From Philly to Boston

And All Stops In Between (July 5th - July 8th)

While I was somewhat relieved that Anthrocon was over (because it meant an end to con-stress for a little while, at any rate), I was a little bit anxious about it ending, too.  We were driving from Philly to Boston.  Sure, fine, I'd had warning about that.  I knew we were going to do that, I was good with that.  Until the stop-over in New Jersey got mentioned.

"But if we don't, my dad will kill me!" or words to that effect greeted my dismayed, "What?!?" upon first hearing of this plan from my SO a week before my plane left for the east coast.

Okay, so I probably should have figured that out.  I probably should've known that we would stop.  It was on the way, after all.  And he's closer to his parents than I am to mine.  Even with the reassurances that things would be okay, I was nervous.

Yes, I'd met his dad and step mother before.  No, this wasn't the first time "meeting the 'rents".  I still felt dread during the drive from Philly to NJ.  I don't suppose the 100+ temperature and the lack of decent AC in the car made me feel any better, not even when we stopped at a rest stop and I brought my griffon in with me when I went to the bathroom and bought some more water.  Jonah accused me of wanting to cause accidents because the people driving by in cars stopped to stare.  I was just unwilling to leave them in the car to melt.  She says as she adjusts her halo and polishes the tarnish away. There was traffic, too.  Cars that had over heated and caught on fire, accidents, I don't know what, made the 1-hour drive into a 2.5 hour drive.

Things could've been worse when we got to his dad's place.  The two days we spent there could've been a lot worse.  For the most part, I was quiet (unusual for me) and tried to be as unobtrusive as I possibly could be.  We (Jonah, Boo and I) went to the bookstore with Kelly and I broke down and bought some 'best of' anthologies in a desperate attempt to glean what these editors felt were good stories, stories worth buying.  I also found the most recent issues of Cemetery Dance and Realms of Fantasy so I grabbed those to add to my samples pile.

I found that my Beanie "obsession" isn't one.  Jonah's step mother proved that within five minutes.  She's got more beanies than anyone could shake a stick at.  And she's not just got nearly every beanie in existence, she's got multiples of each type.  I think she broke my head.  (Though I'll admit to wanting the sea horse!)

The pool was the saving grace in New Jersey.  Since I hadn't managed to get down to the hot tub or the pool or the sauna or anything while I was at the hotel for Anthrocon, I reveled in the pool at Jonah's dad's place.  Jonah, Boo and I spent about three hours in the pool Monday evening after dinner.  It was fun.  Dark, with stars and occasional fire crackers.  We tried to stand on the volley ball while it was under water.  Boo and I swam on Tuesday, too, while Jonah was off with his dad visiting his grandmother.

Wednesday saw us leaving New Jersey.  We drove to Boston with a side-trip through Newport, RI (where the weather was much cooler and there was a wonderful sea breeze).   We stopped at the bank and took care of some business (with the security camera getting an eyeful of griffon), then went to the Newport Creamery for dinner and dessert.   Then off to Boston.

Wednesday evening was pretty quiet.  Jonah, his mom, stepdad, Boo and I did the crossword puzzle from the New York Times while we talked about stuff.  Thursday was relatively quiet, too, except for the construction folks and the doorbell and the phone and the dog.  Boo and I walked to the B&D Deli (the deli which I should stop mentioning on the RumorMill because of the snickering from the perverts ;) ) for lunch, then grabbed some bottled caffeine from the CVS down the block before we walked back to Jonah's mom's place.

I wrote on Thursday.  It had been ages since I'd had time to sit down and work on fiction with no other worry in my head.  I wrote 800 words on a short scifi erotica piece, finishing it (well, the first draft, at least) and then another 1500+ words on another lycanthrope/cyberpunk piece that may or may not go anywhere.  Thursday night, the lot of us (Jonah, his mom, his stepdad, his grandmother, Boo and I) went out to dinner for his mother's birthday.  There was a decision made not to wait an hour for dinner at the Cheesecake Factory (much to my dismay) and so we went to Bertuchi's instead.

After dinner, Jonah, Boo and I drove over to the Circle theatre and saw Wild Wild West.   It was a goofy movie.  It wasn't great cinema.  It wasn't great writing.   It was pretty good eye-candy, however, and entertaining, too.

And that leads us to Friday... and Readercon 11.