Kismet and the City

Getting out of bed was not a real priority for us on Saturday. We kind of staggered out of bed around 10:30, which wasn't so bad, given that we didn't /go/ to bed until 2am. Ted was hung over; the Guinness, he claims, got him. I wasn't hung over, but my feet hurt and my neck was *amazingly* sore: this is the *danger* of headbanging. But darnit, that riff in Junior just /begs/ for it. Thump-thump-thump-THUMP!

So we were a pretty sorry pair as we stumbled off in search of food. Sandy'd told us there was a Denny's right up over the hill, and the hotel booklet thing said it was three blocks up and one block over, so we went in search of it. Three blocks up and one block over was Davies Street, which prominently featured rainbow flags. I sort of peered at them and said, "Is this the gay section of town, or is it a weird coincidence?"

Took about three minutes to determine it wasn't a weird coincidence. However, the Denny's wasn't at that corner. We wanered around a little, trying to find it, then decided to go up Davies and see if we could find anywhere to eat. And lo, on the other side of the street was Joe's Grill, which had a neon sign close enough to the Joe's Bar sign to amuse me, and so into Joe's Grill we went.

Joe's Grill was very yummy. Local diner, quick service, and our waitress delivered Ted's food first, then came back to say to me, "Your breakfast is almost up, my luv."

I said to Ted, "I'm her luv!" He said, "That was quick!" I said, "It was a short but torrid affair." Normally I don't particularly care for random people calling me affectionate nicknames, but she was cute. Plus she had cool hair: short, with one blue strand. :)

And then there was this other waitress. She had /perfect/ breasts. I mean it, seriously. They were perfect. She was this very pretty blonde girl with a lot of ringlets, was slender but had hips, and she was wearing a tight bright orange t-shirt which showed off her Perfect Breasts to their best advantage. I mean, I'm telling you: Buttercup, Wesley's commentary nonwithstanding, had nothing on this girl. I finally leaned across the table and said very quietly to Ted, "That girl's breasts are so perfect I wonder if they're real."

Ted got this funny look and said, "You can get out of my brain any time now."

It occurred to me after that that all four of the waitresses had pretty great knockers, but the one girl, man. But I just couldn't think of a tactful way to ask if they were real.

We went back to the hotel and I finished reading the third Joanne Dobson book while Ted took a nap, and then I caught the hotel shuttle downtown to wander around a while, while Ted napped some more.

I like Vancouver: it smells like the sea, or it did the two days we were there. It's been a long time since I've lived somewhere that smells like salt water; Anchorage rarely did, and I've only smelled the sea maybe twice while in San Francisco. But growing up in Kenai, it was always there, and I miss it. So it was nice to be downtown and smelling the water.

There's a perfectly humungous mall that goes underground and aboveground and sort of all over downtown Vancouver. I wandered into one of the stores and discovered hats, so I spent a few minutes trying on hats. There was one great one that had a quite wide front brim and it narrowed in the back, and had a semi-stiff gauzy crunkly bow on the back, and a round crown. It looked pretty good on me, and a couple of little old ladies told me it was a really great hat and it looked wonderful on me. One of them said she wished she could wear it, but her face was too thin. I said, "Nah, hats are all about attitude. If you think you can wear it, you can."

Her friend said, "I'm /so/ glad /you/ said that, not me." And to her friend, she said, "Mildred's always wearing hats that don't suit her, but she's got attitude."

So I left the store very pleased. :)

Wow: there's a huge leather community in Vancouver. Much more noticable than in San Francisco, which is /supposed/ to be the gay Mecca of the world. All over the place, gay men in leather, many of them interestingly pierced (and that was just where I could see it!).

I didn't go in because I'd rather go to a museum with somebody, but I found the Vancouver Art Museum, which is a tremendously big, cool building with Impressive Stairs, and a fantastic fountain out in front. I want to go back and visit it.

And then I walked back to the hotel, which was only about ten blocks from downtown, after all, and took a nap while Ted went and haunted the used bookstore next to the hotel.

Dinner: we went for dinner early, at about 5, because we wanted to get to the Yale and get good seats for the performance. We'd seen a pretty little Italian place while we were looking for breakfast, and we thought we'd go there. But when we got there in the evening, we decided we were under-dressed (though I suspect that's untrue, since Vancouver's dress code seems to be a lot like Anchorage's: if you're dressed at all, you're dressed fine), but we wandered a little further down Davie and found another Italian place called Gigi's, and went in there.

There was a group of twenty or thirty flamboyantly dressed gay people in the main room; later they did a toast and they were the Knights of Something Or Other (Michael, maybe?), and it was their chapter's twentieth anniversary, and they were in town from somewhere else. The part I thought was very odd was how /quiet/ they were. Usually a party of twenty people isn't quiet at all, and in my experience a party heavily populated by gays is about three times louder and more outrageous than a predominantly straight party. So that was curious. They were having a good time, though, and there were some great costumes. Tuxedos and white flashy suits decorated by sequin hearts and leather and cowboys and I forget what all else.

The table next to us, a man who sounded just like Bartok from Anastasia sat down with his three sons, who were about eight, six, and four. During the course of their conversation, the idea of being retired came up. One of the kids asked, "Is retired like being on strike?"

Dad, Ted and I all broke down laughing. Finally Dad said, "Yah, yah, being retired is kind of like being on strike. At leastwise you don't get paid." Only in a Bartok accent. :)

We had pizza and garlic cheese bread for dinner, and it was very good. We did very well in the eating department over the weekend. :) Oh, and strawberry cheesecake for dessert. Yum! Then we went back to the hotel and I put on my dancing shoes and we went over to the Yale at about 7:20.

And, indeed, we got there so early that not only were they not even at the door to get the cover charge, but we got the same seats we'd been in the night before, only without two hours of standing around. Then, less than ten minutes later, the people in the /very/ best seats, the ones in front of us, got up and left, so we looked at each other and moved forward. Best seats in the house! _Yes_! Again: thank you, Sandy!

The waitress came by and recognized us from Friday night, and expressed surprise that we'd come back; Ted had talked to her the night before when I was dancing, and she'd said it was nice to see couples come in together, and he said we'd be back Saturday. And gosh-darn if we weren't. :) So I got a ginger ale and Ted got a rum and coke, at which point we realized it was like the fourth drink he'd had in less than 24 hours, and I was like, "Look what happens when you don't have to drive! You turn into a lush!" Hee hee.

We spent the next couple hours just talking and kind of people-watching. We talked some about the Sword Spectacular Weekend convention we went to last year, and whether or not Tony would do it again, and we talked a /lot/ about Legion, the tv series idea Sarah and I are working on, and I looked up and the afore-mentioned Tony was walking across the main room of the bar.

I goggled and said, "Uh, Ted, is that Anthony DeLongis?" and we *peered* and we *thought* it was, but we weren't *sure*, and besides, he was with a *blonde woman* in a baseball cap, and Mary has *dark* hair, and then he gave the blonde woman a KISS, and we were *peering* and going, "Well, he wears those kinds of glasses, and he's wearing a vest. What are the odds that somebody who looks that much like Tony would be wearing those glasses /and/ a vest, and not be Tony?"

Ted said, "They're either very very good, or very very bad," which I had to admit was right. And then he -- he, Tony -- did one of his patented Photo Op smiles, and I knew it was him.

Which promptly lead to all sorts of offended speculation as to who the blonde in the baseball cap was. I just couldn't *believe* that they'd broken up, because they seemed /so/ happy together: Tony and Mary are a joy to watch at conventions. And if he was cheating on her, well! I was going to kill him! How dare he! *laugh*

Anyway, then we got distracted by talking again, and after a while I went to the restroom, and on the way back I got a look at the woman, and I was /utterly/ relieved to discover it was indeed Mary. Thank goodness!

So they'd staked out a little standing-table area, actually a pretty good view of the bar, but no chairs, and Ted and I had this extra chair and we started looking for another one, because we had these great seats and we thought maybe we could invite them to come sit with us. Of course, this was at about 9:15 and the bar was *packed*. No extra chairs to be found. After much debating, I decided what the hell; I'd go invite them to sit with us anyway. I planned to be dancing much of the evening, and I could sit on Ted or perch on the half-wall that split the raised area apart from the main floor when I wasn't dancing.

I'm getting better at the app--well, no, I'm not. I was going to say I'm getting better at the approaching celebrities thing, except then I remembered the James Marsters concert and I wasn't at all suave then. Different circumstances: the whole mob-the-star thing that happens at cons and at that concert makes me horribly uncomfortable, but this was much more ordinary. :)

*Anyway*. I went over and introduced myself as someone who'd been at the Sword Spectacular, and Tony promptly introduced me to Mary, asking if I remembered her, and I said I certainly did, because they were so much fun to watch dancing. Tony said, "Well, if they play anything slow tonight, maybe you can watch us again. And maybe you can save us this place here!"

Does the man know how to deliver a cue, or what? I said, "Well, actually, we've got the best seats in the house over there, and some extra room, so we were wondering if you'd like to join us . . . ?"

And Tony, charming man, clasped my hand and kissed my knuckles and asked if we were being waited on over there and what we were having to drink -- I said I didn't drink, but Ted was having rum&coke, and anyway, yes, we were being waited on, and so Tony disappeared somewhere -- possibly to tell the waitress they were moving -- and Mary and I went over to the table and introductions were made and then Tony joined us and said to Ted, "Oh! You were at Sword Spectacular too, weren't you? I remember you."

And there was much laughter while we got ourselves arranged, and explained to Anthony that we had literally /just/ been talking about him when we saw him come into the bar, and that we'd been /so/ confused by Mary's hair -- I said, "I could have sworn you had darker hair when I saw you before!" and she said, "I did! Four months in Spain did this!" and Tony pulled her baseball cap off her and her hair is, yep, this gorgeous golden buttery color, and she said, "I'd been wearing this hat for two months and one day Roberta came over and said to me, "Mary, your hair is *blonde*!" and I looked and went "AAAH!" and took the baseball cap off and I had five inches of roots! So I had to stop wearing the hat."

And Tony said it must be kismet, that we'd been talking about SSW and that we then happened to see them, and that things happened for a reason, and then he demanded contact information of us -- "Do you do email?" Of course we did. :) And this is all in like the first five minutes, along with, have you visited the site lately, and you have to check it out about midweek, we'll have more Queen of Swords writeups, and he's been in Prague filming a pilot for a new show called Ariana's Quest (does that title sound D&D, or what?) which is starring Sable from WWF, who, Tony said, is actually a pretty good actress and in this show Tony gets to play a GOOD GUY! and so I'm sitting there trying to write down my email address and website legibly, which was a challenge because my hands were shaking. I couldn't help it! It only took a few minutes to calm down, but *sheesh*. *laugh*

So, having successfully written our email addresses and my website down, I handed the scrap of paper over to Tony, who first observed that I spelled my name strangely -- Catie is much more frequently spelled Katie (*shudder*), and I acknowledged that I was weird, and he said no, no, unique, and then said, "Mizkit, that's you?" and I said, "Well, yeah, the one with the girl name, 'cuz I'm the girl, see," and he said, "You know, I'd noticed that." And then leaned forward to beg Ted's forgiveness, saying he just couldn't /help/ noticing that I was a girl. *laugh*

And so I asked Mary what she did while Tony was running around being a swordsmaster sort, and she does geek-like things: keeps the website updated, takes pictures, is his assistant, but she's looking for a web job that she can do from anywhere, since, well, they're all over the place all the time. She's got a PhD in /biochemistry/, for heaven's sake. "So," said she, "I learn well." *laugh* So I said that's what I did for a living -- web stuff, not biochemistry -- and we had ourselves a nice, hyper-excited talk about remember when 5 megs was all the space in the world and now if it's not unlimited storage there's no point in buying from that server -- this particular discussion was much later in the evening, after Tony'd lost the piece of paper with our addresses on it once, fished it out again so we could write our phone numbers down, and then I gave it to Mary for safekeeping, because, well, you know how men are. *grin* So we were computer geeking, and Ted and Tony were over on the other side of the table fencing geeking: how's that for cool? Ted got to talk extensively about fencing with a master. *beam*

Oh, there was so much talking. It was a really fantastic evening. We talked about Sword Spectacular, and how, well, spectacular it had been, and how much fun we'd had; we both said that when we'd heard Tony'd gotten the Queen of Swords gig that on one hand, you know, that was /great/, 'cuz it meant work! But it meant he wasn't going to do SSW again this year! Augh! And he said he'd love to be able to do it again, if the circumstances were right, so I shall hope most dearly that the circumstances will be right. :)

Oh, and he's done a new video! They're based in Vancouver right now, but they've been running around like mad, and they'd just gotten back from LA where they'd filmed a broadsword video, a companion to the first one. It should be available around the end of January. He said it's /not/ a basic instruction video: get the first one, for that. So I'm thinkin', this is a good birthday present for Ted. :)

And all this talk was to the background of the Jim Byrnes Band, so how can you possibly go wrong? He played That River and All Over You on Saturday night, which made /me/ happy, because they're my favorite of his songs, and he did Little Red Rooster again, which made Tony and Mary happy, because they like /that/ song. It turned out, in fact, that like us, they'd never heard him play anywhere but at conventions, which surprised me a bit, because, as I said to Tony, he obviously loves the blues so much. And Tony laughed and wanted to know what gave me that idea, and I was like, "Oh, I don't know, maybe how *excited* you were about having a blues man at your very own party at Sword Spectacular?" He said, "Gee, I thought I'd hidden that well, too," and I said oh, yeah, Tony, that's the impression everyone has about you: that you play your cards close to the chest and don't let anything out. *laugh* Uh *huh*. Riiiiiiight.

And there was a bit of philosophy along those lines, too. Tony and Mary live life to the fullest -- Tony said he thinks he must have some shark blood in him, somewhere: as long as he keeps going forward, he's good -- and they are /so/ full of fun and laughter and happiness at being together, and that, y'know, is the way to live life, we agreed.

Oh oh OH *LAUGH* two other things that just delighted me beyond words: one, Tony called me a skunk-stripe girl, because of my current hair and he cannot *possibly* have known that that was a nickname people call Rogue by in the X-Men comics (well, he could have, but I suspect he didn't), and so I was just /so/ delighted by that! Apparently at some point in his career he'd done something similiar to his hair, except he'd only bleached one lock on one side (go look at the picture, for grief's sake, so you can see what mine looks like) and he said it gave him sort of a Pepe lePew look and it just didn't work as well and perhaps it was all about symmetry. He complimented my hair about four times. *beam*

And the other thing that was funny beyond words: I don't remember what we were talking about, other than something we didn't like, but Tony said, "I ceeeen't steeeend it!" which is from Singin' in the Rain, and my family says that ALL THE TIME. I said, "I ceeen't steeeend it!" back, because that's what we always do, but if I'd had slightly more presence of mind, I'd have replied, "I cahn't stahnd it," in great rolling tones, which is actually the /response/ to that line. Anyway, as if there was any doubt at that point, it was very clear that these were Our Kind of People. :)

There are only about a million more things we talked about, and a million other sillinesses, but I've been exhaustive enough and most only mention, with much laughter, the Cigar Story, which has nothing to do with Monica Lewinsky, and I'll say no more on the topic. *evil cackle* It was a really fantastic evening, and new friends have been made while we listened to great music, and what else can you possibly ask for?

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