7-21-13 RMB Comic Con Campout

7-21-13 RMB Comic Con Campout

Dear Rita Mae Brown,

Sometimes we do things for the fun of it, even when the act itself is not ALL fun. In the end there is an experience to share, a bonding, a memory…I suppose all of this contributes to why we camp out overnight on the pavement to be where we want to be in ten hours, a certain convention center room to see certain panels at a Comic Convention, a panel that has nothing to do with comics.

But it’s fun, right? We rotate hours of sleep, because we can’t all sleep at once, there isn’t enough room and we don’t want to carry that many supplies, pillows, blanket, etc. The air is cool, if you happen to be walking, downright cold if you are sitting still on cold pavement.

I did the campout thing one night with the gang. My sister did it for three nights, crazy woman. But in the end, she and my niece and niece’s best friend have priceless memories. There was the night that it sprinkled and my sister insisted on spreading around the blankets and supplies to the less prepared teens nearby.

As one stranger tried to protest, the stranger on the other side of the line, already resting on sister’s supplies, informed her “She won’t stop, you have to take it.” She is the quintessential “mom”.

She has brought the first Sneaky Pie book Wish You Were Here to read during the hour upon hour upon hour upon… of waiting in line. Mid day, after we have been apart and come back together, she tells me she met a woman and discussed Rita Mae Brown. The woman asked about her book and got an earful. Sister loves to talk. We are opposites in so many ways, that being one of them.

The new acquaintance likes cats, likes mysteries and will be looking for Rita Mae Brown book to read herself. Nice.

In the end we remember the fun more than the hard pavement. I’ll remember that my sister unprompted by me, brought a RMB book. I’ll remember that she spread the RMB word and shared her blankets, both acts driven by the “mom” in her, to leave a moment a better place that it otherwise would have been for those who occupied it.

Sleep well,

Loraine