Rhinebeck Recap

Let me just start by saying that I met way the hell too many bloggers this weekend to even begin to remember all of them, let alone remember everyone I ought to link to, so I'm going to stick to pictures, of which there are far too few. At least for the most part.

First of all, though, I thought I'd share our little adventure getting there. We were leaving Thursday afternoon, since they were allowing vendors onto the fairgrounds to do setup on both Thursday and Friday and David is very, very, very particular about booth layout. Seriously, he's a designer, a total detail geek. He did mock setup in his warehouse and plotted everything out on the computer weeks in advance.

So we had his truck all loaded up and just had to run a couple of errands and pick up a few more items from the warehouse and we were on our way. Except the truck wouldn't start. So AAA was called and the straight male neighbors were drawn to our driveway as if to some strange broken car pheromone, and after poking around and testing the battery and me trying to crank the thing to hear what it was doing (a single click and then nothing), I decided that a starter problem seemed the most plausible explanation. The AAA guy agreed, so he loaded the pickup onto his flatbed and towed it the 20o ft. to the service station, where they told us they wouldn't be able to get to it before the following day.

So with David on the verge of a nervous breakdown, we determined that the nearest U-Haul had cargo vans available. A quick trip later, we had secured one and transferred everything over from David's truck. Then we had to get to the warehouse and run the other errands that needed to get done and finally got on the road - 4½ hours later than planned. This got us to Rhinebeck around 10:30PM, so we continued on to Kingston and stopped at the diner across from the hotel for a late dinner before we checked in and collapsed into bed.

The night's rest (as well as David's thorough planning and a little help from our dear pal Stitchy McYarnpants) did us good, though, because on Friday we managed to set the booth up in record time, even with stifling humidity that had us both rather damp with sweat. And neighbors down the way who blasted their very whiny & grating contemporary Christian music for everyone's edification, and who had all their stuff out in the middle of the aisle so that we couldn't pull the van out when we finished (and then moved it back into the aisle on Sunday so that we couldn't get the van in to load up our things). Stitchy offered to go fish her Ministry CD out of her car, and had we had a boombox I might have taken her up on it.

The rest of the weekend, though rather draining, was just fantastic. Although being there as vendors does make for a good excuse never to miss Rhinebeck, it does make it hard to get out and socialize as much as I'd really like. Fortunately, though, between the Blogger Bingo and the Ravelry goings-on, we really got to see a ton of people.



Like Mar, who was our very first visitor on Saturday.



And Carol, who was visitor #2, and who has a pic of what's underneath the kilt (and one of me with David that I love, love, love) here.



And Joe, who was there with Thaddeus (who snapped this photo). Joe became David's hero instantly by buying a sweater's worth of David's herd yarn.



And Ted and Lee Ann, who was even sexier than usual in the gorgeous stole Ted recently sent her. "F*ing drop-dead gorgeous," indeed. Why else do you think I was showing off more leg?



And of course, the famous author and her enchanting bouncer. And no, my right hand is not doing anything rude, because a) Juno would probably hurt me and b) there's that whole gay thing.



Of course, I wasn't the only kilted one; Dave made a showing, as expected.



I also had the pleasure of meeting Rachael, and we had David snap this photo especially for Rabbitch (I'm not certain if David took this with us so off-center to try to avoid the woman who was wandering into the picture, or if he was just trying to get a better pic of his sock display).

Somehow I missed getting pics with Cheryl, or Norma (who managed to get a shot of my ass), or Lars, who took a (thankfully very) blurry pic up under the kilt. Or Ann & Kay, or Jess & Casey, or quite literally about a bajillion other people (including Stitchy herself! And The Mafia! And, and....). But it is, as others say, really and truly about the people. Rhinebeck wouldn't be even close to half as much fun if it weren't for the wonderful, funny, intelligent, and just plain decent people I get to see there. Even if I don't get to see nearly enough of them.

Oh, and there's also the small matter about the fiber. As I mentioned, I didn't bring home much of anything, but what I did get is very special. Lilith guessed correctly.



That's 2 oz., which would have totally blown my yarn budget if I'd really had one this year.

Also, the very nice folks from Philosopher's Wool were diagonally across the aisle from us this year, and when I decided to buy these, they offered to let me have them in exchange for a pair of socks.

.

They told me that the ram is actually a portrait of the very first one they owned, with the buttons having been cast exclusively for them. Their website lists these as "currently unavailable", which makes them very special, indeed.

Two More Things

FedEx delivered this today:



I ordered it from here about a month ago, but it was backordered. I kind of figured it'd show up about now.

And lastly, this is what happens to your blog stats when people like the Yarn Harlot and the Knitting Curmudgeon and QueerJoe mention you in a blog post (and, of course, when people like Carol post pics of your boxers in theirs):



So if you're new here, welcome and do come back. There's often something interesting to be found.