post-FKO

For those interested, I've updated my Saturday and Sunday Blatherings with photos from FKO.

The figures above were an Interfilk donation from Michelle Bottorff ("Lady Lavender"), who designed and made each figure to represent Jodi, me and Allison. I love the fact that my figure is playing a flute and Allison's is playing her guitar! The bidding went higher than we could afford (which we were happy about, of course, since all the money goes to a good cause), Kathleen Sloan won the final bid. At the end of the convention, she surprised us by giving each us our own figurine as a gift.

Happy Birthday, Rand! As those who attended FKO probably know, our new Secret Song was actually called "Library Boy", a surprise birthday song for Rand (whose birthday is today and whose photo is at the bottom of this Blathering.) The last photo and the one below were taken when Rand, Allison, Jodi, and I were taking a break just before heading downstairs to attend some more programming.





Just a few of my personal FKO highlights (more coming later this week), in random order:

- Gary McGath's Lord of the Rings parody related to "Waiting For Frodo" (he says he'll send me the lyrics)

- Performing "Saxophone In Spring" with Andrea, our first songwriting collaboration. I played flute and even sang some harmonies (my first non-Urban Tapestry harmonies!). Andrea says she wants me on her recording of this song for her upcoming CD...yikes! I've never recorded my singing on a CD before (except when UT live performances were taped).

- Paul Kwinn's surprise attendance!

- Having Ellen Weingart call me a bitch (in an affectionate New York sort of way :-)) because I kept taking stealth photos of her. It became a ritual through the weekend, much to Dave Weingart's amusement. ("Hey Ellen, look at the photo I just took!" "Bitch.")

- Hearing Katy and Ju perform "Play Me" (I think that was the name), a song they had written after a visit to my place, and seeing Talis play my harp. Beautiful piece, it made me cry. :-)

- Dinner with Allison, Jodi, Tom, Dave, Katy, Ju, and Rika on Thursday night.

- Andrea's contribution of a particular t-shirt with my photo on it. The photo was taken at Reid's and Luisa's watergun party last July. Clark Weirda won the bid. I must seek revenge on Andrea somehow, of course. >:-)

The photo below was taken in the hotel lobby. From left to right: Margaret, Allison, Jodi, Terence (who might be moving to Toronto!), Andrea, Melissa, Daniel.





Wonderful to see so many attending from Germany and Britain, like Rika performing her one-shot concert below:





Many thanks to Sheryl for buying our Interfilk package! The photo below is of Sheryl and Gary, in the hotel lobby just before leaving the hotel:





Heather did a wonderful job of running the con suite (Heather's on the left, photo below):





Dave Clement is coming to visit for a couple of nights. Looking forward to that, since we didn't have much of a chance to hang out during FKO. I find filk conventions like FKO both wonderful and frustrating because there are always so many friends I want to talk to, but there's so little time.