Saturday
There were no con-oriented shore excursions this year — snif! I’m not sure why, although offhand I’d say Ensenada just ain’t as pretty as Nassau is to go traipsing around in. Sarah and Christi went to see if they could get into the horseback riding excursion in the morning, but it turned out there was only one space left, so they stayed onboard and we all went to the Q&As. As usual, I didn’t get there anywhere near in time to get a lot of brilliant photos, but with luck some of them will turn out. (Ah, the fun of writing a con report before the pictures are developed. *grin*)
The Saturday Morning Panel The first Q&A sported Bill Panzer, David Abramowitz, Jim, Peter and Stan. I don’t actually take notes on these things, relying instead on my faulty memory and reminders from Christi and Sarah, so there’s nothing even vaguely resembling the order questions were asked in, and I’ve probably forgotten half of them.
That said, I can’t even remember what prompted David to pretty much start the thing off with answering a question and trying to give a sensible answer and failing, and then quipping, “Here I am, early in the morning, trying to play the straight man, and it’s just not working!”
Someone asked about the heroic, historical and mythological elements of Highlander, which question was turned over to David. The questioner felt that a generation ago we were treated to more heroic heroes, and that now most network television didn’t seem to sport those kinds of heroes, and why did they think Duncan, who was a romantic hero, worked? He also wanted commentary on the historical and mytholotical aspects of the show, and David just took off with it.
He thinks, for one, that there are still heroes, if maybe a little different kind: he cited The Practice and (I think) NYPD Blue as shows that had heroes, but he did grant that perhaps they were darker and less romantic heroes than the ones the questioner (who was male and I know nothing else of him) was thinking of. Adrian, he said, worked because he was a teriffic actor, a teriffic swordsman, and had a terrific ass. (Stan rolled his eyes.)
David Abramowitz, answering a question He also said that of course the historical aspects of the show were an incredible gift to be able to work with, because you had so much time and so many astonishing people to have potentially had your character interact with, which allowed for a great variety of possibilties and situations. Highlander, he said, was a show about tantric ass-kicking. There’s a lot of spiritual in the show, a lot of reflection and a lot of dealing with ideas like redemption and retribution (Peter did a ‘gee, what could he mean?’ look) and he thought that those more spiritual explorations were a really important part of Highlander, and of Duncan’s character, that made him a more heroic persona; he has so much time to consider and weigh his choices, and that’s a very important part of who he is.
That didn’t actually lead into a question about how they dealt with using real people as Immortals — like Byron, in The Modern Prometheus, but my little mind associates the two, so there you have it. David first said that he believed Byron and his works and everything were public domain from seventy-five years after his death, and then, absolutely blissfully, added, “We didn’t give a damn. We just used whomever we felt like and nobody ever came after us for it.”
Someone else asked when and how Amanda and Methos had met, which was a DAMNED FINE QUESTION, since the first time we see them meet, Amanda calls him Methos. I cannot imagine Methos telling Amanda who he really was. Amanda’s way too prone to selling out where other Immortals are to keep her own head. I can believe they’d met, but I think Duncan would have had to have told her that he’d met this guy who called himself Adam Pierson who was really Methos, and somewhere off-screen Amanda might’ve found out that the guy she’d known happened to be Adam Pierson happened to be Methos.
Um, I got off on a side-track there, didn’t I? :) Anyway, David said, “I have no idea how they met, but give me twenty minutes and I’ll tell you.” *grin*
PWFC I don’t think it was the same guy who asked the question about the historical stuff, but another guy got up and kind of asked for commentary on the failure of the Raven series, saying that he thought a lot of the problem was that it hadn’t really drawn on that rich Highlander historical heritage and that it had tried to be more modern, and did Bill have any comments on that, and if there was a possibility of another Highlander series in the future, would they go back to that more historically-rooted way of storytelling.
Bill winced at the failure comment (which I think was kind of unfair; I didn’t think Raven was all that bad; it had first- season shakes, but all series’ have that problem in the beginning. I think it’d have worked itself into a good show, if there’d been time. But anyway.) and said that he of course preferred not to dwell on the failures but rather the successes, and he did think there had been some successes with Raven, and far more, of course, with Highlander.
Although not directly, that lead inevitably into a comment from the audience about our enthusiasm for seeing another Highlander show, and particularly a Methos show, and did Bill see that as a possibility?
The answer is pretty much ‘not right now; let’s see how the movie goes’. If the movie does well, the potential for another series may be very high. Bill’s hoping that it will be a shot in the arm not for the fandom (which is raving and slobbering to see Peter play Methos in his own series), but for producers. Seems like a legitimate way to play it to me.
Someone asked, if Peter and Stan were cast together in RHPS, who would they be? Peter said, “Well, it’s kind of obvious, don’t you think?” He’s already played Frankenfurter. Stan, on the other hand, didn’t know the play at all, and was looking blank while the audience laughed and catcalled. There did appear to be a bit of a discrepancy in the audience’s opinion about whether Stan should play Brad or Rocky, but Peter helpfully cleared it up by saying, “There’s this perfect part for you, Stan. Everybody tries to seduce him and he spends most of the show mosly naked.”
Along those same lines, someone asked the actors if they were cast in a part where they had to play a woman, what would be the most difficult aspect of that?
PWFC Jim, deadpan, says, “Shaving.”
Peter was a little taken aback by the question, I think. He sort of waved his hands about and said it would depend on the character, and the reasons for dressing like a woman, but he didn’t think it would be any more difficult than any other character whose head you had to get into, as an actor. The woman asking the question said, “Really? There’s nothing that just seems totally alien that would make it hard?”
Peter thought about that for a moment, then straightened up and said, “You want to know what I don’t get?” Of course we did. “Shoes.”
There was a roar of laughter from the audience, and Peter leans forward again, saying, “No, really. I mean, men basically have a pair of black shoes and a pair of brown shoes and those go with everything. Women, now women need a different pair of black shoes for every outfit.”
“That,” he said, “I can more or less understand. But what I don’t get is the absolute joy women take in shopping for these shoes.”
We all pretty much lost it at that point. *laugh* A whole bunch of us later discussed the fact that we don’t actually like shopping for shoes or much of anything else, but there are an awful lot of women who do, so it’s a rather legitimate stereotype. *grin* Anything else Peter said was lost under all the laughter. :)
Stan offered the most in-depth answer to the question. He referenced — mmmph, This Boy’s Life? I’ll have to check the name. It’s a movie based roughly on a true story, about a young woman who moved from her hometown to go live as a man in Big City Somewhere. The actress spent several weeks living as a boy, and Stan thought doing something like that would be very important. He said aside from the physical aspects, that he thought you’d need to become accustomed to people reacting to you as they would react to a woman, rather than a man, so that you could respond without having to think, ‘What would a woman do in this position?’ He thought for it to be an organic and believable performance, that’d be very necessary. He also said he’d played a woman in a high school play, and that the physical aspect was pretty strange, looking in the mirror and getting used to that face, under makeup and having been prettied up.
Stan In response to another question, Stan also said he’d just finished filming a new movie, which had a fairly impressive list of co-stars, including Farrah Fawcett and Dean Stockwell. It’s called (I forget; can somebody help me?) and he’s the title character. Someone asked what working with Dean was like, and he laughed and said, “Well, I was only in about three scenes with Dean, but all of Dean’s scenes were with me. He played a kind of mentor to my character and was there at the beginning and at the end. He’s kind of curmudgeonly, likes to chew on his cigar and be kind of gruff, but he’s a great actor and it was a great opportunity, working with him.”
Sarah got up and said she’d been a Transformers fan from way back when, and she wanted to know who was Jim’s favorite voice to do, Inferno from Beast Wars, or Thrust from Beast Machines.
Jim laughed and said doing voiceovers wasn’t much like real acting, but he had to admit he really liked the name Thrust. Then he said, “I’m doing another character named Rip. Rip and Thrust.” He did that wicked grin of his, and the audience cheered and laughed and applauded wildly. A little later something reminded him, and he said he was also voicing — or had voiced — a character named Dick. He didn’t even have to /go/ any further; the audience just broke up. :) “Dick, Rip and Thrust. Somebody’s got me pegged.” And that grin.
Someone asked Peter what specialty he’d have gone into if he stayed in medicine. Stan leaned forward and said, “Gynocology,” and Peter mimed putting on a rubber glove in a downright obscene fashion. That got a lot of catcalls and hoots and cheers, too. *snicker* David, all bright-eyed, said, “You know, that does absolutely nothing for me.” :)
Peter The answer to the question, though, was: “I have no idea. If I’d known, I’d have stayed in medicine. There were all kinds of incredibly interesting things, but I didn’t want to do any of them for the rest of my life.” When pressed, he shrugged and said, “Pediatrics,” and listed a couple others; Jim, in the background, muttered, “Proctology,” and Peter obligingly and without missing a beat said, “Proctology,” to yet another round of catcalls. :)
Another question for Peter was, would we be seeing him on stage anywhere any time soon? He really hopes so. He thinks getting back on stage would refresh acting skills that needed to be aired again (Jim muttered something, and Peter laughed, then said, “They’re back here saying, “Amen to that!”). He just wanted to find good stories to tell, whether on stage or wherever, but he thought doing theatre would be good for him.
Sort of tangently to that, I think, it was mentioned that he really was looking for work that could keep him in Vancouver. He and Caroline haven’t been anywhere for more than a couple of months for pretty much their entire marriage, and with the baby coming they both wanted a place that they could have a home and have his career be less frantic. (Upon mention of the baby, there were many congratulations, and Peter looked extremely proud and pleased and giddy, and then made a remark about, “Proving, once and for all, that I am *not* an Immortal . . . !”)
I asked him what kind — actually, I don’t know /what/ I asked, exactly. I was *trying* to ask what kind of parts, whether in tv or in movies or on stage, he wanted to play, what kind of stories he wanted to tell, but I think what I actually asked was what kind of work he was looking for, which isn’t exactly the same thing. As a result, he said, “I get bored very easily. TV series work doesn’t really appeal to me, because usually you establish the character right off and then you don’t often get to get any more in depth. You end up playing exactly the same person, and there’s no challenge in that. That was the great thing about playing Methos: every time, he was someone different.”
In response to another question, he said that Methos absolutely wanted his own show, and much loudness erupted. Peter was visibly cut off, and I wonder if he was going to add that he wasn’t sure he wanted to go there with Methos. I’ve heard (or read) him saying that before, and given his concerns about tv series work — but that’s speculation.
*laugh* Somebody asked what awards the panel would like to win. David said, “The Nobel Peace Prize, because then I would know that I had FINALLY been forgiven for killing Richie!” Peter looked befuddled at the question, and Stan leaned forward and said, “Peter would like to thank the Academy … ”
Over laughter, Peter said, “Well, some kind of _acting_ award _would_ be _nice_…!”
*laugh* There was at some point towards the end this sudden lull where there was no one waiting to ask a question. The moderators said, “Does anybody have a question?” and Stan grabbed his microphone and said, “*I* have a question. Do Jim and I get to be in this show of Peter’s?”
The roar of approval was staggering. :)
I’ve missed a ton of questions, a number of things to Jim and several to Bill and David, but I just can’t bring them to mind right now. Nnnf. I’ll try to pick them up later.
The next Q&A was Bill Panzer, who was incredibly kind and was willing to do a Q&A for Highlander: World Without End, the new Highlander film that’s being done. Given that they’re in production and that it’s always sticky to talk about a movie that’s in production, I think it was just unbelievably generous and wonderful of him to come up and do this for us. We Highlander fans are a really lucky bunch.
There’d been some talk about the possibilty of him bringing some footage from the film for us to see, dailies and stuff, but it didn’t happen. There was a vast groan of disappointment, a 500-strong, “Awwww!” and I’m afraid it made him feel defensive or badly, which is kind of too bad. I mean, I was disappointed — not surprised; I’d have been surprised as /hell/ if they’d been able to bring footage — but hardly angry or anything. But I think Bill felt badly about not being able to provide that. It was too complicated to get permission to do that when the film is just barely begun.
Bill, being _so_ careful with his answers Things he said in general: Adrian Paul is in the best shape of his life. (Forget the groans; there was a collective awed *moan* and lots of gasps of astonishment and wonder. *grin*) They’ve gotten 7 days of shooting done, and have about 15 minutes of film in the can, so that’s pretty good. They’re shooting in Romania, for a multitude of reasons: one, he said frankly, it’s cheap. Two, because it was a totalitarian society for so long, there are some incredible buildings and scenery and things that have stood untouched, all of which is available for them to film in, around, and on.
He was asked who the bad guy was; there was an extremely long hesitation, before he said, slowly, “Did you see Passenger 57? The bad guy in that is our bad guy.” (Bruce Payne; thank you, Trent, for finding that for me.)
Someone asked if there’d be any familiar faces, and he very pleasedly reported that we’d be seeing Heather and Rachel again — reprised by Beatie Edney and Sheila Gish, their original actresses. There was one hell of a lot of cheering and shouting at that, and then, in a voice of doom, he added, “Not everyone survives to the end, of course.” Collective “augh!” noises. And, of course, “They even found room for some guy named Dawson, and this guy called Methos.”
After the cheering was done for /that/, Bill added, “And of *course* they’re going to be played by Jim and Peter. We saw all these rumors on the net about new actors. What did you think we were thinking? We said Joe and Methos, not some guy off the street. And of course it’s (actresses) for Heather and Rachel. I said Heather and Rachel, didn’t I?” Huff puff huff puff. Not that I blame him! :)
A fan of Adrian’s hair asked if it would be long or short. After another long thoughtful pause, Bill said, “Long in the past, short in the present.” He was trying so hard to be careful, to not say anything that would get him in trouble. He was being so careful. It made me appreciate the fact that he was doing the Q&A all the more.
He said Jim’d just gotten back from Romania — which explains why Jim was so bloody tired — and that he’d be going back in a few weeks. Peter’s supposed to go at the end of the month, I think he said, and Adrian’s been over for two or three weeks. The director is a young man named David something, who’s twenty- eight (which means he was about FIFTEEN when the first movie came out; anybody *else* think maybe he’s been living to do a Highlander movie pretty much his whole life?) has waistlength hair, and a vision that Panzer-Davis thinks fits very well with the Highlander universe.
The movie will be according to the canon set up in the tv show (cheers erupted), and he and Peter Davis felt very strongly that they were getting back to the feeling of the original movie. There was, you can imagine, one whole hell of a lot of applause and cheering about that.
PWFC Someone asked about the level of violence, since, well, chopping people’s heads off is pretty violent, and movies have become more and more graphically violent in the last years. Bill said that while the movie would be somewhat more graphic than the tv series, which was really fairly clean, that he and Peter and David the director all felt that Highlander wasn’t about gore, it was about the stories of the Immortals, and that they saw no reason to make deaths graphically violent.
You would not *believe* the amount of applause that got.
The special effects, he said, would blow us away, and he wouldn’t tell us any more! Well, he said that there would be things we were used to — lightning storms and Quickenings, but that there was some really great CGI in the works. I’m really looking forward to seeing this movie! *laugh*
Um, as for location: like I said, they’re filming in Romania. Bill got very careful again, answering questions here. They’ll be returning to the castle in Glenfinnin, so there’s some filming happening in Scotland, some in Vancouver — I think he said Christopher Lambert has been in Vancouver, but I’m not positive about that — some stuff in New York, and it seems like there was one more location that I’m forgetting.
All he’d say about the story was that there was a story in the present and a story in the past and . . . that’s all she wrote. :)
Someone asked what demographic they were aiming for with the original movie and with the tv series, and Bill kind of laughed and said, “I don’t think we ever had a demographic in mind. We just wanted to make a good movie with a good story and we hoped people would go see it. As it happens, the first movie really appealed to a young male audience, but now –”
At that point he simply spread his hands to encompass the room. The odds on this cruise were a little better, with a few more men, but there were still four hundred women in the room. Bill said, “You’re the demographic everyone is dying for. Really, you are. You have incredible pull.”
Pretty much on the heels of that, someone asked, “So what can we do to help make the film a success?” Bear in mind here that we have ulterior motives: if WWE is a success, there might be a Methos & Joe Show. :)
Miramax is distributing the film. Bill said that in the beginning, he thought what had happened was that there were a few people in sort of middle management at Miramax who were *really* behind WWE. They were kind of younger (men, he said, although I don’t know if that was a genrealization or accurate; I’d guess accurate), and they knew the first movie and the tv series and they really, really wanted to make WWE happen. He said as they’ve been sending dailies back and things have gotten rolling, a lot of people at all levels at Miramax have gotten very excited, and he feels like they’re very much behind them.
All that aside: Email, fax and write letters. Flood them, he said. Tell them that you’re looking forward to the film and you hope that they’re going to be pushing its distribution and marketing the hell out of it. He agreed to post the addresses to write to at highlander-official.com, but I’ve looked them up myself; I have no idea if this is the _right_ email address, but it’s the only one to be found: MMX_Webmaster_M@Miramax.com. On my links page is the snailmail address and fax number. Fax them until they can’t get anything else in because they’ve got so damned many Highlander supporters faxing them. Write letters until they cry mercy. If we’re the demographic studios are desperate for, we should let them know that we want this film.
Someone else made mention of the fact that if Panzer-Davis were inclined to, there was a market of all us slobbering fans who would pretty much kill for a series of videos with dailies and auditions and various and sundry stuff that Gillian and Donna have shown at previous cons. Bill said that’s harder to arrange, video releases, than just doing it at cons, because you have to get the actors’ permission and all kinds of things, but they would remember that. Someone else asked if the videos would be released on DVD, and he said that was definetely in the works. I really hope so, because though I don’t even own a DVD player (yet), I’d buy the series on DVD. Most of the reason I haven’t gotten it on tape is that tapes wear out.
The only thing I missed during the con that I really would have liked to have gone to was the next Q&A, which was a Best of Highlander with Bill, David Afwashcisface, and Maureen. I’d have liked to have heard Bill and David’s opinions on things, but we went shopping instead.
Sarah and Christi standing in front of a Big Damned Mexican Flag Which was pretty fun. Christi, who speaks Spanish, got followed a whole block by a small girl who really wanted to sell her some gum. I think it was gum, anyway. We wandered around the Ensenada shopping district, went into a shop with some cool dresses, spent too much money, and ended up not wearing the dresses at all on the cruise. Oh well.
That’s a sort of abrupt description of the two hours we killed in Ensenada, isn’t it? I took no pictures, because Ensenada, I fear, isn’t very pretty. We were approached by several jillion small children trying to sell us gum. The absolute cutest was a little bitty, around 4, who stood at Sarah’s hip and patiently tapped three fingers against her hip for about two minutes, waiting for Sarah to give in. When Sarah didn’t, she came over to me and went taptaptaptaptaptap for not as long. She was *really* cute. It is not, however, a charming habit, to be accosted with small people saying, “Compras, amigo! Compras!”
Oh, funny bit, in the shop we bought our dresses in: I asked Christi what time it was, in Spanish, presumably because I was hearing Spanish all around, and she didn’t know, so she asked the proprietor’s wife (also in Spanish) and she told us what time it was. And the proprietor says, “I’m _killing_ myself speaking English, and you speak Spanish!?” So then he spoke Spanish at us. Very, very fast Spanish. :)
We also missed the Tony & Bob Show, Part One, but since Sarah and I saw it both on last year’s cruise and at SSW this summer, neither of us were crushed by missing it. We got back to the ship and fell upon food, ‘cuz we were Starving To Death — all of us, not just Christi, for once :) — and then we flopped around in the room for a while.
Room-flopping was followed by taking a run by the Highlander Store. I got Ted a shirt and me a bloopers film, ‘cuz I’m never going to get around to ordering the tapes at the rate I’m going (not unil they’re DVDs instead of tapes, anyway) and restrained myself from buying a picture of Peter. :) They didn’t have the one I really *wanted*!
? There was an unofficial PWFC gathering at six, and since Sarah and I are both PWFCers, we both went down to that. They were showing scenes from different stuff Peter’d done, mostly Cold Feet, the American tv series which was cancelled after about 3 weeks. (I think it was at the morning Q&A with everyone that Peter made the comment: “My agent (I believe it was his agent) was saying, “Man, you are just the kiss of *death* for series’ television.” I don’t even have to been on the air yet. It’s like the networks say, “Oh, that guy is on the show? Cancel it.””)
We were standing around chatting with Vonda and Peter came in, and half the room promptly glommed onto him. It was like an ameboa, I swear. *Schloop*. I was genuinely surprised to see him there; since it was an unofficial and unplanned, really, meeting, he was certainly under no obligation to come by, so I thought it was really extremely gracious of him to do so. He’s a very, very nice man.
The already-infamous shower scene in Cold Feet came on, and there was a great cheer of approval, which made Peter look up and go, “Oh God.” At that point everybody else who hadn’t seen him became aware he was in the room, and another half of the people who were there went *schloop*. There must’ve been sixty PWFCers there and forty of them were all trying to breathe the same air Peter was. That’s got to be weird.
Peter, profile Weird or not, Peter was extremely charming to everybody who was around him, while the staff tried to loosen up the knot that had formed around him so he could move through the room. I didn’t get to talk to him, though I got about five reasonably nice pictures of him, mostly profiles or three-quarters profiles (god, that man has a lovely nose. swoon.) while he was talking to other people.
There was a girl from Wales that he spent several minutes talking to, and the only thing I heard was her saying he ought to come by Wales and visit, and Peter said, “Yeah, my mum keeps saying that too . . . ” (Girl from Wales: if you’d email me a recap of your conversation, I’d /love/ to add that into my con report. Same with anyone else who got to talk with him!)
There was one moment before he stopped to talk to the Welsh woman where he had a chance to address the room at large. I’m not sure what prompted it, but he looked up and said, “Is it just me, or are the rooms much better this year?” There was a shout of agreement (your mileage may vary, apparently), and he went on to say, “Last year’s decore, it was like someone had revisited the seventies and then vomited it up again.” *snicker*
Deb Morgan showing Peter the latest cartoon Deb Morgan had a new Leah Rosenthal drawing for Peter; this one was the Jimmy scene, with Peter flinging his coat into the car, and the other side of the Jimmy was blowing out. The caption was to the effect of: “Note to self: Next time I get into an Immortal coat-flinging contest, make sure personal aresenal is unloaded.” I got a couple pictures of Peter admiring that, and utterly failed my get-a- full-headshot roll. Oh well. :)
I took a picture for a lady whose name I didn’t get; in exchange she gave me a Peter bookmark. *beam* The picture on it is from the first cruise — actually, I recognized the picture, having seen it on the net — so that was delightful. I wish I’d gotten a not-a-profile shot for her, but he kept moving! How dare he! *laugh*
?, after her Peter Moment After twenty of twenty-five minutes — maybe it wasn’t quite that long, but it seemed like he was there quite a while — th staff managed to get Peter ushered out, and there was a sort of collective swoon. The man is exceeding charming, and despite the mob, a number of people got to have Peter Moments. I just think it was incredibly generous of him to come by. He didn’t have to. Thanks, Peter.
A lot of people left after Peter did, but I ran around taking snapshots of people; they’re scattered through these pages, so if you see a picture of yourself, or if you know who people in the pictures are, *please* email me and let me know so I can get names assigned to faces. :) The photos are cleverly named things like “pwfc01” and “pwfc02”, so if you know people, just refer to them by the photo name like that and I’ll be able to get names where they belong. Thanks!
Vicki Rorke, Linda Rae Sande, Vicki Heady I did get to meet Vicki who’s on the newsletter staff, and got a picture of her with Vicki II, as well as (get her name!) who was playing the part of Vicki for the sake of the picture. *grin* While taking photos, I found the lady who’d made the METHOSWANTSHISOWNSHOW buttons and in a proper fit of geekdom bought one and wore it all weekend. It’s now living on my backpack. :) (Every time I look at it, I think it needs a .com on the end of it; my brain has been trained to recognize run-together words as URLs. I *am* a geek.)
We cleared out after I took a bunch of snapshots, and went to get ready for dinner. Formal night!
Tonya, Sarah, me and Christi Things were lots more relaxed at dinner on Saturday night, for reasons I can’t fathom. I dunno what changed, but anyway, it was fun. I was fairly loud, and Tonya politely said we were different and unique, which is much nicer than weird, scary and alarming. :) And somebody said something and I said don’t say that, I’ll get all discouraged, or words to that effect, and everybody looked skeptical and someone (Sheila?) said, “Somehow, I don’t think you’re the kind of person who discourages easily.” Apparently they got me pegged. *grin*
Christi, Sarah and Amat So I’m sitting there and Amat comes by to fill our drink glasses or something, and Christi bloody well *fluttered* at him. I said, “Christi! You’re *fluttering*!” She said, “I am not!” and Sarah said, “Christi, those were like gale-force winds coming from your eyelashes. I’m surprised the boy wasn’t knocked backwards across the room.” Christi turned to the others for help and they were like, “Nope, you were fluttering.” She blushed and *blushed* and then KEPT FLUTTERING. *beam* Amat was awfully cute.
*laugh* Vonda and Ronda’s waiter was named Wayan, which was the name of our watier last year. We thought that was cool. :)
After dinner it was our turn to be herded through the receiving line. Now, I ask you, would *you* have set it up so there were 250 people in the first line, 210 in the second, and *forty* in the third? The logic fails me. Utterly fails me. Presumably there’s a reason. I can’t figure out what it might be. At any rate, we’d been told to go back to where the Highlander Store was, so we did!
In fact, we followed Tony right into the room where the actors were waiting for the receiving line to be shuffled through! We only got a couple steps in, and were like, “Ack! We’re not supposed to be here!” and dashed out. In retrospect, maybe we should have stayed and been thrown out — what a way to get noticed! *laugh* But we weren’t trying to get noticed, we were just going where we thought we’d been told to go! (Look! It’s the paragraph of exclamations!) So we scuttled on out, giggling a lot at ourselves, and then got lost trying to find the end of the line. :)
PWFC Eventually we did find it, a’course, and hung about with the ladies from dinner and chatted up the guy who works for the Highlander staff (he’s like, the only guy, and I dunno his name), and generally had a pretty good time as we were wending our way down a hot and narrow hallway.
Then in the receiving room itself I broke one of the Highlander Clan Staff. :) The guy was wandering up and down the aisle, making sure it stayed clear, ‘cuz they needed to do that for fire safety. One of the women from dinner was just ahead of me, across the aisle, and she was standing with one foot in the aisle. The guy had a little flashlight and he sone it on her foot and said, “Hey! You’re in my space!” Then the line moved and she walked forward. There was enough room for me to cross, so I tucked my hands up against my chest and went scurrying on my tip-toes with little tiny steps across the aisle — I didn’t want to get caught in his space, see? But *he* turned around to talk to someone, and didn’t see me. The woman he was talking to also turned around, *towards* me, and I went scurryscurryscurry! and she actually *collapsed*, just doubled over and shouted with laughter. The guy was like, “What? What?” and Sarah and Christi were also going, “What?” and the woman said, “She just did the, the *bunny hop* across the aisle!” and burst out laughing again. So then I had to explain what had prompted the scurrying, and the guy was all disappointed that he’d missed it. *giggle*
Then Deb yelled that they needed a group of three and me and my lack of shame yelled back, “We’re three!” and we got herded up front ahead of about twenty people. Sarah said she was hearing people behind us saying, “They need three? We’re three! Do they need three again?”
So I got pushed (literally, I think, though I’m not sure who was pushing me) towards Jim, and he looked up and grinned and said, “Catie Murphy!”
Portrait with the boys With all the eloquence at my disposal, I said, “Jim, I love you! You remembered!” and gave him a big old hug. I wasn’t even wearing a name tag or anything, he just *remembered* me. So I was kind of floating on air. *beam* He hugged me and took my hand and tugged me against his side and told me of course he remembered. :) We talked for a minute, and I told him how much I’d enjoyed the concert and how glad I was to see him, and he said thanks and was delightful at me in general. It was, sadly, pretty much the only chance I had to talk to him. But he remembered me, which was just incredibly flattering.
I failed to even say hello to Anthony or Bob, but Anthony remembered Sarah from SSW, and she said Jim remembered her because she was with me: eh, maybe; and Christi says he didn’t remember her at all. But Sarah and I saw him at SSW, and Christi didn’t, so he’s had a more recent reminder about us. :)
Christi was wearing nifty dragon earrings (cobalt blue glass, very pretty), and because Anthony is known to like dragons, she paused to point them out, and he admired her earrings and showed off his dragon brooch that he was wearing, and Bob, quote, “Cooed admiringly” over Christi’s earrings. *grin*
As usual, I couldn’t think of anything clever to say to Peter except, “Congratulations!” He grinned like, well, a proud daddy-to-be, said thanks, and when I said I was thrilled for them, he grinned more and said, “So am I.” And that was as much of a Peter Moment as I got. I forgot to even goggle over how soft his hands are. *laugh* Sarah said Stan looked at her like he really thought he knew who she was, but couldn’t *quite* place her. :)
Despite having extremely brief contact, we went away from the receiving line reeling and giggling, and I about fell over ‘cuz Jim remembered me. *stupid grin*
We went and changed into more sensible clothes, refused to let Christi go to bed, and went in search of a party. :) We didn’t find the party we were looking for — we were hoping the boys would be out, but they weren’t. Jim had told Sarah he’d be out, but she’d also said to him, “You look tired,” and he said he was. So sense won out over partying, I think, and, well, I wasn’t really expecting Peter to be out, considering Caroline’s pregnant, and all.
Tangently, I *do* wish I’d gotten to meet Caroline. I missed meeting her last year, primarily, I admit, because I was too drunk to see straight when we talked to Peter in the bar, but I’d really like to meet her. I’m sure there’ll be another chance sometime, but I’d really been hoping to meet her this year.
Drunk, or silly? Anyway, we went up to the Crown Lounge, or something like that, which had a dance floor and good music, and we had drinks, respectively, to each other, and then to Highlander in general. Christi doesn’t normally drink, and we went straight for the peppermint schnaaps — which I like primarily because I’ve never gotten violently sick drinking it (hung over, yes, but violently sick, no) and we explained to her that the first shot is usually pretty smooth, the second one is rough, and after that it’s noooooo problem.
We got to the fourth shot, the one for Highlander, and Christi said, “Y’know, you’re right, I didn’t feel that one at all. My tongue is numb.” *giggle*
We did not, thank God, have those four shots in the extremely rapid succession that we did last year. *laugh* Last year Sarah and I had 8 shots (peppermint schnaaps again; it’s this Thing for us) in about 25 minutes. By the end we were admiring how much *easier* it was to approach Jim and ask if we could have a drink to him (after seven shots) than it had been to approach Peter (on only 4 shots).
Then we burned a significant amount — not enough, but a significant amount — of alcohol out of our systems by dancing to the really quite excellent music the club was playing. Three or three fifteen am rolled around and they said it was last call, so Sarah and I thought we’d better finish things up by having a double shot. We ordered, and Christi said she didn’t want one, so we ended up with six shots, and some guy who was standing nearby stared and said, “You’re not gonna shoot those.” We were like, “Yes we are!”
“No,” he said, “you’re not. You’re putting me to shame. You’re really gonna shoot those? I gotta watch this.” So our six shots came and Christi ordered water and Sarah nobly volunteered to shoot Christi’s schnaaps. The guy came over to stand in awe while we discussed what we should have the final drink to. “Peter and Caroline and the baby,” Sarah said, very reasonably, and we thought that was a brilliant idea, and tossed back our drinks.
The guy and his girlfriend applauded us. *laugh*
And then we went out and danced until they made us go home.