hazelchaz | ...he hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword; his truth is marching on.

Sunday evening, part 3 of 3. (See Part 1 to start at the beginning of this report.)

Sunday night at the Hilton: The Hugo Nominees Party, aka the Hugo Losers Party, was in full swing. The losers get there first, because the winners were tied up with our photography session. One of the challenges in hosting such a party is making sure there's still going to be good stuff there when the winners arrive. The party was hosted by

laconiv, next year's Worldcon, so a lot of L.A.'s Usual Suspects were there, working the party in one capacity or another. Christian McGuire had asked me to be sure to come by and take pictures.

When I got there, Ed Hooper, Mr. Shirt, and

darrelx all gave me the Loser Salute -- right thumb and forefinger in an "L", held in front of the forehead.

smofbabe, John Sapienza, and Eve Ackerman were working the check-in table; if you didn't have an invitation you didn't get in. Or you at least had to wear a silver cardboard party hat long enough for them to laugh at you, in my case anyway. Craig and Christian were standing around as part of the welcoming party as well. I made my way in. Jerome Scott in dress kilt was circulating the room carrying trays of hot bit-sizes nibbles -- the first snack I saw him with were cut-up sausage rolls. Real sausage rolls, baked that way, then cut into bit-size pieces. I took one piece from his tray everytime he passed my way. Kathryn Daugherty and Joyce Hooper were checking off names and handing out souvenirs -- a little rocket-shaped clock. Tamie Inoue was helping with trays of food too -- practice for running the party next year.

Genny Dazzo was wearing something silver and slinky. (And her rash wasn't too bad, it looks like she's getting treatment for it and it's clearing up.) She and Glenn Glazer were on bartending duty. The room was decorated in silver and shiny things. Mostly paper stars, confetti on the tables, star-shaped plastic barbed wire, spiral streamers, and spiral streamers dangling from helium balloons. On the whole, it reminded me of last year's decorations at the Hugo Nominees Party at Noreascon 4 that

inter_action, only not as well done.

The buffet tables had lots of cold foods. Many cheeses, fresh grapes, smoked salmon, crackers, shrimp (or prawns as they say here). I thought Grace Keiko Eloise Molloy was sleeping, but it turned out she was having dinner too; Naomi Fisher had figured out a cover-up for her feeding that was very discreet. Elayne Pelz was wearing a silver hat and was passing around a tray of pastries -- croissants and so forth. There was plenty of hot food, too.

The Hilton had given the party use of the kitchen -- pretty much everything except the meat slicer was available -- and Liz Mortensen was taking full advantage of it. She apparently shopped for all of the bake-and-server hor's deouvres [sp?] she could find, including mini pizzas, chicken bits on a stick, and many more. Either Kris or Joyce told me I had to duck back into the kitchen and get a picture of her working, because she should get some kind of credit. I made my way back there, snapped three photos and was thrown out of the place. But I do have a picture of Liz draining some prawns, and Ed Green prepping some kind of mini tarts.

feorag had a lovely shiny purple wig on, and was carrying around "Fluff" (

fluffcthulhu). I snapped a few pictures of the decorations and the exit, a last shot of

darrelx in his kilt outside, and headed off to see what else I could see.

The bar area was packed. It was a non-smoking area, as were the ballroom the party was in. (The other two ballrooms were dark tonight.) It was the last night of parties during the convention, and lots of people were partying one last time. The place was amazing, if you like crowds of happy people. Lots of people had finished whatever event they'd had to worry about during the convention -- the play, the Hugos, the Masquerade -- and had come up for air (so to speak) and to have a drink. People were standing, sitting, and sprawled on the floor.

I ran into Irma Hirsjärvi, one of our new additions to the Fan Gallery this year. (She's a NoFF winner. We've learned about the Nordic Fan Fund and have started recognizing them in the Fan Gallery.) I caught up with Australian fan Alison Barton who gave me a kangaroo pin. I ran across the "Sproutlore/ZZ9 and Irish fans only" party, which had a big sign saying "This is a private party -- Feck off." I gave that one a wide berth, and went to the Finland party.

I'd been handed a bag earlier, that said "Panda" and had a mini bottle of flavored "Finlandia" vodka, a Panda black licorice treat, a snowflake xmas ornament and a few brochures. So I was glad to reach the party itself. Karin Lundwall was there. She's used up each pack of "Silly Ribbon" I give her, so I gave her another. She came up to me at the end of the convention and thanked me for the ribbon fun.

After the Finns, I went to the Friends of Texas party. They were mostly serving up Dr Pepper; that's a soda flavor that originates from Texas, and is almost as much an acquired taste as Irn-Bru (but without the quinine). I stopped there and had some soda and talked to my friends from Armadillocon, including Kurt Baty. Maddy Virzi was on door duty. Brad W. Foster did their party flyer, but wasn't the party; I didn't see any art posted by Sherlock or Teddy Harvia, though.

On the way out, I bumped into Kristina Knaving, who I gave a pack of "Pretty Boy" ribbons to hand out. She smiled, but blinked when I snapped her picture. I'm really looking forward to getting another camera where I can see the pictures immediately after I take them, because this one is quite cumbersome for that kind of thing.

And then, tired, and having forgotten about Keith Kato's chili party, I went home and to bed.