And as the minutes tick away I feel my anger rise

I was confused that bunny_hugger couldn't find registration, since we'd been to the convention at this hotel twice before and at that point I knew instinctively where everything was. I pick up directions very fast, though. I finally found a parking spot in-between a very narrow row of cars and construction equipment in what remained of the golf course's parking lot and was, honestly, glad she wasn't there for the parking job there. She gets nervous when other people are having a hard time doing car stuff.

We met up in the lobby and I walked right to where I knew registration had to be and, indeed, it was closed. From all reports, closed at 8 pm, too, just as if the whole day hadn't been disrupted already. I thought there had to be some way around and found one of the Dorsai doing security. He told us that con ops could, since we were pregistered, give us a sheet of paper giving us access to the con for the night and we could get our badges tomorrow.

The woman working con ops barely let us say we had registered when she explained that they did not have the printer to make badges and so could not help us. I explained what the Dorsai had told us and she checked with someone else who said something or other and we finally had direction: if we could bring them some printed-out proof of our registration they could do this. bunny_hugger bemoaned how it would be impossible for her to find that and here, I'm embarrassed to say, I lost my temper and shouted something hurtful like ``it's always like that with you'' and stormed out, bunny_hugger following behind, confused.

I can't defend that loss of temper. All I can offer is context. bunny_hugger has a number of things she's anxious about and I have a very limited ability to help with any of them. And they had come fast and furious this past week; besides the usual convention prep stuff, she had been anxious about the pinball Zen tournament. And about the upcoming start of a new pinball season. And about the house two doors down who refuse to discourage their dogs from barking endlessly. And about someone --- we have our suspicions --- who the weekend before stole the ultrasonic anti-dog-barking mechanism we had at the edge of our property, pointed at the Bark Brothers dogs. Add to that an intense heap of bunny_hugger cursing herself out for not leaving earlier --- when either of us could have checked when registration closed, and we could have gotten here by 8 pm if we knew that were the deadline and not 9 or 10 --- and then bemoaning how somehow it would be difficult to find proof we'd registered? I ran out of patience and I shouldn't have and that was that.

My thinking was that it was impossible bunny_hugger had no confirmation of her preregistration, and that we could print it out at the hotel's business center. Or our own hotel's, which is where we went. We checked in, got our stuff moved in, and just having everything settled down in a spot helped us feel a good bit more civil. And bunny_hugger did find proof she'd registered and e-mailed it to me.

So with my confirmation and hers in my Gmail inbox I went to the business center and found I couldn't remember my Gmail password if you tortured me. All right. I went back and put it all on a USB drive and printed them out. And after an hour or so fussing with this we headed back to the convention and were all smiles to the woman at con ops. She couldn't tell, because we were wearing our N95's and mask covers.

``OK, so, as I explained,'' she started, and told us that she didn't have printers and so couldn't print out badges. And I explained that we knew, but she'd told us if we had physical proof of registration we could get a temporary pass for the rest of the night (which would be about two hours and the dance, by then). She said no, they had been doing that earlier in the day but not anymore. And here bunny_hugger lost her temper and sulked something I forget, storming out.

You accurately imagine our feelings now. bunny_hugger despaired that the entire convention was ruined and we might as well have stayed home Friday instead of wasting the time and money to go to the convention Friday. And cursed herself for not looking when registration closed. I kept pointing out either of us could have checked and, I mean, who expected it would close earlier Friday night than any other day of the convention? Why be open to 9 pm Saturday but 8 pm Friday? Or not run late on a day already so disrupted? She also cursed out the woman at con ops for sending us on a fetch quest (good phrasing!) and then sneering at us when we completed it. I didn't quite feel the sneer that bunny_hugger did, although it would have been nice if she'd said something consoling like, ``I'm sorry'' or ``I'm afraid'' or ``I was misinformed earlier''.

We might have spent time at the convention anyway; while the dance, the game rooms, and hospitality were closed to us (panel rooms and the dealers rooms were closed), the majority of floor space didn't require anything and it's not like people weren't wandering around, often in suit, anyway. But we both thought, in our misery, we'd only feel worse being around people who were happy and able to pass through the invisible barriers against us.

So we went back to our hotel room, resolved to at least go to bed early and feel better for letting the hurt scab over. We didn't, and it really didn't. It just passed.

So now you know why my pictures are Saturday at the con. Here's some to take in, starting with the fursuit parade.

Got a decent picture of Twitchers during the fursuit parade!

And here's the frog who, of course, was looking the wrong way for my purposes.

Somehow my camera refused to take a picture of bunny_hugger during the parade and I don't know why. I was taking a video and that only gives me five still pictures during a movie, but I hadn't hit five. You'll see her shortly anyway. Meanwhile, here's some kind of alien thing that was prowling around all weekend. Not sure if it was alien or an anthro virus or what.

Fursuiters wandering from the parade area to the secondary lobby and the outdoors area where people were photographing stuff.

It's funny because it's a legitimate question about her wiener dog friend!

Train of three fursuiters holding one another by their tails.

Trivia: Nazi Germany intelligence estimates in December of 1940 placed about 44 percent of soviet war production facilities to be in the Moscow-Leningrad region, 32 percent in Ukraine, and about 24 percent east of the Ural mountains. (This imposed the logic of the invasion aiming for Moscow, despite the experience of 1812.) Source: The Second World War, John Keegan. Keegan mentions the analysis was faulty but doesn't say what more accurate figures were.

Currently Reading: Gemini 4: An Astronaut Steps Into The Void, David J Shayler.