So another Anthrocon has come and gone (my thirteenth in fact). Let me tell you about it.

Wednesday

My Anthrocon planning has been in progress for a few months but it all came to a head Wednesday morning. We had swept the house and made sure we had enough groceries. I spent a little time playing with Angie and taking care of last minute things before I drove to the bus station to pick up  Fulminar and then to the airport to pick up  LurkingWolf. My new vehicle (a 2012 Nissan Pathfinder) performed ably and with lots of room to spare which is a big plus. We caught up on the ride, the only excitement being that Fulminar and I had to park in the cell phone lot for about fifteen minutes before Lurking arrived and then having to text back and forth to get to the right pick up gate.

Angie had painted a picture the few days before intending to surprise my friends when they arrived and they were surprised; full of light and color and lots of flowers, Lurking decided to take it. I'm so proud of my little girl! We chatted for most of the afternoon before grilling up some hot dogs and hamburgers for an early dinner. After  Sasha_Driften and  Killer.Narwhal arrived by car, I grilled up a little bit more for them. Once everyone had something to eat we broke out the sparklers and celebrated Independence Day. I think we went through about eight boxes of sparklers in very short order.

Not long after it was time for Angie to get some sleep. The rest of us chatted some more, catching up, deciding what we wanted to do at Anthrocon; I hit the sack around 11.

Thursday

Most everyone but my family slept in since we didn't really need to be there until Registration opened up at Noon. I did some coloring with Angie in her Moana coloring book. Her heart wasn't in it that much as she really wanted to play with my friends. When they did finally get up she settled for watching some cartoons with Sasha. She was having so much fun with it that when it was time to head off she started crying because I wasn't going to bring her; she then asked if one of my friends could stay at the house and play with her. Needless to say she wasn't too happy with my answer there, but she went with Mommy to visit my wife's family and go to a new park they'd just discovered; thankfully she had a fantastic time and cheered right up.

The trip into Pittsburgh went smooth; they fixed a part of the road that had collapsed a few months back saving us a ten minute detour, and the road construction on the highway that was supposed to start on Monday had yet to start. We had all pre-registered so we all hung out in line together chatting. I spotted several other furs I knew, like  Soba,  Rakan, and  SandySchreiber and we each talked for a little and caught up some. For Rakan it was a first time we had met face to face so that was quite nice! We'd end up bumping into each other throughout the con though, as always with AC, we never really had a chance to have a good long conversation. Still, it was great meeting him.

The line to pick up our badges took about an hour and afterward we went to Jimmy Johns to get a bite to eat. We then spent the next hour and a half wandering around the con space. I managed to give a quick hug to  CatMonkShiro and  Nyomi as well as admire the new sabertooth head that Knaw (  1gagaga1 ) made for himself. I had a short conversation with  Sodalite as well, promising I would make his STEM Meet and Greet. There were a few others whose names I've forgotten by now (sorry) but honestly, I was the only person from my group actually chatting with anyone, so about 3:30 we decided to head back to my house for the day as there was nothing else happening in the con space anybody was interested in.

We got back home and my wife and daughter were still out with her family. We ordered some Chinese take out and played some games of Mario Kart 8 and Rayman Legends. After Angie got back she joined in and so we more or less let her show us what she wanted to play. About 9:30 we put Angie to bed and then waited up until  WolfFriend arrived a little before 11. I helped him get his cot set up, let him know Friday's schedule, and then bid everyone a good night.

Friday

We arrived at Anthrocon about 8:30 and immediately got into the line for the Dealer's den. There were three or four people in front of us this time. Since they had set up tables in the registration space, Fulminar and I grabbed chairs to sit in while we played some hands of Hearts and Rummy using my fursuit box for a card table. Once the doors opened we headed straight for  darknatasha,  caribou, and  michele_light from whom I bought sketches. I chatted with  hbruton and I then arranged a sketch from Nyomi for Saturday. I then checked out the food joint inside the dealer's den but saw they'd removed the hot dogs from their menu so decided not to eat anything for lunch.

After browsing for a bit I met up with Lurking and then got into my suit for the Rodents! panel. We had about average turnout. Since  Tiptoe had to leave early we took the fursuit photo at the beginning of the panel instead of the end so I'm afraid we missed a few folks. At least we caught the debut of  Lukaryo's blue mouse suit. I only took my head off briefly in the middle of the panel to get a drink of water. Most of the standard topics of conversation came up, but this time we didn't really talk about cartoon influences which is usually a favorite topic.

After my panel I got back out of suit, browsed a bit more, and then headed on over to the STEM Meet and Greet that Sodalite was running. He created a bunch of signs for various STEM disciplines and we all gathered with folks in the same discipline. Naturally I held the "MATH" sign. There were five or six of us, all but Lurking and I were still in school, and only one of them was a PhD candidate. They all were flabbergasted that I managed my PhD in 3 1/2 years with a 50 page dissertation (Pure Math FTW, hatchling!) But were somewhat relieved to know I barely use any of what I studied there. I did quickly review Short Exact Sequences and Syzygies which were familiar to a couple of them, but mostly we talked job opportunities and what the work force is like. I moved to the Physics table with about fifteen minutes to go and had a friendly Fortran v. C++ chat with Rakan before the panel wrapped up and I headed off to meet my roomies for dinner (WolfFriend had dinner plans with some other friends he met there).

Narwhal's biggest criterion, as he put it, was "Not Greasy". I think it really was fast as we passed up two sit-down restaraunts which had waits from a half hour to an hour to eat at Pizza Parm; the pizza has some good chese and is pretty good, but it is definitely a little greasy; I've had more greasy of course, so I suppose it fit the bill. Because of my big rat tail I sat with Fulminar with my tail in the other seat (I didn't want it to touch the floor). It was more dirty from a day full of furs coming through, but still... Fulminar and I watched a game of Jeopardy while we ate and were impressed at how the one lady cleaned everything up. We then headed back to the conspace for some more fun.

I missed Nyomi's bug panel which I wanted to go to so I could learn more about what bug furs loved about them, so we just settled in the game room for a few rounds of EcoFluxx. I invited a few other furs who came in to join us and it seems they were relatively new to the con scene. None of them had played Fluxx before, but they had a lot of fun. I had the single best hand I've ever had on my first play. Somebody had played "Draw Four" and so the previous two players had seven cards in their hands each. On my first play I put down "Play All", exhausted all but two cards from my hand, then played "Trade Hands" and took Lurking's seven card hand. I played that down to two cards and then played "Let's Do That Again" and took the "Trade Hands" from the discard pile and took the newcomer's seven card hand and played that down too! I didn't come close to winning but man was it the craziest hand I've ever had!

About 9:30 we met back up with Narwhal and Sasha who had gone to see Uncle Kage's Story Hour and headed back to my home. We stayed up watching silly videos until a little after midnight when WolfFriend arrived.

Saturday

We slept in a little on Saturday and ended up getting to the con about 10:30. I picked up my sketches, squeaked my hearty approval of each, and after dropping my book off with Nyomi, worked on getting the Roomies sketch sorted out. We ended up selecting Heather Bruton again who has always been such a dear about it; what a good friend! Not long after we bumped into  Salvestro who had finally arrived. We caught up for a while and did a bit of browsing through everything before I decided it was time to get ready for the fursuit parade. LurkingWolf helped me get into my suit one more time and then I left for Hall A.

I was there by myself for a while before Shiro found me and brought me to the front with  Kokuei; it was the first time I'd ever been near the front of the Anthrocon fursuit parade. We were in the third group to start the march and the first thing we did was head outside. The street was packed with families eager to see the suiters. I high fived I don't know how many kids and squeaked my delight to lots more! It was fantastic and I came back inside recharged and ready for more. The rest of the parade was about normal and fun with lots of waving and tail waving to the other furs come to watch. We made it back to Hall A in record time for us with about half the parade still standing there waiting their turn. Shiro, Kokuei and I made our way to the Headless Lounge where Shiro and I relaxed for a while chatting about how things were going for each of us before we returned to the Dealer's Den. I only suited a bit longer before getting back out and heading off to my next event.

The PA Furries Meet and Greet was a lot of fun. Almost everyone that sat at our table was near the Pittsburgh area. I had a chance to catch up with Sketchy and met a really friendly fur from Lancaster as well as one from Utah who was hoping to move to PA soon. I honestly don't recall all of the details of the conversation, but I know I had fun and I look forward to this meet and greet every year.

We ate dinner at WolfFriend, Salvestro, and I ate at Jimmy Johns for dinner, and then migrated back to the game room for another couple rounds of EcoFluxx. We then trooped off to the first of three Transformation panels. The first turned into a long series of shout-outs of everybody's favorite TF in whatever form of media they could think of. A few of us, me included, tried to get it into why we like TF but it never lasted. I confess to being a little disappointed by it. The second panel, which was on the opposite end of the con space, was mostly a report on a TF survey that revealed more about furry demographics than it did about TF in general (news flash to nobody, most furries are millenials). That said, I enjoyed this one much more as it provided some structure and forced us to look at some actual data and try to come to grips with it.

I didn't hang around for the inanimate TF panel (even though turning my Metamor Keep character into living granite would qualify). Instead I had a nice conversation with  Comus about politics and the state of the country. Comus and I have very different opinions on a variety of issues and also on our current President but I'm not going to get into that here. Suffice it to say we each helped each other better understand where we are coming from and proved without doubt that we both care deeply about the other and have tremendous respect for each other. In the end we hugged a few times and both of us look forward to the next time we can chat. Great Gator is he!

After this we met up with our friends and headed back home. Salvestro joined us for the night and I gave him a sleeping bag for the last of the floorspace in my basement. Any more furs and I would have had to break out the tent! We got to bed about 11 again with only one more day of the con.

Sunday

I got up early today and after getting my coffee and breakfast, I woke WolfFriend, Salvestro, and Angie up so we could get to the con early enough to attend Mass with the Catholic Furries. We chose Epiphany again as it is close by and this time went to the 8 AM Mass. We bore no furry gear at Mass this time (there have been tails in previous years). Angie was well behaved and super excited. After Mass I put my tail back on and I put a Raccoon Tail on Angie (I bought it for her a couple years ago but this was her first time going tailed at a con).

Once we made it back to the conspace, WolfFriend stuck by my side as we largely let Angie go wherever she wanted to go. I subtly directed her toward the Dealer's Den so I could pick up my sketchbook from Nyomi. Otherwise Angie hugged every fursuiter she could find and then had me take her picture with them. She showed off her tail to quite a few, did some cartwheels when she wasn't hugging fursuiters, and otherwise delighted everyone who saw her. She even helped a few fursuiters who were on the floor get back up.

After we had lunch I bought her a stuffed alligator at the Dealer's Den (not what she'd selected before lunch but that's how kids are). By then some of the suiters were actually willing to play with her for a while. There was a dragon nurse who ran up and down the halls with her a couple times and watched her show off her gymnastics. There was a trio of canine suiters who played quasi-tag and high-five with her. A wolf and a kitsune who did hide and seek for a little while. And there was also a girl only a few years older who had let her try on her dog head and paws. If this keeps up then in a few years Angie is going to be running around in a fursuit too; she already told me she wants a Zebra suit, but we'll see if she still does when I can afford to actually get her one (not for a while with my new car payments I fear).

So Angie continued in this vein for about six to seven hours throughout the day with only a break for lunch at Arby's. Just before the Dealer's Den closed I reclaimed my fursuit box and we slowly migrated toward the exits. It still took us a full forty-five minutes to get to the cars and go. Salvestro wanted to say our goodbyes down by the waterfalls and while there we ran into the trio of canine suiters again. Angie got one last hug from each and another few pictures before we bid Salvestro a safe drive home and headed for our cars.

We attempted to eat at the Eat'n'Park along the way home as is traditional for Sunday after AC but a huge accident derailed that plan as we were detoured on roads I'd never been on before. We did see a doe and a buck run across the detour road which was cool. We settled for Kings instead and while the food was good the service was a little slow so it was after seven thirty when we got back to the house. Angie wanted to watch cartoons with Sasha again and elected to watch Ferdinand. It didn't take long before we were all watching the movie; after the first half was done we put Angie to bed (after promising her she could see the rest with me tomorrow) and then I went back down and watched the rest of it with my friends. Not long after we all crashed for the night.

Monday

I got up early that morning to take Fulminar to the bus station. There was a little bit of rush hour traffic on the way into Pittsburgh but it wasn't too bad. The awesome banner Nyomi did was still hanging on the convention center. Fulminar and I had a nice chat about what we were going to be doing now that AC was over, and then we hugged knowing we'll see each other again at next year's Furnal Equinox.

After I returned home my wife and Angie headed off to spend the day with her family. I focused on getting my fursuit dried out and cleaning all the bedsheets. Once the others were awake we got the basement cleaned up bit by bit (as they packed their stuff up). Narwhal and Sasha left a little after ten AM, at which point WolfFriend, Lurking, and I finished cleaning up the house. I managed to get all of the sheets cleaned and folded with their help before we had some lunch. WolfFriend headed off after that. LurkingWolf stuck around long enough for us to get all his sketches scanned in and emailed to him. I then drove back to the airport through the afternoon rush hour traffic to drop him off. It was a long drive but we talked about our stories, his upcoming novel, Metamor Keep stuff we wanted to do, and just what our lives were going to be like. I dropped him off and then headed right back into rush hour traffic going the other way. It was a long drive home, but I came home to a loving family that loves my furriness.

I am so happy to have spent this Anthrocon with my friends. There are many more I met there that I have not mentioned, more than I can manage I'm sure. I'm very happy for my daughter who has is super-excited about the fandom and is bit by bit learning proper fursuit etiquette. I'm happy for my wife who enjoys the company of my friends and was able to get in some real relaxation while we were all out. And I look forward to sharing the pictures from the Rodents panel and the sketches I had done.

And I definitely look forward to next year and seeing all my amazing friends again!

Dominus vobiscum