The world's a nicer place in my beautiful balloon

What else happened Anthrohio Saturday? Many of the things that happen any year. At least one pass through the dealers' den. I forget if it's Saturday or Sunday that I bought a couple of pins, but at some point I did. Little ones of Popeye and Betty Boop and such, with the thought that I could bring them into the office to decorate my desk area. After seven months there it's still pretty bare, although I've been bringing a couple trinkets in. I have yet to bring the pins in, but I keep thinking to.

bunny_hugger picked up her badge for Velveteen, to be used at the dance. And found someone to draw in her BunnyHugger sketchbook, adding to the number of delightful pictures of her with plans on the greenery. We met up with a lot of people we hadn't seen in ages. It was a very good con for catching up on old friends; I think mystee was the only person we hoped to see that we missed entirely. We weren't sure she was there.

A thing I got to on my own --- bunny_hugger was taking her daily walk around the hotel grounds and resting up afterwards --- was the Inflatable Toys Meet and Greet. I don't have any inflatable toys that I know about, but I like their look and all that, and know a couple people who are serious inflatable enthusiasts. (I'd rate myself as 'mildly enthusiastic', but admit almost all my feeling top out at 'mild'.) In fact, someone I know on Mastodon turned out to be there, but had left the Meet-and-Greet (and the convention, to drive home) before I got in. It was a fun space, though. People had set up a bunch of their really big inflatables, including the Godzilla we'd seen blocking the doors at Motor City Furry Con back in March, as well as others along those lines and those scales. Dogs, some kind of sea creature that looks Pokemon-ny to me, a robot dog, you had people coming up and getting photos of themselves trapped under giant yet lightweight paws all over the place.

Also got to talk a bit with a fursuiter who carries, as props, two huge inflatable Mentos fruit tubes. He mentioned how he regretted carrying them around the whole time he was fursuiting. I offered the obvious joke, think how the guy with the inflatable tub of Diet Coke feels. He chuckled but said something that shocked me. It turns out fruit Mentos don't do the explosion with Diet Coke; only the peppermint ones do. Right? Who knew, besides him, who'd been explaining it all weekend? I apologized, knowing he got that line of joke a lot, but after all, I only get to make the joke once. He seemed to accept this in the spirit of pleasantries it's meant. And then we were distracted by people in protogen fursuits inflating a That Dragon From How To Train Your Dragon.

When I met back up with bunny_hugger she wanted to go fursuiting, and to the dance, making her second outing as Velveteen. This was not any less popular than the first time around, and drew appreciators wherever she went --- hospitality, outside for a bit of cooler air, the Space-Themed Photo Shoot where she got a picture of this Edwardian-ish plush doll in a spaceship, the gaming room, the elevator. All of that. But what we most wanted to do was attend the dance, and wear glow sticks, and we did both through to its close at two in the morning.

Trivia: The 1880 B K Bliss and Songs catalog offered three lawn mowers, from the ten-inch Charter Oak mower for $13 to the Excelsior horse-drawn mower for $200. Source: The Lawn: A History of an American Obsession, Virginia Scott Jenkins.

Currently Reading: Paper: Paging Through History, Mark Kurlansky.