Conday Too

Woke up after 10. This is a very comfortable hotel - I'm sleeping longer and deeper than I am at home, and with more structured dreams. Though I can't remember any details.
When I tried to charge a couple of Cokes to my room, the front desk said there was no one in that room. They would not listen to me about the two reservations, and we had quite a 3 Stooges thing going with two desk clerks and a trainee, before one of them figured out that I was  supposed to have been given paperwork for the 2nd reservation to sign. It took about 15 minutes.

I caught Anne's concert, a few minutes late, I think she did one number with the harp which I missed, the rest was on guitar. She's always enjoyable.

Then up to the top floor for the luncheon. In theory they had sold out, but there were several empty seats - two at my table. We had Bill & Carole & Harold & filkerferenghi & Neil & lemmozine. The food did not impress me, except for the cheesecake.

We were given a stupid phrase and an unrelated word for the seeds of our instafilk song. I was uninspired. Bill & Lem had something going but it did not click for me. Carole wrote her own, which was pretty close to what I had in mind. Then only thing I could see doing with the stupid phrase was make it into a chant refrain, which is what she did.

There were a lot of good entries, a lot of it had to do with the luck of the draw of seed words. Every table had enough talent.

Twofers, which I love to go to, only got one sign-up, because they had it opposite Tony & Vixy. It could easily have been moved up an hour when T&V sound check was going on. T&V did an excellent concert as usual, but I was disappointed they did not play emerald green.

Riverfolk was next, and contrary to what their name sounded like, they did an all-filk set. I loved what they did with Popsicle Girl. The sign language signers were a total hoot in that one. Interfilk auction, as usual, went higher than I wanted to pay for everything, but that's good, they need the money, Unlike the BASFA auction, Interfilk bidders bid high to help fund the operation.

I wasn't going to the songbook singalong, which gave me time to take light rail to Othello Street for dinner. Unfortunately the one and only Chinese place was closed for a private party. I stopped in at Safeway for cough drops and donettes, then found an upstairs Pho place, which had a really good #8. $7 for dinner. $4.50 rail fare.

Back to the hotel in time for Talis Kimberly, except that something was seriously wrong with the sound system, or so they told us, and it started more than an hour late. Not cool.

I had never heard Talis in person, but had heard many covers of her songs. In person she is a perky, energetic performer, but I didn't understand hardly any of her songs. I hear the words, they don't make sense to me. It happens, especially when the writer is a fan of some book series I'm not interested in.

Toastmonster hsifyppah killed. It was so good to have her awesomeness there again. She had a lot of new material, and closed with what is already a filk classic. She did not do my favorite song of hers, but I wouldn't have either, under the circumstances. It was really neat when she called her mother-in-law (stand-up bass) and father-in-law (guitar) up on stage.

I wasn't sure if I would like the GoH concert by Brenda & Bill Sutton, so I went to my room and pulled it up on streaming. There were enough buffer under-runs to make that not enjoyable so I went back to the concert room and listened. They did more filk than I expected, but much of it was heavy. Not my favorite music, but they are good musicians.

I think I'll go down to open filking for a little while.

Plans for tomorrow:
Breakfast at the hotel
Two-fers II if I'm fed in time (10)
Song writing contest
Lunch break maybe at the con suite, or maybe hike up to 7-11 (and use the cash machine)
Concerts/panels as the mood strikes
Band scramble
farewell jam
sharps & flats
supper - Maybe go downtown again.

DayTree

Third and last day of the con. Slept till 10 again. By the time I got to the two-fers, they were done. Not much interest in 10 am by the performers. Songwriting contest started late - apparently an hour was not enough time for the concert sound checks. The contest had three entries, the theme was "red" and two of the entries were about red ink markup. Creed's song I liked best, he ran through a cornucopia of what red meant, ending with a stop sign. Abrupt ending FTW.

Walked to 7-11 for lunch, but more for the free ATM. It is up a very steep hill, and it was raining and windy. I am so glad I brought my Seahawks stadium jacket and gloves. Got a couple of hot dogs and some chips. Brought them back to the hotel to eat.

Concerts were half an hour late, but panels/stuff in the small room were on time. Saw the Betsy Tinney concert, which was interesting. She accompanied herself (on cello) on a looper.  Skipped the next concert to go to Talis Kimberly's A Capella Crafting Circle. I had not read the description, and thought it was a workshop on crafting a capella songs or singing. Turns out it was a knitting circle with people singing. I sang a song.

Back to concerts, a group called We're not Koi, which included Judy Miller on banjo and vocals instead of signing.

Next was Allegra Sloman, someone whose name I forget soon after I've seen her, but I always enjoy her music.

Band Scramble was a workshop in how not to organize microphones. 10 minutes each to balance sound. And after all that there is still buzz and low-level feedback. And musicians yelling that they can't hear themselves or an instrument in  the monitors. It shouldn't be this complicated. At least this time they had the mikes color coded and the jacks for instruments labeled.

The stage-left step had been rocky through the whole con, and should have been removed/replaced the first night, but wasn't, until this evening, when a cellist tripped, fell, and broke the head off the cello. Cellist says she is undamaged, and I hope that's true but it looked like there will be bruises, at least. A collection was started for the repair of the instrument, but something like this has to be covered in the con's liability. If the step was provided by the hotel, then they should be on the hook for it too.

Skipped the farewell jam, as things have tended to be more ose than I want at a fun con, and walked in the rain and wind half a mile to 13 Coins for dinner. The first time I went there was when it was new, 1967 or 1968, it is open 24 hours which was unheard of back then, and it's definitely high end. I had planned to sit at the counter, which has swiveling high-back seats which sort of wrap around, but when I sat down there was no leg room, so I switched to a table in the lounge.

Service was very slow, even though there were only two other tables occupied. I got to listen to two blondes gossiping about their friend who had to get a restraining order against some stalker or husband, while I waited to order.

No clam chowder. What kind of high class NW restaurant does not have clam chowder? Boo. Hiss. Settled for cream of mushroom, which was luke warm when I got it. However, the antipasto and sourdough bread made up for it. Ordered the crab Louie. It took 20 minutes, and was a minimalist version. Two lettuce leaves supported a glob of crab meat, recently liberated from its can. A weak 1,000 island dressing was drizzled over it. I should have asked for dressing on the side. Also on the plate were two artichoke hearts which had seen fresher days, two halves of a hard boiled egg from the fridge, maybe a week old. And four quarters of a small heirloom tomato. And two halves of a small lemon.

It tasted okay, but was not worth the highly inflated price. Hot fudge sundae for dessert was pretty good.

Back into the storm, but the rain had mostly stopped and the wind was at my back. Halfway to the hotel I passed all the con guests of honor apparently bound for where I had been.

Back to my room just to hang up my coat, then down to the smoked salmon filk. There was some entertainment to be had, but then a lot of strident stuff, and a lot of people banging drums which made it hard for me to hear the words.

I'd been checking my webcams all day and had not seen either cat, at all. Not too alarming, since they both have favorite spots to plunk down out of camera range. Finally found them both, Pumpkin curled up against the big water bowl, Domino on the bed near the pillows.

Left at about 9:30 so I could write this and get to bed at a reasonable hour.

It was a fun con, and maybe I'll go again next year. One perk is bluesmancd will be Toast next year. It was wonderful seeing him at the con, he's been through way too much foo the past couple of years, and I love the way he plays guitar, especially when he gets roped into playing backup at a moment's notice.

Plans for tomorrow:
If I'm up in time for breakfast, I'll have that in the hotel, and with luck lemmozine will be there too.
Pack
Check-out at noon
Flight at 4 pm, so lunch & hang out at the airport