Last weekend a few SD’ers met in Des Moines, where the “face to face” thing started. (Remember ChrisCTP’s “How cool is that?” thread when she discoved Boli lived only a few blocks away? That broke the ice and meetings cropped up all over…)
I live about 3.5 hours from Des Moines so I drove in early Saturday morning. Chris’s directions were great, but never depend on Yahoo maps; they failed to label a crucial street so a certain aimless meandering ensued. I finally found the house and (ta-da!) met Chris and Byron and son Bowen in person. It was a trifle strange, actually talking to this person who’d become so familiar but I’d never met. And yes, Chris is just as funny and pretty and sweet in person as she seems. Byron is a lanky, laid back foil, just as bright and hospitable as Chris.
(Sidenote: son Bowen honestly is a heartbreaker. Chris does not exaggerate. He’s funny, bright-eyed and wonderful company. He kept us company the whole weekend, happily plonked down with his crayons or a book or helping us at the computer. He’d stare entranced at the screen and earnestly identify colors for us. So our extended SD conversation was punctuated with a tiny voice advising us, “blue!” or “red!”. He could melt the most hardened child-hater into a pile of mush.)
Boli couldn’t make it over until later, CatRimbaud was tied up moving, so Byron had been up for 36 hours so he sensibly conked out. Chris and I nobly made the sacrifice and left to eat some great Italian food.(We were talking so hard and fast we didn’t notice the mob waiting to be seated looking at us with a gimlet stare.) We bought some great Italian pan bread to take along and departed hastily before the crowd got ugly.
We went home, popped some wine and Boli dropped in with her beer supply in hand. Fortified by appropriate beverages, bread w/ olive oil to dip it in, a happy little boy and a sleepy dog, we got down to the business at hand: actually being able to talk about SD without having to explain and footnote endlessly. Okay, we talked about nearly everybody. It’s safe to say if you’ve posted more than about 12 times, you were mentioned. The list would go on forever and still leave people out. So just assume you were mentioned.
About 2:30 Boli bailed out, and I collapsed about a half hour later. (Byron was just waking up.) It was so nice to just be able to walk upstairs and crash. Chris crashed on the couch in the midst of mapping out her web page.
We did not spring out of bed at dawn, cheering the day.
It was more like crawling slowly and conversing through feeble hand gestures. Byron of course was rested, chipper and in fine form. He actually took (shudder) pictures of the survivors. Chris has threatened to put them on her site once they’re developed but possibly she can be persuaded against it.
I left early afternoon and predictably drove right into a pea-souper fog that lasted for 200 miles. But no matter; while tanking up the car I grabbed the gas nozzle the wrong way and drenched the front of my coat with high-test unleaded. The penetrating fumes kept me awake, along with the constant expectation of turning the car into a moving fireball everytime I lit a cigarette.
It was great, just so much fun meeting folks face to face at last. Okay, the gathering was small, but the hospitality was warm and the talk was great.
(That okay for reporting, Chris?)
Veb
