Paralympics … and DRAGON CON Anxiety

   

So we are now on I think day 5 of the Paralympic Games (nearly at the half way point) and while I haven’t posted a blog about it I’ve definitely been watching it. It hasn’t gotten the love that the Olympics get but the coverage I have been able to watch in my opinion has been BETTER. Instead of the never-ending tape delayed wall to wall coverage …… NBCSN and the Olympic channel are breaking out blocks of LIVE events which has been awesome to watch. Granted most of it takes place after I go to bed (time zones are hard :D) but I have been able to watch some Wheelchair Rugby, Wheelchair Basketball, Triathlon, track and field, swimming events and even some ping pong what has however eluded me is Sitting Volleyball. I love everything about watching that sport. The sportsman ship between the teams, the power that these athletes hit the ball without ever leaving the ground, and just volleyball in general. I had the pleasure of playing this in high school at a fundraising event and let me tell you all …. It’s hard. As an Abled Bodied person you want to jump up, you want to get the lift you need to hit that spike but you… well can’t. That’s against the rules. What I’ve been doing is recording the coverage so I’m not missing anything, but I have yet to catch this but that’s my goal for the next few days. Watching these games has made me really really miss Invictus Games ... but they will be back next year. It's been fun seeing some familiar faces representing their country.  

Why the next few days when there are several days left in the games?! Cause this Wed I pack up the car and head north to Golden’s for our yearly Nerdcation. Dragon Con is gonna be super different this year but I also think way more awesome. For one the crowds will be down with limited attendees which is always a good thing. I remember when Golden and I first started going the crowds were nothing like they were in 2019 which it was just too much. Too many people, too many cosplayers, too many idiots destroying things (sorry Fed Ex display), too much drinking, it was all just too much. We still had fun and enjoyed ourselves but it felt very suffocating at times and the idea of a “smaller” con makes my soul very happy.

For two everyone that comes to the Con this year has to either be vaccinated or show a negative test before they can pick up their badge. After watching people lose their minds over this “rule” I’m glad it is in place. So many who were planning to come have dropped out, but what it really means is that the people that are at Dragon Con really really wanted to be there. That means that everyone there will be in good moods and great spirits even if they are drinking all the spirits. Ha! Photo from above is from several years ago. 

For three ….. for the first time in forever …. We are staying in a HOST hotel. We were scheduled to be in a host hotel back in 2019 when the Sheraton had to close for the Legionnaires Disease outbreak … and we got kicked out of the hotel (I’ll never believe that it wasn’t cause of that but whatever). We scrambled at the last minute and found a room at another hotel we’ve stayed at before and it was fine but we were bummed. Then in 2020 I scrambled and made it happen again and a pandemic threw us to the floor. However the hotel moved our room to this year and I have been checking it daily in fear that it may happen again. I have called them several times to make sure that we are good. I’m sure when we check in they will give me that look like oh it’s her. I don’t care how they look at me as long as they give me a room. Ha!

 And most important Golden and I really really really really need 4 days of laughter, fun, doing nothing unless we wanna, and food. It’s 4 days of doing literally whatever we want, when we want, and how we want. Being in a host hotel will cut down on travel back to the hotel so I’m hoping it will also allow us to do more. We usually head out in the morning walk to the hotels or get on the bus and frolic until late in the afternoon. Sometimes we go back to the room to rest up for night activities but sometimes that kills us for the day. We end up taking naps and getting settled and often talk ourselves of going back out. This also allows Golden to head our at night when I’m snoring away and her Medical Marvel Team No Sleep member can’t sleep. We will have to come up with a system for that tho so I’ll know she’s ok. I’m also hoping that by being where we are we can run up to the room and chill then come back out when things start to become too much.

I am planning to attempt to give blood again. Mostly cause I know that blood is super important right now but also cause the T-shirt they are giving away is worth possibly passing out again. See several years ago I gave blood then I don’t know what happened. We were waiting on the buss to take us back to the room and I was kind of our of it. I stood up thinking the buss was coming and looked around …. I guess I stood up to fast and …. I passed out. I woke up a few minutes later with full on road rash all over my face, my glasses somewhere on the sidewalk and Golden telling me to stay down. See we were at the top of a really steep hill and her fear was that if I started rolling she wasn’t going to be able to stop me and I’d Indian Jones the City of Atlanta.

The best part of that story is that Golden, Maribel, and I kept tweeting each other about the incident. Earlier in the day Maribel had falling and hurt herself and Golden had just taken her injection so we were all complaining about our ailments. When I got back into town I immediately went to the eye glass place cause my glasses were really jacked up and scratched beyond use. I was hoping to get new glasses before I had to go back to work. However, it didn’t work out for me. So I went back to the office and the road rash was still on my face but my lip was not as swollen. My boss sits down in my office and he is just smiling and said so…did you have fun. I said of course. he said …really ? and he has this cat ate the canary grin on his face. I said well there was one thing and I started telling him about the BP thing … at the time he was super concerned about my BP cause our office used to do blood drives every quarter and the quarter before they wouldn’t do mine cause it was far too high. The whole time I’m telling the story he’s just sitting there smiling. I finished the story knowing it would only make him worry more and he said “you forgot I followed you on Twitter huh?!” so he already knew what had happened he just wanted to see if I’d tell him or not. Well played sir.

I’m hoping giving blood this year won’t be quite as interesting. I’m schedule to give it on Friday morning so I can get up get some breakfast head over and give blood then if I start feeling weird head to the room for a bit before going back down. I have a plan :D

I’m a little geeked out about going to the Con during a pandemic but I really feel like the organizers are making every effort to keep everyone safe. Vaccinations/Negative tests, masks mandatory for all, and they are having multiple “cleaning” events during the day and night. Granted the risk is still there but I feel like this is going to be the cleanest con I’ve ever attended. I feel like I did back when I went to my nephew’s state championship … if I’m going to go I’m going to make the best of it. 

I have a hotel reserved for if I get anything I can stay there and mom and dad will stay safe. I have also learned over the last year or so that you can justify in your head anything that you really want to do. I also bought 2 over the counter tests that I can take so I’ll know if I have it or not. I’m packing hand sanitizer like it’s free and doing all the precautions that I have been told will “keep me safe” and I’m just going to pray that it does. I’ve been very lucky during this pandemic …. And I’d like to keep that streak going. That being said if I make it though it without catching anything … I’m totes going to start licking doorknobs. Just kidding that’s a horrible idea …. Almost as bad as this milk crate thing and also where are you all getting so many milk crates!?

Marcy (who is procrastinating packing by writing this up)