The Bard's Fire

If you’ve taken a look at my convention schedule on the HarpHaven website, you’ll have noticed that the next two on the list are on back-to-back weekends. WHOlanta! (the convention formerly known as Timegate) is on the first weekend in May, and OutlantaCon (the very fine LBGTQA-centered sf&f convention) is on the following weekend. Both, as it happens, in the same hotel.

There was a time, not all that many years ago, when such a thing was listed in the “Tough But Do-able” column. It meant packing for both conventions at the same time, screaming in from the first one, kissing the cats, scritching the hubby, pulling various modules from the just-in bags, replenishing consumables, throwing them into the headed-out bags, and screaming out again with the latter in tow. Some of you may remember the year that schedule and circumstance resulted in a three-cons-in-three-weekends run, a bedroom that looked like a bell captain’s holding room, and a waist-high pile of laundry at the end.

But those days are well and truly over. Encroaching age and advancing infirmity now serve the function good sense never quite managed, and I looked at the scheduling for those two conventions and wondering which one of them I’d have to miss. And then “what if...” took over.

Numbers were crunched, the hotel and people from both conventions got involved, and offers of the on-the-ground logistical support needed to pull this started coming in. Himself not only didn’t mind, he actively encouraged the idea. It was cost-effective, it cut in half the opportunities for airline screw-ups and/or damage to the BattleChariot, and it saved significant wear and tear on me. He and the cats would be fine.

So it is that, instead of the frantic turnaround routine described above, I’ll be staying over between WHOlanta! and OutlantaCon. A mini-retreat of sorts, with plans for catching up on sleep and holing up to write interspersed with a some leisurely meals with friends.

I’ll let you know how it goes.