Trying to fill the unforgiving minute ...

How Sheepdog Trials Relate to Practical Farm Work

2011-12-06T21:20:00.000-08:00

.
This is what our dogs are all about. Thanks, ABCA, for producing such a lovely and informative video. :)

For a Good Dog

2011-12-03T22:57:00.000-08:00

.
A friend of mine recently suffered a tragic loss. Perhaps some day she'll see this. Perhaps she won't want to. But it awoke an old pain in me, for a dog I lost before I got Nick. Today, these words just wanted to come out.
.

~ * ~

This morning I awoke and you were still –
No. I can't say the word,
So brutal, so final, so damning.
But you were not
There as the sun rose,
Your fleet form racing across the fields,
Red tongue lolling,
Laughing
At me, mud-bound in my human form.
The others know you are gone.
There is a space among their furry, gently-swirling bodies
That they do not touch.
Where you should be.
What if. If only.
If only I had been
Wiser
Quicker
Omnipotent.
If only I could stave off Death by the sheer force of my will.
My anguish.
My need/wish/want to undo just one moment,
One fractional instant of time,
And have you
Back.
Your silken head under my hand.
Your bright eyes at my feet,
Shining in the grass,
Laser-leveled at the sheep who speak (spoke)
To the silent, siren calling of your blood.
I try not to look at the places where
You
Are not.
At the void you once filled
With the vibrant, joyful Is-ness of your being.
But that would mean
Not looking
At those who curl around my legs,
Caress my hands with damp tongues,
Trying, in their way, to
Touch me.
If only the corroding tears could
Blind me to your absence.
The shards of my heart
Grate together like broken bones.

~ For J. E.
.
© G. M. Atwater
At Mountain House, 30 November 2011
.

Season's end

2011-10-23T21:02:00.000-07:00

.
This morning I walked my garden and little fields with a cat the color of autumn, and I bid farewell to summer's last, brave blossoms.
.

Autumn draws nigh ....

2011-10-04T10:12:00.000-07:00

.
Fall is truly here. I see it in the lanky stems of flowers, squeezing out their last, desperate blooms, and in the chilly shadows that lengthen beneath the trees. The mornings are crisp like apple skins and thin clouds cruise the sky, scout ships for the winter storms to come.

.

Happy Birthday, Jesse. You are a Very Good Dog.

2011-02-14T21:20:00.000-08:00

.
Today is the 12th birthday of my good ol' dog, Jesse. It's hard when the good un's grow old.

But it's good to look back on our long journey together. We first met Jesse, then known as "Whip," 10 years ago, when we worked one of several summers at Reds Meadow Pack Station. "Whip" then belonged to one of the other mule packers, but sadly spent most of his time tied to a tree. The guy had got "Whip" from the breeder as partial payment on a horseshoeing bill, but this guy really didn't know what to do with an active young border collie. If "Whip" got loose, he just ran. And then he got caught and went back to his tree.

We felt sorry for the poor pooch and soon realized that this was actually a pretty nice dog. A fellow employee's young daughter would take him for walks on leash, and I'd see "Whip" walking perfectly at heel beside this little blond girl, a lovely picture. Someone, thought I, has spent some time with this dog, and it's certain it wasn't his present owner.

Long story short, we finally talked "Whip's" owner into letting us take him, because the guy really had no attachment to or understanding of the dog. In the hand-off, we learned who the dog's breeder was and best of all, we learned his real name: Jesse. The first time we called him by that name, Jesse literally frolicked. You know me, you know me!

And so he came to live with us. Oh, I didn't really plan to keep Jesse. I just couldn't stand to see him living tied to a tree, and anyhow, we already had 4 dogs. Maybe I could find a nice agility or flyball home for him. Right? But when we got back to civilization, I took him to my sheepdog trainer, Sandy Moore, for an instinct test.

"I sure hope he doesn't herd," I told her, just before I went in the arena. "We really don't need another dog."

But Fate had its own designs. Jesse tested brilliantly. Two years old and never having never seen a sheep, he was a natural. Beautiful flanks, lovely shape to his movements ... I looked at Sandy in something like despair, and she laughed at me. She's kept right on laughing for all these past ten years. ;)

Still, the road wasn't easy. As a rescue, Jesse had some "issues." His previous owner hadn't been fair in his dealings, and it took little to shatter Jesse's confidence. Too much pressure, too harsh a voice and Jesse would quit the sheep and bolt for safety beside the nearest friend. At one point he developed a positive phobia of a certain training field, the cause of which I never discerned, but it was six months before I could get him to set foot back in that field.

It didn't help that I was still struggling to learn the myriad subtleties of stockdog training, and heaven knows the many mistakes I made along the way. The progress we made was, in very large part, due the intrinsic magic of Jesse's heart. He stuck by me, I stayed with him, and together we learned and grew as a working team.

I can't begin to point out the place or time where Jesse became a Very Good Dog. For the longest time, I was surprised by our successes, and even more surprised when we repeated them. In ASCA trials and AHBA trials, and even one USBCHA Novice-Novice trial, Jesse and I brought in the wins. When we weren't trialing, we were stockhandling for trials, and at every chance we helped friends with livestock chores, whether vaccinating lambs or moving cows to summer range.

Somewhere along the line, that unsure, worried dog became my rock, and the dog that folks around me knew they could count on. If a green handler needed someone to outfield their sheep, Jesse was our man. If a cranky ewe or recalcitrant wether needed its nose pinched, a flash of Jesse's teeth did the job. If sheep escaped a young dog's control, I could send Jesse racing off over the ditches and hills to fetch the woolly rascals back.

And somewhere along the line, I think Jesse taught me more than I ever taught him. The measure and magic of a Very Good Dog were my lesson this decade past, and I am blessed to have been the student in this class of one.

Oh, out there in the world of Big Hats, my Jesse may not amount to much. He's never done a 600-yard outrun, never set foot on so much as a Pro-Novice course. I honestly don't know if he would have made an Open dog, at all. His stops aren't great, his outruns are tight, and on his lifts he tends to slice at the top. (All of those a product of my imprecise training.) He's an upright, loose-eyed, not very stylish dog, and his bloodlines aren't remarkable at all. But if you needed a chore done on the ranch or farm, Jesse and I could saddle up and get 'er done. To me, that's been what counts.

At 12 years old, he still wants to work. He's showing his age, finally, in the grizzling on his face, the faint cloudiness in his eyes, and his hindquarters are getting weak. The chiropractor is also now his friend, given the way he throws himself about with the younger dogs. But he still wants to work, and I still find things for him to do. I'll keep making work for him until he shows me he simply can't.

Because he is my Jesse, my partner and friend, and he is my Very Good Dog. Happy birthday, you funny old man. I love you and I'll love you forever.

~ Gloria
Mountain House
14 February 2011

ODE TO A SHEEPDOG

2010-11-11T11:26:00.000-08:00

When he leaves me
in his thundering stride,
I watch in very awe,
For he is a black javelin soaring, racing,
Flung from ages past.
On and on and up, he flies,
Until reaching the top, where he turns,
Eyes golden and fever-bright,
And a discussion is had:
“Move, I command thee.”
“Why should we, fanged beast?”
“Because this is the order of things,” he replies.
And the ewes turn and flow towards me,
Little round women in woolen skirts
And their knees flash in sunlight as they come.
I am almost loath to intrude
With my shrill human commands,
For he heeds the call of his blood,
Which whispers from windy hills and fells half a world away.
But when we are done and I whistle him to me,
He comes loping, galloping, joyous
For love of me and what we are together.
And from the long, cool shadows of time,
His forbears watch,
Red tongues lolling in approval.

© G. M. Atwater

11 Nov 2010
Mountain House, Nevada

.

Reflections on the Me I Used to Be

2010-10-14T17:30:00.000-07:00

The date stamped on the photo is January 1969, but the summer setting tells us it's 1968. This is the most perfect snapshot of my childhood I have ever seen.

In the photo are my brother, my mom and me. Dad is the one behind the camera. In the background is our 1961 Ford Fairlane and the house we rented at Lake Tapps in Washington State. Mom is wearing one of her favorite sleeveless dresses and I'm in Sunday clothes, so we're either going to or have just come back from church. You can see my shiny black shoes that, if I struck my heels down hard enough, went "click-clack" on linoleum floors like the grownup ladies' shoes. The only thing missing is my dad's old dog, Suzy, who's probably in the house.

My brother looks like he's ready for a nap. I look like I want to get in my play clothes so I can go skin my other knee. He's three and I am six.

In those days, the scattered houses around Lake Tapps were mainly summer homes, though there were a few year-round residents like us. Our place wasn't really built for winters, evidenced by the "poink-poink" of water dripping into mom's Revere Ware pans during heavy rains. The couch in the living room faced those big windows, and when storms boomed and lashed outside, mom would sit with my brother and I snuggled safe to each side.

Behind the house are the woods where I played and my imagination took wings. Mom and dad used to bring us on guided nature walks in the national parks and forests, and I took those lessons to heart. In these woods, I spent hours foraging for things to eat. Blackberries, salal berries, Oregon grapes, wild huckleberries, thimble berries and also wild hazelnuts. Mom would wonder why I came in for dinner and had little appetite. I collected rocks and sticks and snail shells, and kept chunks of moss on styrofoam meat trays, because the moss looked like little green lawns in a miniature world. I still recall the spice of fallen leaves and the warm, herbal fragrance of bracken ferns.

In the summers, we'd pile into that Ford Fairlane (licence plate OSC 712) and the back seat was as big as a ball field. My brother and I would jostle and elbow, amuse ourselves with books and games, and play "slug-bug" on the long drives to see Grandma and Grandpa, or to visit some train depot my model-railroading dad wanted to see. Mom packed picnic lunches of cold chicken, pressed ham sandwiches, jello salad and apples.

1968 was a period of tumult, but I knew nothing of the times, of the Tet Offensive, the Chicago riots or the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King. Still, I think kids sense a world in upheaval. My dad had left the Methodist ministry a year before, moving us out of the little Victorian parsonage in Orting (the one with the slippery oak banister on the stairs) to this house. Dad struggled to find work, for a time selling Fuller Brush products door-to-door. I loved his sample case, with its exotic soapy scents and gizmos for grooming the well-dressed man.

Here I also remember my mom and dad first arguing over money worries. Then old Suzy dog became ill and dad took her down to the vet. He returned home later that day, alone. Mom and I were shattered. I don't think she ever forgave dad for that. Some while after Suzy died, I acquired two imaginary dogs, redbone hounds whose names I forget. (Whether I precociously read "Where the Red Fern Grows" at age seven, I can't recall. Maybe dad read it to me.)

We were only in this house two or three years, but somehow living here left an indelible mark in me. For years after we left, I had nightmares of returning to find my woods cut down, replaced by modern houses. Of course those dreams have decades since come true. Today, my brother is a deeply troubled soul, estranged and divorced from us. Mom and dad are in assisted living and dad will be 90, soon. I am for all purposes an only child.

To find this photo in storage almost 42 years later has been bittersweet and a little disconcerting. I hold in my hands a near-perfect window back in time. I'm happy where I stand today. Life is good. But I can't help the pang of melancholy this image brings. Where, indeed, do the days go? It is well we cannot look into the face of a child and see where the storms of life may blow them.

Pax ~

Gloria

Musings on that Authonomy experiment

2010-05-28T18:34:00.000-07:00

So, away back in December I posted about joining an online writers' group called Authonomy. Hosted by Harper Collins, the idea seemed to be that aspiring new authors could share their works, get feedback and offer con-crit, and together vote the most worthy works up the ranks to reach the HC "Editors Desk." Each month, a top few - I never kept track of how many - got a professional review from the editors.

Pretty nice, I reckon. The thing is, I found the game has to be played a certain, rather aggressive way. In short, the people whose books made it up the rankings are those who can read and "back" (i.e. vote for) a bazillion books, themselves, and thus earn a bazillion reciprocal backings in return. If one does as I do and merely reads the books that grabs them, backs/supports the books that seem exceptional and goes along at a sedate and sensible pace ... they will see the ambitious rank-climbers whiz right on by.

I got my book up to the mid-400s over several weeks' time only to watch another young writer, I think her book was called "Relics," rocket right past me as if I were sitting on my thumbs. Her writing was good. Her book was worthy. But I watched in chagrin as she managed to back enough books to entice others to back/vote for hers by the dozen, and she made it look effortless. Unfortunately for me, I'm just not able to read and back a squillion books a day, because that's apparently what it took. Quantity mattered, and I just can't read that way. I can't support a book that way, because it would either mean I backed a book on little or no consideration other than whether the author had backed my own, or I just backed books, willy-nilly, at a manic pace and hoped the authors would reciprocate.

I'm too pedantic, too exacting, or maybe just too un-ambitious to play the game. Or maybe getting to the Editors' Desk failed to mean that much to me. What I REALLY wanted was good, honest, constructive criticism that would help me shape my book into marketable form. And ... I got that. I did. I met some lovely people of keen and discerning tastes who offered invaluable critique. I'm grateful for that.

I think what I'm sad about is that a point came where it seemed the people looking at my book, however nice and generous, were only looking at the first three chapters. They'd glance at it, back it and that was that. I'd hit a ceiling on the con-crit and found it all boiling back down to that race for the Editors' Desk.

Well, I had to give it up. Bottom line is, whatever the system's flaws, I simply could not be as invested in the place as "success" there seems to require. Authonomy started off a different animal and just in the time I was active there, I saw things change. Sock puppet accounts, blind reciprocal backing, spamming to get votes/backing ... the site may have once been more of an honest con-crit site, but newcomers changed it and not in a way I could accept.

Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of nice people there and some extremely talented writers. People whose books I hope to see on a bookstore shelf one day, because I'd buy those suckers in a heartbeat. There's talent there, quality and class. But the system itself was subject to abuse and there is a facet of humanity that will always look for the main chance.

So, I'll take the kindnesses I received, the critiques I got, the encouragement that blessed my endeavors there and count it as part of my learning experience as a writer.

But I won't count it as any measure of how things work in the "real" world of writing towards publication. There's no way to cheat a literary agent's slush pile and no way to fudge the submission process. I've still got all my hard work ahead of me.

However, I've at least got the lovely assurance that people out there, strangers, did find my writing of merit. And that's no small thing. It's no small thing at all. I'll hope it will sustain me when I take that deep breath and slip off into the sea of manuscript submissions once more. It's gonna be a long solo swim. ;-)

I've been everywhere, man ... :-)

2010-01-14T01:15:00.000-08:00

Create your own travel map or travel blog

TripAdvisor has airfare search

Thunking Writerly Thots

2009-12-26T20:44:00.000-08:00

Some while ago I joined a writers' website called Authonomy. It's hosted by Harper Collins and the premise is that aspiring writers post their manuscripts for critique by their fellow writers. Those few that get enough backing (read, become popular) are awarded with a visit to the HC editor's desk, for review. The rest try valiantly to learn from their peers and continue honing their writing and story-pitching skills.

It seems like a pretty good system: one gets live feedback from actual human beings, learns to take and give good critique, and hopefully benefits from hearing about the flaws and strengths of their work. I've just gotten active over there in the last two or three weeks, and it's interesting.

But there's a side of it that I find frankly ... weird. Mind, I have yet to post a manuscript there, though I plan to by or at the first of the year. But amidst the drive to reach the Editors' Desk and climb the ratings chart, there is a culture of self-promotion that I don't think I'll ever find personally comfortable. People pounce on each other with read requests and/or offers of read-swaps like a convention of door-to-door salesmen. I'm not sure how anybody even finds me, amongst the hundreds of members there, but they do, and almost daily I receive requests to read and back someone's book.

Which is fine, but sometimes it's so out of the blue, I just ... don't know what to say. Why me? What makes this person think I would make a good reader for their topic of choice? Another quandary is that I'm apparently a picky reader. Sometimes the writing is perfectly fine, but the story just doesn't grab me. Sometimes the story might be okay ... but the author and punctuation are not friends. (Do they have a volunteer proofreader's pool, there?) And sometimes the writing, the story, everything, is just ... not something I would look at for three seconds in a book store.

Suddenly I have vast and growing sympathy for what agents and publishers must experience. The worry here is that, on Authonomy, I have to consider that I'm going to want my book read and critiqued, so I can't be too much of a snob, or nobody will give me the time of day!

Oy. I don't know if I'm clever enough to play the game, over there. But I'll do my best, and try to be fair and kind, and if I really can't get my teeth into someone's book, I hope they'll forgive me if I decline to read. I feel I would rather say a polite and kindly, "No, thank you," than try to read and end up blathering some response that would help them not at all.

Well, that's half an hour I'll never see again. Back to working on my long pitch for my book. The end of the year is only days away ...

Once More to the Dogs

2009-12-03T17:18:00.000-08:00

It's very rarely indeed, that we can point to any single person and say, "That person changed my life."

Oddly enough, only tonight it dawns on me, I know two such persons. Those people are my sheepdog trainer/instructor, Sandy Moore, and her good blue dog, "Mister."

My hubby and I moved into this area just over ten years ago, from a ranch in San Diego County. I'd had one winter's sheepdog lessons with my dog, Della, through a trainer down there, and I wanted to continue my training. So, I asked around to see if any stockdog trainer existed in the Carson Valley. This led me to Sandy - and to her constant companion, Mister.

Mister was one of Heaven's fortuitous accidents, a chance breeding between a Belgian Sheepdog and an Australian Shepherd. He was an only pup, and he chose Sandy just as much as Sandy chose him. When I met him, Mister was about 3 years old, a tall, confident, handsome rascal with an intelligent face and bright, wise eyes. Over the years, I got used to pulling into the yard and having him appear at my truck door, wanting to know who I'd brought and if I had any spare cookies. He was a constant fixture on every lesson day, and probably knew us all by name.

Mister was, in all the best ways, the lord of the manor. There on the ranch where Sandy trained, Mister was her hired hand. Sorting sheep, offering backup to inexperienced young dogs, standing patiently at the gate while Sandy worked with her students, he seemed for all the world as if he were supervising affairs. In his mind, he probably was.

The Blue Dog made an indelible impact not only on his human friends, but also sometimes on their dogs. Mister taught my boy, Jesse, his social graces: how to hang out and chill, how to wait one's turn. He also influenced Jesse in unexpected ways. All on his own, without my teaching, Jesse learned from Mister how to bring sheep out of a heavily crowded pen by crawling in under them. Jesse also learned from Mister the peculiar knack of shouldering sheep, particularly lambs, to get them moving, rather than using his teeth.

As a stock dog, Mister was amazing. I've seen with my own eyes how he could grab an uncooperative sheep and, without drawing blood, just slam the darned thing to the ground. When the sheep got up, Mister would simply stand there, watching, and sure enough, the sheep would do as Mister wanted. I've seen him go after a cow with every fang bared, and I've seen him nudging wobbly little lambs along, ever so gently. He was Sandy's partner, her friend and right hand, and more faithful than any human could be.

As Mister grew older, often he and my Jesse would stand at a fence together, quietly watching others work and undoubtedly exchanging notes. Thanks to Sandy, training and working my sheepdogs became my great passion. Thanks to Mister, Jesse became a true gentleman of a dog. Together, Sandy and Mister helped shape a very large part of my life, and I cannot imagine my world without their influence in it.

Sadly, I must now imagine a world without Mister in it. Last Tuesday, that grand old man, that good old Blue Dog, went on ahead to fields that our feet cannot yet tread. I've said enough farewells, in this past year, to know well the grief of losing a canine friend. But Mister was something extraordinary, a personage whose like but seldom comes along. He left his paw prints large in so many lives and so many hearts, but no one will mourn him as deeply as Sandy. My circle of friends is diminished by one, and while I know he is at last free of pain and weakness and the infirmities of age ... I'll miss him.

I'll miss him.

I leave the final words for Mister's passing in the form of a quote from Sandy herself:
"He seemed neither old nor young. The character of his strength lay in his eyes. They looked as old as the hills and as young as the wild. I never tired of looking at them."
~ John Muir

Mister -- Born: March 17, 1996 -- Passed: Dec 1, 2009

Good night, old friend.

.

I Measure My Life in Dog Years

2009-07-29T15:03:00.001-07:00

In 1983, I met the man I would one day marry. In 1984, we got our first dog.

We acquired Cub as an 8-week-old puppy, while visiting a friend who was Animal Control officer in the tiny town of Bridgeport, CA. He got a call someone found a dog at the dump, but it turned out to be a fat, healthy Australian shepherd pup - with a tail. When the pup cried in her kennel, I took her in my lap where she fell right to asleep. When it came time to leave, our friend said, "Well, you three better go on home."

Cub became our constant companion for the next eleven years. She was beautiful to behold, black and tan with a blue merle collar around her neck, copper on her cheeks and eyebrows, and a glorious plume for a tail. Yet however eye-catching her appearance, (and people often remarked) it was her spirit that shined the most. As a puppy, Cub was silly, happy, and playful. As an adult, she was silly, happy and filled with the joy of life. She could put timid dogs at ease, soothe dominant dogs' anxieties, and she greeted everyone she ever met with a beaming, loose-tongued smile.

This beautiful girl accompanied us on countless miles while we rode cattle ranges and mountain trails. She had almost no skills as a herding dog, but she was a splendid trail dog, tireless and wise, and she did have one great skill. Cub could bark a herd of cows out of a willow thicket like nobody's business, and she wouldn't quit until the last one came out.

We honestly had no idea how extraordinary she was, as a physical type. We thought it normal to ride 15 to 40 miles a day and Cub would not only keep up, but she would almost double the mileage. Yet when we brought her in for vet checks, the vets would sometimes call in their assistants to admire Cub's iron-hard musculature, or the rawhide toughness of her feet. She was just our dog, our partner and pal, who loved playing stick and chasing balls, going swimming, pouncing after fish in the streams, and following the wild trails with us.

In all, Cub lived the perfect dog's life. She never knew a chain, rarely felt a leash, and lived a life of near-total canine freedom on the cattle ranges and amongst the peaks. We lost Cub to illness in October of 1995, and our vet wept with us, as he administered his final mercy.

We got our next dog the following year, ostensibly as a companion for Nikki, the spaniel-border collie rescue we'd acquired along the way, who fell into depression after Cub's passing. Born on St. Patrick's Day, 1996, Della was a Border Collie-Aussie mix from a rancher friend's breeding. Della proved to be a worthy successor to Cub, a delightful personality full of bounce, happiness, and playfulness and she absolutely lived to be with us. She was not much of a working dog, either, but who cared? Della filled our lives with joy and laughter.

However, poor Nikki never recovered from the loss of her mate, and refused to have a thing to do with Della. So, we bought Dolly from the same breeder in 1997, a puppy for our puppy.

Though full sisters, Dolly was Della's opposite in almost every way. The only things they really had in common were parents, pointed ears, and black-and-white coats. Dolly was serious, oh, so serious, and had a poker face, to boot. Oh, she'd play and chase sticks and loved a game of tug-of-war, but she did these things with a powerful sense of competition. Dolly ruled the back of the pickup truck and when strangers came to our gate, she'd stand off and eye them with a cool lupine stare that could mean anything or nothing at all.

As with Cub, Della and Dolly were our companions of the trail, logging innumerable miles in the Sierra Nevada Mountains and on ranches in southern Cali and Nevada. They proved a good team on cattle, a one-two punch that convinced most cows to get a move on, and together, they bolstered each other's confidence. Dolly was tough as an old used boot, one time colliding with Della at full speed, whilst they both went after the same cow. Dolly hit her sister hard enough to crack one shoulder blade, and she tumbled on impact, but came up screaming - mad as hell and trying to catch and eat that cow on only three legs. Dolly healed up just fine, though, and continued on her butch and stoic career.

Della retired herself from herding at about age 8, just lying down in an arena one day when Dolly brought in a group of sheep. Della only worked to please us, not because it was her calling in life, and she thought it much better to stay home and play pampered house pet.

However, our lifestyle changed and we only cowboyed or packed mules part time, and the sisters settled gracefully into retirement. We lost Dolly on December 8, 2008, a victim of lymphoma. The doctors gave her 2-3 months to live. The tough old thing stuck it out for almost 5.

Nor can we forget Rose, my first purebred Border Collie. She was born on Easter Sunday, April 12, 1998, from a nice pair of working dogs owned by our good friend, Chris Rigali. We were packing mules in the Sierras in those days, so Rose kind of grew up like a canine Tom Sawyer, playing with our older dogs, chasing squeaky critters, and rolling in whatever stinky stuff she could find. By six months old, she was going up the trail with us, a little black coyote slinking among the rock slides and flying across the alpine meadows.

I found a sheepdog trainer here in Gardnerville when Rose was about 10 months, but ... I had me a bit of trouble. Our sweet, fluffy, mild-mannered Rose turned out to be a Tasmanian devil on sheep: driven, direct, independent, hard-willed and way too much dog for me. My trainer did the best she could, but I simply lacked the skills to manage a dog as tough and headstrong as Rose. Then at about age 3 and a half, she had a fall, injured her hip - and X-rays revealed she had severe hip dysplasia. She'd held herself together this far by little more than muscle tone and willpower.

Our vet performed a femoral ostectomy, but Rose never recovered to 100%. Eventually, I had to concede that my tough little girl's career as a sheepdog was essentially over. It broke my heart, and I've never shed the idea that somehow, I failed her. I should have been more careful; I should have known something was wrong before she got hurt. But Rose lived out her days as our beloved friend, as quiet and gentle at home as she was hell on wheels with sheep.

We lost Rose to cancer just this June, four months after Dolly.

Now ... we look at one more loss. Tomorrow at 4:00 p.m., we send our sweet, cute, funny little Della beyond the Rainbow Bridge. That's easier to say than that we're hauling her down to be killed. I don't know if it's three deaths so close together, or if it's the fact she's the eldest of the three, but this time is so much harder.

Della is terminally ill. They first diagnosed her with a raging bladder infection, which we treated with medication and she seemed to recover. But within 4 days of finishing her meds, she began a steep decline, and stronger medications have done nothing at all. She's stopped eating, she's lost weight, she's weak, she sleeps 23 hours out of 24, and most of all, our loving little Velcro dog, who yips insistently if we shut her out of our sight, wants nothing but to be left alone. Last night, we brought Della upstairs to bed, but when we started turning out the lights, she just walked outside, went downstairs and spent the night out sleeping under the juniper bush that's become her den.

It's time. She's tired, she's sick, all that sparkle and joy is gone, and she's done. But I'm not ready, even if she is.

Oh, I still have Jesse, my brilliant Border Collie partner, who came to us as a rescue eight years ago and inadvertently filled the void Rose's lameness created. He turned 10 in February and while he's a bit slower these days, he still loves and lives to work sheep. We still have Scruffy, Tye's corgi-border collie rescue who, now at age 9, is pretty much Tye's shadow. Plus, I've young Nick, my gifted, beautiful border boy in whom I've placed such hopes. Further, I've put in for a pup, a full sister to Nick, whom I hope to get in early fall.

But when it comes to Della, I want to grab and hold her and weep into the fragrance of her fur, crying, "Not yet! Don't leave! Don't go!"

This time, for whatever reason, I'm not at all prepared to say goodbye. Maybe it's the history, the miles and the years. Maybe it's that we have loved her so well and so long. There will always be dogs in our life. Since Cub fell asleep in my lap twenty-five years ago, we can't imagine it any other way.

However, Kipling was not wrong when he wrote this verse, which I will leave with you:

We've sorrow enough in the natural way,
When it comes to burying Christian clay.
Our loves are not given, but only lent,
At compound interest of cent per cent.
Though it is not always the case, I believe,
That the longer we've kept 'em, the more do we grieve:
For, when debts are payable, right or wrong,
A short-term loan is as bad as a long--
So why in--Heaven (before we are there)
Should we give our hearts to a dog to tear?

~*~

Della - 17 March 1996 - 30 July 2009

Killing Your Poodles

2009-07-20T14:10:00.000-07:00

The thing about writing is this.

I love to write. I've always written. Voices, images, scenes and words have always whirled in my brain. Dialogue and characters tumble from my fingers, and when the Muse is really talking, I can barely do anything without a pen at hand. I'll have post-it notes stuck everywhere, I'll get up to scribble in the middle of the night, I'll be fumbling at stoplights with scraps of paper pinned to the steering wheel, trying to capture a thought before the light changes.

Sometimes I've even doodled on a pad on the truck seat beside me, whilst whizzing along at 60 miles per hour. But we won't talk about that. ;-)

Two things, however, often trip me up. Perseverance ... and editing. It's the latter I'm wrestling, now.

Editing is an evil necessity of writing, and one that can be hard to do. The initial phase is pretty much lumberjack work for me: get in there with an ax and chainsaw, and whack off large chunks of extraneous prose. That's not so hard, especially since I learned the trick of keeping an "Outtake File." If I have a scene or chunk of dialogue that's too precious to delete, I simply cut/paste it into a document in the Outtake File, where it can die a peaceful death by neglect.

The hard part, though ... is gearing up with the flashlight and SWAT gear to hunt down the other billionty excess words. This is the part that hurts. This is where I go after all those lovely, lovely turns of phrase and grind them into dust. This is where virtually everything that ends in "ly" goes spiraling into the dark, where commas cringe beneath the glare of spotlights to see if they're fraternizing with two many adjectives, where whole sentences whimper at knife point for fear of being found substandard and thereby marked for extinction.

I'm killing my poodles. And it sucks. Plus it's also friggin' tedious.

But it's necessary, because as anyone can tell, brevity ain't my strong point, and I never use one word where three or four will suffice. Funny thing is, when I started my current novel manuscript - at least two years ago - I initially prided myself at writing fast paced, sparing prose. Ha. That didn't last long. So, here I am, sharpening the knife once more.

Do I have a point to all this? No, not really. But I feel better for having vented/whined and slaughtered a few metaphors, and now I can get back to editing. Yeah, I really do have aspirations of becoming a published novelist one day, but I'm pretty sure there's faint chance of that, so long as my writing remains on my hard drive. ;-)

Okay, putting the infrared goggles back on. Wish me luck, I'm goin' in. ;-)
Cheers ~

Me

Looking Back ... an introspective

2009-06-13T16:54:00.000-07:00

Twenty years ago, northern Nevada came out of one of the coldest winters on record. Temps hit well below zero (-40 to -50) a foot of snow never melted, and barely an automobile ran that couldn't tolerate a cold start. At one point, the National Guard air-lifted hay to herds stranded on the Idaho range. That year, 1989, hubby and I worked for a million acre cow outfit, the IL Ranch in Elko County, Nevada. It was a bitter winter but spring came on like glory, with grass growing to the horses' knees, pools of lupines blooming on the hills, and the perfume of wild chokecherries filled the canyons as we rode.

1989 was also the year a remarkable TV mini-series aired: "Lonesome Dove." I remember the boys in the bunkhouse huddled each evening around that grainy little TV they had, and they'd debate the authenticity of every scene, every buckle and bullet, over meals in the cookhouse where I presided. Come spring, the chuck wagon rolled out, the cattle were moved to summer range, and hubby and I were stationed in an itty bitty camp trailer out in the middle of nowhere, bearing responsibility for a thousand yearling heifers.

We were younger then, and wild, and we had all the great, open range to claim as our own. Ranch headquarters was 70 miles from town, and if we rode anywhere out there, we went at a spanking trot. When we hit town, it was with all bells ringing, and oh, good lord, the hangovers. I loved that big country with all my soul, and if I'd tipped over dead one day whilst sitting horseback atop some windy ridge, I wouldn't have regretted it, nor lacked for a single thing.

Those were simpler days, and it's not just nostalgia that makes it so. Everything we owned fit in Tye's 1972 Ford F-250, which we fitted with a cabover camper shell and dubbed the "Ford Closet", and in my '73 Buick Skylark sedan. Put studded mud-n-snow tires on that Buick, and she'd claw her way up roads some pickups couldn't manage. We made about $750 a month, near as I can recall. I know we never made more than $15,000 a year. Didn't need much more than that. After all, if we had food, gas, pizza money, a little horse jewelry, and every so often a bottle of whiskey and a new cinch or saddle blanket, we were pretty well set. Sometimes we'd find a twenty dollar bill in our wallets that we'd forgotten we had, and that would actually be worth something.

It was hard life, a good life, the best life, but really a not much of a living. Somewhere along the line, times changed and so did we. I'll be 47 years old, this July. Back then, I never even considered whether I'd be here to say that. Neither Tye nor I can take the hits or falls like we used to, but most of all ... there just wasn't any money in it. Hubby is like a chameleon, able to put on lives like some folks change hats: he's been a marine, a cop, a cowboy, a cook, a miner, a mule packer and a private eye. He led and I followed to the changes in our lives, and now winters on the open range are things of the past.

But I still cling with fierce devotion to the things that make me feel settled inside, including a few good friends and a little piece of rented ground where I can plant a garden, keep some chickens, train my dogs, and not have too many neighbors. I've never learned Tye's tolerance for towns and folks and bustle, but even he needs to come home to peace and quiet. We both still own our saddles. Won't ever sell 'em. We still dust 'em off sometimes and go day-work for local outfits, moving cows or packing mules. We're older and more cautious and more thoughtful than we used to be, but ...

... It don't leave you, that country. All it takes is an old song or the scent of rain on the sagebrush, and we're back. Back twenty years to a day when we were pretty much poor all the time, but when we could sit up there on our handmade saddles, and revel in the sort of benign arrogance that belongs only to those who make a living on horseback. Hard to be humble when you see the world from a vantage point ten feet tall.

I don't know that I'd want to go back, or any chances to do anything over. But I'm glad we were there. I'm glad that part of life was ours. I'm glad we can one day sit, old and bent and gray, and look at photo albums of a place and time that might one day be gone, that has already changed, and we can remember our places in it.

It's a good feeling. Now I'm going back upstairs to watch "Lonesome Dove," and to remember where I come from and where my roots will always cling. Blessings to you all, those whom I call Friends. You are part of my peace. :-)
Cheers ~

G. M. Atwater

.

Nick - good boy

2009-06-02T23:06:00.000-07:00

This is what I love about my border collies. They are beautiful just by the nature of their being.

That is Nick, my pup from Geri Byrnes' Annie & Dan, taken April 26, '09. Here Nick is not quite one year old. Someday, if I get my act together, he's gonna be one helluva dog.

Life's That Way - a Book Review

2009-05-18T22:28:00.000-07:00

LIFE'S THAT WAY - A Memoir, by Jim Beaver

Book Review

I confess to having some trouble figuring out how to write this review. Not because the book isn't remarkable - it is - but because I did not want to cheapen its import with a casual splash of words. This book means something to me. As a cancer survivor, I found it means more than I can easily express.

"Life's That Way" is, foremost of all, a love story and a testament to the human spirit. Jim Beaver does not portray his wife as a flawless woman, nor paint himself as a perfect man. Rather he says, look, we're all kinda screwy, but that's just a little dust on the furniture. Loving someone, that's what truly counts.

Jim's writing style is of such candid feeling that it gives the book a rare grace and readability. The immediacy of the narrative, however, is what struck me most. Presented here are emails and messages in present tense, things that happened now, today, not five years ago. Today Jim talked to Cecily's doctor, today Cecily got her MRI results, today Maddie asked why Daddy was cwying. I think this is what makes the book's reality so poignant.

It is why I read each entry on Cecily's illness as if following the battle of a friend, so immersed in the story that I forgot this is already done. It is certainly why, when Jim wrote of her death in the terse language of the utterly bereaved, I had to walk away. I had to put the book down and go wrap my mind around the finality of Cecily's loss, despite knowing that she is these five years gone.

When I resumed reading, it was an amazing voyage. Sometimes I felt like an invisible voyeur, that I shouldn't know this much about another's pain. But lest you think this is a tale of unremitting sadness, know this: it is not.

What shines throughout is the fierceness of Hope. Every time the darkness falls, every time tears hit like a monsoon storm, Jim picks himself up and goes on. Every step of Cecily's illness, Jim's hope burned unceasing. He speaks with awe of the support of friends, and does not concede the fight for an instant. Even in his darkest days, he reminds us that we're all just human beings. Contrary to the movies, we do not suffer nobly and sometimes we're just plain petty. But it's okay, because if you love, really love someone, you can make the little stuff just not matter.

After Cecily's death, Jim is a man at Ground Zero of heartache, the smoke and ash of his dreams all around him. But as his brother-friend, Tom Allard reminds him, "Life's that way." Not in tones of fatalism or inevitability, but as a form of direction: Life's that way. Go. Find it. It's still out there.

And it is. Where Jim finds life is an ongoing saga of little, everyday miracles. Maddie's growth and development. Friends who help. Family who cares. Gifts of chance and gifts of love, deeds of caring and deeds of practicality, (a theater troupe helps Jim move into his and Cecily's new home) and random acts of kindness from so many loving hearts. Somewhere along the line, it dawned on me that Jim and Maddie are two of the most blessed people on earth.

Life's that way. It's not in a casket or a picture frame draped in black. Life's in the hearts of loved ones, in the eyes of Jim's little girl, in the words he wrote so faithfully, chronicling his journey through the Valley of Shadow. In this book, Jim Beaver unflinchingly bares his humanity for all of us to see, and from this, I take a very important lesson. We need not be so strong we never break. We need not be so brave we never weep. We need not aspire to such perfect selflessness that we must condemn our moments of human frailty.

If we must suffer, if we must grieve ... just remember. Life's that way - there, where love resides.

~ G. M. Atwater

http://www.lifesthatway.com/

.

Part 10 - There and Back Again - A Hobbit's Trip to England

2009-03-07T20:23:00.000-08:00

SUNDAY JAN 25 - This morning was again rather grey, but birdsong rang from the garden, and I opened the bedroom window for a little time to enjoy it. After a perfectly delicious shower (the one American habit I miss, as the English seem to prefer baths) I begged off a cup of morning tea to take a walk.

I should have worn my rubber boots, but even so, I found the walk a delight. To stride up little lanes and spy the odd thatched roof, and walk among damp fields of winter grass where sheep watched me pass in mild curiosity - ah lovely. It was so good to stretch the muscles and get the heart working, to feel my body waking up and becoming part of the moment. Several times, I stopped to simply be, and think very deliberately, "I am walking in ENGLAND."

I should have liked to keep walking, until the blood sang in my limbs and the damp air pinched my cheeks, walked on to new meadows and bird-song woods ... but breakfast waited.

Dot fixed us a lovely traditional breakfast, fried egg, toast, sausage, bacon, and tomato, together with tea and juice. There can just never be anything to equal the warmth and goodness of a home cooked meal, especially when one is so far from home. Then Sylvia and I bundled into Steve's car and off we went to tour the local countryside. Bless his heart, Steve drove as seems the habit of *all* British males - hurtling headlong whether the road has four lanes or one!

I was also mindful yet again of the British habit of having no shoulders on the roads and lots of hedgerows: it makes roadside photography very difficult, and I regretted missed chances to capture beautiful scenes on camera. Nonetheless, Steve went literally the extra mile to show us local delights.

We were in horse country here, the English equivalent of Kentucky, and it's green, rolling, and sweet to see. Every so often, we passed signs to big farms announcing them as the "Such and Such Stud," and saw handsome barns and neat paddocks beyond the gates. Steve took us first, though, to the Uffington White Horse, an ancient glyph of white, chalky clay shaped by unknown hands centuries ago, into to the stylized shape of a horse.

Sylvia opted to stay in the car, and I soon found out why. Besides the stinging wind that whips off the moor, there is the fact that Steve, a former jockey, marches like a Royal Marine! Only my pride kept me in time with his stiff pace, and even then, I fudged a quick rest stop halfway up to take a photo and catch my breath, and peruse the local sheep.

Once on top, Steve and I stepped off the brow of the hill to walk the site and marvel how the ancients could conceive of a work visible only by air, and bearing little resemblance to any sensible form, up close. Then we climbed up to the mounded remains of Uffington Castle, an old Bronze Age hill fort, now little more than low dykes and a shallow moat, surrounding a surprisingly wide green. I could imagine a considerable village up here, with a spectacular view of the countryside spread below and all the approaches. At the bottom of the hill, a lesser mound held its own mysteries.

(Ed. Note: the lesser hill I later learned was reputed to be the spot on which St. George slew the Dragon, as nothing will grow on its flat, sandy crown.)

The walk down was more leisurely, but I still managed to miss my footing in the slick clay mud - twice. *sigh*

Back in the car park, an unexpected sight awaited us: druids, offloading their families from their cars. No, I mean really, complete with beards and braids, cloaks and staffs, and silver Celtic jewelry.

I don't know either. ;-)

Steve, being the incorrigible rascal that he is, was only too glad to negotiate a photo of me with the foremost bearded chap.

After that, we toodled on to the old market town of Marlborough: brick buildings facing each other across a broad, broad street. There Steve took us to the Polly Tea Rooms for coffee and a bite to eat. It was a charming little café with low ceilings, a comfy clientele, and a wonderful choice of sweets in a glass case by the door, luring everyone who entered. On Steve's advice, I had a very nice cup of coffee and a scone with buttery cream. Not butter: cream made to the consistency of softened butter. YUM!!!

After that lovely break, we walked a bit along the main street - the Green Dragon Inn sounded particularly hobbity - before getting back in the car and moving on.

More winding lanes brought us to a pair of stone gateposts labeled the Savernake Forest. The sign further said that this privately owned wood is the oldest forest in England. (Wikipedia notes that Savernake has remained in unbroken private possession by the same family line since 1066, over a thousand years.) Certainly it looked like a place untouched by tourism or anything but careful forestry.

We drove quite some while through these quiet roads, the road gently hilly but straight as a rule. Steve stopped for me once, where a man was setting off to walk in the woods with his three little terriers. The silent, sleepy forest little noted any of us, tucked in for its winter sleep in a bed of russet leaves. Here and there as we drove I spied great, magnificent oaks, their burly boles twisted by time into fantastic, ent-like shapes. I should have liked to stop and photograph just one, but I didn't want to impose over much on Steve's good graces as host/guide.

But the adventure did not end there! Steve then took us to yet another site not on the tourist map, Littlecote Manor. Steve's wife, Dot, had done the entire flower arrangements for their daughter's wedding there, and so Steve new the place very well. Apparently part of it acts as a hotel of sorts, guests staying for the most part in the old buildings, but a couple of suites were noted on signage within the great house. We saw several very old folks shuffling about the grounds, and the hall must be let for things like weddings, but this was a place of old money.

With Steve's instructions to just walk straight in, walk we did. He led us unerringly through the door and to the great hall, with its dark paneled wainscoting, ivory-painted walls, and ornately plastered ceiling. Priceless relics hung on the walls, swords, helms, padded gambesons, huge original oil paintings of the old family, and a genuine suit of armor. (Seemed fit for a small chap!) Not a museum, not a display, just the heirlooms of the house.

Upstairs, Steve showed us the one sign of outside guests: a Victorian room made up with the wax mannequins of a man, a midwife, and a babe in arms. Legend tells of a woman who came to this house to give birth to an illegitimate child. She was sent away and the child murdered, and the midwife led away in blindfolds and sworn to secrecy. The midwife's ghost is said to still haunt the room, grieving for the babe she could not save.

Just a few steps on and we came to a balcony overlooking the family chapel. Floor tiles and handsome harlequin patterns suggested a distant, grander day. Then up more steps and passageways, and we come to yet another grand room. It is lined on one wall with dark wainscoting, a fireplace, and paintings dating back to the days of male wigs and knee britches, and on the other side with bright windows. The room is wholly empty under the eyes of the dead relatives, but it fairly whispers with the footsteps and voices of a far more genteel age. A small plaque notes the room dates to the 1500s. One can only presume the entire great house dates to that time or sooner.

So grand a place, and by our gentle subterfuge, it was our private wonderland to explore.

By then we got word that Sylvia's son Dan had arrived at the house, and so my great adventure turned towards its close. I can't even describe my feelings as I bid farewell, to Sylvia wending her way back to Sheffield alone, and to Steve and Dot who welcomed me with such magnificent kindness. I was ready to head back home, but I'd seen and done so much that I kind of didn't know how to end. "Goodbye" seemed at once too much and too little.

But the words were said, and I plunked down in Dan's little car - by now getting in the "wrong" side had become second nature - and off we went into the waning day, northbound once more.

Yet still one, last, wholly unexpected delight remained: Stonehenge. Yep, Dan took it upon himself to detour there, (getting only slightly lost along the way) putting us on-site about 45 minutes before closing. Even now, with the highway not that far away and a quiet, steady flow of tourists circling its flanks, Stonehenge remains a living marvel.

For one thing, the structure is *huge!* The standing stones are massive as if rooted in the bones of the earth, and I've no clue how they got those heavy lintels up there. But really, it's just the sheer *fact* of the place. Here, thousands of years ago, people gathered in body and spirit to celebrate profound things in their world. This is almost holy ground, and certainly a touchtone for human progress whose creators never could have imagined the world in which their great masterpiece would one day stand.

Most of all, though, I simply walked around these great standing stones and then stood, whilst the thin winter sun sank westward, and I said aloud, (to Dan's gentle amusement,) "I am standing at Stonehenge." There is magic in simply being able to say that.

On a humorous note, early in our walk, I was speaking to Dan, and a woman with a babe and hubby in tow stopped me and cried in a broad Southern accent, "Oh, my gosh, where are you from?" I said "Reno, Nevada," and she positively *squealed* and grabbed me in a mushy-bosomed hug, exclaiming how she hasn't spoken to an American in weeks. Her husband works in the UK and they live there, now, and I guess the dear girl was a little homesick. ;-)

For my part, I heard two or three American accents around Stonehenge, and realized they were the first I'd heard in ten days! My initial reaction was to think, "Good grief, do we really sound like *that?*? Hee!

Thus ended my great adventure. Dan discovered he'd misplaced his cell phone (it later turned up back at Steve and Dot's,) but other than that, the drive home into the darkening January night proved uneventful.

Back in London, Dan and his wife and kids offered the perfect comedown to my escapades, allowing me to relax in the midst of family as if I were one of their own. The sprogs were adorable, Anita was sweet and welcoming, and it just felt good to sit and chat and listen to the boys' chatter, whilst the earth turned in its bed of stars.

~ *~

MONDAY JAN 26 - Up early, a walk through suburban London to catch the Tube with Dan, and I was back at the airport and ready to head home. One bummer about Heathrow - there is NO food for sale once you pass through security, other than maybe a machine with candy bars. Poo.

But we boarded on time and I sat in my window seat, watching England slip past, ever faster, and drop away below. Chequered fields were flecked with clouds, then northward the clouds grew heavier, a blanket of white wool far below. A break in the clouds showed me the north of England, and I'm positive we flew over Cumbria, for I felt certain I saw Derwentwater and the snowy crowns of Blencartha and Skiddaw. Northward still, until the clouds broke again and I saw fingers of stony land splayed into the North Sea, as we passed over the Outer Hebrides. I spied at least one mite-sized dot of a town far below, and I wondered who the hardy people were, that lived on those barren rocks amidst the sea.

At traveling elevations, we leveled off in the thin light of a northern morning sun, out across the cloud-blanketed ocean, over Iceland, and finally over Greenland's frigid expanse. It was truly amazing to look out the windows into the long, thin rays of an arctic sun, and to see the weird mosaic of ice flows and turquoise water that marked the icy sprawl of lower Baffin Bay. Huge mountains jutted from perennially frozen fjords, behemoths that looked just a few plane-lengths below us. It was a land that seldom sees thaw, a vast wilderness, a pale, cold, deadly place of seldom sun. I'd only ever seen anything like it on TV, but it was all mine, now, from 38,000 feet.

I got up to walk and stretch somewhere over Hudson Bay, its broad waters glazed with heavy ice as the midnight sun rose, the snow painted pale and cold, long shadows splayed from ridges far below. On we flew until the sun shines on tundra, snow and ice and what looks like a thousand frozen lakes. In time, a few roads began to stripe amongst pristine white squares of farmland, and a great river wended its way in ribbons of motionless ice, a snowy town straddling its bank amidst the wilderness.

And so the snowy earth turned below, now prairie, now the Rocky Mountains, now the stubbled hills of Idaho, until at last the green of California slid beneath our wings. Ere long, San Francisco bay spread green-blue and shining below us, and the plane swung wide over the Golden Gate Bridge, the pilot pointing out the view.

Nothing left now but the final short leg home, and I got off the plane to the strange solitude of being alone amongst teeming crowds. However, I carried with me not only my luggage, but the memories of an extraordinary, wonderful, absolutely amazing trip to a land that has lingered in my imagination since I don't know when.

Thank you, my English friends and family, for making this trip-of-a-lifetime not only possible, but a thing of true magic.
Slainte,

~ Erin aka Gloria

STONEHENGE PHOTOS HERE

.

Part 9 - There and Back Again - A Hobbit's Trip to England

2009-03-07T19:34:00.000-08:00

SATURDAY JAN 24 - Monday morning dawned rather grey, but the day soon cleared to dazzling sunshine. I abandoned the idea of going to watch a Nursery sheepdog trial (dogs under the age of 3 years) mainly because it worked out as impractical use of my last fully free day in the UK. What with the drive to and from Huddersfield, not to mention making poor Sylvia stand around and be bored! ;-)

Instead, we opted to go by way of south Wales to Sylvia's brother's place in Berkshire. The drive towards Wales took us on the M5 motorway through gentle, mostly flat farmlands. The sky positively beamed a soft, sunny English blue. To westward, we could just see humped up hills in southern Wales, like the spine of a green, sleeping dragon.

The countryside became a little hillier as we went, but no less rural when we grossed into Gloustershire. Very rural and agricultural and lovely. For a time we drove through forests, which Sylvia told me were part of the Forest of Dean. ("Supernatural" fans take note, hee!) Then out again towards Ross, and we took the A40 through rolling hills and farms and forests and hamlets.

The climate going south was notably more temperate, the fields blushing a brighter green and even a shrub or small tree here and there showing a faint white hint of bloom. We crossed into Wales just before the town of Monmouth, and right away there were bilingual signs for schools and towns.

We turned off there on a two-lane road of forest and a deep valley clove by a sizable river, the River Wye, and long pastures with sheep. The gorge narrowed and we stopped at a tiny inn called The Bell, I believe, in the wee itty hamlet of Redbrook. Braw lads in uniform played soccer on the green, while at the inn door, an older gent coming out greeted Sylvia in Welsh - then chided her for replying in English. Hee!

Inside the tiny taproom, we found the cook had gone home but the bar owner said he'd make us sandwiches. We waited and were entertained by a cute, begging little black terrier (and his ruddy-cheeked master) and the very handsome, dark-eyed boy minding the bar. (Orlando Bloom don't have nothin' on the Welsh lads, no sir!)

The dark-eyed boy was shyly attentive in his service, bringing us coffee and napkins (serviettes, to the UK), and assuring us our meal would be up. I rather began to wonder about that, but evidently at considerable effort, the bar owner came out with nice sandwiches for us. They were ... a trifle odd, I thought. Sylvia got a cheese sandwich, which turned out to be sliced white cheese with *chutney* of all things - they call it "relish" - and I got a tuna sandwich which was the FISHIEST tuna I've ever etten! Maybe they grow 'em fishier in the North Atlantic?

Anyhow, we shared our sandwiches, I ate under the unblinking gaze of the pathetic little terrier (who was clearly as much a regular there as his master), and thus passed our lunch stop on the road. Feeding the terrier my bread crusts, with his master's approval, we set out once more.

On we drove up winding, wooded roads, amongst steep hills and scattered farms which perched in various nooks and vales above the River Wye. A lovely, lovely country and I once again regretted the utter lack of space to pull OFF those narrow roads to take photos. We finally came to the village of Tintern, which tucked itself hard against stern hills and appeared to owe its vigor entirely to the jewel at its heart - Tintern Abbey.

Dating back to the 1100's, this magnificent ruin manages to accommodate the footfalls of who knows how many tourists each year, and yet retain all its graceful serenity. In the deeps of January, there were but a few other people roving the grounds, but not so many as to get in each other's way or detract from the awe-some hush of the place. Like us, those few folks were quiet and contemplative in their explorations.

Having seen York Minster's vibrant, living majesty, it was much easier for me to imagine Tintern Abbey when its bare stones were clad in plaster and paint, and in the trappings of service to God. The grand arches lift soaring towards a ceiling now made only of blue Welsh sky, and great pillars prop up only memories. Flitting about the ruins and roosting in its nooks and crannies were white doves, unlike any we'd seen elsewhere.

We walked for quite a little while among the crumbling walls and various pathways, reading the placard signs that told the purpose and history of the rooms. One side of each placard was English, the other Welsh. In the south transept lay what seemed to be three very old gravestones, flat to the earth and much too worn for reading, one marked with an ornate Celtic knot pattern. The largest and most complete appeared to have writing, but as noted, it was extremely worn and probably in Latin, to boot. Did these once lay imbedded in a polished floor, like the tombs in the floor of York Minster?

A most magical and curious thing happened when I stepped into the east transept. When I entered the "room," open but for pillars and arches to all the rest of the church, I looked up in a sudden sense of tremendous awe - the single word that popped into my head: "holy." Then a curious, chill "zing" shot right up the backs of my calves and tingled the back of my neck. It was an odd but not at all frightening sensation.

When I called Sylvia back to snap a photo of me there, vague tingles remained. She told me she felt something upon her first visit, so maybe it's something one experiences that first time. No sooner had we done and turned to go on, then Sylvia stopped - she later said to take the mickey out of me about ghosts! - and got an amusedly startled look on her face. She said SOMEthing had just tapped the back of her head!

But there were no raindrops or dripping water of any kind. Maybe it's not just a first time, after all....

(I later learned this was the place of the High Alter, the holy of holies in that old church. It is further marked by another flat gravestone, this etched in a Celtic Tree of Life.) (Ed. Note: I've been unable to learn anything about those stones, nor find them explained in any online site about Tintern Abbey.)

After a final pass around the sprawling grounds, with the chill of evening settling in our bones, we turned towards the exit. I just had time to peruse the gift shop ere they closed the site for the night. As we left, the silvery tinkling of a small bell somewhere on the grounds summoned any laggards - much as bells must have summoned the brothers to devotions those centuries ago.

Back on the road, we swiftly departed sweet, fey Wales and crossed a long bridge back into Gloustershire. We reached Sylvia's brother's place in Berkshire just at dark.

I must say that Steve and Dot have a lovely home, the first single-storey house I'd seen, which in England they call "bungalows." Elegantly and beautifully appointed, I feared it would be far too nice for this country girl - until that is, I met Minnow the Cornish Rex cat, who presided by the hearth, followed later the two great black Alsatian dogs, Shadow and Tia. They came in with the mud of the fields still clinging to their fur, and they smelled deliciously of damp dog and endless affection. I couldn’t help feeling at home, even in a house so nice, when dog hair formed a part of daily life.

Steve and Dot proved wonderful and welcoming hosts, and Sylvia and I each had our own rooms, sharing a handsome private bath. Once we had settled in, they first treated us to glasses of welcoming champagne, and a leisurely sit by the fire. There I stared in amazement at Britain's bizarre tastes in reality TV: some kind of "iron man" (or woman) type competition, wherein contestants had to circumvent all sorts of wacky obstacles, including racing up a greasy slope whilst 55 gallon drums rolled down on them, getting spun dizzy on a Tilt-a-Whirl before navigating a series of unsteady mini-islands, and my favorite - trying to leap from point to point on gigantic rubber balls suspended over a pool, where a miss meant the contestant got BOUNCED through the air and into the water just like a human cartoon character. I almost hurt myself laughing ... *g*

Then they took us out to dinner at a local Indian eatery - a rather posh but friendly place, (Dot and Steve were clearly regulars) and the food was absolutely excellent, the service stellar. I wish I recalled the name of the restaurant, but I would recommend it to anyone with a taste for fine Indian cuisine and good service.

It seemed a shame to let such a nice evening end, but it had been along day of many miles. Home again, we chatted over the last of the bottle of dinner wine until bedtime.

~ * ~

DAY NINE PHOTOS HERE

.

Part 8 - There and Back Again - A Hobbit's Trip to England

2009-02-25T23:05:00.000-08:00

FRIDAY JAN 23 - Another grey, drizzly morning, but I took a bath and we headed off towards York. We parked at a park & ride just outside the city, and caught a bus to the city center. A wise move, as I later realize upon seeing York's streets.

The first thing I noticed was the *flooding* on the river, water creeping right up from the wharfs into the lower streets, drowning lampposts and café signs. But, nobody seemed concerned, so presumably this is an ancient and common occurrence.

York is ... an amazing city, crowded tightly about its narrow, twisting streets, centuries of living packed together, and its people teem in ceaseless currents of industry and commerce. Bricks and stone and cobbled streets form its urban canyons, and busses, taxis, delivery vans and autos hurtle along the narrow thoroughfares bare inches from buildings that have stood since days when only the rumble of wagons and clop of hooves made the soundtrack of city life.

There are many streets, however, that are far too narrow for automobiles, and much of the old downtown is accessed only by foot or bicycle. Most famous of these is the Shambles, a cramped canyon of a street paved in brick and shadowed by medieval buildings whose upper stories protrude over the street below, until they almost lean together. Once a street of butchers and such, and not much changed since early times, today the shops sell goods to entice tourists, from chocolates to china to silly British souvenirs. It's intriguing to imagine that the bustle of commerce has not changed in centuries, even if the wares sold, have.

The ruling queen of old York, however, is indisputably the majestic York Minster. Becky and I didn't go inside Westminster last Saturday, so I can't speak for what's inside, but from the minute Sylvia and I stepped into York Minster, I was struck with awe.

In a word, York Minster is the single most magnificent and beautiful thing I have ever seen made by human hands. The first name in their roster of bishops and archbishops is dated 314. A Caesar was crowned here, a Christian rule. And sarcophagi of noble families and clerics line the walls, while headstones pave the floors. The soaring ceiling arches act as frames for magnificent stained glass windows, one of the largest, the two-storey East Window, presently covered up for restoration, due to the ancient glass and lead sagging of its own weight.

Every splendid, gorgeous inch of the place, from carved stone to gilt trim to slender columns that lifted towards the vaulted ceilings ever so high ahead, lifted the eye towards the seat of the Divine. There simply are not words to describe the sheer sense of peace and holy grandeur that fills this mighty minster. Every inch of artistry in this place is a prayer, a paean, a memorial. The occasional sounds of distant chimes or bells lent to the ambiance, and in one area, a woman in full vestments led a small, brief service.

The Deans and Chapter House chamber added unexpected whimsy, being a circular domed chamber of marvelous acoustics, with stone seats along the walls and scores of small, fanciful faces adorning each pillar. Every face was individual and distinct, and in come cases humorous or grotesque.

At last stepping outside to a somewhat jarring return to the 21st century, we turned to secular history. From York Minster we first admired a Roman column, found some years back when the minster underwent renovations. I found that more than a little boggling to contemplate: I rested my hand on a great pillar of stone carved about two thousand years ago. And here it stood for tourists to pet and snap photos of. (Alas, no photo for me, as I couldn't find a place to stand far enough back and fit it in the frame!)

Then we walked down the narrow ways until passing Clifford Tower, a 1300's mote and bailey castle standing high atop its green mound amidst a parking lot. Past it, we went to the York Castle Museum, set in what was apparently a legal and judicial complex at one time. The cells that once housed the highwayman Dick Turpin were located in its basement. Rather than castle history per se, however, the museum offered an overview of area history in general, from early times to the Beatles, with interesting displays of things diverse as kitchen evolution, weaponry, WWII, early vacuum cleaners, a soldier's experience in Cromwell's war, and local crafts and skills as set up in faux shops in the old debtors' prison.

Having done the proper tourist things one does in grand old York, we hopped back on the bus. This finished our tour of York by taking us past long sections of the old York City walls, all carefully restored and quite impressive. Once home, we freshened up, relaxed a bit, had supper, and then prepared to meet "the girls" for their weekly Friday night out.

Now this was something completely different - from my long immersion in England's dead past, now I found myself amidst its boisterous and very lively present. The three gals we were going to meet, including Sylvia's pal, Jean, were old friends of hers, and for those familiar with Sylvia's customary English reserve, you'll be amused to know it remains intact, even when she's in the company of hometown friends with a wineglass in her hand! *g* One of the ladies had her husband pick Sylvia and I up and deliver us to the pub, before going back for the other ladies.

Now, when I say "pub" here, forget about quaint old common rooms with a fire on the hearth - this was a modern place filled with the hard-working folk of Sheffield. The faces around me were as cheerfully ordinary as they come, working class to a fault, and I had to focus to follow the rapid-fire accents around me. After a couple pints there - (I drank half-pints only, as I knew I could not keep up with these ladies) - we moved across the street to an even louder, rowdier joint. Here a DJ shouted incomprehensible accompaniment to his highly eclectic collection of music, and a younger set mingled and shouted and danced. Most of the kids were college age, if barely, with a few more mature folks in the mix. The atmosphere was dynamic and LOUD, and I guess even half pints have their affect, as I joined Sylvia and the girls in dancing when the DJ shifted to 60's rock.

I must say a hilarious high (or is it low?) point of the night was when Jean commandeered a nice looking young man to dance with her. Jean is a bit of a pistol, to say the least, so it really surprised me not at all to see her jiving with this tall, handsome guy half her age. What DID surprise me was when the cops marched into the pub, and made their way straight towards us! They stepped in all business and reflective vests, neatly cutting out Jean's fella from the throng, and the look on poor Jean's face was priceless, as she abruptly did her best to turn completely invisible. The police whisked her dance partner away, and then the rest of us promptly *howled!* Poor Jean - she had picked probably the best looking, most clean-cut bloke in the place, and the gendarmerie came and carried him away. ;-)

(We never did hear what he'd done, but we wondered if maybe he had been smoking marijuana out back or something, and someone called it in.)

Anyhow, we stayed and danced and laughed until about midnight, and then went out to hail a cab and let the Indian driver ferry us home. A good night, good times!

~ * ~

CITY OF YORK PHOTOS HERE

.

Part 7 - There and Back Again - A Hobbit's Trip to England

2009-02-25T15:45:00.000-08:00

THURSDAY, Jan 22 - We awoke to chucking down rain after a stormy night (interesting to listen to shipping weather on the drive home last night) but after a stop at the shops, we braved the yuk and headed out for Derbyshire. We followed part of the route we'd done to Cousin Paul's in Staffordshire, but up atop the moors, we turned off into the Peaks National Park area.

Again England showed me a new face, as the rain gave way to frigid damp winds and fat, restless clouds. Sylvia stopped here and there for me to hop out in the damp chill and snap photos: brown moors, steep rolling hills, and scattered sheep. One place boasted a stand of white birch and hazy views of farmlands. Surprise View, they called it, though one must have had to hike into the heath to find anything surprising.

Down we rolled into pretty valleys whose round crowns were clad in brown heather, wending our way towards Castleton. This was a quaint little village that appeared little changed, in 200+ years, owing its name to ruined Peveril Castle high above the town. Castleton itself is wedged tightly along its little twisting streets, and high hills rise all around.

We stopped for lunch at the cozy Castle Inn, built circa 1600. Fires burned on open hearths and hand hews beams held up the ceilings, while tall windows let in the watery sunlight. I joined Sylvia in a bowl of something mysteriously called Scotch Broth, which turned out to be a hearty soup of lamb, potatoes, barley and vegetables, wonderfully tasty and filling. The bread seemed homemade, and in all it made the perfect lunch for a chilly, blustery day.

We drove on through and up around Speedwell Caverns and up the narrow green gorge of Wimers Pass to take in the view. At the bottom, I got out to photograph sheep perched grazing on nearly perpendicular side hills. Sylvia informed me the actual cavern tour involved underground and boats, which sounded not at all appealing in January, so we gave that a pass.

Back in Castleton, we parked and braved the windy climb up to the ruins of Peveril Castle. The little visitor center at its foot was heated almost to boiling, due warming of the sharp, damp wind on top. But we trudged and panted our way up to spectacular views of the surrounding countryside and the little town below. The location of the castle formed an almost perfect defensive site, with plunging slopes guarding three sides, while a gully cut across the narrow ridge that offered wagon access from the rear. The castle held a commanding pose silhouetted above the town, but so far as we could learn, nobody every had any interest in attacking Peveril, and so its defenses remained untested. Abandoned in the 1600's, the castle's greatest enemy had been naught but time.

Sylvia shivered gallantly while I drank my fill of the gorgeous panoramic view, now that the sun finally came out. This was the England of the picture books, high moors and quaint villages, stone walls and green fields, and somewhere in the hills overlooking the Hope Valley apparently lay a Bronze Age fort. Then we came down the same steep path we'd climbed, and made one final pass through a jewelry shop full of beautiful pieces of the local Blue John stone before moving on.

Leaving Castleton towards Chesterfield, we found ourselves in broad, green grazing lands whose wide pastures were framed in the ubiquitous stone walls. Here is a very vigorously agricultural area, with sheep, cows, big rounded plastic-wrapped hay bales, and the occasional sign advertising someone's potatoes. A broad and hilly, open county that pleased the eye.

The road and terrain dropped off abruptly towards Eyam, a village crammed among hills and sudden cliffs. This tiny mining town is of fame as the village that quarantined itself in the Plague of 1665-66. The Church of St. Lawrence stands at the heart of this distinction, housing rolls of the plague victims and memorials to those who ministered to them.

High on the walls of the sanctuary are the remains of medieval artwork, fragments of scripture and figures of obscure meaning. The church itself was open and empty, a place of vast peace and stillness. It is sobering to stand there and imagine the ancient tragedy of this place, and humbling to know its people's faith remains unflagging. How the walls and high ceiling must ring when the choir and congregation sing.

Outside again, we briefly walked among the churchyard stones, generations of names and stones right up to the walls of the church itself. Only a few plague victims were buried here, the rest having been laid to rest by their own families in gardens and fields, that the contagion might not spread more than it did. Sometimes whole families died, to be buried by a sole survivor.

The day wearing older, we went on, wending our way past farms and fields towards home.

We ended the day with a yummy shepherd's pie of Sylvia's own making, a visit from one of her pals, Jean, and a couple glasses of wine. Another fine adventure complete. :-)

~ * ~

DERBYSHIRE PHOTOS HERE

More to come ...

Part 6 - There and Back Again - A Hobbit's Trip to England

2009-02-23T15:44:00.000-08:00

WEDNESDAY, JAN 21 - The morning was thick and grey with rain, and wet snow clung to the shrouded hills, but I went for a short walk into the tiny village of Grasmere. Rather than go very far into the town proper, I took a turn on a woodland path beside the river. As I passed a gate in a wall of ivy, a gentleman came out in his boots, coat and cap with a tumult of furiously happy spaniels. There might have been three, but they were vigorous as thirty, and he apologized kindly for their racket, ere striding off into the woods with his furry little pack. I would have kept walking, enjoying the exercise pulling at my muscles, but Sylvia waited on me for breakfast, and in fact stood in the inn's doorway watching for my return.

We found the dining room considerably more populated than last night, and they offered a continental breakfast as well as traditional fare. We both had the full English breakfast: fried eggs, sausage, bacon, fried tomato, fried mushroom, toast with jam, and black pudding. All but the black pudding was very nice, the black pudding .... not so much. It had an unpleasantly smoky aftertaste and just made me squeamish. Sylvia didn't even try and likes it not at all.

So there you have it, friends! I did encounter one weird food that I could not eat, in England. ;-)

Then we packed up and paid up, as I'd made an appointment to drop in and visit renowned border collie breeder and trainer, Derek Scrimgeour. Derek and his dog Laddie placed 1st in the English Nationals for 2009, and with his bitch, Fleece, placed 5th, and I met him at a sheepdog training clinic he held in northern California a year and a half ago. A friend of mine recently bought a pup from him and had it shipped to the US, and through her communications with him, they were made aware of my trip and extended a very generous welcome.

Derek had said between 10:30 ad 11:00 in the morning would be a good time to come up, as he had to do this morning was feed sheep. Ah, the best laid plans ...

Off we drove, straight away into rain and mixed snow, and ruggedly wild valleys. A wet dusting of snow frosted the hills, and by Thirlmere, Sylvia stopped and let me snap a few photos, while she stayed snug in the car. I spoke to a pair of older Scotsmen even madder than me, for they were cheerfully heading out for a hike, backpacks and all.

We reached Keswick (pronounced "Kezzick") about 10:30 and *tried* following Derek's careful instructions. However, we somehow *missed* the 15-foot tall War Memorial in the middle of an intersection, which formed a major landmark for us, and we wound up noodling off out of town. There we turned back to a petrol station for directions. The girl at the counter very concisely gave them - and we got none of it, this time wandering off up some hilly neighborhood, whereupon we came down and parked in front of the Twa Dogs Inn. (Which was closed.) We called for help, and Helen, bless her, guided us by phone and stayed on the lane until we were at the lane to their farm. The most interesting part of the directions was the "go about two or two and a half miles until you think you're lost!"

But in reality, from then on, there was no way to get lost, just a narrow, single track that clung for life to a great, STEEP wooded hillside. I now know why the English have Land Rovers. I don't think Derek has one, but he should. My friend Sylvia's poor little car was soon liberally coated in mud made of numerous organic substances, after crawling up the lane towards the farm. It wound and climbed and clung for about two miles, before looping back along an even steeper slope and crossing a swift stream.

There, perched on a green hillside amongst bare trees and angled loops of stone wall stood the old stone house of Lonscale Farm. Where we parked is hard by the barn, the house itself tucked away behind. It's a magnificent, gorgeous setting, tucked close at Blencartha's mighty flanks. Steep, barren hillsides soar up to caps of snow and a clear stream tumbles down the valley. It is visually exhilarating and uplifting to the soul. Derek himself noted that he never takes this place for granted.

Inside, the stone farmhouse's plastered walls were painted a warm, butter yellow, which Helen has decorated with blue-patterned dishes (the type escapes me now) and several of her paintings. It is a thoroughly English and thoroughly cozy old kitchen, with a heavy trestle table, a cast iron stove, and high ceilings - against which several pairs of trousers hung overhead to dry. The house is, Helen guesses from a date on a windowsill, circa 1816.

Sylvia and I were treated to tea and biscuits (cookies, to us Americans) courtesy of Helen, and we settled in for a very nice visit. I was nervous about this visit, having met Derek only on one instance at that sheepdog clinic a year and a half ago. But he and Helen were lovely, warm hosts and we felt quite at home. There was a blond girl and a strapping Scottish boy who apparently work for them, and they wandered in and out like family. Also, there were three little Westie terriers who waddled about the house, belonging to their daughter, Rachel, and one very large, very brazen cat. Derek and Helen took delight in telling how the cat haunted the crew from One Man and His Dog, when they were up to film on the farm a year or two back!

At a pause in the friendly gabbing, Derek looked to me, and almost at once, I asked if we'll see any dogs at the same moment he asks if we should go see dogs. Hee! Not hard to figure who has the Border Collie Disease, when Derek and I donned coats and hats to go out, while Sylvia and Helen very sensibly stayed indoors.

Derek meanwhile seemed quietly delighted to show off some of his dogs. We walked by kennels and into a steel barn while he rattled off the various parentages and relationships of dogs and pups we passed. Then from a corner pen, he released the Crown Prince of the Killiebrae kennels, Laddie. Laddie had no time for me, rocketing out of his kennel like a guided missile the instant Derek opened the door, because Laddie knew there was Work To Do.

In sturdy Laddie, the 2009 English Nationals Champion, I saw a dog that hurled himself into his job with an absolute joy of going. He was just stupendous to watch. He is a big, solid but not at all coarse dog, just a mass of muscle, sinew and power. Derek sent him hurtling up the paddock - his training field sits at about a 45-degree angle - and worked him with whistles this way and that, like guiding a radio controlled fighter jet. Everything Laddie did was pure power - even his stops seem to hum with energy in his stillness, like a muscle car rumbling at a stoplight.

In Fleece - she who was 5th at the English Nationals, and who is aunt to my pup, Nick - I saw a more graceful sort of power, as befits a lady of quality. She is of Derek's bloodlines, but bred by a woman in the US (same as bred my pup, Nick) and he and Helen joked about going to American to buy one of his own dogs. Derek spoke how he initially thought Fleece was too soft, and even contemplated selling her. But then "she just came on," and now you couldn't buy her.

Last to run was Zack, an import from ... either Norway or Netherlands, I forget which! He was a big youngster who flaunted his stuff with skill and boundless youthful exuberance. Amazingly, the sun came out to banish the rain and snow, so I got a few good photos in, as well.

So, Derek and I pottered about in the rain for half an hour or more, and I think he enjoyed his dogs as much as I did. He later commented that we had the Border Collie Disease for sure, if we'd stand out in the rain to watch dogs work! Hee! And for a little while, I completely forgot I was anybody's guest. :-)

Our visit at last at an end, we bid farewell and made our way back down through the potholes and mud to Keswick. There we followed Helen's directions (bless her once again!) to a theater and café down at Derwentwater's shore. But we found it closed, apparently undergoing renovations. I did take a moment to take in Derwentwater, its surface grey and cold under restless dark clouds. The wind off the water was utterly frigid and a few raindrops spattered, prompting me to bid the local Canadian geese a hasty farewell and make my way back to the car.

From there we toodled around the ubiquitous narrow, winding lanes seeking the way to Castlerigg Stone Circle, since I could hardly consider my UK trip complete without at least one stone circle. We found the place almost without knowing we'd found it, very little in the way of "You're Here!" to mark the fact we'd arrived. But we parked in a little turnout at the edge of some farmer's stone wall, and there it stood. An uneven circle of stones rather like a fossilized dragon's teeth jutting from the green gums of the earth. Sylvia walked up with me, despite the blustery cold dampness, because she said one had to come all the way up and enter the circle, before leaving.

Then she retired to the car's warmth and left me to soak in the moody ambiance of the place. It was easy to see why the ancients chose this side, with its stunning 360-degree view of surrounding snowcapped peaks. Heavy-bellied, shifting clouds and pallid beams of sun created an ever-changing vista of light. Mercifully, the spatters of rain stopped, and I put up my umbrella - which might have become a casualty of the slashing gusts - to splash around the sodden hilltop. The damp stillness was broken only gently by the passage of several people out hiking local footpaths: the English do so love their walks, regardless of the weather.

I spent quite a little while up there simply being, breathing, looking, and admiring the stark beauty that is Cumbria. Time is a thin fabric in this country, its layers never all that far from reach. Finally, I figured I'd tempted pneumonia or at least a head cold long enough, and bid the ancient hilltop farewell.

Failing to spot a pub on our way out of Keswick, we went on up the road a couple miles to the wee village of Threlkeld. There, at the Horse & Farrier Inn, we had a very nice and very hearty English lunch. I had a smoked salmon sandwich - open-faced - and Sylvia had the cheese, which was shredded cheese, also open-faced. The *bread* the sandwiches were on was hearty, home made, and HUGE, one sandwich easily big enough for two if not three of us. Needless to say, we could not finish our meals, but we didn't go away hungry, and I had a truly delicious dark ale to go with it.

After that, we were back on the road and heading towards Sheffield once more. I should very much like to see this wild, fey region again, and I'll pray one day I will.

~ * ~

LAKES DISTRICT II PHOTOS HERE

.

Part 5 - There and Back Again - A Hobbit's Trip to England

2009-02-22T21:27:00.000-08:00

TUESDAY, JAN 20 - Today, we awoke to frost and ice under sunny skies. Amidst the unexpected chill, we packed to head for the Lakes District. I think Sylvia considered driving over the Yorkshire moors, but we could see snow on top and instead took to the motorways.

Much like our US freeways and interstates, the motorways slice firmly through England, whisking us north up the M1 through industrial areas, farmlands and towns, all three crowded far more closely together than I'm used to seeing in the American West. We eventually turned off onto lesser A roads that twisted and turned through pastures, plowed fields and houses. We came abruptly into Huddlesfield, a sprawling industrial city that continues the English tradition of juxtaposing the modern and very old.

The A roads lift us into neighborhoods of Dickens-onian looking brownstone houses and then dump us onto the M60 amidst snowy high moors, towards Manchester. Then down again to rather typical freeway scenery, the least interesting of any drive yet.

When we got into western Lincolnshire on the M6, the countryside again became more rural, with small farms, fat sheep, stone houses, hedgerows, and stands of barren trees. The grass of the pastures was still green despite the winter chill. Finally, somewhere not far westward was the cold Irish Sea, and further, the Isle of Man. The sun dimmed somewhat behind a soft sea haze.

Crossing into Cumbria, we were greeted by the sight of sheep on the low hills, mixed flocks of heavy wool and uncertain lineage. We rolled into the town of Kendal at last, which apparently flourished in the 1400's - 1600's as a textile center. It's a quaint town with narrow, bendy streets crowded closely by little shops.

We walked around the noble Kendall Parish Church, whose origins date to the Domesday Roles, 106-summat. The present magnificent building, with its peaked arches and ornate rose window, dates to the town's heyday in the 1500's-ish. At the Abbot's Hall coffee shop, tucked snuggly next to the Abbot's Hall Art Gallery, we stopped for sweets and a lovely cup of coffee. Though the textile trade is history, Kendall remains a considerable town, bustling and busy on its narrow streets, and thick with handsome old stone buildings.

Out of Kendall, we headed west, and the country is instantly filled with little farms and many small flocks of sheep. Each farm is chequered with little walled pastures, the stone walls clambering determinedly across the landscape, however gentle or steep. At a BP petrol station not far out, a tiny Chrysler/Jeep/Dodge dealership has wedged its glass self incongruously between the station and an old guest house. The country turns rugged as we near the lakes, and there are still more sheep: white with black faces, white with white faces, and even one flock of black sheep with white faces, and a couple that seemed all colors at once.

Windemere town is crammed tightly on its hills and winding streets, the cold, snowy crowns of the fells dimly visible in the distant haze across the lake. The town is quite touristy, boats and outdoorsy pursuits advertise at every turn, whilst the masts of sailboats rock on the grey chop of Windmere itself.

Here Sylvia stopped outside a little information centre to check the map, and I hopped out to buy postcards, and also ended up with a toy dog and a couple toy sheep!

On we went, thick, barren woods at the bottom of the lake through which we followed a narrow, windy road, the steep hillsides dotted with houses, shops, and a couple quaint hotels perched here and there. The place undoubtedly crawls with tourists in the summer, as I noted caravan parks, as well. But for now, it was grey and wintry and cold.

We stopped briefly at Fell Foot parking area for quick snapshots of sheep and a view across the bottom of Windemere. Then we drove on, passing the Lakeside & Haverwaithe Steam Railroad station, a picturesque 1890's building of an unexpectedly golden blond stone.

Then, possibly because it's tradition for our lot, we missed the turnoff to Coniston Water and the 5084 highway, and wound up out on the peninsula at Ulverton, among tidal flat farms and a seaside town. We missed the turn again on the return lap, but reversed course once more on a wee lane, and got it right as the rain came in.

North we drove along Coniston Water and then towards Amblesby, and the countryside became rainy, rugged, dark and wild, the narrow road tightly bound by high stone walls and tall hedges. The terrain is hilly and craggy, the spill of sodden green pastures doted with rather feral-looking grey sheep, and stone walls march and loop across the fields. Here and there, the occasional spirited stream leapt down from craggy stone faces, and each farmhouse wedged between woods and stony hillside bore its name at the front gate. Sylvia stopped on one nameless lane to let me snap some pictures, ere I dove back into the car to escape the returning drizzle.

Darkness settled slowly as we neared Amblesby amidst a steady grey rain. We reached the Swan Inn at Grasmere at nearly dark, and checked in to a quiet inn. It is a lovely place in its serene, country-gentry way, and unlike anything I've seen in American hotels, our room actually had two twin beds, rather than our traditional doubles/queens. The magnificently huge showerhead in the bathroom, however, promised a special treat for me.

In the meantime, however, Sylvia and I relaxed a bit, freshened up, and went downstairs for supper. There was almost no one in the quietly elegant dining room, and we had the full attention of our very proper young waiter. He might have been straight from Central Casting, I thought, being handsome, slender, soft-spoken and oh, so proper. Sylvia warned me about the habit of some posh restaurants to have the waiter place your napkin in your lap, for you. And a good thing she did, else I might have leapt out of my skin when he daintily whisked the white linen to rest across my thights.

Dinner was as pretty to look at as it was tasty to eat. Sylvia had plaice, a sort of white fish I'd never heard of, while I had the lamb, thick with sage and other spices, and served over mashed carrots, a turnip and cooked carrots. I'd feared a meal so pretty that it failed to fill the stomach, but the helpings were ample and I'd love to revisit that lamb right now!

For dessert, we opted to share a special Lakes District treat: sticky toffee pudding. This is a heavy, cake-like pudding soaked in caramelized syrup, and served with a dollop of ice cream. We wondered if the succulent heaviness was due to suet, but I later learned the prime ingredient was dates! Whatever goes in it, it was absolute heaven for the palate. Oddly, the taste and texture reminded me of something I'd eaten in my childhood, but I've yet to recollect what it was.

Then, fed to satiation, we had a nightcap in the bar and chatted with the lady bartender. Finally, we turned in for a good night's sleep.

~ * ~

LAKES DISTRICT PHOTOS HERE

.

Part 4 - There and Back Again - A Hobbit's Trip to England

2009-02-21T21:26:00.000-08:00

MONDAY, JAN 19 - Morning was damp and thoroughly English, an earlier rain giving way to sullen drizzle occasionally shot through with sodden snowflakes. We went first to the shops for boots for Sylvia, and sundries are we headed off for the day's adventure.

Our first stop set us in pre-history, Cresswell Crags, a Neolithic site of caves, water and water fowl, including mallards and a very cheeky young swan. I called to the swan as I would a pet goose, and darned if the rascal didn't swim right up and clamber onto the bank in front of me! He promptly began hissing and posturing, and in case you didn't know, swans are BIG. Sylvia backed away, traitorous thing, but I held my ground and made myself look big, figuring if I tried to flee, he'd bash me with those big wings and pinch me with his beak. Luckily, he didn't really mean his threat, and settled down to pretend he was only there to preen his feathers. Brat.

We also saw pheasant, as well, first one sneaking about in the shrubbery, but then two of them on the footpath, one down and seemingly dead, whist another stood over and prodded at it. I thought it a mated pair until we got closer and discovered they were both males. The healthy one vanished into the grass, but the downed one was still breathing, so I moved the poor thing off the path to shelter. No idea what might have happened, as we heard no fight and they hadn't been there when we walked past the first time. One of nature's little mysteries, I guess.

Anyhow, we wandered around the lake and read the signs, which detailed early life in the caves as told by fossil records including spotted hyenas and stone tools. A quiet and pleasant place that gave me a window to a different part of history.

Back on the road, we continued our way, stopping by St. Mary's Norton Cuckley Church in Nottinghamshire. It was the classic old church with the square Norman bell tower and a graveyard of (to my eye) oversized and very old headstones. Amongst the stones grazed several small black sheep, who eyed me with a bland yellow stare.

The area here became very rural, a gentle country of fallow fields, bare hedgerows and naked woods, mixed with odd evergreens, perhaps fir and pine, and some silver birch. We passed little villages along the way, and the woods grew thicker as we neared Sherwood Forest proper. Then we turned into the car park and made our first stop the little café, where I treated myself to that good old English favorite - beans on toast. I can say that it is quite tasty and entirely filling.

Sherwood itself is a forest asleep, its bare limbs standing still against a changing sky. But little birds flitted and twittered sweetly among the branches, and in the parking lot at the center, fat wood pigeons flapped about their pigeon business. The pamphlet says there are over 1500 oaks aged over 500 years, but the forest seemed mainly of white birch and lesser trees, punctuated randomly by the fat, gnarled boles of aged oaks.

It is a lovely, peaceful place, only a few people out, and most of those walked dogs of various sorts - including an older man with a little black mutt and a very busy border collie. I got its attention briefly for a pet, before it returned to frolicking and busily working its little friend. The sun peeked out just moments before we spied the storied Major Oak, where legend says once Robin Hood took refuge from the wicked Sheriff of Nottingham's men. It is truly a giant among its kind. Even bare of leaves, its enormous bole and thick, gnarled limbs exude timeless serenity. It's fortunate that forward-thinking souls saw fit to prop up its massive spread of branches.

The tree itself is lightly fenced off to protect its root structure from trampling feet, just a little split-rail fence and good English manners all that keeps tourists at bay. Sylvia and I took turns snapping pictures of each other, and then we continued our nature walk. If the weather were not so cold and dicey, I would have wished for more time to walk further, and stretch my legs on this storied piece of earth.

Once back at the car, we took a detour into nearby Erwinstowe, where we chanced on a church founded in 633 AD, the current building begun in 1175. A sign out front proclaims that this is where Robin Hood and Maid Marian were rumored to have been married. Its classic churchyard fascinated me, the earliest legible gravestones dated 1703 and 1713. Clearly there were older graves somewhere, but those markers were centuries lost. Again I reflect on the sheer antiquity of this land, coming as I do from a place where no white man's structure dates so far back in time.

By then the rain showers were kicking up again, so we headed for the car. Thereafter we followed time-honored tradition (at least for us) and got ... not lost, but rather turned around in an effort to find the right road towards Bolsover Castle. I was no help, even with the road atlas in my lap! That I find a disorienting thing: with only fitful glimpses of the sun and no real landmarks, in this country I can rarely tell north from south. ;-)

But we finally sorted ourselves out and found the place just at sunset. We weren't sure what to expect - ruins? - but instead found what looked like a large, rambling manor house amidst several acres of lawn. They had closed at 4 p.m., and we were half past, so we just looked and left. Only as we drove out of town and looked back did we see its true face: an enormous castle perched on a hill sternly overlooking the town, its walls and battlements bathed rose-hued by the light of the setting sun.

With that farewell to the day's explorations, we headed on home to Sheffield.

~ * ~

SHERWOOD FOREST PHOTOS HERE

.

Part 3 - There and Back Again - A Hobbit's Trip to England

2009-02-20T21:24:00.000-08:00

SUNDAY, JAN 18 - Again I woke up about 8 a.m,, after staying up rather late last night with chit-chat, wine, and whiskey-filled chocolates. This morning, Sylvia treated me to a delicious real English breakfast: fried egg (no over easy or over medium, just fried) bacon, sausage, fried mashed potatoes, sautéed mushrooms, and tea and toast. Made with my almost-5-pound bread, thankyouverymuch. ;-)

Thus fortified, we headed off towards my cousin Paul's place in Stoke-on-Trent. I wasn't sure why UK Mapquest said it should take over an hour to go 38 miles, but I soon found out. It was a lovely drive up into the dales and moors into Derbyshire's hills, woods, and villages. But the roads are all very narrow, not an inch of shoulder or verge on either side, and the towns and villages crowd right up against the pavement, no room for even a twitch of the wheel. Nonetheless, English drivers rocket along in mad, merry unconcern, as if in a dance with which all are long familiar.

The road at one point followed a narrow, craggy gorge up through to Buxton, a noble old spa town, and broke out atop moorlands and broad, plunging hills studded with sheep, stone walls, and plastic-wrapped round bales of hay. From the road, we paused to admire an enormous manor house called Chatsworth, which sits nestled among pastures and hills and little woods. Sylvia said the place is wonderfully grand to tour, when it's open, and from the road it actually makes Buckingham palace look rather shabby.

Passing into Staffordshire, the land gradually gentled and we went through the big town of Leek, which stood anchored more firmly in the 21st century. Out again we flew, town and country as ever closely and abruptly mingled, now sheep pasture, now parking lot, now farm, now housing tract and farmland again. Big woolly sheep grazed here and there on the hillsides and in wee green plots. I saw a good many people walking with dogs of all types, even an aged border collie on a leash.

Shortly we came into Stoke, a sprawling, modern, and not terribly interesting metropolis. I found it a bit comforting to imagine that "urban boring" is a universal building style. ;-)

Cousin Paul, however, lives out in Bignal End, an area at once tidy and attractive. We had a bit of confusion over telephone directions, but he found us and guided us in.

He and Lynn have a lovely little townhouse, sided o one side by his daughter and her family, and on the other by his brother, who is ill. The English, I realized, build UP, no such thing as a single-storey home, and they build with clever economy of space. Paul's house is quite lovely and cozy, and I hope they didn't go to too much trouble for my arrival.

They sat us down directly for a proper English tea, complete with nice cups and a porcelain teapot in a cozy, all on a serving tray. Paul poured for us, tea with milk and sugar, very tasty, and I felt entirely tasty. Truly a delightful interlude after the drive, and a wonderful gesture. For Paul, it seems, there is no such thing as strangers in his house. ;-)

Then, while Lynn carried on with making supper, Paul bundled us into his zippy little Ford Fiesta, and took us hurtling about the little lanes and hamlets of his district. The English don't seem to bother with one-way roads, and if the lane narrows to a single track, or cars parked on one shoulder or the other (often with one wheel on the lawn or sidewalk) then opposing oncoming drivers seem to magically discern who should yield the right-of-way and who should come on. Then they immediately take off rocketing along again until the next encounter or lane change. It's rather unnerving for an American, but both Sylvia and Paul kept a firm control of the wheel. I decided it was best not to think about it, too much. ;-)

Anyhow, off we went, dashing about country and hamlet. At the Scot Hay Cricket Club, we pulled off and got out amidst watery sunlight and a *frigid* damp breeze, to look across the fields towards Wales and I think Lincolnshire. Off again, we looped madly along little lanes who's only change in 900 years seems to have been the advent of pavement. At Bartholomley, Paul stopped at a 900 year old Norman church, where we walked among mossy gravestones, a good many laid flat as paving stones all around the church. There he showed us a grave dated to the early 1700's which he said might be a pirate, complete with engraved skull and crossbones.

Inside the church, (which was unlocked) the reverent hush invited reflection beneath the high, shadowed arch of its ceiling. A stained glass window and two great, aged oil paintings of Moses and Aaron adorned the wall framing the doorway.

I should have liked to explore at greater leisure, but Paul probably feared his lady wife's wrath if we came back late for supper. So we hopped back in the car and on our way.

And what a dinner it was! I wish I'd been bold enough to photograph the table, with the lovely settings and candlesticks and good china. Silvia and I were seated and treated to an excellent English dinner: roast beef, steamed veggies, roast potatoes, Yorkshire pudding and brown gravy, with wine and/or water freshened with slices of lemon and lime. Then, after we'd digested a while, we moved to the front room for coffee and a pudding made of a hot apple-berry crumble served with warm English custard on top - absolutely heavenly!

With such splendid fare and cheerful company - Paul is as animated as his wife is composed - it was hard to find a point to say goodnight. Thankfully Paul drove as guide to get us out of the maze of lanes to the motorway, which would get us to the M1 and home.

Back at Sylvia's, we mucked with computers to secure and watch a good download of "Supernatural," then nattered until we realized - ACK! - it was nearly midnight.

~ * ~

STAFFORDSHIRE/DERBYSHIRE PHOTOS HERE

.

Part 2 - There and Back Again - A Hobbit's Trip to England

2009-02-19T21:22:00.000-08:00

SATURDAY, JAN 17 - I had a good night's sleep, woke up briefly in the early AM but went back to sleep and didn't wake up until about 8 a.m. After yesterday's gallivanting, I took a lazy morning with Becky, having toast and tea and lying about the house, relaxing. I met the lady of the house and her grown daughter, who'd brought her two cute kids, and we had a lovely chat around the kitchen table. What other vacation plan could see me so delightfully immersed right into the culture I'd come to visit?

My friend Sylvia's son, Dan, came to fetch me just past noon, and I was glad Becky came along for the ride. The plan was to meet Sylvia out at Warwick Castle, but we directly got stuck in M40 traffic going north. After inching for what seemed ages, we finally got moving about 1:20, the sun already westering at an alarming rate. Sylvia called and told us she was already there, and we never did see what the jam was.

One little treat in traffic was a Red Kite which flew low over the highway, a splendid looking fellow. Becky said it's only fairly recently that the kites were reintroduced to an estate in the area, and I watched broad wings carry him from view. With traffic finally moving under graying skies, we went north into rolling hills, soft fields, and brown, sleeping little woods. Here and there I spied little flocks of sheep, some white faced, some black-faced.

And then we came to Warwick Castle! (Properly pronounced, "Warrick.") Alas, Becky could not stay on to enjoy the adventure with Sylvia and me, so I bid her farewell with regret, and Dan took her back to London. Then, Sylvia and I set forth on the rest of my adventure.

This is the castle imagined in every tale of Camelot, or any story of knights and princes and kings. Built first by order of William the Conqueror in 1068, the original keep was a wooden stockade high atop a mound overlooking the River. The stone towers standing there now probably date to the early 1300s, as do the rest of the towers and walls.

It's a brilliantly realized trick of touristy glitz and genuine, accessible history. Inside the grounds there's a shop disguised as a medieval tournament tent, but the Castle itself is a stunning tribute to preservation and restoration.

Here are no cold and hollow walls with the rain seeping in. Rather one enters by way of the stable, smithy and armory, where INCREDIBLE wax figures in each room look so real you expect them to move or blink. They even have a wax horse downstairs by the smithy, all decked out in his armor and saddle - and somehow they made it SMELL like horse! I really don't want to imagine a mad scientist trying to concoct artificial horse smell, but there it is. ;-) In one room, the Earl of Warwick rallies his men - to piped-in music and stirring voice-over. Cheesy, a bit, but still fun. In another room the women gather and tell tales, and the walls are washed in white lime, hung with banners, and the floors are laid with rugs, the whole creating a warm and cozy feel.

We move subtly on in time, room by room, reaching Victorian grandeur seen only on the Titanic, velvet wallpaper, opulent woodwork, and more incredible wax figures of men and women, lords and ladies. There is the Great Hall with is weapons and armor and art, the wall walk and its towers and interminable steps.

The dungeon Sylvia said we simply must see, though it was not obvious to find. But we asked direction and down the stairs, we went, and I'll tell you now that dungeon was truly creepy, and terribly grim and dismal. There are marks carved in the walls by prisoners centuries ago, crosses and letters and marks that may have been someone's means of marking a calendar, or just something to do in an existence without meaning. There's one place where some educated chap actually carved a whole paragraph about when he was incarcerated and stuff, but they have it covered up by a board now for preservation, and have his words painted in transcription on the board.

The worst of all is the oubliette. It is a dark little hole about the size and shape of a very cramped coffin in one corner, accessed by an iron grate. There they'd have to stuff someone in head or feet first, (it's flat, not straight up and down) and I doubt he could ever even turn around. It's nightmarish to even imagine. Very sobering place, with the evidence of very real human suffering right there to see.

Outside was much more cheerful, as we took a walk around the walls. They have iron rails to keep tourists from falling over the side, and little narrow twisty stairs, though they've resurfaced most of the stone steps within recent memory. There are a few sets of stairs we were not allowed on, where you could see the original wear, and they're so worn and slick it's a good thing people don't use them, now. The view of the castle and village from up there was awesome, and I took a couple pictures of the village church, a square-towered Norman-looking thing, while looking through the arrow notches in the wall, giving the image a sort of keyhole affect.

Warwick was quiet during our visit, handfuls of people about but doing their own things, and I thoroughly immersed myself in the experience. It's amazing to walk these grounds and think of the sheer centuries involved, the generations of lives lived, from William to King Edward to now, in this place where history yet lives. I imagine in the summers it gets a good deal more garish and touristy, but for me, today was absolutely perfect.

Then with the sun setting and that damp English chill setting in, Sylvia and I loaded up and headed off for her little place in Sheffield.

~ * ~

WARWICK CASTLE PHOTOS HERE

.

Part 1 - There and Back Again - A Hobbit's Trip to England

2009-02-18T21:19:00.000-08:00

THURSDAY, JANUARY 15, 2009 - I boarded a wee little sports car of a plane at Reno at 9:15, and takeoff was on time. Presumably due to the plane's small size, we flew a very low flight path over the Sierra Nevadas, maybe 18,000 feet. Lake Tahoe hung momentarily at eye-level before we ascended to level flight and turned east over the lake. Such a beautiful, clear sunny day!

The short flight finished with a leisurely sweep over the Oakland Bridge and back, to zoom in over the water to landing. I had a bewildering moment trying to make sense of the boarding gates, for my connecting flight. (As a side note to my "Supernatural" obsession, the Stanford University shop reminded me of Sam Winchester, who in the show briefly went to Stanford. Hey, I can see LOTR or SPN anywhere, LOL!)

Boarding was on time, and I found myself on the BIGGEST damn plane I've ever been on, a Boeing 777. One could stuff two of the little puddle jumpers I got here in, inside. I got settled and we took off into a brilliant, sunny day.

And it was a looooooooooong flight. 10 hours in the air, utterly uneventful and the big plane rode as steady as a rock. Turbulence in that big thing felt like nothing more than brushing the rumble-bars on the side of the highway. But I got uncomfortable sitting for so long, until my legs felt like they were *crawling* and I had to get up and walk a bit. I strolled around the cabin for maybe 20 minutes, and returned to my seat feeling better. Somewhere over the Midwest they fed us something that vaguely resembled meatloaf, corn and mashed potatoes.

My seatmate being disinclined to engage with strangers, I finally took a couple Tylenol PM to stave off the inevitable airplane headache, set my watch to London time, and managed a 5 or 6-hour nap.

~ * ~

FRIDAY, JAN 16 - The plane woke up about 5 am, London time, people stirring and starting to talk. I could just see broken clouds below in the pre-dawn darkness, possibly the Plymouth area. In between clouds, I saw veils of jeweled lights spread on the dark land below. The stewardesses (or whatever they're called nowadays) fed us a somewhat odd breakfast of cold turkey sandwiches and chips. Crisps, now that we're in the UK. The flight's landing was slightly delayed due to low clouds, and we touched down in the dark @ 7:30 a.m.

I slid through customs without a hitch, but when I went for my luggage ... it never came. I watched everyone pick up their bags and leave, and when the flight from Chicago started unloading, I realized I had a problem.

There is no lonelier feeling than standing alone in a foreign airport, knowing your CLOTHES are missing! Nor did my cell phone work here, so I couldn't call Becky to tell me I had been delayed. Tired and staving off the urge to panic, I informed the guys in baggage claim of my plight, and asked when I should start to panic. "Now would be a good time," the gentleman said, with classic droll English humor.

But they set to work and told me that my bag was shown as loaded at San Francisco - so I worried, what if someone took mine by mistake? My stomach sank at the thought of my belongings lost somewhere in England, never to be seen again ... Some twenty minutes later, they found my suitcase in a carrier for reloading to some other plane! ACK!

Thus, I made my way out in a trans-Atlantic has, and to my immense relief found Becky waiting - anxiously. A friendly, familiar face at last!

She presented me with my Oyster Card - a pass for UK busses and trains - and we caught the Tube. It took us on a rocket-speed hurtle through tunnels and back yards until we got off near her place in Acton. There she rooms in a charming, narrow brick row house, and there I dropped my gear and freshened up.

Then we hopped back on the Tube, with Becky as my intrepid guide, and we were off to London! I must here salute Becky's planning and enthusiasm, as she took me on such a marvelous whirlwind of sights and sounds. London is a city of wonderful contrsts, 700-to-900 year old buildings next to modern edifices of glass and steel. Everything else is brick and stone, more brick than I've ever seen.

Between busses (via my Oyster Card), walking, and more walking, we saw, in no particular order: Trafalgar Square, Nelson's Column, the National Art Gallery, Parliament, Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, Admiralty Arch, St. James' Park (and its numerous water fowl and birds), the Horse Guards, the Queen Mum's residence at Clarence House, Westminster Abby, a chunk of Roman wall, and the Burroughs Farmers Market. At the latter, I saw soooooooooo many yummy things for sale, breads and cheeses and jams and pickles and olives and fruit and even a dessert stall. Becky and I shared a simply huge brownie, and still could only eat half of our halves.

I also bought a small loaf of fresh baked bread, which was itself an interesting little experience. I gave the chap a 5-pound note, which he put in his apron with thanks ... and then he looked away. The sign right on the table priced the bead at 1 pound, and I waited a long beat, then another. Then I said, "Didn't I give you a fiver?" To which he replied nonchalantly, "Oh, yes," and gave me my proper change. Clever little git.

And on we went. Adventures even included running to jump on a moving double-decker bus - just like in the movies! Becky leapt nimbly aboard, but I found myself dashing to catch up, Becky holding out her hand to me - but I made it. We scampered up top and there took in the view of London's narrow inner city streets. The architecture, the buildings, the sheer reality that I was *here*, it was almost too much to take in. But take it in, I did, with delight. We even saw, but did not tour, the Tower of London, which I had foolishly pictured as a single structure. I did not realize it was a huge, sprawling complex with every brick and wall still intact, a monument to ages and monarchs past. I could not but help, however, pondering the sad mystery of the two little Princes in the Tower.

Last but not least, Becky, bless her dear generous heart, bought us tickets to ride the London Eye. For those not in the know, it is a ginormous great Ferris wheel with little glass observation decks for cars, fitting maybe 20 people each. The thing *moves* at a snail's pace, so it takes about half an hour to go around, and you enter and exit the cars without it ever stopping. But the views of London are simply wonderful, and we got up there just in time to watch the sun set and see London come aglow with city lights.

Our campaign of tourism thus complete, we got back on the Tube, put up our weary, throbbing feet, and headed back to Becky's. As a final treat to a glorious day, Becky took me for dinner at St. George & The Dragon, a pub who's list of landlords looks like a pedigree back to the early 1700's. The dining room in the back was entirely too bright and spacious, but seat in within the pub proper was just right: dark wood paneling, low ceilings, and a coal fire on the grate. We ate a rather spendy but no less tasty dinner, and sat a while to reflect on the day's adventures.

Becky, if I haven't said so, you made this day an experience to remember! Thank you SO much for planning such a terrific expedition. I would rather have walked than done it any other way, as I could not have otherwise felt so perfectly *there*, present in every awesome moment. :-)

~ * ~

LONDON PHOTOS HERE

.

Good night, Dolly, and farewell

2008-12-09T22:24:00.001-08:00

Yesterday we said goodbye to our old dog, Dolly, at 11 and a half years old. In late June she was diagnosed with lymphoma, and the vet gave her 2-to-3 months to live.

The tough old thing stuck it out for five and half.

Dolly wasn't anything fancy. She was a half-Aussie, half-BC, ranch bred dog of no particular lineage, and in those days, we didn't know a thing about formal cowdog training. What a dog naturally had is what we took to work, and that was all.

But if we had a bull sulking in a bog or a cow up on the hill, we could tell her, "Git 'em up!" and by golly, they'd be got. She and her sister, Della, were the one-two punch that saved us and our horses a lot of extra work. When we hired on packing mules for guide/outfitter services, Dolly put her energies to patrolling squeakies up on the rock slides or chasing trout in the shallows, and sniffing out the secret ways of mountain critters.

She was butch, aloof, and independent, and she'd come to us for affection affection if and when it suited her. If you came to our gate, while the rest of the pack clamored and yelled, she'd stand back and measure you with a wolfish, opaque stare that just said, "Hmm...." One time she fell out of my pickup truck going 60 miles per hour - *broke* her chain whilst lunging at a semi going the other way. But she suffered nothing more than bruises and a bitten tongue. Looking through photos last night, we found it grimly amusing to see how many times we caught her with one of those plastic "satellite dish" vet collars around her neck. But going easy on herself never once crossed her mind.

At the vet's, we asked the doc to come out and administer the sedative in our truck, rather than subject Dolly to the scariness of the vet's office. As the drug began to take hold and consciousness faded, Dolly's last overt act was to growl and snap at her sister for crowding too close. Hardass right up to the bitter end. That's our girl.

Dolly never set foot on a trial field, or saw the sense in a half-mile outrun. (Put the spurs to that nag, Mom, and come on, help me out.) She had no square flanks and no finesse and nothing you'd call style. Her favorite approach was straight-on at thirty miles per hour.

She was none of those things to which men refer when they speak of the venerable, the great. But to those of us she leaves behind, Dolly was a good ol' dog.

That'll do, Dolly, good girl. Time for you to go on Home.

Love,

Me and the Pack

Dolly - 20 March 1997 - 8 December 2008

.

EyeCon2 Day 3

2008-10-19T17:07:00.000-07:00

Morning began a bit early for those wanting photo ops, as we had to be looking human, alert, and hopefully devoid of red eyes or pillow face, lol, by about 9:30 a.m. Today was the Big Day for the Big Guy, and people appeared in droves, seemingly pouring from the woodwork to fill the halls and lobby. Heh, it looked a bit like someone had chummed the water and feeding time was near ... ;-)

I had tickets for both the Hunters op with Jared & Jim and Jared by himself, but I thought it would be fun if Karina would share it with me. Maybe I'm a coward who's afraid of photo ops alone, but also she's just such a neat lady that I wanted to share something EyeCon-special. LOL, when I asked her, she stared at me as if I'd suggested standing in front of an oncoming truck, but ... she caved. *G* For which I am grateful, because it gave me more reasons to hang out with her, despite being the old cougar with the cool younger chick. :-)

They were trying like heck to be organized and timely, with all the lines for the different photo ops situated just so down all one side of the hallway and back up again. Things progressed quicker than I expected, yet somehow the photo ops themselves didn't strike me as overly rushed. The Hunters op was fun, Jim recognizing us from the weekend and Jared greeting us with a bright and chirpy, "Hey, hi guys!" I don't know whether he recalled my face from last EyeCon, or if he just likes to greet everyone with such familiar cheer, but whatever, it made me smile. Karina he definitely knows, since she met with him at the Dallas con. ;-)

Anywho, we smooshed together for a nice squeeze, Karina startled that she somehow ended up sandwiched in the middle, lol. I'll say again that Jared is just very nice to smoosh! He's sooo narrow about the waist, but if you look up, (and up!!) those muscular shoulders are as broad as *two* of me! Jared was cute, too, when I called him "hon" in passing and he got all happy about it. LOL, maybe that's a Texas thing.

Then with cheery thanks, we scooted off again to resume the line for the Jared single ops. Again, Karina was hesitant about doing another photo op, and given her association with Truckzilla and being known to Jared for it, I don't doubt she felt kinda dorky about getting her picture taken with him. ;-) But yanno, he's a great guy and he's *glad* she has Zilla, so why not enjoy the moment and have a little fun? So says I to myself, and she didn't say no! *g*

Thus, we went through the line again, during which we were treated to the diabetic-coma-inducing sweetness of Jared with a young couple's small baby. I don't know if they even intended for *Jared* to hold the baby for the photo, but he scooped that little tyke right out of her mama's arms, cradled her in those big paws, and made duck lips and cooing noises whilst the wee one stuck her fingers up his nose, LOL! I think my ovaries asploded into utter goo. ;-) When the picture was done, Jared didn't seem to want to give the baby up, still holding her and grinning like a wonderful dork, and we all had to go, "awwww." Finally he handed the little one back to her momma, and wrapped the mom in a gigantic squishy hug. :-)

ETA: I've learned since that the parents are such SPN fans that they named the baby girl Sam, after Sam Winchester. They told Jared this, so the shmoop-fest was his reaction. Awwww!

When it came our turn, Jared greeted us once more with that patented Padalecki charm. I have to say that the camera really doesn't do him justice, and this time ... yeah, this time I noticed just how TALL he really is! Anyway, we scrunched together and Froggy snapped, but for whatever reason, Jared declared that shot wasn't right. I really have no idea why, but he wanted to do over, so we stood there all cozy-like while Froggy reset the camera and fired again. LOL, having later seen both frames, I've no clue why Jared felt something was wrong with the first, but hey, we weren't gonna complain about the holdup. ;-) He and Karina then chatted briefly about cars (and I got the interesting sense that Jared was calling the shots on the delays) while I enjoyed just hangin' there for a moment, being relaxed with Jared.

Now, this may sound like dorkitude of the ninetieth power, but I gotta wonder if those moments of interaction aren't a treat for Jared, as well. You know? A few seconds here and there to see, and be seen, as an actual human being? Maybe Chad's movie made me hyper sensitive about some things, but I found myself viewing pretty much all of Jared's time here through a new and entirely different lens. After that, we thanked him, got another big smile, and took our leave.

Then while Karina went off in search of food and a quiet place to make some calls, I queued up for the Nicki Aycox photo op. She is *such* an adorable little thing! When I got up there, she had put on this sort of oversized tweed cap that looked indecently cute on her, and she wore the most dazzling smile you ever saw. Upon seeing that, I went ahead with an idea I had, and asked if, since she had been the demon, we could sort of cop an attitude for the camera. With girlish glee, she declared, "Oh, I have *just* the pose!" and snapped into instant!vamp. LOL, I could barely keep a straight face, but I pasted on my best smirk, and we gave the camera hell, and *click*, there we had it. I thanked her and told her how glad I was that she came, and she sent me on my way with such a smile that I felt like I'd won a blue ribbon.

Yeah. I might have a slight girl crush, there. *G*

When it came time for Jared to do his Q&A, they lined us up by badge numbers and the line wrapped around the mezzanine. So, let's see where to start ... First of all, I'd heard of a gal who had commissioned a specially made Supernatural Chess Set as a gift for Jared Padalecki. I had thought, you know, chess set. Well, she meant CHESS SET! The thing was like 3 feet across with hand-carved figures between 3 and 6 inches tall, every piece hand made. The black pieces are all evil SPN characters - including a Yellow Eyed Demon piece that really had yellow eyes - while the white were Sam and Dean and assorted Good Things, including the Impala as I think a Knight. She had designed the board herself, complete with a gigantic pentagram painted in the middle.

Anyhow, Jared had no sooner arrived to his usual torrent of screams and cheers, when the MC, our wonderful Dizzy, directed him to the chess set. It rested on a couple chairs near the door, and I swear Jared's eyes just popped. LOL, he loped over to the thing like a gigantic great kid, and while the girl shyly told him about it, he bent over and peered at it from first this angle and that, clearly and utterly astounded. He hugged her and thanked her with a boyish look of glee, then went *back* to ogling the set once more. LOL, Dizzy had to remind him there was another reason for him being here. *G*

But wait. Fandom was not done with Jared, no sir. Next Dizzy called up Becky, aka janglyjewels, who as many fans know had headed up a charity drive for The Animal Rescue Site, gathering funds from fans to the tune of $5,000!! The endeavor began as a fandom project wherein Becky collected photos of fans with Jared, to be compiled and printed as a book. People volunteered to help with printing, she ended up with more money than the book needed, and so she decided to donate the excess to The Animal Rescue Site in Jared's name. And then? The money REALLY began to come in. To the tune of five big ones.

So, here comes Becky with her arms full of book, oversize check, and a couple drawings of Jared and his dogs that an artist in the UK sent to go with the book. She read aloud from a prepared letter introducing the project, while Jared's eyes just kept getting bigger. By the time she handed him the book and the $5,000 check, Jared was beyond words. He wrapped her up in the biggest hug and smooched her on the cheek, and the crowd almost cheered the roof off.

It gets better. When Becky went back to sit down, Jared sat up there with this stuff in his lap, and he was nearly speechless. He stammered around, looking at the book, the drawings, the check, and the magnificent chess set by the door, and finally said he wondered what he was doing up on stage, when he was surrounded by people so much cooler than him. On the flight over, he said he was so tired and running short of sleep, that he wondered what he was doing this for. We, the fans, just gave him his reason.

We done good, guys. Everybody who partook in Becky's charity drive, give yourselves a pat on the back. I was right there in the second row, video taping it all, and yeah, I know he's an actor, but people, he had *tears* in his eyes. For a moment, he simply reverted to that patented Padalecki sign language, where he pats a hand above his heart and looks out at us all. Never doubt, fellow fans, that an actor's muse needs feeding just as much as any writer's, and we let him know that we're willing to go that extra mile, just for him.

SO! On with the show. :-) The Q&A itself didn't reveal much new or astounding, so I mainly enjoyed watching Jared simply be Jared. This being my second time seeing him, I settled in to savor it, and I'll tell you something that occurred to me. Jared is damned good at what he does.

Under that boyish, self-effacing, gosh-I'm-just-from-Texas exterior lies an awfully astute mind. He knows how to work a crowd, how to make us all feel at home, how to embrace an entire room like we're just hangin' out over beers - and yet he fields fan questions from the awkward to the downright silly with deft aplomb. Jared is running the room, it's not running him, and I find it impressive how well he does it, and makes it look like he's not doing a thing. Someone later told me he had excelled in debate in school, and I can certainly see that, now, in his ease in front of a crowd where anything might come at him.

As everyone by now has heard, Jared confirmed that he and Jensen do live together, him upstairs and Jensen down. Jensen had been rooming with another guy, but the guy sold his condo and Jensen moved in with Jared just as a temporary measure ... and the arrangement works so well he simply never bothered to leave. :-) Jared noted with some firmness that he wanted to quash any "fantasies" by talking about this, but hey, we know fandom doesn't let reality get in the way of its fantasies, lol! I think he knew this, though, the way he played with us about the whole situation. *G*

Meanwhile, some tidbits from his Q&A:
The latest prank? He and Jensen were filming an episode where both brothers are using binoculars, and when they put the binoculars to their eyes and took them down ... each turned to see the other sporting - you guessed it - sooty black rings around their eyes! LOL, the best part was, neither immediately realized he'd been pranked, himself! *SNORK!!*

Asked whether humor or emotional scenes were harder, he replied, humor. That's because they have to do crazy things and make it seem easy, plus he has more experience with drama. Plus emotional scenes usually move the plot along, which he likes.

His dream project? He'd love to so something like Lord of the Rings. He loves that it told a story and how the actors must have really lived it, so clearly he's a fan of the grand and epic. LOL, though he did tease about having hairy feet and trying to be a hobbit - all 6'4" of him!

Asked about the angel/religious thing appearing in Season 4, he said that initially "Houses of the Holy" upset him with its religious angle, bothered him a *lot*, but it ended up being a favorite episode of his. Now he's enthused about the idea of something "much bigger than us" happening, much bigger than Sam and Dean in the Impala. He was of the opinion that it only made sense that a Higher Power would take notice after the Devil's Gate opened and all that. Someone also asked if Sam was sleeping with Ruby, to which he simply replied, "Well, they were doing *something*." That's just veiled enough to leave it open to interpretation, and may mean that Jared himself really doesn't know. ;-)

He doesn't hear anything about future episodes until he gets the script, so he's as eager as we are to see what happens, to see if Sam gets to go "darkside" and do more kick-ass stuff, or what, but he's totally stoked over the season's new direction. Plus he reiterated his wish that he'd love to see the brothers clash, and that he wants a Butch 'n Sundance sort of ending for the boys. ;-)

Oh, and at one point the Ghost Busters peeked in and interrupted things, lol! Jared said he loved that episode, but he hopes he never works with them again, because all he does is LAUGH! *g*

Jared did make mention of The CW's shaky status, which in a worst case scenario could mean there won't be a Season 5 if there's no more CW, which is one reason they're pulling out all the stops for Season 4. However, I'm stuffing my fingers in my ears and chanting, "La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-can'thearyou-la-la-la-la!" on that one. *G*

Overall, his Q&A this time almost seemed more low-key than last EyeCon, maybe someone can confirm or deny, but it struck me that way. The prevailing thing I noticed was his gleeful excitement over the unfolding of Season 4! LOL, I love that he's almost a fanboy of his own show, even if he can't see the finished episodes until later. In all, Jared was as chatty, fun, affable and delightful as he has ever been. The only bummer of the entire Q&A? I finally had the microphone *IN MY HAND* when Dizzy let Jared know the time was up. DAMN! Foiled. ;-)

Thus, off our beautiful boy went, presumably to stuff some FOOD in himself before we ran the legs off him, once again. I think I went in search of something food-like, myself, the memory gets a bit hazy, there....

Come autograph time, my seat was in the B row, so not very far into the general line. But just as I neared the table, the handlers and helpers organizing the whole mishmash began chivying us to pick up the pace. But something in me said, "Not yet, dammit." Time *was* of the essence, Jared had to be at the airport by like 3:30, but I just wanted to treat him like a person one more time, before he had to turn into an autograph scribbling machine.

So I crouched down by Jared's table to roll out my poster for signing, and I felt weirdly better for being where we could look each other in the eye. Whatever, it earned me a smile and those warm hazel-green eyes, and I handed over my gift, telling him that since he gives so much to us, I wanted to give something back. He glanced it over with a boyish grin, exclaimed, "No way!" and accepted my handshake of thanks with a smile. And that's that! :-)

Which I'm glad I did, because from what I heard, the autograph session swiftly turned into an assembly line. I guess people soon weren't even getting their autographs personalized, and I wonder how many folks were bitterly disappointed for that.

But all things said and done ... I was glad he came, and I deeply enjoyed my few little moments with our long tall Texas boy. And I'm glad I coaxed Karina into coming with me, because she understands the sort of dorkitude with which I am afflicted. :-) Thank you, sweetie! *smish*

Some while later, Jared's visit ended and the place emptied right back out again, the weirdness of the exodus striking more odd notes in my mind. Just goes to show these cons wouldn't be much if neither Jared nor Jensen appeared, that's for sure! ;-) And amidst the vastly shrunken congregation, Chad Lindberg got up for his Q&A.

I decided to sit in just because it was part of the deal, and I was here for the total con experience. After all, who knows when or if I'll do another? Karina sat with me for a time, and called susannaheanes (home sick,) and relayed a question for her to Chad: what's he working on, now? The answer is a film called "Once Fallen" starring Ed Harris, for which YAY, Chad! *g* Chad also relayed his "Hi" back to Suze, which I thought terribly cute. Then Karina took off for a drive to the coast, which I later envied because, hello? Sunset on the Atlantic Ocean? I've never even SEEN the Atlantic!

But I'm not sorry I stayed for Chad, simply because I've grown to kinda like the guy. ;-) The crowd for him was small and the atmosphere relaxed and informal, and even lazy. LOL, though I'm not sure what prompted it, at one point Chad imitated his Italian friend, the maker of "My Big Break," and further imitated Tom Cruise by jumping on a couch, a la "Risky Business." *SNORK*

Asked if he was afraid of backlash from Hollywood, if "My Big Break" gets distribution, Chad stoutly said he's looking forward to it. That's because it would mean people are seeing it. gwendolyngrace later asked about acting, saying that some actors look for roles that showcase skills they already have, while others like to learn skills they don't already have. Were there any skills Chad had learned? LOL, I don't think Chad tracked the question entirely as Gwen meant it, but he did say he'd played a little baseball in one... :-p

Let's see ... other items include his tattoos: scorpio, a tribal breast cancer ribbon (which I later saw) a raindrop, and a Chinese character that he hopes but may not mean "courage". He'd next like a humming bird, since he tends to view them as little spirit guides or loved ones returning just to say, "Hi, it's cool!" ;-) He spoke also of the stress of intense roles, how the demands of filming override illness and everything.

He also spoke of later going back home to his parents in Washington State to re-collect himself after the events shown in "My Big Break." This was even after he was recognizable as an actor, and for every job, he is simply grateful. Heh, at one point he noticed Jim Beaver sitting in the back with his hand raised, and with exaggerated courtesy called for his question. Jim responded, "Why are you still talking?" ROTFLMAO!! Very cute to see the camaraderie of Supernatural lingers even amongst actors no longer on set.

And ... that was pretty much it for EyeCon! I chose to skip the Q&A's for Steve Carlson, and instead went with the girls for a nice lunch/dinner in the mall. heidi8 had already left, and roguebitch had only like half an hour before she had to leave, so I enjoyed some last moments with her and gwendolyngrace, and etakyma.

And that was that! I did miss the fan panels, or anyway the presence of *something* that would be "by the fans, for the fans." I think it's important to have that, and even a static display like a fan art show or even fan-vid viewing would be great, too. We need something that's just for us, y' know? Something BUT! I still had an awesome time, and I wouldn't have missed it for the world! Here's me crossing fingers for another land-based EyeCon, sometime in 2009. :-)

THANKS, Kenny and Voni! You guys put on a helluva show. :-)
:-)

EyeCon2 Day 2

2008-10-19T17:02:00.000-07:00

Day 2 of EyeCon 2 began for me with a trip to the downstairs Starbucks for a nutritious breakfast: a muffin, a fruit smoothie, and a cup of decaf. The muffin was awesome. The smoothie tasted like ... a liquefied vitamin pill, lol! I also made a mosey around the autograph tables, where I said good morning to AJ & Travis and Chad.

Anyhow, the day's events kicked off with a Q&A by the one and only Jim Beaver! I can safely say he has got the hang of all this convention stuff, including taking the mickey out of us. *g* He opened with this truly silly charade of having a faulty mic, very animatedly talking and gesticulating - while making no sound at all. He followed this up with fragments of voice, as if he were cutting in and out, and I think he missed his calling as a human sound effects machine. ;-P

Before the good stuff started, though, we had a redheaded staffer, Yvette, with ... well, some sort of gift/joke where she presented Jim with a "I'm a Bobby Girl" T-shirt, and then commenced to sing (badly) a song to go with it. *scratches head* Um ... yeah. Needless to say, she rendered Jim and a good part of the audience pretty much speechless.

But on with the show. Jim was in his usual rare form, funny, snarky and sardonic, addressing us as if we were all his somewhat dim but no less loved relatives, lol. He especially played with us about spoilers, hemming and hawwing to cries of protest until revealing the dramatic fact that ... Sam and Dean will be investigating something really scary. LOL! (For those wondering, his T-shirt was quite tame this time, reading only, "I do my own stunts" with a little cartoon of a guy falling down.)

Of course, Jared and Jensen figured into some of Jim's talk, including Jim stating ominously that Jared's only played one prank, but he hasn't dared any more. Jim promised he has a plan for revenge, but (insert deep, wicked voice) it may take two or three years, heh heh heh. Jared is, Jim assured us, 6'4" of baby, who thinks he's in kindergarten and when he's 90 years old on his deathbed, he's going to pull a stunt. ;-)

The Qs and As were fun and entertaining, not a whole lot new but mainly just a chance to enjoy Jim being Jim. LOL, a note I both treasure and dread: when I raised my hand for my chance to Q, when he saw who it was, he got this sardonic, teasing grin and said, "Yes, Erin." Oh, noes, he knows me by name across a room - eeps! *face-palm* But, being dead tired on little sleep and rather much wine, last night, my thinky question of earlier evaporated completely from my mind. So, instead I asked him about wrestling down a big ol' kid like Jared, as Bobby did Sam in the season premiere.

My question inadvertently sparked what's apparently become a favorite note of the evening, LOL! After chiding me for not thinking he could really *do* it, Jim told how he had to hold Jared for the shot of Bobby restraining Sam from attacking the newly-risen Dean, and teased that yeah, the rest of us would love that, lol. When it took them time to set it up, he *kept* holding Jared preparatory to each take, and meanwhile felt up Jared's pects and chest and the upshot now is ... they're engaged. ROTFLMAO! (He later also noted that they're registered at Home Depot. *SNORK!*)

Oh! Jim did spill that in Episode 6, Bobby gets to drive the Impala. HEE!

Some A's from Jim's Q's include:
His current project, Harper's Island, is under uber strict confidentiality agreements, because the effectiveness of the show depends on the audience being surprised. Jim's own role is very different from Bobby, instead a man who rarely speaks, and it's a more internal role.

Deadwood was, he said, a role he was born to play.

The nature of a character and the scripts writing have more to do with him getting into character than the period or the costumes.

He finds it most chaotic to shoot a scene with lots of people or lots of Special FX. The fight scene with the boys' blasting ghosts during Bobby's ritual in 4:02 his example.

And ... that's kind of it. Jim doesn't know what Bobby is doing after about Ep. 6, and he figures we won't see much of Bobby for a while, until Harper's Island is wrapped and the latter episodes of SPN are to be filmed. HI would let Jim go film SPN if needed, but he hasn't got the call for anything further on, yet.

In summary, Jim was awesome and amazing and a pure joy to see/hear. He treats us all like ... well, like occasionally exasperating family whom he nonetheless loves to have around. :-)

Next on the schedule were the Ghost Facers, AJ and Travis. To be honest, I was kind of "meh" about seeing them, figured I'd do it just because I'm here, but ... no squee involved. I even came back in a few minutes late... and I was very pleasantly surprised! They were funny and goofy and borderline slapstick and played off each other hilariously. AJ seems the mellower of the two, with Travis so amped he had to put aside his chair just so he could pace and bounce around, lol! They also did a hilarious in-house riff where AJ flattered Travis about we don't even know what, while Travis went all "golly shucks" - all in an absurd verbal shorthand that meant nothing to anyone else. They really should be a stand-up team...

Tidbits of their talk include: a very great deal of Ghostfacers was shot by them, with their ghost hunting crew actually holding the cameras. It was scripted, of course, but they were given lots of room to just do their thing, which made for a very different acting experience. (For example, the rat Travis freaked over was just tossed in the room for atmosphere, but Travis saw it and chose to scream and react.)

AJ and Travis also spoke very highly of Jensen and Jared, as well as riffing about how HUGE Jared is, how big *both* boys are compared to their smaller statures. AJ told how Jared one day just picked him up and ran around with him slung over his shoulder, while AJ freaked that he was going to be dropped, and Jensen chastised him to put AJ down. LOL!

Fave lines from the show: "Sweet lord -" "- of the Rings!" and the "chisel chest" exchange. Apparently that absolutely broke Jared up the first time they said it, and they said Jared laughs *huge*, and when he does, everything just stops.

Yes, they miss Corbett, and if we smell French Vanilla, that would be Corbett farts. :-p

Asked about pranks, they said Jared would do just anything to distract and make you laugh. They also told the already-immortal tale of them trying to keep straight and do the ghostly train-death victim scene - while Jensen was goosing AJ in the ass with a shotgun! AJ would go "AH!" and the director would ask, "Why do you keep going 'ah'?, and Jensen would echo, "Yeah, why do you keep going 'ah'?" LOL!

In all, they were funny, boyish, hyper, and played off each other hilariously, as well as being easily distracted by their own silliness. They also had great fun with the guy who ran the mic around, Steven, sending him dashing from one side of the crowd to the other.

Next up - Fred Lehne, the Yellow-Eyed Demon himself! Having stepped out for a break, I came in late, so I missed his entrance, but I got the bulk of his Q&A. The poor guy was *not* well, and his voice was half gone, but he carried on like a trouper. I honestly didn't know what to expect, and I've heard some iffy things about past con behaviors, but the man I saw today was just plain fun. He told us about his underwear - Calvin Klein - his fan boy moments - Bruce Springsteen and Elizabeth Taylor (her eyes really were violet, and she rendered him completely incoherent.)

My question to him was how much was him and how much was direction, in the YED's smarmy, supercilious demeanor. His response: they just let him go, and what we saw was what came out when he played the scene. Someone also asked if he ever thought about the poor janitor the YED had possessed. Fred responded with a practiced sneer that the janitor had more fun with him then out in the basement with the mops, lol!

A couple times he turned the questions back on his audience, which earned fun results. When people floundered for answers, he laughed and said, "Not so easy, is it?" He also set himself up with innuendos several times, chiding us, "You've got *dirty* minds. I like it." LOL! On the many times he's died in various roles, he quipped, "I've died so many times I'm afraid when it really happens it'll be a disappointment - hey, this isn't like on Supernatural!" His favorite film death(s) belonged to "Lost," where his character apparently died several nasty times.

Upon being asked, "Do your kids ever show any interest in acting?" he replied, "No, not even mine!" LOL! His favorite SPN line: "You're going to live long enough to know the taste of your own intestines." He declared it's not often you get to say something like that! ;-)

So ... there's that. He gave us nothing new, but simply because he *has* nothing new, but he was by turns warm, funny, irreverent and teasing, a very comfortable presence to be around. I found him to be a pure pleasure and lots of fun, which rendered me happily surprised.

Subsequently came Nicki Aycox, aka the demon, Meg. Now this girl? Was an absolutely unexpected joy. My first impression was that she is *tiny*, lovely, a bit nervous at first, but utterly spunky and witty.

Highlights of her talk: her fangirl moments were with X-files movie co-star, David Duchovny, where she had to appear in a scene in a yukky hospital gown. Not exactly the circumstances in which she wanted to meet him, lol! And ditto with Bruce Willis, when she met him before playing a part with him.

Asked if Jared and Jensen ever pranked her, she replied tartly, "Pranks? I'm too smart for that." Did she prank them back? Nicki smirked and said, "It wouldn't be an even match." ROTFL!

On filming SPN: she told of how hard it was for Jensen to slap her for a scene, to the point he almost couldn't bring himself to do it. (Awww.) Per getting along with the boys, she said they were Texas boys and she was an Oklahoma girl, so they got along just fine. She spoke of Jared and Jensen in the very highest of terms, nothing but praise and affection for them both.

My Q to her was regarding the episode, "Shadow." I loved her sensuality, her sexual aggression in Meg, the imbalance of power with Sam and Dean as her prisoners. I wanted to know how much was her and how much was direction? She replied that the words were all scripted, but the actions were all hers, the crawling back and forth and sliding around the pole, kicking Jensen's/Dean's leg aside, etc. She had *wanted* that imbalance of power, wanted to give a strong woman character. Jared and Jensen had no idea how she was going to play the scene, so she asked the crew to keep them in the dark until they were rolling, so she'd get the sort of genuine reactions the boys gave.

A trivial note: they sometimes used ramps to get hers and Jared's faces in the same frame, lol! She also repeatedly praised Jared and Jensen, saying she'd come back for them in a heartbeat and do anything on SPN, and equally praised the SPN workplace. In all, I found Nicki to be articulate, smart, forthright, and a real treat to hear, and she was fiercely proud of how the SPN fandom had embraced Meg.

Jason Manns had the next Q&A, which I attended since I liked his music so well. (I must here add that Karina bought me Jason's CD, which makes her eleventy billion new kinds of awesome.) Up there in front of a couple hundred inquisitive eyes, Jason came across to me as affable, relaxed, low-key, and a man at home in his own skin.

My Q for his A was about how he wrote songs: in effect, did he tend to find words first and then the music, or music first and then the words, or what? I told him that a handful of my own poems came out with such a strong sense of internal rhythm that they sometimes felt like they could be songs - were it not for my total lack of musical talent. Jason replied that it was both, sometimes he'd get words in search of a tune, and he has snippets of tunes just waiting for the words. He went on about the songwriting process for a little bit, which pleased me to no end, talking about songwriting teams where one person is the lyricist and the other the musician, and finished by advising me with a smile that I should find a friend with a piano. *G*

Other answers to fan questions included: He did encourage Jensen to sing, but Jason also explained about the commitment needed to really pursue singing. He reminded us that Jensen was simply too busy for the amount of practice that would give him the confidence to play and sing in front of audiences, and that being a musician/singer is a thing that requires work. Jensen, Jason said, is just not prepared to make the change from music he plays to relax into music for work. Right now Jensen's work is acting, and he prefers to keep music just for fun.

So, fans who love Jensen's angelic voice, there is your answer on that. :-)

Jason rounded out his session by playing a song or three in his mellow, beautiful, acoustic style, including a gently-jazzed version of "Sittin' On a Dock of the Bay." I really, really like this guy, both the easy, comfortable way he has with people and the sheer beauty of his voice, the artistry of his music. When I want something to just be mellow with and feel good, I think I've got me some new tunes for my playlist. :-)

There were breaks between things, too, I'm just not writing a strict chronology, but I did make time to mosey about a bit. At one point Karina and I took a turn around the mall, nosing in a couple shops and getting her a pair of sunglasses, me a new Led Zeppelin t-shirt, and just sort of stretching our legs. In the vendors' room I replaced my SPN poster that I'd lost/left coming through airport security on my flight out, and looked at all the SPN goodies that were on offer. They also had a vendor selling corsets and other goth-type costume stuff, which actually seemed to sell. Me and corsets? Not so much, lol.

I also did my photo op with Jim, figuring to get that out of the way before the Sunday crowds. I missed Nicki's Saturday op, but she would be there again on Sunday. Meanwhile I got some of my autographs for my spiffy SPN poster, including Jim's, AJ's & Travis', Nicki's, Fred's and Chad's. This year everyone including Jim were at tables off the vendors' room, which made casual chatting much easier and more fun. So, all I needed was Jared's autograph! YAY! Uh, I think I also took time out to grab a quick lunch in the food court along with roomies gwendolyngrace, roguebitch, heidi8 and etakyma. LOL, I couldn't just keep forgetting to eat, or I'd tip over!

Later that evening, I had some things on my mind and dinner plans fell through, so I threw monetary caution to the winds and bought myself a Banquet ticket. I had no one to sit with, and really just expected to end up with fans, but to my amazement found myself with a choice: Fred, Jason or Steve Carlson. LOL, I was so flustered by this unexpected chance that I just went for the easy choice, Steve, since I'd already talked to him a few times both this con and last April. I guess I wasn't feeling brave enough for Fred and just kind of spazzed over the idea of sitting with Jason, lol.

Anyhow, it made for a pleasant interlude. I sat among strangers and there was a bit of initial awkwardness, but Steve was so laid-back about it. In fact, he led us in staging the first assault on the buffet table, lol, when everyone else seemed to be waiting in exquisite politeness for some sort of dinner bell. After a while we relaxed into comfortable conversation, and enjoyed.

The food *was* better than last time, served on steam tables rather than allowed to get cold and yukky whilst trying to figure out how to serve umpty hundred dinners at once. I think there were fewer people this time, too. The dinner itself included rice pilaf, chicken, roast beef, a tasty pasta dish, something with zucchinis and yellow squash, and pie. :-) Maybe not 4-Star, but they made a noticeable effort to improve, and my roast beef was tender and delicious. (Plus being able to go back for seconds was a definite plus, lol!)

Across the room, gales of manic hilarity burst frequently from the tables headed by Travis & AJ and Chad Lindberg. LOL, evidently they were having a fake-laughter contest. Those of us with Steve were just as glad to play it mellow and let those guys have all the rowdy fun. ;-)

Steve eventually had to leave to prepare for his concert, but for those who remained at our table, AJ stopped by to chat a bit, just a really nice, gently-spoken guy, then Fred popped in to joke and tease, despite his raspy voice and lingering cold-bug, and he made us laugh over I don't even remember what. Chad stopped by last, when I think only 4 of us remained over pie, and we all had a *very* nice chat about his movie. He's very earnest about it, passionate in his desire for it to reach a larger audience, and sincere in his inquiries about our reactions. I think it really pleased and touched him that we understood its message, the need to understand about the acting industry and how easily the lines blur between fiction and reality, too often with tragic consequences. I think of the entire dinner, I enjoyed the chat with Chad the most.

Anyhow, it was worth it to me, given my temporary state of mind, to just say f** it and throw some money at the chance to embrace one more con experience. I enjoyed it, and I was *very* happily surprised that my late dinner ticket and lower badge number (106) still got me a celeb seat. :-) LOL, the only thing I might do different would be to *plan* slightly ahead, so I could have changed into better evening clothes.

Things were running late by then, but I looked forward to Steve Carlson's concert, having enjoyed his music at the April EyeCon. A good crowd gathered and I thought it was cute that, when he first took the stage, he asked lighting to turn off the spot for a few minutes. Before we make love, he says, we should at least make eye contact. Flirt. ;-)

As before, his show was warm and fun and intimate, just a storyteller and his songs. At one point he called Jason Manns up to join him in a duet, singing an upbeat version of "Stuck on You," the two of them swapping lead vocals. Good? Honey, there were angels weeping at the beauty of those two voices. :-) Jason remained in the front of the audience for the rest of Steve's concert, and the two palled around all weekend. In all, Steve once again gave us a terrific show, closing with a high energy encore with a sweet finish and awesome, awesome guitar. :-)

And after that ... uh, what next? Oh, Platinum Party! Right. So we had the platinum party, and again, Kenny and Voni made a real effort to improve. The room was much bigger, the bar more accessible, and people had more room to mingle. The party room was dominated by the Rock Band game setup, and we got to watch Travis, Chad and several fans horribly mutilate a couple songs, lol! Chad followed with a rock star rendition of "Eye of the Tiger" which is probably all over YouTube by now, very funny!

The noise in the room did, however, prompt people to drift back out onto the Mezzanine by the game room, where folks congregated to talk and hang out. Having not sufficiently humiliated myself with Jim Beaver yet, I joined the little circle of folks standing with him. I was touched once again by him talking about his little girl, Maddie, and the journey she's made from losing her mother so young to a precocious 6-year-old who is, Jim fears, destined for world dictatorship. *G*

Tonight I only had a single glass of wine, so I took the chance when offered to chat with Jim about writing, the subject I'd *meant* to bring up in his Q&A before hanged-over-ness turned my brains to applesauce. ;-) I can only say again what a good and decent man Jim is, to lend himself and his attentions to us. I truly enjoy how articulate and intelligent he is, how deeply he thinks under that gruff exterior. We chatted for quite a while about his upcoming book and writing in general, and I hope he knows how much I appreciated his time. :-)

And ... that was pretty much that. I straggled back on up to the room, where the rest of my roomies were already asleep. Karina and I, however, stayed up nattering and whispering for probably another hour, until we conked out. Tomorrow was JARED DAY!

EyeCon2 Day 1

2008-10-19T16:52:00.000-07:00

Wherein I post belatedly - very belatedly - but I want to round out the set. *g*

This is my account of the *second* EyeCon, held once again in Orlando, Florida, September 26-28, 2008. Beginning with Friday, here we go! :-)

First, Chad Lindberg's movie, "My Big Break," was SO not what I expected! It started off as a sort of whacky guy-thing kind of film, complete with all sorts of "inappropriate" behavior, including opening scenes of one of the guys trashing a big ol' pile of film in the back of his truck, finishing with peeing on the whole, mess, lol! But as the film followed these four young actors through their trials and tribulations in Hollywood ... it became grew into something much sadder and sobering. By the end, the scene of the film being destroyed was not a bit funny, at all. It is, as the creator/filmmaker Tony V said, a denunciation of Hollywood, and it really *really* made me think. Of course, Chad as presenter with Tony was awesome and adorable, and we showed him the love!

Jason Manns - Wow. That man can sing like an angel. His folksy soft accoustic sound was absolutely beautiful, and as I texted to Lindsay, lol, that man can sing me to sleep any night. He was an utter doll to talk to, as well, sweet and engaging and just the kid next door. My roomie and generous friend, Karina/aka blacklid bought me his CD, which makes my ears very happy! *G*

Then the Cocktail Party - w000t! WE HAD ELBOW ROOM! Gone was the claustrophobic cattle call of last year, but this time a generous room with *two* bars set up, and they did not charge for my wine, at least, until they shut the bars down for the night. :-) Per celebs - LOL, I had a hard time getting *to* anybody simply because I kept running into fan friends and LJ acquaintances! But I did chat just a bit with Chad, who was cute as ever. I forgot to say that not long before the film, Karina and I ran into Chad with his lovely girlfriend down in the Mall, and Chad recognised and greeted us warmly. What a doll! *G* Back to the cocktail party, I honestly never *saw* Nicki, which makes me feel bad. I probably looked right past her, without that blond hair. :-/ I saw Travis but ever got over there, didn't see AJ but again, probably just missed him. Jim Beaver, however, repeated Chad's welcome when he recognised me from last EyeCon and gave me a big hug. LOL, the poor man really was snowed under by eager fans, and I fear we backed him into the corner, but he's getting the hang of this crowd-working thing. I missed seeing Fred, as well, so I'm sorry to read Jane's report that he's ill. Sinusitus? GAH! Hope he can get some antibiotics.

Anyhow, so I had an *awesome* time chatting with fandom pals, and it was very cool to be recognised by Jim and Chad - though maybe I should be vaguely alarmed, since there is the possibility that makes me notorious ..... Hmm .... ;-)

I hung with the die-hards until the threw us out, whereupon I retired to congregate with the folks down at Crickets. Jim Beaver was down there, too, but engaged in private conversation as well as getting something to eat. As I said, I flat *forgot* to eat, just had a power bar, so it's probably no wonder 3 glasses of wine pretty much rendered me rediculous. *g*

Other characters to meet were of course Kenny and Voni, who looked awesome and greeted returnees with huge smiles and hugs, and Dizy the MC, who is still the outragous flirt. *G* Of course I saw Yasmine and Megan and met Jane and I don't even remember who all, lol, so if I forget I saw you that night, please don't hold it against me!

More to come ....

Still kicking ... Me in my writer's hat

2008-09-01T21:31:00.000-07:00

Where, oh where, did the past year and three months go?

It just ... went. Like a Kleenex snatched out the car window. It's been a busy year, including a return to fan fiction, (oh, joy, someone combined horror with classic rock, a classic car, and handsome spook hunters - catch "Supernatural" Thursday nights on The CW) raising and losing a beautiful new Border Collie pup, moving to a new house with acreage (renting), and working my freakin' arse off so's to support my new-found travel habit.

Yup, took a 6-day road trip to see my parents near Seattle last October, went to a fan convention in Orlando in April (EyeCon), went on an 8-day Moot/road trip to New Mexico and Arizona as my annual ladies' escape with friends, competed in some out of town sheepdog trials, and I'm fixing to go to another fan convention in September. The height of hurricane season. Pray for me. :-p

Work-wise, I clean dog kennels and sheep pens two days a week, help a friend work her horses, help another friend with odd jobs around her property, and pick up other under-the-table work, all involving labor and/or livestock, whenever the chance permits. It's cash, baby, and I'd rather work outside than in an office. :-) I don't fare well in captivity ...

With the loss of my beautiful 1-1/2 year old pup, Flynn, to accident in early May, my dog-training pals went together and got me a new pup. Nick is a completely different dog from joyful, elegant, grey-hound fast Flynn, but he's impeccably bred, smart to the point of scariness, wonderfully level-headed, and at only 4 months, I can tell he's going to be a helluva dog. I will mourn Flynn until time spins down, but Nick has filled my heart. Yes, I am blessed in friends.

This morning I awoke from the satisfying exhaustion of a weekend sheepdog trial, and discovered summer had momentarily given way to the sharp, clean bite of autumn. From mornings of 65 desert degrees, the mercury dropped to a startling 40. The day will warm, even here at 6500 feet among the pinion pines, but it reminds me that Fall is fast approaching. It's coming time to reorder my time. Less play, more work - and more writing. I'm giving myself September to finish playing hooky, but I've manuscripts in need of the knife and words in need of whittling. Time indeed to call the muses back from their summer among leaves and sunlight.

Until then ... to whomever should chance to read this ... may you find crisp apples and rosy tomatoes and thick green zucchini as your part of the harvest bounty, and watch you for the cheery faces of pumpkins among the vines. :-)

~ G. M. Atwater

EyeCon - Day 3 Part II

2008-04-13T23:13:00.000-07:00

SUNDAY April 6th 2008
(continued ...)

Left by my wee lonesome at the end of the con, I was definitely not ready to go back to the silence of an empty room. Amidst the general exodus of the hotel, I knew people would be staying an extra day or two, so I set about trying to find someone - anyone! *whimper* I missed my chance to catch up with Carol/ficwriter1966 for supper, alas, but I ran into LovesJeter and Samjacklover in the lobby, and followed them out to the mall food court. Rachel had told me there'd be some sort of after-party up in the game room, but I honestly didn't expect anything bigger than the not-quite-pajama-party.

So, I got some Asian take-out and sat a bit with Jeter and Sammy in the hotel lobby, but quickly found myself too restless to remain sitting. Leaving the smarter folks to take their ease, I resumed wandering in search of familiar faces.

And found myself in the game room. Sure enough, the door was open and one of those little portable bars stood inside, but nothing much seemed to be actually happening. But I saw a handful of folks I knew and decided to just sit and take a load off, and chit-chatted with some fellow SPN fans.

Frankly, I'm not even sure how it developed, but at some point, an After Party miraculously happened. The mini-bar went away, but booze seemed to keep appearing, though I remained sober with only one glass of wine. This highly informal get-together somehow organically evolved to include Chad Lindberg, Jim Beaver, and Steve Carlson just hanging out with us fans, and Samantha Farris moseying in and out waving a glass in one hand.

And you know? It became some kind of magic. Where else is a girl soldier going to play drums with Steve Carlson at a game of "Rock Star", (and omg, that girl could *play!!*) and even Jim Beaver steps up to sing a little Rolling Stones? Where else is Chad Lindberg going to duel fans at Guitar Hero, while Gabe Tigerman charms the socks off everyone around him? Where else could folks snap informal (and occasionally silly) candids of all the guest stars, as casually as shooting for the family vacation album, and chat with them as if it was a backyard barbeque?

And where else am I going to sit with "Bobby Singer" and friends, and shoot the bull about everything and nothing at all? Nowhere else that I've ever seen, and I'm glad I stayed up too late to enjoy it.

Other folks, the younger set, have posted the real juicy reports as to what all Chad and Gabe were up to at this party. Me being older - (and seriously, how much flirting could I do with a couple twenty-something guys, before I creeped them completely out?) - I just hung back, took it all in, and enjoyed the amazingness of it all. This I think is where I fell a little bit in love with Jim, who seemed still amazed at how much fans love Bobby Singer, and love Jim for giving us such a terrific character. When we tried to explain, he just turned the compliments right around, saying that we were the awesome people and he was having fun simply hanging out with us.

Seriously, the camaraderie of the actors and us fans clinched this whole weekend for me. Kenny, honey, I can honestly tell you that Creation has never hosted a convention like *that*. This sort of thing simply does not happen. But here at EyeCon ... it did.

And yes, I've gone on for pages and pages about the celebrities and the events, but I can't say enough about how wonderful it was to connect with so many other SPN fans. I honestly don't know anyone in the entire state of Nevada who is a Supernatural fan, which made it *such* a treat to be surrounded by and immersed in hundreds of fellow fans. People I'd met online via LiveJournal and The CW Lounge forums turned out to be so much fun, and I met other folks who were entirely new, and just as cool to talk to.

It's been noted before how the cast and crew of Supernatural work as an extended family, and Jared generously extended that umbrella to include all of us fans. Well, having met a sizable chunk of the SPN cast here, I can see where that family feeling comes from. These are just plain good people, who appreciate their fans and see us as people, and who don't mind hangin' out with us an indulging our silliness: nay, sometimes they help our silliness along!

This weekend? Creation could not touch it. Creation is not in the magic business. Kenny and Voni are. If EyeCon becomes a regular event, I don't know how long it can hang onto this family thing. But I'm so very glad I was here when the door first opened, and magic overrode the mundane with manic, merry glee. EyeCon II in September? If it's at all in my power, this cowboy hobbit is going back. :-)

The hour marked past 1 am when I bid a fond adieu to this Supernatural fest, pausing in the hall to request Jim Beaver's permission to hug him (he gives very nice hugs), get hugged by Kenny and Voni, (now how many con organizers hug their guests, huh?) and say a few farewells. Then I walked with 'Bobby Singer' to the elevator, a moment surreal and ordinary at once. Lol, and evidently half the crowd decided to call it a night at once, as Jim found himself holding the door with eyebrows crawling steadily higher, as a good dozen or so people crammed inside. Then we punched pretty much every button on the panel and the elevator began its ascent, delivering us all to the sanctuary of our cozy beds.

The morning would come way too early for me - I discovered my hotel room had a doorbell, lol, when Hanako rang me to make sure I was awake to catch our airport taxi. But even as I sank into my window seat on the plane for the first leg towards home and exhaustion settled into, my mind remained behind in sunny Florida. I had a wonderful time with everyone there and tried to see it all, and I hope my perennial gadding about did not leave anyone feeling slighted or overlooked. All I needed were a few more hours in the day, lol!

To my fellow fans, to my Awesomely Awesome Roomies, to Kenny and Voni and last but not least, the cast of Supernatural - God bless you all, wherever life takes you. May our paths bring us together once again. Happy trails!

~ Erin / Gloria

EyeCon - Sunday Day 3 Part 1

2008-04-13T23:07:00.000-07:00

Ahh, here's the day we've all be waiting for, the appearance of The Padalecki himself!

The change of energy in the place was palpable as fans lined up for Jared's morning Q&A. A whole lot of people must have showed up with day tickets as well, because the place freakin' filled *up!* LOL, so much so that when Diz, (the MC and Kenny's all-around Guy-Friday), came onto the stage and gazed across the sea of faces, he said that Jared could start a cult right now! LOL!

And so it seemed. Diz whipped us all to a perfect anxiety of anticipation, and when the door opened, we SCREAMED. Yup, me too. I admit it. But that was JARED walking in, JARED not fifty feet away, all long legs and long arms and the Awesome Black Shirt of Yum, and smile? Oh yeah. The Smile and Those Dimples and we almost screamed the house down.

Jared took it with absolute ease. When he accepted the mic from Diz's grasp (Diz knelt to offer it like Excalibur, lol), Jared looked out at us all sparkly and bright, and chirped, "Hi, guys!" He *owned* us from the first word. And now before I bore you, I want to say this:

Jared Padalecki in person ... You've read interviewers who speak of the boys' charisma, right? Jared is charisma personified. He is nuclear fusion on two (very long) legs. He is boyish charm and boundless energy and a thousand facial expressions. He is the guy next door and every grandmother's Good Boy, and a jaw and cheekbones that most male models would die for. He teases, he plays, he appeals to kids, he jokes, he laughs - he *shines*. And you get the very distinct feeling that Jared Padalecki is having an absolute hoot with us all.

To begin, he thanked us for coming out, and apologized that things got "kind of crazy". "How've you all been?" he asked, like we were neighbors he hasn't seen in a week or two. Then he asked where everybody was from, which got him such a chorus of shouts that he laughingly confessed, "I didn't hear one thing."

So, we settled down a bit and called out our homeports by turns: all over the US, the UK, Austria. I shouted, "Reno!" to which he exclaimed, "Reno! Nice!" Then he drawled, "It's just a shorter trip to Vegas. I would be like, Vegas, Jared" - making balancing motions with his hands - "Jared, Vegas - I'm goin' to Vegas!" (And he half got off his chair as if to leave, lol.) I assured him, "Honey, Vegas sucks." Grinning, he responded, "Yeah, that's true. You always walk away poorer and fatter. At least I do!" Which made me laugh, because Jared fat? Riiiiiiiight. But hey! I got to talk to our boy, and he played nice with my dorkiness. *beams*

Upon noticing all the cameras in the audience, he joked about moving really slow, like The Matrix, and to demonstrate, he got out of his chair and sort of contorted himself around, balancing briefly on one leg - and really just looked like a ginormous, long-armed stork-dork, ROTFL! But he said if we all took and printed one picture, we could make like a flipbook.

Yeah. That's our Jared, the big goof. That's how he was. He talked like we were all just several hundred of his good pals, sitting around his living room over beer. The man knew how to play a crowd, and looked supremely at ease. No matter how crazed his schedule must be, how long his flight and how little time off he's had with cons and work, he just *gives*: gives himself and his energy and his whole attention ... to us. We may have had less than a full day with Jared Padalecki, but he tried his best to make it worthwhile. Yeah, I'm smitten by our boy, big-time.

Anyhow, pleasantries done, he finally decided he was feeling "kind of useless" up there and urged us to start asking questions. I'm working from a real slap-dash collection of notes, so please pardon if this gets disjointed and random.

JARED Q&A TIDBITS:

Gordon Walker - He really liked Sterling Brown and the character of Gordon, and, "I didn't want him to die, but the way I killed him was really cool!" LOL!

Asked what if he had a day where he could do anything without consequences: he said he would eat. A lot. Including steak. *g*

The hardest day to shoot - Mystery Spot, where Dean dies a lot. It was hard to get in the mindset of "watching your brother and best friend die." Yup, hearing him say that pretty much reduced me to warm applesauce.

Everybody's heard the "What do you and Jensen call each other?" question - He calls Jensen ugly, since everyone else calls him pretty, lol. No, really, he calls him Ackles or Shmackles or Shmack. Jensen in turn calls him lord, idol, hero, some variation - LOL! But no, Jensen calls him Stretch a lot.

Can you recite the exorcism? - ! He needed someone to prompt him, but after just two words, he was off and running, rattled the whole thing off without hesitation, and he made victory arms amidst the cascade of cheers, lol! - Then he claimed he had no idea what he just said, and hoped he hadn't cursed anyone. "Except you -" pointing in to the audience - "You came in late! No, seriously, just kidding".

He also spoke of playing Sam in Mystery Spot, that he and Kim Manners went over how Sam would be with Dean dead. They settled upon the idea that Sam would just be robotic, closed off so that he could no longer be hurt, the anger and grief locked away inside. *wibble-sigh* Pretty much as the fans read it.

Fandom has also heard the little boy's cute question, "I know monsters aren't real, but if they were, would you fight them?" LOL, Jared immediately said "I'd run so fast!" But corrected himself to add, "Unless someone was picking on you, then I'd get 'em."

AWWWWWWWWWWW! He's so cute with kids - he'll be an awesome daddy. :-)

Favorite episode - Skin, where he got to fight Dean, or at least the facsimile of Dean. He also enjoyed BUABS, loved the conflict between the brothers again. Not that he likes fighting Jensen, he hastened to note, just that he enjoys exploring conflict between the brothers.

What will he miss most when the show is finally over? He said he got a taste of that during the writers' strike, not knowing if they'd be coming back. He would miss, he said, the camaraderie that Supernatural breeds, and included both fans and cast and crew. That was a theme expressed more than once over the weekend: the extended circle of feeling SPN has grown to encompass.

Quicker fingers than mine have already noted other fan-favorite moments: Given his dream movie remake, Jared loves Peter O'Toole in "Lawrence of Arabia" and thinks doing that would be great, with Johnny Depp as his co-star. (Jared as Lawrence, Depp as Omar Sharif's character - hmm!) Two girls gifted him with *gorgeous* painted portraits of his dogs, which clearly touched him. A grandmother who was there with her family brought him a Disney monopoly game, which was very sweet and he gave her a hug. He was very cute when he retired to his chair with the game and a couple other items, and drawled, "Y'all just talk a bit, I'm gonna look at my stuff." LOL! His Friday the 13th movie is more a re-telling than a strict remake, a "midquel" rather than sequel or prequel.

Per SPN:
"The Kids Are All Right" was scary to him, the "suckling kids" with those weird mouths and stuff, and because it was a Dean episode, so he didn't have to be as self-critical and could watch as an audience member. The easiest aspect of Sam for him to tap into was Sam's analytical mind; the hardest his willingness to sacrifice himself to hunt ghosts and stuff. Favorite recurring characters were demons like Meg and Ruby, the latter because she revealed a lot about Sam.

And yes, we did get the dreaded Wincest Fan Fic Question, to a not-so-muffled chorus of groans from the crowd. I give Jared big props for sidestepping it so adroitly, instead turning his answer into a highly diplomatic appraisal of fandom as a community. He simply noted that fan fiction and RPGs are a part of our participation in the Supernatural community, so he's supportive of our involvement *as* fans. Jared turned an awkward uncomfortable question into something rather heartwarming, bless him.

(FWIW, the gal who asked the question later told me she'd asked hoping that Jared would come out with an indictment against Wincest, as Jensen is supposedly on record as disliking it. But she acknowledged that Jared's answer was too diplomatic and her goal went unmet.)

(SLIGHT SPOILER WARNING!) ---- Is Sam going to go Anti-Christ? Jared would like to, and asked rhetorically, "What can Sam do?" He'd like to know, and thinks Sam's powers just went dormant and are hidden "in his belly", and they're only gone because Sam thinks they are.

~~ END OF the Q&A details.

~~ Now, my contribution to the Q&A was a sort of personal one. I had no question for him, could not think of a thing that hadn't been asked at a dozen other cons. So, I decided to tell him about John Winchester's truck, affectionately dubbed "Truckzilla". As some fans know, "Zilla" was bought by a friend of mine, a devoted SPN fan in Texas. (The most gracious and wonderful person, evar!) She and her hubby flew up to Vancouver a couple weeks ago, picked up Zilla from the props guys, did the paperwork - and drove Zilla 2300 miles home. A road trip in true Winchester style, lol!

One can imagine that selling John's truck might be a tender spot with Jared and Jensen, the closing of a door against Jeffrey Dean Morgan. Thus, I wanted to set Jared's mind at ease. Upon my mention of the truck's sale, Jared admitted he was sad to hear about it. I explained to him that Zilla was still in the Supernatural family, in good hands and that the truck will be loved. His first question was, "Are they going to restore it?" To which I could answer an absolute "YES". When I had done, he responded firmly, "Tell her to take care of him". And she will, with devotion and appreciation for all the fans who love Papa John and the grand Old Man he drove. I hope Jared will come to believe it's true.

So. That's all I got on that!

Later, lol, I pretty much lost my brain in the chaos of the day. The Jared photo op was next, and I got in line with my roomies, Kimbo and Ann/Hearseeno. The line looped down the hall and back again, but it moved at a decent pace. While in line, Ann pursued her canvass of SPN fans to get their signatures on her Pig Hat for Jim Beaver. As we drew near our turn, my heart melted yet again when I watched Jared get down and kneel for his picture with two little kids.

By the time we got up there, we'd changed plans for our pose at least three or four times, until Kimbo hit on one that trumped them all: the Pouty Pose. Yup, Ann and I would pose with Jared in that wonderfully cuddly Padalecki style, while Kimbo stood to one side with arms crossed and an *enormous* pout weighting down her lower lip. LOL! Jared laughed out loud when we told him and said this was a "first" for him. He'd never done a pouty pose before! *G* So we did, and the result was absolutely priceless.

.... Annnnnnnnd I totally forgot I had an extra ticket for my single-person photo op, and had to go all the way through the line *again*. *face-palm* Thankfully, the last of the line went swiftly and I got back up in no time. Jared grinned when he saw me and made some remark about, "What, no pouter?" In vast embarrassment, I confessed I'd forgotten my single ticket: I was brain dead and clearly needed more than 4 hours sleep.

He chuckled as he agreed, "Don't we all?" So, we took our marks and I bethought myself of posing properly - but Jared just wrapped one long arm around me and *squished* me against his side. Guys, this man had already been through a bazillion photos, I'm like the 5th from the last in line ... and he's just as sparkly and shiny and cheery as when he began. I've no clue how he does it. He snuggles like you're his best friend and he just wants to make you smile - and yeah. It works. I grinned like a fool. I was happy to the soles of my feet, and I thanked him and got a parting Padalecki smile when I left.

DETAILS: For the fan girls who wonder, I must say that Jared is very nice to be squished by. ;-) He's warm and firm, long and lean, (Sam Winchester is actually made to seem heavier) with a very slender waist, but also nice linear muscles under the snuggly-soft Black Shirt of Yum. He's trim but NOT rock-star-skinny, by any shot. And oh, those broad shoulders are just right for tucking into for photo ops, plus he smelled clean.

Oddly, "Big" or "Tall" were *not* the impressions that hit me first, upon meeting Jared up close. Yes, he's quite tall: in our Hunter group pose, he's standing, and my head barely reaches his shoulder. But what I noticed first and foremost was that FACE: a smile that radiates and lights from within and those eyes that simply sparkle. Like, truly sparkle, filled with joy and this perennial look of, "Awesome, what are we gonna do next?" He left me with the feeling that I really wished I could give something back, to repay for the simple gladness of meeting him.

So yeah. Definitely worth every penny of a photo op ticket. :-)

After that, it was time to scamper to the Fan Fiction discussion panel of which I was a part. My recollection of it is pretty fuzzy, other than we really had a great time and it was not a bit scary, despite my having done no preparation at all. The panel was *just* getting good and juicy ... when Diz came in and announced they were lining up for the Jared and Jim autographs. LOL, the discussion promptly blew up like a covey of quail - and it dawned on me, to my utter horror, that I'd MISSED the Samantha Farris photo op!!!

I swear my heart just dropped like a stone, because I'd forgotten that she'd already done photo ops yesterday, so the line for her today would be just a fraction of previously. I flew down the hall to find that the line was for Sandy McCoy. Dizzy offered to do a substitution, but darling as Sandy is ... I'd bought a Sam ticket and I really (insert whiny voice here) wanted Sam. My brain was frying as I teetered on the brink of panic, internally *cursing* myself for my stupidity. I guess I must have looked pretty damn pathetic, lol, as Diz said, "Hold on a minute, lemme see what I can do."

And off he dashed, leaving me to stand there with the dimmest flicker of hope, combined with a very real sense of chagrin. Moments later, back he came - with Samantha Farris herself striding at his heels. OMG! I could have died on the spot, but they whisked me right into the photographer's room and I honestly don't remember a whole lot after that. I know I apologized profusely to Sam, but she blew it off, saying, "Hey, I was just across the hall." I think they were about done with Sandy, as I don't recall even seeing her there.

Anyhow, I tossed down my purse and stuff, found my mark, (still apologizing), and Sam good naturedly slung her arm around me and gave me a squeeze. Snap went the camera, I thanked Sam again, she gave me a grin, and off she went back to autographs. Thus ended the most mortifying moment of my whole weekend and I made my escape in a haze of embarrassed relief.

As the adrenaline dump from *that* fiasco faded, it dawned on me that I had nothing for Jared's autograph session. I'd been having everyone else sign my book, "The SPN Book of Monsters, Spirits, Demons, and Ghouls", but I wanted something special for Jared's autograph. Unfortunately, I had done no more planning for that than I had anything else, and panic raised its head again. People were already queuing up and I had nothing for him to sign. However, with the line getting looooong, I realized I could just chill out, go buy a photo in the vendors' room, and fit myself into line wherever.

I will say that this final autograph session is where things ... sort of lost that intimate, cozy EyeCon feeling that carried us so far. It's unfortunate that Jared's upset schedule turned what was planned to be a two-day round of events into a sort of "Big-star-jets-in-then-jets-back-out-again" appearance. That struck a jarring note compared to the rest of the weekend, yet it could not be helped. Furthermore, the way he threw himself into giving all he could to us, despite cramped time constraints, says a helluva lot for Jared Padalecki, and makes me mourn what we could have had even more. At least he came to share what time he could!!! :-)

Meanwhile, back in the main auditorium, my B section had gone through the autograph line well before me, so I went back and sat with Kimbo and Ann in the E's. The line seemed to be progressing at a reasonable pace, and we got into line when our row was called. Even as we waited, Ann continued her quest for fan signatures on the Pig Hat, getting a last few squeezed in amongst the haze of scribbles now covering every millimeter of fabric.

As we drew near the autograph table, we discussed that I would go first, so that once done, I could look back and take pictures of Ann giving Jim Beaver the hat. I am a total idiot for not thinking of videoing that moment, but I was more concerned with being unobtrusive, so ... *sigh*

Anyhow, we inched along and chatted with people around it, until suddenly it was my turn. A volunteer took down each person's name, writing it in bold block letters on a scrap of notepaper, which we would hand to Jared and/or Jim so they could read it. A handy way to avoid misspelling or confusion, I thought. I used my real name, not my screen name, for this.

And just like that, I stood once more in front of Jared. By now, the poor guy had been signing for probably over an hour, and he didn't have quite the sparkle and shine of the earlier photo ops. Nonetheless, despite how his hand must have been cramping, lol, he looked up with a quick grin and cheerful "Hi!" I handed off my pictures for autographing, which he did with brisk efficiency. And then, since no one was poking me or glaring at my backside, I decided to go ahead with my plan of giving him a simple little gift.

It was nothing, really, and I assured him that I knew he could not keep everything people gave him, so this was disposable. But what I'd done was print out a scan of the "Hunter's Case File" thing I made last fall and sent to the cast & crew at Burnaby as a gesture of thanks. For those who may not have seen it, here are the scans: http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v360/ErinRua/SPN/SPNCaseFile/

For this, I'd simply printed out the scans, with the file cover on card stock, and now I gave it to him with a brief account of what it was and for whom I'd originally made it. I'm gratified to say it seemed to catch his attention! :-) Jared put down his pen and paused for several moments to look through it, thumbing the pages. He made some remark that it was a lot of work, I'm not sure of exact words, but I do recall it made me feel very pleased. I replied by saying that if I were ever to get into show biz, I'd want to do the props and set dressing sort of thing. I believe his response was another bright grin and something like, "Sweet!"

Thus satisfied and happy, I moved on - and turned back in the doorway to watch Ann deliver Jim Beaver's new Pig Hat. I really wish I'd thought to film it, as the moment was cute. Ann stood patiently while he did her autograph and then she informed him that she had a hat, which got an instant look of amusement from Jim. She handed him the hat and you could see his eyes kind of go O_O albeit in a very self-contained way. He turned it round and round, and although I couldn't hear what was said (Ann has a very soft voice), Jim was clearly intrigued. He took off his own cap and put it on, commenting that it was made for a *little* head. (We hadn't thought to adjust it for size, first.) Then he removed it and turned it around some more, eyeballing the scores if not hundreds of signatures crammed onto every surface. "This'll take me hours to read!" he exclaimed, and grinned as he tucked the hat away with his other gifts under the table.

Thus, I'd say the Pig Hat was a success. If you are one of the people who signed the Hat during the con, you can rest assured it landed in Jim's very own capable hands. Go us! Autographs of the fans for the stars. Me likes. :-)

Later, there was a lot of general anxiety over the slow pace of photo printing, as people crowded around the table where Froggy the Photographer was placing photos. Evidently, his printer was beginning to give him trouble, but he kept cranking them out as long as he could. At one point there were more photos printed than table space to hold them, so I told Froggy we'd get another table. As I turned away and another gal stepped to help me, I had to bite back a grin when Froggy remarked, "And it took a *woman* to do that." Clearly the guys standing around not helping failed to impress Froggy at all. *G*

Anyhow, I got our Hunter photo, our group w/ Jared photo, and my solo with Jared, but alas, Froggy's printer finally biffed it - without me getting my hard-earned Samantha pic, or the extra prints of our group shots for my roomies. Poo, but sometimes technology has a way of crapping when we need it most, and I'll just hope I can sort it out later by email, as Froggy directed us to do.

And then ... my roomies had to take their leave. The Big Show was finally over. It was oddly depressing to see the cozy clutter of our room suddenly condense into a couple suitcases, and I may have sighed a time or two as I followed them down to the hotel lobby. As we stepped out when Kimbo brought the car, I realized I hadn't been outside since I arrived, and now the con was really over. We hugged and snapped last photos and then my gals were gone.

It was a weird feeling to step back into the hotel alone, going against a steady trickle of folks heading out to catch taxis or find cars. The sheer size of the place, the fact the con was over, weighed my heart with a decided sense of melancholy. Little did I know, the fun was not quite over, yet...

TBC ...

EyeCon - Day 2 Part II

2008-04-13T23:05:00.000-07:00

SATURDAY April 5th 2008
(continued...)

I missed out on all but the last ten minutes of the John Winchester fan discussion panel, which sorta bummed me out. The bits I heard were quite good, thought provoking, and I think I missed a juicy discussion. Rats. Typing from my notes a day later, I’m not even sure I have a good excuse *why* I missed it! *sigh* Anyhow, the later Supporting Characters panel went well. My fleeting thought of planning what I would say went pretty much out the window, as I did no planning at all. However, the folks on the panel with me were a mix of strong personalities with good points and keen observations, which eliminated any worries I had over lack of preparation. LOL, in other words, I didn’t have to say nearly as much as I thought I would. ;-)

Later came time for autographs from Gabe, Chad, Alona, Samantha, and Sandy, who set up in the back of the vendors’ room, so people had access at any time. I didn’t really suppose I had a place for a jillion photographs and hated to have something signed that I wouldn’t be able to *use* in some way …. So I chose to have them sign my copy of the "Supernatural Book of Monsters, Spirits, Demons, and Ghouls". I know it excites love or loathing in readers, with little middle ground, but I genuinely enjoy it as just a fun addendum to the show’s lore, as I never expected it to be an actual reference work. Anyhow, doing this follows in my tradition of having the LOTR cast sign my single-volume "Lord of the Rings" trilogy book at ORC in 2006.

So, there we were, face to face with a major portion of the cast of Supernatural. What were they like up close? Sandy was especially sweet, and said that, while she was doing her Q&A, she used my face (there in second row seat B15) as one of those she could sort of steady herself on when she felt nervous. Awwwww. That made me feel really good - having a goofy grin paid off in unexpected ways, lol!

Samantha personalized her autograph with my name, just wonderfully approachable and easy to talk to. Then Alona won points with me when she took time for a shy 8-year-old boy just ahead of me. I couldn’t hear all they said, but clearly, the little guy had a crush, and she called him around the table for a hug and a candid snapshot. Have I mentioned how much I love this cast?

When I got up to Alona, I had to wait briefly while Sandy came and leant to whisper with her. Alona apologized to me after, saying with a charming girlish smile that this event is the first time she’s actually met Sandy. She really hoped they could hang out together because she’s heard so much about her (from Jared) that it doesn’t feel like they’ve never met. I think they got their chance, because I saw them going about together once or twice, and I hope they had the time they wanted together. Alona also signed using my name. *glee!*

I think I may have caught up with Gabe and Chad later, as typing after the fact I don’t really recall, and they were not always there for signing at the same time. Whenever, I found Chad and Gabe to be just as nice, very unassuming and sweet and appreciative of compliments, easy to talk to, entirely approachable, and they gave good handshakes after. I never had the sense of, "OMG, I’m walking up to a movie star!" with any of these guys, just a comfortable feeling that I could finally express my appreciation for their work in person, and they looked you in the eyes and seemed grateful for it.

Annnnd … that brings us to Jim Beaver’s autograph session. As one of the headline guests, his was a more formalized affair, the Great Man set up at a table in the main events room, and people called up for their autographs by seating rows.

When my turn arrived, I spoke to him about his book, saying I knew he was working on a book about his wife’s tragic battle with cancer, and that I would buy it as soon as it came out. I told him that I’m a breast cancer survivor, and however hard it was on me, I couldn’t imagine what my husband went through. I’ve never seen that side of the fence. He said the book would be out next year and he thought my hubby would recognize a few passages. Jim was immeasurably kind in this, really settled in to listen as I spoke and gave his time, though I kept it brief as I could. Bless his heart; he then personalized my autograph as to his "survivor friend."

Again, I am in love with the cast of Supernatural. I just want to adopt the whole gang and take them home and feed them barbeque. ;-)

After the initial round of autographs, I took a break to the room with Kimbo and Silli/Hearseeno. Finally, down we went to queue up for the Banquet supper, with seating admitted by badge number. While in line, and before I forget to mention, Silli pursued her fan project, which is a baseball cap on which she sewed a cute little pig, reminiscent of the famous (or infamous?) "Pig Hat" that Bobby wore in AHBL. Silli’s plan was to get as many fans as physically possible to sign their names on this hat, and she went at it with a will. ;-)

So, once at the door to the banquet room - which was just the main room reconfigured with tables - we were given our choice of who to sit near, and we wound up right behind Samantha Farris. It was a noisy room, chatty and busy during the delay of getting everyone seated, while statuesque servers in black waited along the walls.

Interestingly, the Banquet did not appear to have sold our, or maybe some people could not come, as there were a few empty seats. Our table seated 10 and we ended up with only six, including one of the few guys around, Logan, a quiet, very pleasant young fella from Idaho. We were at the back edge of the room which was actually good, as there was less noise and a more relaxed feel. I hopped over to see Kenny and Voni at the next table, and they’d read and enjoyed my Friday con report. Heh, I had to commend my fellow diners that people waited until most everyone sat down before digging into their salads.

When the entrée arrived, the chicken Florentine was lovely to look at, though I have to say I’d never eaten food with a flower in it! Yup, each plate had a sprig of thyme and a purple orchid at its edge. The food tasted okay, though evidently it sat out a bit waiting to be served, perhaps a hazard of trying to coordinate so many eating at once. It had cooled so the breading on the chicken was soggy. Hmm, now that I think about it, I thought they said "buffet style", which to me means you dish up from hot tables, rather than get served, but whatever! :-) It was a nice little interlude, but I think that next time I’d pass. Unless I’m sitting with one of the guests, the food and situation was not spectacular enough for me to repeat the experience. I could eat with friends some place far less costly. ;-)

After eating, the starring guests did get up and try to visit other tables, or at least Gabe, Chad and Jim did. I’m not sure Sam could pry herself away from her bevy of followers, lol. Sandy skipped out early, ostensibly saying something about going to a wedding, but given that Jared was due in pretty much any time, we felt pretty certain where she’d really gone - especially as Kenny disappeared at the same time. *G* At our table, Kimbo meanwhile passed the time with a word association game, Buzz Word, which she pulled out several times in the course of the weekend, lol! My tablemates and I hoped Chad might make it to our table, but the meal ended before our boy could get to us.

Then it was time to dash upstairs, freshen up, and get ready for the Platinum party which was due to start at any moment. At first glance, the Platinum Party looked more like an exercise in how many people can be crammed into one small room. I really wasn’t sure how it could be any different from the Cocktail Party earlier, but what the hell; I’d give it a chance. In my book, it actually turned pretty fun when Chad and Gabe got up to duel each other at the Guitar Hero game, and the noise levels of the crowd rose merrily with the consumption of oh-be-joyful.

I just had one glass of wine, which I nursed for a long time, as the $7 price-per-glass tag made me wince. However, I will give that when I came up with only $6 on hand, they let that missing dollar slide. Meanwhile, I really just found it fun to hang out with the gang. A special treat was Steve Carlson coming in to play an acoustic version of "Be My Little Baby". That was just plain fun, a preview of the concert to come. Dang, that man can play and sing! I stood with Jim Beaver briefly as he watched the boys play and later hung around Gabe, who’s just as cute and nice as the boy next door. I enjoyed myself - and the smuggled shots of "Alabama Slammas" that somebody snuck in. *G* Even Gabe and Chad tried those - cough syrup with a kick, lol!

One unfortunate note that I didn’t hear until later … there was a woman, and I’m certain a lot of other people noticed her, who became drunk enough to throw herself at Chad. I only saw her in the early stages, when she was batting her eyelashes at him and rubbing/posing against the wall in a sloppy parody of a cat in heat. Gah. Anyhow, he escaped unscathed, but for the rest of the con, Chad didn’t go anywhere alone, but rather had a tough lady New York staffer with him at all times. Bummer, I guess the odds of one crazy amongst that many people can’t be helped.

So! On to happy things. Steve Carlson’s concert started late, for reasons I don’t know, though maybe it took extra time to tear down the banquet room and reconfigure it once more as an auditorium. But I’d definitely say Steve’s music was worth the wait. The poor guy’d had a helluva time getting here, troubles with connections and delays at airports, and I dunno what all. He had to’ve been tired, and when he came on stage, he apologized in advance for any slips or mistakes. Voni brought him a cocktail on stage, to which he said, "When Visine won’t work and red eyes won’t go away, there’s nothing to do but drink." LOL!

And then, oh, and then magic. He drew us all in with his very first song, and had us all sing along on the final refrain. Steve Carlson is very engaging with his audience, a storyteller with a mellow acoustic sound, an amiable, laid-back showman with a voice that possesses just the right touch of miles and tears. He encourages his audience to sing, and I was amazed that most of the crowd knew his music and sang along. LOL, I was the only apparent yip in response when he asked who had *not* heard his music before. He also likes to tell stories about his songs, where they come from, the tales behind them. And yes, he spoke of his link to Jensen, that they were roommates once.

His singing style is marvelously eclectic, mellow and crooning and intimate, or filling the room with sound and energy. He rocked us all with a funky, blues-rock cover of "She’s Not There", and the man is positively dazzling on an acoustic guitar. His voice finally began fading when he gave us a cover of the 60’s classic, "Be My Little Baby". He closed with a final, upbeat song that included the refrain, "Don’t you take my rockin’ chair, just keep it rockin’ there, someone’s right behind me to rock on." Oh yeah, Steve. We are. ;-)

In summary, even if he had no connection to Supernatural or Jensen Ackles whatsoever, I would like Steve Carlson’s music. The man knows how to spin a tune.

I never did quite figure out the purpose of the Pajama Party, which my roomies opted to sit out. I felt ridiculous, in fact, when I came traipsing out in my drawstring trousers and a pink T-shirt! Someone said the PJ party might have been originally intended for kids, but at 1am? Whatev, lol! We die-hards just took it as an excuse to sit up way too late. The most activity I saw going on was downstairs just off the hotel lobby, where the scrapbooks for Jared and for Samantha were being put together. I grabbed my stuff for my Jared page and put it all together. But then realized I had nothing for the Samantha page, and I had to add-lib something that was probably crappy (I’m not very creative at 1in the morning, lol), but nonetheless done with affection. ;-)

I did see Gabe Tigerman up and about - I think the man never slept, lol! For a while, he sat with a group of fans at a table upstairs, occupying what they called "the Truth Seat", where they could ask anything they wanted and he had to speak the pure truth. Sadly, I didn’t hear anything really juicy or scandalous, lol, but instead just the sort of cozy silliness you’d expect among any group of late-night friends.

Anyhow, I finally called it quits about 2am, and tippy-toed in trying not to awaken my roomies. One more day to go - and JARED would be among us!

(Part III Sunday report to follow) ~~

EyeCon - Saturday Day 2 Part I

2008-04-13T23:02:00.000-07:00

SATURDAY April 5th 2008

Okay, what did my sleep-deprived self do today? Well, the fun began with Jim Beaver’s Q&A in the morning. He strolled on stage in shirttails and a ball cap, totally relaxed and his first comment was, "Haven’t seen this many people since my last court date". Usually there’s nobody around to see him this early in the morning but a 6-year old girl - which earned an immediate "awwwww" from the audience.

Then he said, "Hello, you idjits," following our whoops and yells of greeting with the wry remark, "You’re going to embarrass me, aren’t you?" To which I shouted back, "Of course we are," and he grinned as he replied, "Give it your best". Hee!

By now, you’ve all heard that Jim showed up for the Q&A wearing a T-shirt from a fan which said, "I read Bobby/John". He got a huge laugh when he said, "I’m sure you’ll explain". However, I’m equally certain he knows exactly what that means, if the glint in his eye is any indication. Oh, Jim …. *snork*

In this his first convention Q&A, Jim was chatty and amiable as if sitting on his own front porch.
SOME Q&A HIGHLIGHTS: *(Skip if you don’t want lengthy detail!)

Jim broke into the entertainment business as a writer with a play. He wanted to be an actor, he said, but "nobody would let me". He was a freelance writer before the bottom fell out of the freelance business, and fortunately his acting took off at the same time. Asked what charity he might support, he said he was not allied with any particularly, but things like the Cancer Society were dear to his heart. Randomly, he also poked fun at Jared and Jensen, saying it was fun on set despite them, since they are "dull as dishwater".

His favorite scene on SPN? The junkyard scene with Dean in AHBL II. He doesn’t often get to slap Jensen, lol. Pranks? Jim responded with a knowing grin, "They don’t often mess with me … not sure why." Heh, heh, heh. Jim also reiterated the tale of Jared twisting his toes off-camera during the bed scene in "Dream a Little Dream". He knew of course Jared was trying to get a reaction from him, but Jim’s resolution was "Not this time". Jared was really unhappy Jim didn’t break, he said, lol!

When asked, he said SPN has never approached him about writing for the show, and he’s not even sure they know he writes. But he doesn’t even want to, reiterating that "it’s work". He prefers not to write for the show he’s working on. He did talk to Kim Manners during filming of Magnificent Seven regarding a story idea, mainly to do with getting Bobby in a clinch, lol, but it went nowhere. Mainly, Jim claimed, he does not feel up to writing for SPN.

Jim has not heard anything regarding Bobby for Season 4. He just got a script for the next-to-last episode of Season 3, and he’s in the last two episodes but has no idea about the last one, yet. "I could be eaten by chickens", he joked. A rumor he passed on/repeated was that because of the strike, there may be the possibility of an extended Season 4. But he gave the caveat that it was only rumor.

His favorite part of the Bobby Singer character - he first glibly said it was "not having to shave", lol. Seriously, though, he’s not sure he has a favorite part. He likes Bobby’s dry humor, his amused tolerance for "the idjits", and the fun has a lot to do with just the thing of working. It’s the best job in the world, he said. He also praised Jensen and Jared as "good old boys", which he said goes for all of the crew. He hated to leave Deadwood’s sense of family, how people stuck around and hung out even after done with work. Supernatural is the same way. It’s FUN, he said, that’s what he enjoys most.

Will we see him at more cons? "If they’re all as fun as this one you will" He’s going to Asylum, and was invited to the LA Creation con last weekend, but somehow there was no follow-up on that, so he ended up not going. The Dallas con is at this time still up in the air.

Hardest thing to portray? Referring to the scene where Sa showed up at Bobby’s door not dead, Jim said it was hard to portray utter astonishment when you’ve shot it fourteen times and need to be still surprised on the last take. Jared was no help, because he looked just the same, lol!
As a writer, does he go into acting with a critical eye for the way a script is written? He said he rarely talks to the writers, since they are usually in LA, or rarely even to Eric. He’s actually usually less critical because as a writer, he knows every comma, every dash is there for a reason… to get the right sound. If something logically doesn’t work, *maybe* he’d say something, but generally he is not a believer in criticizing or changing a writer’s work to make it better. But at the same, he believes in a collaborative effort when it happens.

He did not know Bobby’s back-story until Dream A Little Dream, first saying he was not sure anybody did but Eric before that script. But then he corrected to say that, during shooting of Magnificent 7, Kim told him of the Dream storyline, which was the longest Jim has known a storyline in advance. But he always knew "something in the past brought Bobby to this place".
Regarding fan fiction, Jim teased that he’s read fics, not Bobby/John just Bobby/Bella. LOL! Last week he read a fan fic designed to flesh out the back-story of Dream, which he found to be very good. Then as he wrapped up his talk, on request Jim recited a much-loved Bobby line: "Take care of your brother, ya idjit." Hee!

Finally, he took his leave amongst our cheers and screams and a standing ovation, his final admonition to us to "settle down", lol!

END OF Q&A!

Later, I came in late from lunch for the Samantha Farris-Alona Tal - Chad Lindberg panel, arriving just in time to see Chad kick back and demonstrate an "Ash face" - lol. In person, Chad is lanky, laid back, and mellowly goofy. Alona is tiny but tall, lithe, animated and beautiful, and very gracious. Samantha is quite Ellen-like, just without the accent and flannel, and plain spoken and direct a poke in the nose. The camaraderie and ease between the three of them was very evident, just like three old friends hanging out together.

SOME MORE Q&A HIGHLIGHTS: (Skip if this is getting too long for you - NO spoilers):

Alona’s favorite SPN scene? Being thrown around by Jared in BUABS - said with a coquettish wink to the audience. All three actors said that learning their characters is an organic process, something they settled into overtime. What would they like to see happen in SPN? Chad said he would like to see Ash taken on the road once, and riffed on the idea of Sam and Dean in trouble and Ash having to save the day, demonstrating how Ash would burst in the door with a shotgun, doesn’t say a word, just BOOM. LOL!

Alona would have liked to see Jo grow more, saying Jo was just starting to mature and "calm down".

Samantha would like to see Ellen just keep going, head out on the road. Sam imagined her driving a purple Jeep Wagoneer with fuzzy dice, lol!

Per the kerfluffle over Ellen’s return/no-return in Season 3, Sam said this. She could not commit two months in advance for only one SPN episode during pilot season. If SPN had instead called 3 weeks in advance, she maybe could have given them a positive answer, but not two months out, when it would have been professional suicide to lock herself into a single episode at the risk of missing larger projects. She did not get into any details about the financial aspects mentioned in her blog not long ago.

Per Ellen in Season, she has no idea, nor any idea what the script would have called for in this latter part of S3: maybe she and Bella would have gone down together, lol! But Sam kept the idea definitely open for Ellen in Season 4, if they want her.

Asked if Ash is dead - which fans answered with a resounding NO - Chad just said who knows, ask Mr. Kripke. ;-)

Favorite non-SPN projects? Chad said every set and character is different, though he did play a transvestite once. (Titters from the audience, of course.) Alona agreed that every role is different, though she has a special place for her first American role as Kristen on Veronica Mars. Sam said hers was Sandra Cassandra on a piece called Beggars, Choosers, who was a heartless, soulless broad who got so swear at Evana Trump, lol.

From Alona: in BUABS, every time Jared did the, "My daddy shot your daddy in the head" line, he did it different. The take we see, with that nasty singsong voice, actually kind of pissed Alona/Jo off because she hadn’t expected it. And yes, he really enjoyed being bad. ;-) She said she loved Jo because of the look, because people don’t often believe she can kick ass, lol, and it taught her the power off offense.

From Samantha: She liked Ellen because it was a change from the "balls in a skirt" role to actually get a dirty role, with jeans and a gun and all.

Then someone asked Chad what brought Ash to the Roadhouse. In typical Chad fashion, he took the idea and ran with it, saying that after MIT, things were a little crazy so Ash went on the road in his Jeep, "wind in his hair", as the Roadhouse, and stopped for a beer. He saw "these fine ladies" and stayed on to "look after them". (Though one presumes it was actually the other way around, lol.) Samantha agreed that they were all oddballs, so Ash just fit.

How were the boys to work with? Jared has a shorter attention span, gets punchy on the long days and pulls pranks. Jensen is a bit straighter. If you can’t see Jared, "you worry", lol! On Alona’s first day on set, Jared was going around with an iced coffee he’d spiked with soy sauce (ewww!), and he was very happy when he could get someone to taste it, lol. The boys set the pace on set, very professional and instrumental to creating that sense of family.

Asked about fan moments of their own, Alona mentioned a couple "dork moments", one meeting Rachel McAdams and getting all babbly and giggly. She also met Angelina Joie and could not speak, noting Angelina was "like a porcelain doll’’. Chat told about meeting Tom Cruise while working as a very minor extra on Last Samurai, Tom hanging up his cell saying he was talking to his kid, and shaking hands. Samantha mentioned meeting Seth Green of Austin Powers while at an audition for the NUMB3RS, and told of babbling and digging herself in deeper while her inside brain was yelping, "Shut up!"

Projects to come: Alona said she has something in the works, but she believes in luck and doesn’t want to jinx it by saying what it is. Sam has an upcoming mini-series, Impact, in which she again plays "balls in a skirt. Chat I think said he had a film about breaking into the movie industry? I failed as a note-taker there.

Asked the ultimate roles they’d like to play, Sam said Courtney Love, a vulnerable white trash woman. Chad wants to play Billy the Kid. And Alona would like to play her grandmother in a story about how her grand parents met in WWII.

What show would they like to be on right now: Sam - Nip/Tuck, which she calls "edgy stuff" with good acting, and Deadwood Chad - Lost. Alona - House, plus more SPN would be good.

END OF Q&A!

~ And then it was on to Sandy McCoy!Sandy …. Oh, my dog. If someone doesn’t fall a little in love with Sandy, I just don’t know what to say. She is tiny, incredibly cute, bubbly and vivacious and all shining smiles, and visibly nervous, bless her sweet heart. There is just nothing *not* to love about this lovely girl, IMHO. She was girlishly cute about her new dress, and I just wanted to grab and hug her when she kept getting jittery and giggly upon having trouble following the mic around the room.

Of course, discussion turned swiftly to hers and Jared’s engagement, which fans by now know took place in Paris on their recent European holiday. She thought it as just a 4-year anniversary thing, she and Jared ordering room service and playing board games, chess, Scrabble, etc and just being together. Even when Jared waxed all sentimental and sappy she didn’t suspect, until he stood her up, knelt at her feet - and he was still her height, lol - and then asked her. Clearly a deliciously emotional moment for both of them, and can we have a huge congratulatory "awwwwwwwww" from our audience? I thought we could. ;-) Sandy said they never had a first date, since they’d been friends before and just sort of went to being more than friendly.

In other trivia, Sandy said Jared actually dances very well, doing the "tall white boy thing", but he always stops if he sees Sandy watching. (Awwww.) She did watch other Crossroads Demons as portrayed by the first two actresses, wanting to give the CRD a good farewell in this final appearance. But she doesn’t appear to be happy with her performance, saying she kind of froze, and knew she’d be compared to the other CRDs by fans, plus she felt intimidated as she said by "working with 150 friends" on the set watching. ;-)

Her favorite form of dance: Lyrical Jazz, even if she’s not flexible enough to do it properly any more. Leaps and jumps were her best aspects and she always wanted to jump higher than the boys. She thinks Jared would be *incredible* (emphasis hers) on Dancing With the Stars, and she’s love to get him to "do what he fears most".

My question was what her goals/aspirations were for her dancing future, and she said she and Jared want to open a dance studio for kids who couldn’t otherwise afford it. (I afterwards realized this question had already been asked at the LA con, so no points to me for originality, lol.)

What does she most wish she could do? SING! Fan girl moment - meeting The Rock. Did she start wearing heels more since dating Jared? No, she’s comfy in heels because she works in them, but she only dresses up for events, is most comfortable in sweats and Filipino sandals.

Who would she like to work with? Meryl Streep, because an actress of her caliber can only up your game, just by working with her.

~ And that’s all I’ve got for the cutest woman in the entire known universe. ;-)

Next was Gabriel Tigerman - five foot five of cuteness and absolute comfort in front of an audience.

SOME Q&A HIGHLIGHTS:

Gabe originally auditioned for the guy with the undead girlfriend, the "Pet Semetary guy" in Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things, and was disappointed no to get that. However, he was so happy to get Andy. He thought Andy’s van was awesome and was promised Andy’s velvet tiger print, but never got it. Gabe never actually saw Andy’s bong, though, until watching the episode. Despite getting his theater start in improv (which he still does), he did very little improv on SPN, since the writers had so much fun writing for Andy . Also, he noted that he’s the only character besides the Winchesters to drive the Metallicar - and he was terrified, could sense the nervousness when they handed him the keys and he drove like 4 mph. Gabe also noted that his mom cried when he showed her an image from AHBL of eviscerated Andy: no mother needs to see that. (Awww.)

I asked about his awakening to the popularity of Andy among SPN fans, and he reiterated and elaborated on the story he told me privately about the slash fic a friend sent him. Gabe seemed to have fun riffing on that for the audience. Fav Andy line? He has several, including "These aren’t the droids you’re looking for" and "I have a evil twin". Also 4th bong load line, frontier land, and gay porn.

Randomly: His fanboy moment? He grew up wanting to play baseball, 2nd base, and finally met one of his baseball heroes only to discover the guy was a total douche. Though he got to work with Tom Hanks in Charlie Wilson’s War, and he’d like to work with Seymore Hoffman. If he could be any character - he would be Dean, and totally kick as. LOL! And he would like to be in The West Wing. Any super power? Mind control is pretty cool, but invisibility would be good. Would he like to have Andy’s powers in Real Life? He answered a firm Yes. But what would he use them for? Gabe gave a deep chuckle and grin and replied, "Just the good things". Another question was how, during Andy’s mind control scene with Dean, did Gabe keep a straight face while Dean/Jensen rattled on as he did. Gabe said his improv training definitely helped, because the rule of improv is do not break. Training, he said, lots of training.

As an aside, Gabe further charmed me when he paused at one point to applaud us, the audience, and gestured from the heart while mouthing "me to you" to the crowd. Very sweet. He also mentioned being recently engaged - awwwwwwwww. Couple that with Alona’s recent marriage and Jared & Sandra’s engagement, and love is certainly in the air.

When asked if there’s anything he’d like to do but never got the courage, like bungee jump, he said the cheesy answer is he used to, but since getting engaged he just doesn’t want to take risks Asked about pranks, he said his first day with SPN, he was working on a very serious scene when Jared sent his cell phone "an incredibly inappropriate picture", lol! Gabe was, however, very guarded about telling any back-stage stories, which I found sweetly admirable.

~ And … that’s all I got about that.

(More on Saturday in the next post!) ~~~

EyeCon - Friday Day 1

2008-04-13T22:54:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time, there was a dream - called EYECON! And lo, I went, and the multitudes were tumultuous and stayed up way too late - but damn, did I have FUN! So, here we go, buckle up.

FRIDAY April 4th 2008, Orlando, FL

I woke up after two days without seeing the intarwebz to the shocking news that Jared would not be able to make it on Saturday as planned. Actually, the first thing I saw was online references to "the news about Jared," and I kid you not, my heart about stopped. I was actually relieved to learn he’d just had to reschedule due to shooting demands on the SPN set, but a lot of people are upset, as they’ve put down some serious cash for various considerations contingent on Jared’s appearances here.

I was VERY disappointed. I know intellectually my odds of personal contact other than autographs or photo ops are nil, but the fan girl in me had wistfully hoped to steal a few precious seconds with him at the Platinum Party or something I do know the mad schedule he must be keeping to go from the set to the LA con, back to the set, then here and back to the set again with seemingly no break, so I’m grateful he didn’t just cancel. It’s a real shame, but an unavoidable circumstance, and one can only hope Kenny et al will make it right for those people.

But on to happy things! I arrived in Florida Wednesday afternoon and spent a lovely couple days with my dear friend, Christy, and her family near Tampa. It was a treat to have a "native guide", as we avoided the crowds and just did fun stuff like visiting to Tarpon Springs, "Sponge Capital of the World", which is tiny, quaint, touristy, and very, very Greek. Saw a demonstration of sponge diving as done circa 1940’s, with the heavy dive suit and iron helmet, and roamed the shops and narrow streets. That afternoon we went out to the beach at Fred Howard park, where we just hung out, watched the kids play, soaked up the sun and went beach combing. Greek food for dinner that night, and I was a happy cowboy hobbit. Absolutely the nicest way to ease into a holiday so far from home. :-)

Friday morning - time for the fun to begin! Christy packed me into the car and off we went, only having to go back for the driving direction. ;-) After an inexplicable traffic jam not 8 miles from the convention center, she let me off at the Florida Hotel, a towering edifice in the middle of a foreign country, for me, and I was on my own. Honestly? I thought seriously about panicking when I found myself checked in and standing in the cathedral-esque lobby entirely alone and knowing nobody. Someone began texting me and I wasn’t even sure who! Turned out to be Nora, to whom I promised my extra copy of the SPN Ghosts & Ghoulies book. Thank God for that brief contact, and by the time I got up to register for the con, I’d found my taxi partner, hmrpotterfan (Hanako), and her cute and bubbly friend, Lisa.

After that, it becomes a blur to me. I was signed in, chatted up, dazed and confused, but ready for the fun to begin! I went to the just-opened vendor’s room with hmrpotterfan to peruse the treasures - restrained myself but just barely and bought two SPN key chains, one Dean and one Sam. That somehow went a long way to easing my crowd-jitters. I also finally spotted Kenny, the founder of the feast - a wiry little guy with the energy levels of ten normal people, who greeted me with a hug. I ran into Voni later on at the cocktail party, a gorgeous, willowy lady with the smile of a small sun.

My pals Silli/Hearseeno and Kim arrived @ 6:30, just about the time things really began gearing into organized chaos, with the Meet & Greet and screening of Ten Inch Hero both running late and people milling about hither and yon. Yet somehow it muddled into happening, and Silli and I found our seats.

First came the stars, just a quick introduction of the crazed fans to our objects of adoration - sans Jared, of course, though I’m not sure he was scheduled to be in that early, anyhow. Chad, Sandy, Samantha, Gabe all were greeted to a hurricane of cheers, but we seemed to reserve our special hysteria for Jim Beaver. He greeted the sheer decibel level of screams with a look of amazement, then brought the house down with the classically wry Bobby-comment: "Hello, ya idjits." If we didn’t love that man already … lol! "You’re going to embarrass me, aren’t you", he said, to which I called back, "Of course we are!" and he replied with a grin, "Do your best!"

Then it was on to Ten Inch Hero. The producer and director got up to introduce the piece, breaking the ice with, "I prepared a few lines … and now that I’ve snorted them…" LOL! There were some problems it seemed with the sound up too loud, but I found myself falling into the story and forgot to notice it. I personally found TIH to be adorable, quirky, moving, unexpected, silly, sobering, warm and witty and yes, it trod into a bit of indy-film darkness but in a way that felt indelibly real and just plain worked. The story is very character-driven with strongly developed characters, all of whom grown and change in interesting ways by the end of the film.

Afterwards, the producer and director got up for their Q&A, and the passion they have for their film was clearly evident in their enthusiasm to tell all. The only thing they asked was that please, fans who may have recorded any of the movie would delete that recording. They really, really do not want any clips released other than through their control, and they’re relying on our honor to oblige them. I noticed several people immediately going to their cameras, then.

So, some details of the Q&A. Yes, the nude wedding scene was actually shot nude. The two actors wore only a nude colored thong (for the woman ) and a sock thingie for the man. The two horses were not trained Hollywood steeds but rather what they could afford, and evidently had no affinity for just standing quietly together, lol. Jensen’s character, Priestly’s shirts were almost characters in themselves, each designed for the script by the props dept. The guys said it was perfectly okay for us fans to make our own replicas of Priestly’s shirts and put TIH on it as advertising, just … again on our honor, please don’t SELL those shirts for profit.

They lauded Jensen’s professionalism on set, and spoke of how there wardrobe budget became strained by one designer’s penchant for shoes, and they cut off the clothes buying but Jensen found the kilt in a thrift store and wanted it for Priestly. It was $75 … but they relented and it ended up working awesomely. Jensen picked the story-day for Priestly to wear the kilt, and it was pure coincidence that the first scene led into the later scene of Priestly on the same story-day going to the convenience store to buy tampons for the girls … while wearing that kilt! Just a happy accident how that worked out.

The script they said remained largely as written, only a few changed/omissions. The first homeless guy on the screen was truly homeless. They told of finding three homeless guys where they were filming and trying to keep tabs on them until they picked one for that day of shooting. They broke the SAG rules for using only card-carrying members as actors, but they wanted that realism, not a cleaned-up Hollywood version of a homeless man. It worked.

They also told of Jensen’s enthusiasm for the role of Priestly way back in the beginning in early casting, and how he kept tabs even after landing Supernatural, wanting the part, wanting something not so pretty and with a little more bite. Jensen came back to them even after taking off with SPN to audition, rather than going the usual route of being an "offer only" actor. Plus they gave credit to the three female leads, how phenomenal and what troopers they were throughout. Again and again, their mantra was "Keep it Real".

Finally, they answered a question posed that I had wondered about, which was that Priestly’s transformation/clean-up at the end of the movie was not necessarily intended as permanent. Just it was a wedding and part of showing how the characters had all evolved, but nothing says the body piercings and wacky T-shirts didn’t return, per his usual "shock-jock" demeanor.

I really, REALLY enjoyed this movie. I could not predict where any of it was going, there were lots of great laughs, lots of subtlety when called for and overt cheese when it applied. It made me laugh, it made me cringe, it made me frightened at one point for Daneel’s character, because the "real" in this film clearly did not allow for a miraculous rescue from a situation into which the character’s promiscuity had led her. As a woman, I found the scene viscerally frightening, very real, and realistically played, in harsh real lighting that sugarcoated nothing.

As for Jensen … I adore this man’s acting more than ever. I could see bits of Dean which are probably bits of Jensen, but he gave Priestly his own brand of cocky weirdness and artless crassness blended with a curious sense of innocence. He says more with the tilt of a brow or roll of eyes than many actors can depict with one page monologues, and the director said they encouraged that from all the cast, spoke of "acting without the ball" and encouraging non-scripted, non-verbal accents to the story by the actors.

In closing, I would see this film in theaters in a heartbeat, and I would buy it in DVD without pause. I found it to be a story I would enjoy and fall for even if I had no idea who Jensen Ackles was. They were genuinely appreciative of our comments and support, and having seen this, I feel a sense of propriety towards this film, and I truly hope they will get a distributor and do well.

The TIH Q&A also ran late, staff having to nudge the guys more than once to wrap it up - just one more story, one more anecdote, lol! But that done, it was another scramble to get ready for the Cocktail Party, originally scheduled for 10pm but bumped back to 10:30. The line for TIH autographs got longish, so Silli and I went back to the room, she to rest and do some stuff, whilst Kimbo and I refreshed to go back downstairs. When we got back, the line was almost through and just our luck, the credit card machine went kablooey. But I got my poster for cash, complimented the guys, and trotted off once more.

Cocktail party …. They said "intimate" but I didn’t know they meant elbow-to-asshole, lol! Itty bitty conference room, which first impression I got was of a crammed-together line towards the bar. I wasn’t a bit sure how this was gonna work, but when I looked around and saw Samantha Farris *right there* and Jim Beaver *right over there* … I thought it worked oddly well. There was just no way to avoid being near SOMEbody!

So, impressions. Here goes.

Samantha Farris - OMG, I have such a girl crush on that woman! She is fun, blunt, fearless and outspoken, no strangers within the sound of her voice. She takes time for everyone, knows how to manage her audience, and takes time to include new arrivals as they shyly sidle near. LOL, Sam doesn’t just talk to people, she holds court.

Jim Beaver - again, he knows how to manage his audience. The man is simply lovable, such an ordinary, regular guy. He’s funny and real, like a funky uncle who thinks you’re more than a little nuts, but he loves you anyhow. He seemed perennially amazed at the whole con chaos and how people magnetized to him, but he welcomed all, and gave as good as he got. You definitely see where Bobby comes from, but now I want to see some eps of Deadwood, too. Jim was really cute when two Irish girls showed up and he fell into a very good Irish accent for them.

Chad … lol, bless him, he was totally in Ash mode. Drunk, goofy, having a blast and probably won’t remember a soul he talked to. I didn’t spend much time with him - partly because he didn’t seem able to focus on any one person, lol, but clearly he was loving the party fun, just very cute and silly.

Gabe - omg, I want to take this boy home with me. He was adorably sincere and cute, just cute as a bug in person, very animated and expressive and engaging. I caught up with him later in the evening, and got to explain the meaning of the term "slash" fan fiction to him. Gabe said he was at his mom’s house when a friend called him to the computer to see a Andy/Ash fic, saying "you gotta see this." He’d never seen slash before, and Gabe told how his face just went "OMG!" and his mom saw it and wanted to read the story. LOL, he described practically snatching the laptop back from his mom so she wouldn’t see! Anyhow, he’d never heard the entomology of the term, and I told him the "Andy-slash-Ash" thing. His face got so wide-eyed and cute with the revelation, and he said, "I did *not* know that". I then shook his hand and thanked him for Andy, and also told him how Andy is beloved to the fandom, upon which he shook my hand a second time. Such a sweet guy. :-)

Kimbo finally went on up to the room, but I stayed until the last dog was hung and Gabe and Jim took their leave. Samantha was last to go, and even then she had to stop out in the hall to tell just one more story, lol!

And … that’s that! Stand by for Part II.
Cheers ~

Erin

The road goes ever on ...

2007-06-29T18:32:00.000-07:00

So, I've actually completed my second novel. Yup, it's done, and I didn't even rush over here to blow bugles and beat drums about it.

Not sure why, other than I think the work of writing has finally hit home. Telling the story is only part of the job. Sure, it's fun, it's a passion, it's what I do - but it's also a business. The tedious part begins *after* one types "The End". All the editing, polishing, revising, and in my case, desperately hunting out words, sentences, phrases and scenes that I can bloody do away with!

Yup, brevity continues to elude me. But I've finished the tale of Morgan the grouchy dragon slayer. It went places I didn't expect, showed me things I wasn't looking for, and fought me tooth and nail to reach its conclusion. Yet I'm happy with it. I think it's a good story. I think it's a more marketable story than Oak and Stone simply because ... it's dragons. And it's shorter. And I'm trying to make it shorter yet, LOL!

That's the hard part. That's where I am now. Sticking the thing back in the forge to hammer it to that perfect shape. *face-palm* omgwtfbbq, that's work! However, if I'm gonna be a writer, this is what it's all about. Tenacity, perseverance, cowboying up. ;-)

Meanwhile, summertime is kicking. my. ass. But in a good way. It's great to be so active that I have to keep a tatty little day-planner. ;-) Plus it's good for my body and my brain. Winter may be more condusive for writing, but yegads, it just drains the color out of my world, literally and emotionally. So maybe it's harder to find creative time in summer, but I think it's recharging the fuel cells for when my time must be spent indoors. Hope so, anyhow. I'll let you know along about December. *G*

Well, plus I've played a bit of hooky with fan fiction, but shhh, we're not supposed to talk about that. ;-)

Anyroad, so that's that. Both novels are complete, both are in revisions, and I believe I'm going to push Morgan's tale first and hardest, when I resume submissions. Meanwhile, here's hoping my muses will flitter in and sit down at least once in a while, because, yanno, I've got to have more tales to tell. Got to. It's what I do. ;-)

Hope everyone is having a good summer - or winter, if you're at the bottom of the world. Peace and blessings to you all. I'll see you 'round the ethernet. :-)

~ G. M. Atwater

Thinky-ness

2007-06-05T17:40:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I want to write just to feel the words flow, to capture a thought like bugs in amber to turn and hold to the light. Sometimes I want to simply let ideas take wing and shape words into things no one has seen before. Sometimes, oh sometimes it's like a hunger that clutches and cries, and I can feel words batting in gossamer-winged legions against the shutters of my mind.

Aye, but I also know that once words take shape, there is alway, always the work of it, the slaving and shaving and struggle of it. And that's the hardest part to endure.

~ P.S. No, I'm not dead, merely resting. *G*

Here be dragons ... finally!

2007-04-07T11:29:00.000-07:00

This morning when I woke up, my first conscious thought was of ... dragons.

Weird, you say.

No, good. Really, really good! Good enough that my little heart got all skippety-happy, because I think this means my muses have finally come back from their long hiatus. I kid you not, I haven't been stuck with writer's block, I've been hitting the freakin' writer's Berlin Wall! But the bricks are starting to fall, and today I'm gonna try and beat that sucker down. There have been little creative mutters and mumbles the last couple weeks, but I think - I hope - this is me finally back to work.

Yeesh. Willpower, self discipline anyone? Clearly I need a minder. ;-) Anyroad, enough wasting words, on to better things!

~ G. M. Atwater

yeah...

2007-03-12T19:45:00.000-07:00

Today I sat on my front porch. I sat on my porch and I listened to my neighborhood and I let the soft breeze kiss my cheek. I heard children playing and neighbors visting. I heard cars rush by out on the highway and random dogs idly barked. I smelled charcoal briquets and barbeque, and my stomach soon began growling. And when hubby came home we threw our own hamburgers on our grill, and the aromas of onions and burger still hang in the air.

Now the windows are open and I'm drinking wine, and I don't even care that it will freeze and snow at least once again before summer. Today it was finally spring. :-)

Yeah. Simple pleasures.