Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

Una relaxes in our room

This weekend was the annual retreat for Otakon staff members, known as Com Con. It was held in a Sheraton Hotel in the Baltimore area.

Normally, we arrange with our pet sitter to take Una for the weekend. But by the time the dates were announced this year, the pet sitter was booked. Since the Sheraton is a pet friendly hotel chain, I called to confirm that I could bring Una. They said we would just need to put down a $100 deposit as well as bring a pen in case she was too noisy and had to be brought down to the front desk.

When we arrived, we thought it would be best if The Gryphon checked us in and I stayed in the car with Una. Then we parked in the parking garage and took her in, along with some of our stuff. We set up the pen I'd bought that week, an easily transported folding pen, and put her in it while we brought in the rest of our luggage.

We put her pen back by the window, as far as possible from the door, because we thought it might be good to keep her away from the source of the noise. As we found out later, it wasn't enough.

After we got all our stuff brought in, we were headed down to get some dinner when we ran into The Cheshire Cat, The Dormouse and The White Rabbit, who were about to get dinner with another staffer, a guy who reminds me of Jim from The Office. Here's a picture of him, later in the evening, with a couple Nerf guns.

We joined them and, from a list that the front desk provided, chose Applebee's, primarily because of their Weight Watchers entrees.

There was a little bit of a line, it being a Friday night, and we waited in the foyer, where there were photos of a local high school's sports teams. They weren't old enough to be truly amusing, because most of them dated from the '90s and the millennium. A few from the '80s were somewhat entertaining, especially one that showed a reunion picture along with it, taken from so far away you could hardly see the women's faces.

When we were seated, it was close quarters, since there were six of us in a booth. Still, we had a good time, making cracks about the decor, such as a Disney poster that hung over our table and featured the Disney characters, attempting to be cool, 80s style. This included Pluto wearing a Walkman, complete with cassette player, and Goofy wearing a "Top gun" style bomber jacket and Wayfarer sunglasses.

The dinner conversation included remarks from "Jim" about how evil he was. We suggested various ways he could be evil in the restaurant.

The food was good. Afterwards, a couple of us had some coffee and one or two had a dessert.

Afterwards, we went back to the room and grabbed Una so I could take her out. We'd been told we were allowed to take her to any of the public areas that our group was renting, as long as no one objected.

We weren't, incidentally, the only staffers who'd brought a dog. Another couple brought a little Dachshund named Sydney who was adorable. Unfortunately, she doesn't get along with other dogs, so they didn't bring her around to the public rooms the first night.

Una had a good time checking out the various rooms, greeting people. I never realized how many dog lovers are on staff before. They gathered around us in the hallway, petting Una and talking about their own pets. We had a good time.

She even made friends with the 2-year-old daughter of The Laughing Man and his wife, who was very gentle to her and enjoyed giving her treats.

Una and I sat in on the Otakon Game Show for the first round, sitting near the back. She was actually very good, lying on the floor in the aisle and even staying there when people walked by. She seemed to enjoy all of the commotion and the laughing, and she was smiling a lot.

But when they played some loud music to signify the end of the round, and simultaneously a group of people walked briskly down the aisle towards her, she started barking defensively, so I had to leave.

Of course, this meant I missed seeing my friend The Mad Hatter in his role as Anime Frank, which is my favorite part of the game show. Later, he showed me one of his props, a stuffed albatross in a tray, like in Monty Python's The Life of Brian.

People were gathered in various rooms, and Una and I made our rounds. In one room they were watching videos, and in another, a group of friends were playing a board game.

Round about 11, Una was getting tired and I thought it might be nice to walk around on my own, so I took her back up to the room before returning to our staff rooms. I thought she'd be fine, since it didn't seem like she'd been doing that badly earlier. She hadn't been making any noise when we returned to our room after dinner.

I spent about an hour and a half down in the meeting rooms socializing, and was just about to suggest that The Gryphon and I go to the hotel bar and get a drink when my cell phone rang. It was the front desk, telling me that there had been complaints about my dog barking. I asked whether I should bring her to the front desk, and they said that I needed to get to the room right away because there was already a staffer in there!

So of course, I raced up to the room. A hotel staffer was standing inside the room. She had attached the leash to the collar, which were both sitting on the desk, but Una was probably barking at her whenever she got close. Of course, for the moment, Una was being very quiet; in fact, I hadn't even heard her barking when I got off the elevator.

I asked if there had been a problem, and the staffer claimed they'd received six complaints. But I assured her that now that I was back, Una would settle down, so she left.

After I took Una out to relieve herself once more, I thought I'd settle down and read for a while. Una was barking, though, every time someone walked down the hallway. So I called The Gryphon and asked him to return to the room, figuring that would help. Maybe she was on hyper alert status because she was waiting for him.

In the meantime, I turned off the lights, put on my pajamas and lay down, hopefully she'd settle down when she saw I was relaxed and going to sleep. She continued the nervous barking until The Gryphon returned.

Even then, she still wouldn't stop until we came up with a solution. We turned the radio to a smooth jazz station, figuring it would serve as white noise to drown out sounds from the hallway. It seemed to work, and we finally drifted off to an uneasy sleep.

At 4:30 in the morning, the music stopped and an infomercial began, so I turned off the radio until the morning, when the hallway noise started again and Una started to get anxious. I turned the radio back on to keep her calm.

I felt like the parent of a newborn, with bloodshot eyes, struggling to wake up.

More from Com Con 2007:

January 23, 2007 - Swanky Staff

January 24, 2007 - Time to Go

January 25, 2007 - More Com Con Pics

February 1, 2007 - Inside Goucher

Copyright 2006 by Alyce Wilson

January 2007 Index

Musings Index

What do you think? Share your thoughts
at Alyce's message board (left button):