Back from MFF, and what a ride it was! So many wonderful sights and wonderful people. What follows is a bulleted list of the bare highlights—with hopefully a more detailed report to come soon.

THURSDAY
Having flown in Wednesday, I,  arofatamahn and  nyomi took the opportunity to ride the train into Downtown Chicago and see some sights. Though the forecast predicted rain it was actually quite balmy and even briefly sunny! We got to walk though the junction of Wabash and Lake (which is important to me as a fan of The Matrix) and through Millennium and Grant Parks. Saw the giant mirror bean and took some very silly videos. Buckingham Fountain was dry, but fun to look at anyway. Hiked all the way down to the Adler Planetarium and got to "oo" and "ahh" over the Gemini spacecraft and some very pretty telescopes. We had gotten Ventra Day Passes so we then hopped on the bus down to the Field Natural History Museum, where Nyomi took photos of moths and I got to meet one of my childhood heroes: Sue the Tyrannosaurus Rex! By this time we were tired and our feet hurt, so after a quick turn about the gift shop (I got some presents for family back home, Nyomi got a Moth poster, Roffie got a little arctic fox doll and named her Ibus) we hopped on the bus again and rode it to the Red/Orange/Green station, from whence we took the train back out to the Rosemont hotel.

That evening we headed over to the Hyatt (we were staying in the Aloft) for reg and dinner. Met up with some friends and enjoyed some very expensive alcohol at the bar. While waiting for the shuttle to take us home, first a police car and then a firetruck pulled up, lights flashing. We found out later someone had passed out from drinking. Talk about starting the party early.

Thoughts: The CTA is a really wonderful system—as good if not better than the NYC subway. Dearly would love to go back to Chicago to explore the place further.

FRIDAY
Did an Emergency Badge for Roffie, who'd forgotten all his badges. Helped by the fact that Nyomi had brought her watercolors. Caught the hotel shuttle over will my bag full of artwork. Hung artwork. Triumphed over the MFF Art Show's odd panel equipment. Others not so lucky. Was glad I framed all my stuff. Uncertain if it would sell, as all min bids were in the $100 range. Went into Dealer's Den and Artist's Alley. Went around taking pictures of fursuiters. So cute. Hosted a panel with Roffie about ponies (both cartoon and real) at which there were a decent number of folks, and a real live Gyspsy Vanner fursuiter! Yes!  gypsypony crashed the panel just as I began my bit about real horses, and kindly allowed me to drag her up to the front to demonstration horse safety. It was awesome! After that it was run run run over to Kage's show, with  foxamoore accompanying on piano, which was epic. Then 2's show, which was lovely as always. Hung about after Roffie went back to hotel and caught up with 2 later on in his Amazing Sparkle Coat of Sparkle Gayness. Met Revit and BBF and went to bar along with  dracallis and  floppybelly where we all swapped hats and drank expensive alcohol. Eventually were joined by Fox Amoore and an adorable small woman who turned out to be  kenket (!) who started talking to me (!), who I then spent the remainder of the evening with, geeking out about artwork. She was very kind and interested in my method of using colored pencils, which was sort of an "OHMYGODMYARTGODDESSISCOMPLIMENTINGMYARTSKILLZBESTILLMYHEART" moment. Um. Yeah. Somehow we all ended up in 2's room drinking booze. Then Nyomi and I had to walk back to our hotel through the freezing cold Chicago night because the shuttle didn't run after midnight. Buggers.

Thoughts: I have long felt that it is unwise of programming directors to put Kage and 2 back-to-back on the same night. However, in this case, with the content of their shows, it worked marvelously to have Kage go first with Fox Amoore and 2 follow with his solo rant. The two shows had a good kind of synergy and they coalesced into something greater when put together. It was awesome.

SATURDAY
Went and checked in on Art Show. No bids. Tried not to be depressed. To counter depression, went into Dealer's Den and bought  witchiebunny a Christmas present. Then went with Nyomi and had lunch at the Con Suite where she drew adorable Kage roaches on the table paper and I drew a huge realistic-style Rainbowdash. Went and hung out in the lounge after and did an art trade: she drew a page of cute bugs in my notebook, and I decorated the cover of her Emergency Con Sketchbook. It came out rather stupendously (quoth 2 when I showed it to him: "I HAAAAAATE you!") (One "I hate you" from 2 = about 100 "I love it!"s from a normal person). I think I may make more sketchbooks like it for sale at AC next year. Anyway, checked back in on Art Show to find one kind person had bid on Jupiter. Joy! Then took Roffie to dinner at the hotel grill and went over to Iron Artist. Which was interesting. Never played before, and even though I think art contests are a bit of a cock in general, I had great fun. We were assigned to paint bowling pins, and then made to switch half way through. So even though "my" pin was picked as the winner, it was really  yummyv1rus who'd done most of the work. So I insisted we go up against the judges as a team. Then came the awkward moment when we were presented with "our" prize: a very nice set of 24 Prismacolor markers and a deviantART messenger bag. Both very pricey items. However, as V1rus was a digital artist who didn't like dA, and as I use Copic markers and don't need a messenger bag, we decided to hold a spontaneous auction of the two items to benefit the charity. We raised $40 this way and I think it was all for the best. Then, as all the judges had had to leave (citing reasons such as "I am your guest of honor and I haven't had dinner, good-bye") V1rus and I ended up going up against each other in a sort of tie-breaker. Her art won the most votes out of the audience judges, and she won a comped membership to next year's MFF, which I thought was rather handsome. I didn't begrudge her in the least, as I wasn't planning on attending MFF next year. Also, they gave me candy. Then there was the Open Mic, hosted by 2 and Alkali (WHY HAVEN'T THOSE TWO DONE MORE ON STAGE TOGETHER HMM???) which featured so really quite good pieces. I had come prepared to tell my Sword Story in case there were no other female volunteers, but 2 was conscientious enough to pick a couple other women so I was happy about that. The second woman even had the best story, in my opinion. I had time to run over for a few games in Whose Lion, and then there was the Charity Show. With Kage. 2. And Fox Amoore. I shall say no more of it except that by the end of it 2 was wearing Kage's lab coat and Kage was… well… um… Let's just say, if you hear anyone calling him the "Ripped Roach," know it is for a Very Good Reason. Also never try to arm wrestle the guy. By this point it was past midnight, so Roffie, Nyomi and I all trooped back to the hotel together—through the interior skywalk which was moderately warmer.

Thoughts: 2 and Kage need to bring Fox Amoore to ALL THE CONS.

SUNDAY

Tired. Achey. Not ready for con to be over. Dragged myself over to Art Show to see how pieces did. Come to find four of them are missing. In their place is a wooden plaque, a lanyard with a card and pin, and paper saying "CONGRATULATIONS TO AGENT ERLOND FOR WINNING THE DIRECTOR'S CHOICE AWARD WITH 'SATURN'". I think I stood and stared at it for a minute before it sunk in. Then I ran across to the Art Show ops room and asked what my pieces went for. "Oh, we don't know yet," I was told. "They've gone to auction." "My pieces? Have gone to auction? All of them?" "Oh yes, all four of them." "Where is it and when is it?" "Uh… right now… upstairs…" Then it was Elrond!Blur running up to the ballroom where the art auction was taking place. I arrived in time to see Ouranos and Neptune go for well over the minimum big, and for Kage to make an incredibly bad joke about Neptune being a Fresian. But. It was awesome. When I wandered back down, still in a daze, to collect my two remaining pieces, I was congratulated by the director and another member of staff (the card with the pin was a Staff Choice Award, so Saturn ended up being quite decorated by the time everything was over) and then informed that, along with the handsome plaque, the Director's Choice Award also included a comped membership to… you guessed it… next year's MFF. XD So it looks like I must find a way to go after all. AND THAT WAS JUST THE MORNING. I wandered around in a happy daze buying things in the dealer's den and giggling randomly. I hosted my Flash Fiction Reading, which was less Flash and more Reading because of low attendance, but people seemed to have fun. At least I hoped they did! After that I grabbed some food in the Con Suit (bless them!) and caught that last four performances in the Fursuit Dance Competition—which was awesome. Watched some Fursuit Games, wishing I had a fursuit so I could play. Instead I drew a fox maze for a little bored boy whose sister was suiting in the games. Got cold, so wandered around outside until it was time for Closing Ceremonies. Met up with Nyomi and Fox Amoore, to whom we presented our collaborative card. Fox was lovely and gracious and very kind. We glowed. Got given a check for my Art Show earnings at the end of the ceremonies, which was sort of like "Woah!" and then wandered off to find Floppybelly for pizza. This leads me to…

SUNDAY NIGHT

What happened was: all through Closing Ceremonies Floppy had been texting me trying to find out which room it was in (not her fault: it was in the Secret Ballroom near the back of the hotel). Eventually these texts degraded into: "Help. Have a creeper. Not sure how to get rid of him." Well, needless to say this got Ms-Elrond-I-have-cut-a-man-with-a-sword charging to the rescue only to find… Floppy on her own, not getting creeped at all. "What, me?" she says. "Oh no, I meant he had a creeper…" and points at 2, who appeared to be well-guarded by a horde of cute fursuiters. "I think he's gone now," Floppy says. Ms-Elrond-I-have-cut-a-man-with-a-sword was a little disappointed at this. But only a little. We arranged a pizza dinner for all of us up in her room, which was splendid. Got to meet a couple old NARFA furs and hear some old stories from a new perspective. Also got a hand massage from a certain gryphon which was WAY MORE AWESOME THAN IT HAD ANY RIGHT TO BE. Afterwards, back downstairs, Roffie and Nyomi sort of drifted away, but I stayed on and got to hang out with Cheetah.de, which was neat. Cheetah is really a very clever, funny man, and it was fun following him around. We bumped into BBF, and were eventually joined by Sinatra—the giant black and white purple-eyed bunny demon—who proceeded to play with Dafydd. It is on video and I'll be posting it soon. I wound up acting as an impromptu handler for Sinatra, who was kind enough to show me the basics of fursuiting behavior. All this culminated, of course, with my being led up to some suiters' room and being lent an adorable red panda partial by the lovely  areddpanda. Suiting turned out to be AWESOME. I basically followed a nice young man in a bright yellow candy corn dog suit around (since he alone knew how to get into the room which held my bags). We danced. I creeped some people. But because I was in an adorable red panda head they just thought I was cute. It was awesome. I got to make some new friends and eventually wound up, after all was over, relaxing with the suiters and chatting with the founder of Further Confusion. Such was my final night at MFF. As I was leaving, from the skywalk back to my hotel, I saw there was another ambulance (the third I knew of for certain) with flashing lights at the front doors of the Hyatt. Really people. Yet it seemed a fitting bookend to my con experience.

Thoughts: I really, really need to get myself a fursuit. Damn.

MONDAY
We ate. We packed. It started snowing, so we had a relaxed LobbyCon while we waited for the shuttle. O'Hare was not as terribly crowded as I feared, and we had a smooth flight home.

It was a great weekend, and now I'm left with the pleasurable task of figuring out how I'm going to make it back next year. In the immediate future I have to get Issue 1.2 of Apsis Ficiton off to the printers, not to mention the print edition of Bouragner Felpz volume 1. There is also pagesetting for Year of the God-Fox Book 3, which will be coming in January, and—since I sold so much art at MFF—I have a ton of work to get done for the Further Confusion art show in a couple of months. Whew! So much work, and yet I have five seasons of Deep Space 9 to keep me company while I do it, so it's not all bad.

Next year is going to be a big one for me and cons. AnthroCon, of course, but also LonCon 3 (World Con) Eurofurence, World Fantasy—and now it's looking like MFF again as well! However, the first will be a con closer to home: You'll be able to find me roving around FC next January. Come bid on my pictures in the art show. I make funny noises when my stuff goes to auction.

Best,
Elrond