Gives me the sweetest 'hello there': Pennsylvania 6-5000

Early in May Anthrohio retweeted their Covid-19 policy. They reiterated that vaccination and boosting was required of attendees, and that masking would be required in all con spaces, even for people in fursuit. With that announcement I tweeted my support. That's the minimum anyone should demand to go to a con. The other question was, could I afford to do? Fortunately basic attendance at Anthrohio is cheap --- the convention provides food to all attendees, not just sponsors --- and, well, we need to do some fun things even if I never get income again.

So Thursday we made our traditional drive down to Columbus. We started later than even tradition would have, because I had thought that the first recruiter trying to place me was going to call with information about when I might actually get my final-round interview. They had said they expected to, but didn't. This Tuesday they e-mailed to say they expected to have news by Wednesday at the latest; as I write this, they haven't got back to me yet. So I don't know that this link is dead (among other things, as I write this our Internet is out) but I don't have a lot of reason to suppose otherwise, either.

Sunshine bunny_hugger had taken to her parents' house for rabbit-sitting the afternoon before. I'd stayed home hoping for news about an interview that, as indicated, never came. bunny_hugger also accidentally left her jacket and her wireless earphones with her parents. The first we thought wouldn't be any big deal since we'd be inside most of the time and it was only supposed to rain on the drive down. It turned out to rain an incredible lot, both on the drive down and on the Friday. Fortunately I had the spare rain jacket I keep in my car that she could use. Earphones, well, that was a nuisance and she'd have to use regular wired phones for her daily walks.

Because we had to start so late in the day we could not get to Coons Candy, in Nevada, Ohio, before they closed. And that would prevent us making a visit to the candy shop at all: they close on Memorial Day, so one thing we lose by Anthrohio's move to late May is that chance to make a visit on the way back. I had thought we'd not have been able to get any candy on the way down anyway, because we didn't have the voluminous cooler bag, but this turns out to have been my mistake. The big cooler bag was sitting in the breakfast nook, where I could only have found it by looking into the breakfast nook.

The drive down was unexceptional, apart from the rest area where we saw two cottontail rabbits hopping up into a section reserved for wild flowers to grow. That was a nice bit. I missed the satellite navigator-intended turn, coming up to the hotel, and ended up taking a different path that wasn't any longer and was maybe easier to navigate. This path revealed, though, that the Skyline Chili near the hotel was closed and boarded-up. Also that the Theaters at the Continental --- that fascinating old quasi-utopian vision that declined and was now making a comeback --- had ... not reopened. No. But the marquee sign was no longer frozen on the showings of the movies from the last summer the theaters ran. Instead they were advertising upcoming shows at a bar somewhere in that complex. Good for them that they've got something going, I suppose.

We'd hoped to get to the hotel before registration closed, and succeeded. I was a little disappointed the convention didn't have cloth masks as con swag, and wore my Motor City Furry Con cloth mask over my N95 the whole while instead. We were both very happy that the convention had both a regular schedule booklet, as in a physical thing, and a pocket guide. Better, a pocket guide printed large and clearly enough that I didn't need my reading glasses.

For dinner we looked at nearby places and I talked bunny_hugger into Penn Station, a sandwich shop she's never been to. I've occasionally gotten their grillied artichoke-mushroom subs from the one in town. We had trouble finding the place, as the strip mall it was in connected to a service road just behind the highway in some very difficult fashion. And it turned out to be irrelevant, as while their online hours said they were open until 10:00, the sign at the door said they were closing at 8:00 due to staff shortages. We'd make a second try at them the next day, only to come in and find that there was some issue with the ordering system and they could only take online orders. We didn't make a third try at Penn Station. We instead consoled ourselves with Impossible Sliders from the nearby White Castle.

bunny_hugger had to do a bit of homework, for her online calculus class had started up. And then she had to do her daily half-hour walk around the hotel while the convention slowly came together. I noticed in the karaoke room that they'd given up on songs, really, and the host was instead showing ride videos from roller coasters. This got us a bit of chance to talk about coaster and amusement parks, and the chance to learn that they were holding a panel on roller coasters and amusement parks. You'd think it would be something bunny_hugger would host, wouldn't you? No, this was someone else's project altogether.

So this was the start of our Anthrohio experience.

Let me share some photos of the goldfish in our basement as they finally became the goldfish in our backyard again.

Our heist fish! These are the ones we got from the house up the block in September and October. Nearly all of them hopped into the net the first chance they had, and got to be the first fish returned to the pond.

And this is the left tank, where nearly all the fish came in and settled comfortably in. The big orange one with the white spot is Gemini, one of our original fish; the white spot is a scar from an injury years ago that now just looks cool.

And here those netted fish are, restored to the pond outside! They seem to be having a good time.

Trivia: The village of Disco, in Macomb County, Michigan, was platted an 1849 and named for its high school, the Disco Academy. The school itself took the name from the Latin word for ``to learn''. Source: Michigan Place Names: The History of the Founding and the Naming of More Than Five Thousand Past and Present Michigan Communities, Walter Romig.

Currently Reading: Women In Space: Following Valentina, David J Shayler, Ian Moule.