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APE Part the Third
Mar. 1st, 2004 03:24 pmRib update: currently hurting like a mother. I had no idea the painkillers helped so much. I am having Vicodin for breakfast.
A pre-APE carrot I held up to help me get through the pre-con agonies of doubled-up work, packing and more work was the Naughty Toddy. I promised myself one the moment I got through security at the airport. Shed coat, computer, bags, then reclaim all and straight to Seattle's Best Coffee. A Naughty Toddy is cold coffee concentrate, milk, chocolate, shaken with ice, and garnished with a bittersweet choclate stick.
Until a few days, I had no idea the cold coffee concentrate was made with a Toddy maker.
A day after that, I learned one doesn't need one of them to do the job. A jar, coffee, cold water and patience is all it takes. 2 1/2 quarts of water per 1 pound of ground coffee. Put the coffee in your jar, and add about 2/3 of the water. DO NOT STIR. After 20 minutes, add the rest of the water, catching all the coffee not wetted on the first go-round. Then, you combine all the minutes you'd spend over the next few days warming water, grinding coffee, and brewing in your french press (because there's no other way of making coffee I recognize) into one big Wait: 12 hours in the fridge.
Strain the coffee after the Big Wait, setting the grounds into something where they can drain for some time to get all the coffee coming to you. DON'T SQUEEZE THE GROUNDS. The point of this exercise is to get super-smooth low-acid coffee.
After that, the concentrate can be kept in the fridge for a week. For regular coffee, dilute the sludge with 2 to 3 parts water and heat. For iced, slosh milk and ice into undiluted concentrate.
Bless my husband for breaking my french press and forcing me to try something new.
On to the APE report.
Day Three dawns with me being well-slept two nights in a row, another shocking first for a con. I was so thoroughly crashed I never heard Katie, Dan and Janer come back in from a concert (Janer), and the Isotope (all of them). (I dunno if Carla did.) It was nice waking up sans alarm or phone call, one of the things I lurve about APE's later starting times. I don't mind alarms and phone calls, but the inevitable result is finding Carla stuck to the ceiling like Sylvester, eyes bugged out, hair on end. That girl does not do alarms.
Carla and I talk quietly, so as not to disturb the sleeping beauties, until we hear them stirring. I get out of bed feeling, well, cracked. My hand is red and puffy.
The parade in and out of the bathroom begins, and another Viking raid on the breakfast buffet is staged. I dimly note the kitty-litter-like stuff that is put on vomit is in a spot right under the window next to the bed where Janer slept. I find out later some amateur drinker yarked on the window, waking Janer up. I bring the tiramisu out of the room fridge, set out glasses and purloined spoons, and challenge all comers to eat cake for breakfast.
The morning talk is more sedate than yesterday, but I dunno if it was because we were running out of steam, or a majority were hung over. I stand a lot, and hang on to my middle, where a hurt has settled in, when I laugh. I keep my hand there most of the day.
We still get to APE right after the opening, and find it much slower than the day before until late in the afternoon. Deborah Geary and I share with Tristan Crane that we find him gorgeous. I stand until it hurts too much to stand, and sit until it hurts too much to sit. It's hard to breathe, but I don't care much the few times I get some wine from Deborah. Scott McCloud comes by and apologizes as only Scott can for the mixup at Buca di Bepo. When he finds out I fell (I didn't know at this point I'd broken a rib), he's even more sympathetic. I'm laughing about the whole thing, but still clutching my middle. Patrick Farley brings Carla and I a dark dark chocolate bar. I break it, and scamper back to my table. I share it with Rick and Deborah, and put it away, where I will not find it for a week.
I put a couple mylar bags to the best use any mylar bag will ever be put to, making them into an icepack with Dan's help, and ice my hand when I'm not selling or signing books. Someone comes by and asks if I've got a repetitive stress injury. "Sure," I say, "from bouncing on a sidewalk repeatedly." Deborah keeps poor-babying me, which is rather nice.
A Saturday story I forgot: my feet really hurt. I would slip them out of the cat shoes, to let the cool floor of the concourse soothe them. "Are you sure those are comfortable?" Deborah teased me. Later, after a couple of therapeutic sips of wine, I say, "You know, I wish I could drink with my feet." Deborah and Rick look up at me. "You know, so when my feet hurt, but not the rest of me, they could get drunk. I could sit at my desk with my feet in a bath of rum and still draw because my feet would be drunk, not all of me!" Rick considers this, and declares he's all for this. End of forgetten story.
I buy myself a requisite latte and a chicken foccaccia that makes customers magically appear every time I get a bite, chaw-like, into my cheek.
Afternoon sees things picking up. I borrow Dan's cell and make a reservation at The Stinking Rose for twice as many people as I know I've invited, knowing how these things go. I make a lightning run of the room, buying Paper Biscuit from Ronnie del Carmen and Mia from (ah, er, name slippage). Ronnie and I laugh about the cuteness of plumber's butt as opposed to it's frontal cousin, the camel toe. I miss so much (including Kris Dresen, gloom). I push art until the last minute. I sell all the CC's and CA's I've brought, and half the Rumble Girls trades. The last book I buy is Michael Manning's In a Metal Web, and I'm kicking myself for not buying both now. D'oh. (He, in turn, bought CC and RG from me. Squeal.)
When APE closes, Marvin Mann loads his small car with our jumble o' crap right after I run a copy of RG to Ronnie and meet his kids. We reconvene at the hotel, unload crap, and lo the dinner party has blossomed. It takes Marvin's car and two cabs to get us to Casa de Stinky on time.
At the Rose, we get a big room all to ourselves. It has a mural full of garlic bulbs doing things like marching in a garlic pride parade. Anthropomorphic vegetables and animals make me feel like a cannibal. Yum. The final body count of the dinner is 15, meaning my calculate-party-expansion-as-people-invite-other-people-invite-other-people fu is nearly dead on.
We have Gina, Denise Sudell, Trisha, Harris, Carla, Janer, Marvin, Jason Thompson, me, Katie, Dan, oh dear god my memory's gone. Chip in. Help me. Note to Denise: banging on the olive oil bottle with a spoon is even more attention-getting if it breaks. Haven't you seen the Princess Diaries?
Before we've even finished the appetizer course, we're all vividly understanding the concept of "pace yourself". We have mussels, spinach and cheese fondue with garlic crostini, bagna calda (garlic cloves in oil with anchovy), a shrimp cocktail (that has one lonely shrimp left by the time it gets to me, and I feel like the youngest kid in Yours, Mine and Ours), and garlic spread on garlic rolls. Already groaning, the main courses appear: pastas, shank of lamb, chicken with forty cloves (amazing). Once we're crying with the goodness of it all, the tiramisu (which is the only un-garlic thing besides the drinks) appears. Less obviously liquored than the Buca di Bepo tiramisu, and nicely chilled, and where are we going to put it? I womanfully take a few bites, and realize I can stand siting any more, my middle is hurting, and not from overeating. I excuse myself for the quietude of the front of the Rose, where I buy garlic pistachios for Summer and for Catboy, and an olive oil spout. When I get back to the table, the check has come, and bistromathics, in spite of everyone ordering the prix fixe, has ensued. A few minute's ciphering, plus reminding of the actual heart-stopping cost of the sodas, sorts everything nicely. I bring our server back into the room for a round of applause.
You get a chance to go to The Stinking Rose, do. It was worth the 14-year wait from the first time I ever saw it until I finally ate there. I can't speak for anyone else who ate there, but I know I stank to high heaven eighteen hours later. I pity the people who sat near me on the planes. It was a nice conversation repellent.
The horde breaks up after dinner, the part I am attached to staging another Viking raid, this time on a gift shop in Chinatown. Janer buys all manner of lovlies for Paul, I buy Shon a Sabrina tin, almost everyone comes out with less money. We get back to the hotel, and Janer and I immediately go out again for a bottle of wine. I buy a water and a Double Shot for the trip home, which I will forget in the fridge, along with the chicken sandwhich. Janer asks hunky concierge for a corkscrew, which he produces like a magician. We end up chatting with him, and looking at pictures of his little boy.
After packing, during which Carla is delighted to discover her wheeled bag holds two boxes, we pad over the Harris and Trisha's room for vino and stories. We stagger back to the room after 1AM, where I get my con-usual three hours of sleep before getting up for the plane. I tell Carla good-bye, she murmurs the contended murmur of someone catching a later flight.
I find I am completely unable to shoulder my packed-for-checking duffel without feeling like I'm being stabbed in my sternum. Katie sends us up a cart, Janer helps me move the dead-dog duffel onto it, Dan lugs my super-heavy duffel on top of one of the two rolling bags he's got. I carry my lightened smaller bags, and Katie, Dan, janer and I light out for BART. My ribs are grinding alarmingly, and I find myself unusually short of breath. Janer and I talk about autism on the ride over. We almost miss our ride to the airport because BART's own website lies about how early AirBART buses run. A helpful man tells us to get on the regular bus. I pay all the fares to pay back Janer, Katie and Dan for helping move the dead-dog duffel. We part ways at the Southwest terminal, me staggering to my beloved Continental.
Have I mentioned how much I love e-tickets and self check-in terminals that don't make me swipe a credit card I don't carry? I do! Almost as much as coffee, the girl-child I buy a Beanie Baby for on my way out of the San Antonio aiport (the requested one appeared over the weekend I was gone), the husband I bought Paper Biscuit for, the boy-child I bought Taco Bell for (he cares not for the Beanie Baby), and my good friends all over the country and comics and at APE. That's right, I love you more than coffee and e-tickets COMBINED. Remember that!
A pre-APE carrot I held up to help me get through the pre-con agonies of doubled-up work, packing and more work was the Naughty Toddy. I promised myself one the moment I got through security at the airport. Shed coat, computer, bags, then reclaim all and straight to Seattle's Best Coffee. A Naughty Toddy is cold coffee concentrate, milk, chocolate, shaken with ice, and garnished with a bittersweet choclate stick.
Until a few days, I had no idea the cold coffee concentrate was made with a Toddy maker.
A day after that, I learned one doesn't need one of them to do the job. A jar, coffee, cold water and patience is all it takes. 2 1/2 quarts of water per 1 pound of ground coffee. Put the coffee in your jar, and add about 2/3 of the water. DO NOT STIR. After 20 minutes, add the rest of the water, catching all the coffee not wetted on the first go-round. Then, you combine all the minutes you'd spend over the next few days warming water, grinding coffee, and brewing in your french press (because there's no other way of making coffee I recognize) into one big Wait: 12 hours in the fridge.
Strain the coffee after the Big Wait, setting the grounds into something where they can drain for some time to get all the coffee coming to you. DON'T SQUEEZE THE GROUNDS. The point of this exercise is to get super-smooth low-acid coffee.
After that, the concentrate can be kept in the fridge for a week. For regular coffee, dilute the sludge with 2 to 3 parts water and heat. For iced, slosh milk and ice into undiluted concentrate.
Bless my husband for breaking my french press and forcing me to try something new.
On to the APE report.
Day Three dawns with me being well-slept two nights in a row, another shocking first for a con. I was so thoroughly crashed I never heard Katie, Dan and Janer come back in from a concert (Janer), and the Isotope (all of them). (I dunno if Carla did.) It was nice waking up sans alarm or phone call, one of the things I lurve about APE's later starting times. I don't mind alarms and phone calls, but the inevitable result is finding Carla stuck to the ceiling like Sylvester, eyes bugged out, hair on end. That girl does not do alarms.
Carla and I talk quietly, so as not to disturb the sleeping beauties, until we hear them stirring. I get out of bed feeling, well, cracked. My hand is red and puffy.
The parade in and out of the bathroom begins, and another Viking raid on the breakfast buffet is staged. I dimly note the kitty-litter-like stuff that is put on vomit is in a spot right under the window next to the bed where Janer slept. I find out later some amateur drinker yarked on the window, waking Janer up. I bring the tiramisu out of the room fridge, set out glasses and purloined spoons, and challenge all comers to eat cake for breakfast.
The morning talk is more sedate than yesterday, but I dunno if it was because we were running out of steam, or a majority were hung over. I stand a lot, and hang on to my middle, where a hurt has settled in, when I laugh. I keep my hand there most of the day.
We still get to APE right after the opening, and find it much slower than the day before until late in the afternoon. Deborah Geary and I share with Tristan Crane that we find him gorgeous. I stand until it hurts too much to stand, and sit until it hurts too much to sit. It's hard to breathe, but I don't care much the few times I get some wine from Deborah. Scott McCloud comes by and apologizes as only Scott can for the mixup at Buca di Bepo. When he finds out I fell (I didn't know at this point I'd broken a rib), he's even more sympathetic. I'm laughing about the whole thing, but still clutching my middle. Patrick Farley brings Carla and I a dark dark chocolate bar. I break it, and scamper back to my table. I share it with Rick and Deborah, and put it away, where I will not find it for a week.
I put a couple mylar bags to the best use any mylar bag will ever be put to, making them into an icepack with Dan's help, and ice my hand when I'm not selling or signing books. Someone comes by and asks if I've got a repetitive stress injury. "Sure," I say, "from bouncing on a sidewalk repeatedly." Deborah keeps poor-babying me, which is rather nice.
A Saturday story I forgot: my feet really hurt. I would slip them out of the cat shoes, to let the cool floor of the concourse soothe them. "Are you sure those are comfortable?" Deborah teased me. Later, after a couple of therapeutic sips of wine, I say, "You know, I wish I could drink with my feet." Deborah and Rick look up at me. "You know, so when my feet hurt, but not the rest of me, they could get drunk. I could sit at my desk with my feet in a bath of rum and still draw because my feet would be drunk, not all of me!" Rick considers this, and declares he's all for this. End of forgetten story.
I buy myself a requisite latte and a chicken foccaccia that makes customers magically appear every time I get a bite, chaw-like, into my cheek.
Afternoon sees things picking up. I borrow Dan's cell and make a reservation at The Stinking Rose for twice as many people as I know I've invited, knowing how these things go. I make a lightning run of the room, buying Paper Biscuit from Ronnie del Carmen and Mia from (ah, er, name slippage). Ronnie and I laugh about the cuteness of plumber's butt as opposed to it's frontal cousin, the camel toe. I miss so much (including Kris Dresen, gloom). I push art until the last minute. I sell all the CC's and CA's I've brought, and half the Rumble Girls trades. The last book I buy is Michael Manning's In a Metal Web, and I'm kicking myself for not buying both now. D'oh. (He, in turn, bought CC and RG from me. Squeal.)
When APE closes, Marvin Mann loads his small car with our jumble o' crap right after I run a copy of RG to Ronnie and meet his kids. We reconvene at the hotel, unload crap, and lo the dinner party has blossomed. It takes Marvin's car and two cabs to get us to Casa de Stinky on time.
At the Rose, we get a big room all to ourselves. It has a mural full of garlic bulbs doing things like marching in a garlic pride parade. Anthropomorphic vegetables and animals make me feel like a cannibal. Yum. The final body count of the dinner is 15, meaning my calculate-party-expansion-as-people-invite-other-people-invite-other-people fu is nearly dead on.
We have Gina, Denise Sudell, Trisha, Harris, Carla, Janer, Marvin, Jason Thompson, me, Katie, Dan, oh dear god my memory's gone. Chip in. Help me. Note to Denise: banging on the olive oil bottle with a spoon is even more attention-getting if it breaks. Haven't you seen the Princess Diaries?
Before we've even finished the appetizer course, we're all vividly understanding the concept of "pace yourself". We have mussels, spinach and cheese fondue with garlic crostini, bagna calda (garlic cloves in oil with anchovy), a shrimp cocktail (that has one lonely shrimp left by the time it gets to me, and I feel like the youngest kid in Yours, Mine and Ours), and garlic spread on garlic rolls. Already groaning, the main courses appear: pastas, shank of lamb, chicken with forty cloves (amazing). Once we're crying with the goodness of it all, the tiramisu (which is the only un-garlic thing besides the drinks) appears. Less obviously liquored than the Buca di Bepo tiramisu, and nicely chilled, and where are we going to put it? I womanfully take a few bites, and realize I can stand siting any more, my middle is hurting, and not from overeating. I excuse myself for the quietude of the front of the Rose, where I buy garlic pistachios for Summer and for Catboy, and an olive oil spout. When I get back to the table, the check has come, and bistromathics, in spite of everyone ordering the prix fixe, has ensued. A few minute's ciphering, plus reminding of the actual heart-stopping cost of the sodas, sorts everything nicely. I bring our server back into the room for a round of applause.
You get a chance to go to The Stinking Rose, do. It was worth the 14-year wait from the first time I ever saw it until I finally ate there. I can't speak for anyone else who ate there, but I know I stank to high heaven eighteen hours later. I pity the people who sat near me on the planes. It was a nice conversation repellent.
The horde breaks up after dinner, the part I am attached to staging another Viking raid, this time on a gift shop in Chinatown. Janer buys all manner of lovlies for Paul, I buy Shon a Sabrina tin, almost everyone comes out with less money. We get back to the hotel, and Janer and I immediately go out again for a bottle of wine. I buy a water and a Double Shot for the trip home, which I will forget in the fridge, along with the chicken sandwhich. Janer asks hunky concierge for a corkscrew, which he produces like a magician. We end up chatting with him, and looking at pictures of his little boy.
After packing, during which Carla is delighted to discover her wheeled bag holds two boxes, we pad over the Harris and Trisha's room for vino and stories. We stagger back to the room after 1AM, where I get my con-usual three hours of sleep before getting up for the plane. I tell Carla good-bye, she murmurs the contended murmur of someone catching a later flight.
I find I am completely unable to shoulder my packed-for-checking duffel without feeling like I'm being stabbed in my sternum. Katie sends us up a cart, Janer helps me move the dead-dog duffel onto it, Dan lugs my super-heavy duffel on top of one of the two rolling bags he's got. I carry my lightened smaller bags, and Katie, Dan, janer and I light out for BART. My ribs are grinding alarmingly, and I find myself unusually short of breath. Janer and I talk about autism on the ride over. We almost miss our ride to the airport because BART's own website lies about how early AirBART buses run. A helpful man tells us to get on the regular bus. I pay all the fares to pay back Janer, Katie and Dan for helping move the dead-dog duffel. We part ways at the Southwest terminal, me staggering to my beloved Continental.
Have I mentioned how much I love e-tickets and self check-in terminals that don't make me swipe a credit card I don't carry? I do! Almost as much as coffee, the girl-child I buy a Beanie Baby for on my way out of the San Antonio aiport (the requested one appeared over the weekend I was gone), the husband I bought Paper Biscuit for, the boy-child I bought Taco Bell for (he cares not for the Beanie Baby), and my good friends all over the country and comics and at APE. That's right, I love you more than coffee and e-tickets COMBINED. Remember that!
