vailian

Everyone has written about this meeting, so I guess I don't have much to add! But it was enjoyable and raucous, all were in good spirits, especially after the third beer. Everyone had a lot to contribute, and the meeting could easily have gone on a few days longer.
J. deserves all the credit for scouting the locale and leading us there. We didn't all fit in the car, so J. and Rich and I walked the 8 blocks or so,
poor Rich dying for a pee the whole time. J., forever cheerful despite his blog title, kept insisting that it was just around the corner.



Sparky waited ages in his car for us as we assembled at the Starbucks in the train station. Jen insists he would not have been bored, because he had his Scientific American stashed somewhere, but I could see he was full of Angst that something had happened to her-- after all, she was bravely having a rendez-vous with a bunch of Internet Perverts she had never met. But once we were all there, and the first beers had been dutifully consumed, he was the life of the party.And I must say that if there would be a fight with fisticuffs, I would definitely want him on my side.
Jen was outrageous, as is her wont; she has such innocent clear eyes but comes up with the naughtiest paragraphs I have heard from a prim American female mouth! I am sure Sparky had to wash her mouth out well with soap afterwards. Very entertaining.
Rich offered to let us see his scars for a small fee, but when no one took him up on his kind offer he generously showed them to us for nothing. Some people are just born kind and saintly, he is one of them!





Elisabeth could easily have run screeching from the place, having seen what antiquated personages had assembled, but no, she integrated easily and maintained her good humour to the end. It did cheer her up, though, to show me pictures from her time at the Oktoberfest. She was showing the pictures in chronological order, and one could judge how many hours she had spent there by counting the number of buttons undone on her blouse. By her description (and the photos tend to corroborate this), she and her new friends more or less took over a good part of the festival, and have been engaged to appear again next year.
Carol was, as always, the catalyst for the whole thing; without her it wouldn't have happened at all... and this, even though (besides me) no one had met her before. A remarkable woman, we miss her presence in Germany but we are sure our paths will cross again sometime.