Unusually Social, including Convivial
Oct. 22nd, 2006 04:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pameladeanSo ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
dd_b and lydy and I went to Convivial. I had a lot of very relaxed fun. The instigators of the convention, laurel and kaustin, had secured two suites and a couple of smaller rooms on the 13th floor of the Holiday Inn Select in Bloomington. The neighborhood was not very propitious from the ground, being composed almost entirely of airport parking, hotels and their parking, Ikea, the Mall of America, and the airport. We also suffered from a comedy of errors in which, after we had parked atop a structure somewhat removed from the hotel proper and lugged all our stuff through winding chlorine-scented corridors to the lobby, the clerk couldn't find our reservation and then told us that they didn't have "anything like that" when David said we were here for Convivial. She sent us to the other Holiday Inn in the area. As we drove up to it, David said, "This hotel doesn't have a thirteenth floor. Luckily, by then Laurel was on the case and had gotten the real hotel to call the wrong one, so the clerk at the wrong one just told us that "unfortunately," we would have to drive back to the first hotel.
But the view from all convention space was really gorgeous. The National Wildlife Refuge near the airport was spread out to the south, on either side of an amber-colored building that reflected the con suite's autumn-leaf decorations, its strings of orange lights, and at certain times of day, anybody standing at the window. Across the hall, the view to the north encompassed downtown Minneapolis, doing the best one can do with an elevation of only about 800 feet above sea level to look like a shining citiy on a hill; and downtown St. Paul, sunk lower on the horizon and often shrouded in gloom, but doing its best as well.
There was comfortable seating and cider and beer and glorious munchies; I particularly liked the dried fruit, especially the chilii-flavored mango slices, and the pepitas. After starving in the very well-supplied Minicon con suite earlier in the year because, apparently, no vegans or quasi-vegans like me had made any requests, I'd consulted with Laurel and brought along goat cheese, several vegan pates, hummos, baba ganouj, pita bread, and sheep cheese. Andcakmpls had gone to Lund's and consulted Patrick the Cheese Guy and gotten some really lovely milder goat cheese as well, not to mention some smoked salmon. Laurel and Kevin provided bagels and orange juice and fruit for breakfast, cupcakes and blog (the latter made by jbru) or Minn-Stf's 40th birthday, Jim Beam for a memorial smooth for Bob Tucker, a lot of inivisible hard work, and endless good nature. I missed the BPAL swap, the Deadwood game, and even the memorial "smooth," but I've seen the photos. I was glad to see elisem show up on Saturday. There was much talk of Mike, which was a goodness.
I was at a pretty low ebb in terms of both energy and intelligence, but I had a good time talking to and listening to people. I still feel guilty for enjoying the game of Moneyduck so much when I'd refused to participate in it. The hotel got a noise complaint about it, which seemed fitting to me, though usually it taks music, rather than laughter, to get a noise complaint, in my experience.
I didn't even really talk to a lot of people there, but I was glad to see everybody. And I enjoyed watching the knitters.
For dinner on Friday my household kidnappedcarbonel and went to the hotel restaurant; and for dinner on Saturday, when most people were ordering pizza in, we kidnapped minnehaha B and went to Sambul in Eagan. B probably thinks he kidnapped us, since he suggested the restaurant and all, but I don't think so. The food was really good. I adore Indian food and will happily eat pretty mediocre Indian, but this, while perfectly recognizable, was somehow more delicate, with sauces where you could taste every separate ingredient. They were very generous with the salmon in the fish vindaloo, too, and the breads were good and the fried appetizers light rather than greasy.
People who had to miss the convention really should come next year. It's a wonderful space for a small convention, and Kevin and Laurel are wonderful hosts.
Also, the hotel restaurant is better than that at the Sheraton Bloomington.
Below the cut is appended an entry that I wrote but never made. It's even more boring than the above.
My social skills are very rusty.
This week I had lunch with my mother, which is usual, and that event did not tax them at all. On Friday I had lunch with Pat at Natural Escape, and we had a long conversation, catching up on news and complaining about our books. This was enough fun that we decided to try to do it every couple of weeks. I didn't feel very lively, but I don't think that that lunch taxed my social skills much either.
Then in the evening I want to a really lovely birthday party filled with people I haven't seen in too long. I had some good conversations, but with one exception I had to work at them. Possibly more hard cider and less soft cider would have helped, but alcohol mixes unhappily with my blood pressure medication. Possibly, too, if I had not been so enchanted that the birthday person had made a whole batch of triple-ginger cookies with margarine, so that I could eat them, I might have managed to actually walk up to more people I haven't seen since Minicon, or since last summer, and ask how they were.
On Saturday I got up too early and took a bus downtown to the Minneapolis Hilton. This hotel always puts me in a weird mood, since it was the site of one or two Fourth Street Fantasy Conventions and, more recently, several Minicons. The people I was going to meet had been given a suite by the conference being held there -- one of them was the plenary speaker -- that was far too large for them and that had been used to host the Tor party at at least one Minicon. I was very glad to see both Jack and Laura. Jack used to hang out on the Fidonet Writing Echo in its glory days. At the time he was a graduate student; now he's an associate professor and the plenary speaker at literary conferences. I wasn't' sure how much time we'd have, but we ended up being able to go to lunch and then I was invited to hear the speech, which I enjoyed tremendously. He's writing a biography of William Henry Ireland, one of the Shakespeare forgers, whom he referred to as "my beloved lunatic," and the speech was a truly inspired mix of humor and the kind of multiply-referenced and -footnoted, convoluted close argument that you expect from that kind of literary study.
I tried to take them to Sawat Dee, but the one on Nicollet had gone. I suppose it's been gone for years. It was a very windy day and Jack had the speech deadline, so we ended up eating a mediocre meal at the 8th Street Grill. I felt that I should have researched restaurants and even made a reservation. The Bombay Bistro, which I kept trying to find when I was on jury duty, turned out to be just up the street, but we didn't discover that untijl too late. I had only really just gotten back the hang of conversing with them when I had to leave; they paid for my lunch and I didn't notice til I got home; and while I readily answered questions about what I'd been up to, I kept wanting to ask Laura what she was working on now and being unable to fit it into the conversation; and in addition I was completely embarrassed when the person who introduced Jack listed all his publications, and I realized that it was all very well for him to ask what I was writing, but he'd been pouring forth scholarly books at a much greater rate and I hadn't asked at all.
I need some of that sutff that you can put on garden tools, that gets rid of rust and replaces it with something durable. Only I need it for my brain.
dd_b and lydy and I went to Convivial. I had a lot of very relaxed fun. The instigators of the convention, laurel and kaustin, had secured two suites and a couple of smaller rooms on the 13th floor of the Holiday Inn Select in Bloomington. The neighborhood was not very propitious from the ground, being composed almost entirely of airport parking, hotels and their parking, Ikea, the Mall of America, and the airport. We also suffered from a comedy of errors in which, after we had parked atop a structure somewhat removed from the hotel proper and lugged all our stuff through winding chlorine-scented corridors to the lobby, the clerk couldn't find our reservation and then told us that they didn't have "anything like that" when David said we were here for Convivial. She sent us to the other Holiday Inn in the area. As we drove up to it, David said, "This hotel doesn't have a thirteenth floor. Luckily, by then Laurel was on the case and had gotten the real hotel to call the wrong one, so the clerk at the wrong one just told us that "unfortunately," we would have to drive back to the first hotel.But the view from all convention space was really gorgeous. The National Wildlife Refuge near the airport was spread out to the south, on either side of an amber-colored building that reflected the con suite's autumn-leaf decorations, its strings of orange lights, and at certain times of day, anybody standing at the window. Across the hall, the view to the north encompassed downtown Minneapolis, doing the best one can do with an elevation of only about 800 feet above sea level to look like a shining citiy on a hill; and downtown St. Paul, sunk lower on the horizon and often shrouded in gloom, but doing its best as well.
There was comfortable seating and cider and beer and glorious munchies; I particularly liked the dried fruit, especially the chilii-flavored mango slices, and the pepitas. After starving in the very well-supplied Minicon con suite earlier in the year because, apparently, no vegans or quasi-vegans like me had made any requests, I'd consulted with Laurel and brought along goat cheese, several vegan pates, hummos, baba ganouj, pita bread, and sheep cheese. And
cakmpls had gone to Lund's and consulted Patrick the Cheese Guy and gotten some really lovely milder goat cheese as well, not to mention some smoked salmon. Laurel and Kevin provided bagels and orange juice and fruit for breakfast, cupcakes and blog (the latter made by jbru) or Minn-Stf's 40th birthday, Jim Beam for a memorial smooth for Bob Tucker, a lot of inivisible hard work, and endless good nature. I missed the BPAL swap, the Deadwood game, and even the memorial "smooth," but I've seen the photos. I was glad to see elisem show up on Saturday. There was much talk of Mike, which was a goodness.I was at a pretty low ebb in terms of both energy and intelligence, but I had a good time talking to and listening to people. I still feel guilty for enjoying the game of Moneyduck so much when I'd refused to participate in it. The hotel got a noise complaint about it, which seemed fitting to me, though usually it taks music, rather than laughter, to get a noise complaint, in my experience.
I didn't even really talk to a lot of people there, but I was glad to see everybody. And I enjoyed watching the knitters.
For dinner on Friday my household kidnapped
carbonel and went to the hotel restaurant; and for dinner on Saturday, when most people were ordering pizza in, we kidnapped minnehaha B and went to Sambul in Eagan. B probably thinks he kidnapped us, since he suggested the restaurant and all, but I don't think so. The food was really good. I adore Indian food and will happily eat pretty mediocre Indian, but this, while perfectly recognizable, was somehow more delicate, with sauces where you could taste every separate ingredient. They were very generous with the salmon in the fish vindaloo, too, and the breads were good and the fried appetizers light rather than greasy.People who had to miss the convention really should come next year. It's a wonderful space for a small convention, and Kevin and Laurel are wonderful hosts.
Also, the hotel restaurant is better than that at the Sheraton Bloomington.
Below the cut is appended an entry that I wrote but never made. It's even more boring than the above.
My social skills are very rusty.
This week I had lunch with my mother, which is usual, and that event did not tax them at all. On Friday I had lunch with Pat at Natural Escape, and we had a long conversation, catching up on news and complaining about our books. This was enough fun that we decided to try to do it every couple of weeks. I didn't feel very lively, but I don't think that that lunch taxed my social skills much either.
Then in the evening I want to a really lovely birthday party filled with people I haven't seen in too long. I had some good conversations, but with one exception I had to work at them. Possibly more hard cider and less soft cider would have helped, but alcohol mixes unhappily with my blood pressure medication. Possibly, too, if I had not been so enchanted that the birthday person had made a whole batch of triple-ginger cookies with margarine, so that I could eat them, I might have managed to actually walk up to more people I haven't seen since Minicon, or since last summer, and ask how they were.
On Saturday I got up too early and took a bus downtown to the Minneapolis Hilton. This hotel always puts me in a weird mood, since it was the site of one or two Fourth Street Fantasy Conventions and, more recently, several Minicons. The people I was going to meet had been given a suite by the conference being held there -- one of them was the plenary speaker -- that was far too large for them and that had been used to host the Tor party at at least one Minicon. I was very glad to see both Jack and Laura. Jack used to hang out on the Fidonet Writing Echo in its glory days. At the time he was a graduate student; now he's an associate professor and the plenary speaker at literary conferences. I wasn't' sure how much time we'd have, but we ended up being able to go to lunch and then I was invited to hear the speech, which I enjoyed tremendously. He's writing a biography of William Henry Ireland, one of the Shakespeare forgers, whom he referred to as "my beloved lunatic," and the speech was a truly inspired mix of humor and the kind of multiply-referenced and -footnoted, convoluted close argument that you expect from that kind of literary study.
I tried to take them to Sawat Dee, but the one on Nicollet had gone. I suppose it's been gone for years. It was a very windy day and Jack had the speech deadline, so we ended up eating a mediocre meal at the 8th Street Grill. I felt that I should have researched restaurants and even made a reservation. The Bombay Bistro, which I kept trying to find when I was on jury duty, turned out to be just up the street, but we didn't discover that untijl too late. I had only really just gotten back the hang of conversing with them when I had to leave; they paid for my lunch and I didn't notice til I got home; and while I readily answered questions about what I'd been up to, I kept wanting to ask Laura what she was working on now and being unable to fit it into the conversation; and in addition I was completely embarrassed when the person who introduced Jack listed all his publications, and I realized that it was all very well for him to ask what I was writing, but he'd been pouring forth scholarly books at a much greater rate and I hadn't asked at all.
I need some of that sutff that you can put on garden tools, that gets rid of rust and replaces it with something durable. Only I need it for my brain.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-10-22 09:40 pm (UTC)For Convivial, you were not far at all from the friends I am always visiting in Minneapolis! I recognized the terrain description and everything.
Whatever the garden tool stuff is, the brain version is not Greek. :)
no subject
Date: 2006-10-22 09:54 pm (UTC)How I miss conversations like that; I still regret it you had a cold that day when I was visiting Pat a few years ago. Ah well.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-22 10:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-22 10:49 pm (UTC)If you ever have time in your schedule, let me know when you're coming and we can have tea or whatever, and I can be boring right in person!
P.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-22 10:50 pm (UTC)I'm sorry I had the cold too. If I'd known you wouldn't make it back for so long, I might have inflicted my infection on you, but really on the whole it is probably as well that I didn't.
P.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-22 10:52 pm (UTC)I didn't realize that it was in your neighborhood until we were leaving, being geographically challenged in the extreme, a circumstance not helped by 494's being closed and our having to go round Robin Hood's barn to get there.
P.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-22 10:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-22 11:00 pm (UTC)Anyway, as soon as ever I can afford to travel again, I've got my eye on Wiscon.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-23 08:56 am (UTC)If memory serves me right, the phrase started off as, "It's a bird, it's a plane, it's Superman"; the bird got itself specified as a duck, while the S on Superman's chest came adrift and attached itself to the duck, morphing into a dollar sign in the process.
I should see about playing that game again sometime. Maybe I can get people to play it at
Sambol
Date: 2006-10-23 02:33 pm (UTC)B
Money Duck
Date: 2006-10-23 02:33 pm (UTC)B
Re: Sambol
Date: 2006-10-23 03:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-20 10:18 pm (UTC)I am going to be in Minneapolis at the end of December, probably from the 27th to the 30th. If you are free and still wish to have tea, I would be amazingly thrilled to do so. I can be reached via my LJ email address if you would like.