Torcon3 - Minneapolis in '73 Hosts the Dead Dog Party

I volunteered for at 11:30 to 13:30 shift in Programming Ops. Afterwards, I had to go shopping for the Dead Dog Party.

<nattering about ConSuite, Programming Ops, i, etc.>

Spring Rolls, a restaurant in Toronto that Geri had used for the Thanks a Mint party, www.springrollsonline.com. I went in an told the cute guy at the front desk that I wanted to order a bunch of food for a party that night. He freaked and took me to the bar. The woman working there and I had a communication problem. I said I wanted to spend $400-$500 CDN on spring rolls, chicken sate, shrimp sate, and fried wontons, and that they had delivered them to a party earlier in the week where they were much appreciated. I also stated, dimly, as if in a fog from lack of sleep, that I'd like them delivered in two stages, one at 19:00 and one at 22:00. Either I was speaking gibberish, or she was having trouble understanding me. She wasn't sure if they could do that. So she waved over some other person. I went through my song and dance again, and said I wanted an assortment of spring rolls, I didn't care how they billed it, but I would like them together on a platter rather than 50 or 60 styrofoam containers. They didn't think they could do that.  Well, then give me the 50 or 60 styrofoam containers.

I wanted the chicken sate without the mango salad. They didn't think they could do that. Not hold the salad?

How did I want the food delivered? I don't care, just send me half the first shipment and the rest the second shipment. They didn't think they could do that.

Finally, they called a manger. And over a phone stretching it's cordage, I sat on one side of the bar and, with trouble hearing, we brokered a deal. Somehow, the manager didn't have a problem holding the mango salad, or the 50-60 styrofoam containers. We ended up at $600 CDN for the food, and she had no trouble splitting it into two deliveries. (I've worked in kitchens, it seems like two separate orders are somewhat easier to prepare.) I paid them half in cash and half in credit card, ran out, hopped in a taxi, and off to Loblaws.

At Loblaws, my first fuzzy thought was to see if they would throw together some kind of cold-cut tray for me while I wandered about throwing exotic drinkables into the cart. They wouldn't, but they would cut up fresh meats for me to take, so I had them do some, grabbed and had sliced some nice looking breads, picked up olives, butter, a few dips, diet coke -- as in tons of -- exotic beverages, OJ, milk, and a few odds and end, and headed for the long lines at the checkout counter. Last time I went shopping for the Thanks a Mint party, Thong came with, which made schlepping stuff around much simpler. This time, I'd gotten back to the room late, and he'd wandered off. I stuffed Geri's wheeled duffle bag full of soda, and piled the rest into a cart. The checkout woman got me some help to get outside to the curb, -- while sliding and standing down the huge slanting motorized ramp, I contemplated ending up at the bottom with a ton o' exotic soda on top of me --and I ran and got some flowers, then called a cab.

The cab took me back to the Fairmont Royal York, and we unloaded it at the front door, where the bellman told me I shoulda used the other door. (Nothing was said the last time I did this...) Anyway, he wanted them to run a cart over from the East door, but a bellman came and piled it in the South door behind his back, and off up to the suite I went.

The party had been setup by hosts of loyal fans.

Once they saw the door was open, crushes of people arrived. It got really, really crowded really fast. Smell of the crowd, unlike some Conventions, most had taken showers. Tons o' fans. Packed. At various times, people were asked to move to ajoining suites. I'd asked for the food delivered in two drops because I was not sure how fast people would find the Dead Dog Party, but I did not have to worry.

Food, bell cart, exchange with the bellman. first delivery.

At seven, they called from downstairs. The first delivery was there. Send it up, I said and hung up. They called back. They wanted me to come down. I went down with the bell-cart that some bellman had left over the weekend. They already had the food on a cart when I got down there, and so I exchanged the cart, tipped the delivery guy, and the bellman, (who wanted the cart back and started telling me about hotel policy...)

I went back up and distributed the food. There was a feeding frenzy, although had I taken the cover off the fried wontons, I would not have called out (as Geri Sullivan suggested) "Food on a Stick"

Bartending, hosting, food chopping, disposal problems.

Cleanup stories, us sitting down, phasing out around 7:30.

-More to come-

Back from Toronto

The Dead Dog Party and cleanup ran far past the wee hours of the morning -- it was just plain light and the hour was reaching for past . The sun was up before I headed up the elevator to the fifteenth floor and the room.
I awoke at 9:30 to remember (vaguely, as if in a fog):

• Gregg had vanished sometime during the night without taking the Duckie Box. I called him, but he'd already checked out of the hotel.


• Neil had placed a bag of 1973 pennies and Mpls in '73 stickers in a closet that I did not remember packing.

I pulled on some pants and a fannish t-shirt and wandered back down to first. On the very long walk from the elevator to the ConSuite, I saw Diane, and we looked briefly for the pennies. Didn't find it. I did pick up a large box, which I thought the Duckie Box would fit inside. Diane gave me the keys to the ConSuite (she was off to catch a train back to London), and Thong and I wandered off to find breakfast.
We went back to the food court across from the Convention Centre, which was run by more than half Asian. Thong likes soup for breakfast, and I usually had some form of eggs. David Langford was there eating, and I asked him if Geri was up yet, and got the answer that she was not.
As it was closing in on 13:00, we stumbled down the elevator with the sixteen pieces of unmatched luggage, and I checked out of the Fairmont. We then stumbled down to the checked luggage room (and why not left luggage?) and checked it all in.
We grabbed a taxi off to the gay ghetto to wander around for a bit and had coffee, then went back to the hotel, talked briefly with Catherine, wandered around in the ConSuite, and unchecked our checked luggage and hopped a taxi for the airport.
While we were eating at Friday's after we passed Customs, Geri arrived. She went to an earlier gate where Ben and a bunch of LA fans were. Thong and I went to the gate. When Geri arrived, she upgraded the two of us to first class. Dean, Laura, and Ken were also on the plane, although they arrived late and after we'd commented that we thought they were on the plane. The steward was Jeffery, a friend of Paul and Corey's, that I've known for quite some time, and other people that I knew got on the plane. Of course, for my second time ever in first class, the plane had no food (it had not gotten loaded in Mpls.), and I was dead tired. Geri and smoffed, drank a beer, and slept.
In Minneapolis, we called the pseudo child, who picked Thong, Geri and me up and delivered us to our homes in his pickup truck.