Whooping Cough, Typhoid Mason

I thought I should write a quick update about my actual life (as opposed to the lives of my/Kubo-sensei's fictional characters.) 

First of all, I want to say that I will be at WorldCON this year, in Chicago.  My schedule is pretty open, but I'm really pleased how many panels I did get, considering the odds:

FRIDAY - 3:00 - 4:30pm --Broad Universe Rapid-Fire Reading
SATURDAY - 10:30am  - Noon --Autograph Session
SATURDAY - 16:00 - 17:30 (4:00pm-5:30pm?) --Series: Why Do We Love Them, Why Do we Hate Them? (ooh, I'll have tell Shawn.  Jack McDevitt is on the panel with me!)
SATURDAY - 10:30 - 11:00pm (for some reason they switched out of military time) -- Reading: Lyda Morehouse (perhaps Tate wasn't invited? Too bad, I intend to read from Precinct 13.)
SUNDAY - 1:30-3:00pm --Grimm from a Portland Perspective.  (A panel I'm probably on because I have Grimm opinions in general, given I don't live in Portland and have no Portland perpectives.)

I'm headed down by Amtrack on Thursday night.  I had intended to go down on Friday, but the Empire Builder is having delay problems so I switched my reservations.  As a bonus, it was a cheaper rate, so I got a bit of a refund. 

On an unrelated note, my family got hit, despite vaccination, with Whooping Cough.  Mason was coninuing to cough after what we THOUGHT was a mild cold, so we took him and he tested positive.  The bummer about this is that we were all quarantined, even adults with no symptoms, because there's such a raging epidemic in Minnesota.  We'll ALL on antibiotics, as well.  Shawn went back to work after only a day or so, because there are no specific guidelines for when the adults with no symptom can return to work, but Mason was stuck away from people during the course of the antibiotics.

Apparently, some friends of ours came to Mason's birthday party as carriers.  They weren't told to stay away from people.

*sigh*

It's also extremely dangerous for people with asthma... so, I'm glad I seem to be showing no symptoms.  Unfortunately, I was probably shedding the virus at my signing at Uncles last Saturday.  Apparently vaccinated adults often don't realize they have it and are spreding it.  Hello, Typhoid Lyda!   AND I'm going to have to miss my promotion ceremony for my blue stripe because today is Mason's last day of antibiotics.  (I could go without him, but that's just SAD.)

So I officially hate WHOOPING COUGH and anyone who decided not to vaccinate against it (and I'm likewise mildly irritated with parents whose kids are sick, but they don't let people know!)

Back to WorldCON, I have a bit of a conundrum.  I got a super-secret, SUPER pro invite from a publishing house (not mine!) to a boat party on Lake Michigan on Saturday night.  Saturday night I had been planning to help Cecilia Tan host her Hogwart's Reunion party.  My first impulse was,"OMG, I'm a pro!" and my second, much more serious consideration was, "Yeah, but who am I going to know, really?"  I have _been_ to what I imagine this boat party is going to be like, and IT'S AWFUL.  There's a lot of standing around sipping alcohol I can't really drink (and certainly don't enjoy), feeling underdressed no matter what I end up wearing, and staring desperately at all the cool people who all already know each other feeling like a dope (or worse, like I'm back at my high school prom without a date).  It's miserable, and I usually end up feeling worse for it.  On the flip side, I've been to the party it's SUPPOSED to be too.  The last WorldCon I went to, in Boston, I got to go to the super-secret Penguin party where I met up with my then-editor John Morgan and my current editor, Anne Sowards.  We had a BLAST, and I f*cking hung out with Charaline Harris.

I have about ten days to reply to the super-secret invite publishing house.  I haven't yet, because my heart belongs at Hogwarts.  First of all, I have never met Cecilia Tan for more than five minutes (I do know, however, what she can do with her tongue and a cherry stem.  Oh my!) and I'd not only like to get to know her better, I also went out of my way to invite myself  to this hostessing gig and leaving her for a bunch of annoying published authors and their editors seems RUDE.  For the record, Ms. Tan is also an editor and a writer whose work I've long admired.  More importantly, I think the Hogwarts Reunion will be a f*cking BLAST.  I will know some people who wuill be there for sure and there will be butter beer and fan grrliness of epic proportions. Plus I don't have to wear anything more formal than Hogwarts robes, which I already own.  (Oh, must sew on my Slytherin patch and find tie!!)  I will NOT feel stupid among Harry Potter fans, and, honestly, will probably have a lot more in common with the strangers in that room than I will with anyone on a stupid boat upon which I will be STUCK until they let us debark.

Okay, I think I actually know which party I prefer.  I'm just having a bit of trouble shaking the idea that I SHOULD go to the publishing house's party.