Beth and I went to Worldcon! And then spent another week in Seattle.

I had a great time at Worldcon, much better than last year at Glasgow where I spent almost all my time at the Business Meeting That Would Not Die. This year all but one short session of the BM was held online & ahead of time, it was *great*. A bunch of the Usual Suspects complained that the online meeting was scheduled Against the Rules and we should have been able to vote about it (and wait another year) but I say, meh, this way I got Worldcon back & also attendance was 3 times as high as at regular Business Meetings, so there.

Beth put her foot down & said I couldn't go to Worldcon without getting a scooter, and she was completely right. In the first place, any venue that can hold 6-10K people has really long halls, that's just math. In the second place, downtown Seattle is REALLY hilly.

The con wasn't able to rent scooters (due to competition from cruises) so I rented one myself that was brought to the hotel, and wow ... it's been decades since I've had that sense of freedom and speed. Once I got an experienced scooter-driver to tell me how to get in&out of elevators, that is. I'm seriously considering bringing a scooter-costume to LACon, dressing the scooter up as a rocket ship, because you can go really fast down the hallway (if it's mostly empty, of course).

It's so cool! And it's been so long, so very long since moving around has been anything but painful & draining for me, it was really freeing to have it be *fun*.

Martha Wells was the Worldcon Guest of Honor, so she spoke a bunch of times and I was one of a big crowd of people following her around like ... not ducklings, ducklings don't travel in enormous mobs. Devotees, anyway. And we got together and talked, and shared stickers and things, & talked about Murderbut & her other works.

And WOW, I was seriously shocked & disappointed at how many fen over the age of 50 seem incapable of not calling Murderbot "he", wtf. Although Mr Dr Science consistently starts off using they/them, then has to correct himself.

In addition to Martha Wells, I went to panels on "Food in History—The Impact of Spice" (packed to the gunwales! it was great), "Beyond the Torment Nexus" (even more packed, people sitting on the floor), "Centuries of Marriage" (disappointingly centered on Western Europe in the last 500 years, except Shauna Lawless had good info on Ireland c 11th-12th c, with much more marriage flexibility than WEur standard). Maybe I went to others? It's kind of a blur.

I saw gwyn ! I saw seekingferret ! I saw bethbethbeth ! there were probably other people but cons make my brain kind of mushy. And there were a bunch of other people who aren't on DW, too.

I got to cruise through the dealer's room and chat with vendors every time I bought something. I made several passes through the Art Show to look and to bid on some small things -- I'm under orders from Mr Dr not to get more things that go on walls until I find more walls to put them on. I chatted with people about the upcoming Worldcons in LA (Anaheim) & Montreal, and possible ones in Edmonton, Brisbane, and Dublin. It's doing to be a LONG time after LA before there's another one in the US, folks.

We stayed in Seattle for another week after Worldcon. One of the things I did was travel to West Seattle and have lunch with gwyn under relaxed conditions, which was really nice. Then toward the weekend I went out toward Bellevue and stayed there for a few days, including finally meeting cruisedirector & her husband, after knowing them online for *decades*. It was great to see them at last, and their Home By The Lake, and to talk about life and fandom for a few hours.

A plan to get together with a bunch of people from college got cancelled when the hostess came down with covid, but that just meant I had a bit more time to rest & write up a few things before getting Beth, dropping off the car, and heading back to the airport for a frankly exhausting trip back. Beth & I continue our NOVID record: we didn't mask *all* the time, just in most of the crowded situations (airport, airplane aka flying virus box, inside crowded rooms at con), on Whale Watch boat. Oh, we saw orcas! They were super cool, totally worth it.

The cat was *very* glad to see us. Mr Dr was, too: he did better at taking care of himself than he'd been last year, while still failing at some tasks.