the List resides, the water is a tad funky… The rest is history.]

Next thing I remember Claudia Black was up on screen. The character of Aeryn has been on my hero’s list since October, but after this weekend, Claudia has solidified her position on the list as well. She's just the picture of poise and charm, humour and *gasp* even sarcasm, and that all shines through this incredibly beautiful external package. She's truly someone I admire.

And her goofy little counterpart, Ben Browder, showing up with a very sexy half tribble on his face was freaking awesome. He just bounded in and plopped himself down on the couch. I swear there was an audible sigh when he did that. This was about the time that I really wish the cast had been able to come to the Con, just so I could laugh at Ben's antics with him in the same room. I never really thought about it before, but I'm having a love affair with a show and it's cast. It all got summed up during that chat that I knew I had found a great little home for myself among these people called Scapers, and that I never want to leave.

Okay, enough of being verkelmpt…

The time from primping had come. Primping. NOT Pimping! Natalie and I donned our duds for the banquet and dance after kicking Nick out of the room. I made Nat do my eyes up with the red eye shadow [so I looked rather like a refugee from Thriller all night] and strapped myself into the Dade County Shoes [three inch pewter blue Kenneth Cole heels] but with all this primping, we were late meeting up with Sarah, Kelly and Paulie so the two of us booked it through the lobby with wedding guests starring on. Oh c'mon when *weren't* they starring? I found that I could run in the heels a lot better than I could walk, and would employ this tactic for the rest of the night.

We were greeted by Shannon and Katie, arms outstretched with the mother load of plastic lei's, and looking absolutely adorable as always. I normally don't like kids, even though they seem to
*love* me, but all these Scaper kids were the exception. A totally great bunch all of them. Robert was doing his best Lounge Lizard act. Just kidding Robert, but we seriously need to get you one of those giant brandy snifters to stick on top the piano for next year... I initially sat down with Corde, Tinka, Cristin, Wade and John before Natalie “forcefully” spirited me away to eat at the DRD table. It wasn't without its perks, we got to eat first and I got to meet yet more fabu people. Hee. Tinka came by a couple of times to deliver odd little notes and threats that
Corde was going to have a breakdown if the UberHormone didn't return pronto. We watched Sarah's vids and I'm proud to admit that I spaz for Sarah's vids, c'mon, it's canon in Sarah's vids
that Larraq isn't dead! I have to love it. Plus she's got John strutting on the PK base. I'm continually surprised that I don't dissolve into a puddle of hormonal goo at that scene. Later, I
rejoined Corde and Co. at their table for desert and then we all just kinda migrated over to the DRD table as the dance kicked off. Heather's brother, Josh, did a great job with the music...the proof is plain to see because I got my white girl ass out there to dance for five songs. Not the entire length of the songs, pshaw. No, my method is to get out there for thirty seconds or so, and then once I've completely exhausted my repertoire of moves, then hightail it off the dance floor and sit my ass down. It's more fun watching anyway.

Aileen and I decided to get our Sloe Comfortable Screws to honor Lin and just chalk up another point on the ScaperCon double entendre tally. Too bad they didn't have didn't have any sloe gin
so we had to settle for amaretto sours. This worked out well because later in the evening, Corde got drunk off the cherry from my drink. Tinka pulled me over to see the results, and I had to expound with more Quote List fodder, “"It's one fucking cherry, Corde!"

The dance broke up and everyone went their separate ways. Natalie went our to our little room on the outskirts of Sodom and changed before heading back up to Gigi's room. We sat around, I ate Cookie Monster Cookies [I think. Something like that.], Gigi damn near beat the computer trying to get directions so Josh could drive home, and someone spilled something on the night stand leading me to fly around the room with one sandal on looking…well, Liz said it was cute…I was thinking more insane and pathetic. Heh.

After watching a bit of the tape from that afternoon Natalie and I finally left around three. But the fun doesn't stop there folks! Noo, we're all in bed and ready to get some of this new
fangled thing called *sleep* when we get Natalie going on the subject of makeup. She proceeds to do Nicks colors [him moaning all the while. <snerk>] and then mine. Maybe it's not all that funny, but shit, at four in the morning everything takes on a whole new cast.

All in all, an apt way to end the first official day of the first official ScaperCon.
 
 

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