Cindy (Aem) finally gets a bone

The Day Before

I followed my son (Dan) and his wife (Jenn) up to Springfield, Mass. to join in on the fun of the CHM Beerfest and to meet up with Cory MacDonald and possibly some other TB lovers. It rained most of the way, but it was still a fun drive. I blasted music of my choice the whole way up, the joys of driving by yourself. We arrived at 4:30 p.m. and I had to hang out in my son, Dan’s room, due to my roommate being very late… my unknown, never before met, roommate!

Dan, Jenn and I met up with Cory and his wife Karen, Larry (another blindie) and others in the lobby of the hotel and walked to the best German food I’ve ever tasted. There ended up being 14 of us, consisting of members of the CHM and TB fans. We were known as “The Blindies and Bloodlusters.” My roommate finally made her grand entrance with her camera flashing. The woman was a hoot, very fun and ballsy.

Jean Armitage also joined us, some of you may know her as a fund raiser for the Brentwood Theatre. You throw her and Cory together and trouble is just waiting to happen. Cory is an non-stop talker and a bit over the top; he’s great. At one point during the night all the lights were turned off for a birthday celebration at the next table and one of Cory’s “brothers in blindness” said “Darkness, brought to you by the Choroideremia Foundation.” The whole restaurant broke up.

Being the only single woman at the dinner, everyone made numerous jokes at my expense when my dinner arrived – a huge bone with meat wrapped around it. The next table even joined in the fun. As if that wasn’t enough entertainment supplied by yours truly, the waiter took a strange liking to me and spent the night throwing things at me. Not my fault I purposely called him Sean (not his name)to his annoyance; he was throwing things at me for God’s sake!

The dinner broke up after 3 hours and my roommate and I returned to our room & got to know each other. We spent the time talking up True Blood and our fave actor, Stephen Moyer. Oh, and complaining about the friggin’ hotel charging us separately for an internet connection to use two laptops even though there was only one connection in the room. You have to love a great hotel like the Mariott… and I won’t mention charging us for parking in their lot.

Jean (With Brentwood Theatre) and Cory

Day of the Beerfest:

Dan treated the four of us to breakfast and then my roomie and I hung out some more. There’s nothing as fun as talking True Blood with another obsessed fan, well there probably is, but I’ll get to that later.

The four of us met back up again, and arrived at the Beerfest a ½ hour early to help out if needed. The street The Rock Café is on also has many other blues and jazz clubs. I would love to do a night or two checking them all out.

Outside the door was a sign listing all the sponsors and donors, which of course listed True Blood News at the Nest. Very cool. We checked out all the items that were donated for raffle and auction and let me tell you, there were some very expensive and nice items up for bid. The T-shirt and matching mug that were donated by the Nest were one of the first items chosen by a raffle ticket holder.

BillsBabe sighting...Hi Lisa!!!

I met another TB lover from Bill’s Babes, a lady name Lisa representing the Vault; I spent time talking and having fun with her….Hey Lisa, hope you read this and enjoy the items you won at auction. Thanks for the fun!

The music came from a small jazz band that was pretty good. Food was served buffet style, but to the horror of all there, the main table collapsed and the food ended up on the floor. I was standing next to the table at the time, not touching it, when it went down. Really, I wasn’t touching it, not before, during of after the collapse, I swear. Disaster was averted by more food in back, though the same table crashed two more times before someone decided it had issues.

Miles of Beer

Larry and I, a “blindie” from the previous night’s dinner & a joy to hang around with, then proceeded to the bar to partake of all 19 different beers from around the world. To be totally honest, Larry could down a beer – he said it was genetics, the same genes that cause blindness, enable him to be able to drink like a fish. I love this guy. When all the beer was finally gone, I wasn’t, so the nice bartender gave me bottles of beer on the house, but not so Larry. Poor blind man had to pay.

Anna necklace donated by Bill's Wiki'd Women

On to the auction:

All the bids met the reserve placed on the items and many went well beyond. A signed autograph of a Hall of Fame baseball player (I have no idea who it was, I don’t follow the game. Sorry!) went for $1,700. WOW! The second highest bid of $425 went for an exact replica of Anna Paquin’s necklace that she wore at ComicCon, created by the original artist, Nomi. It was donated by us, True Blood News at the Nest.

Half way through announcing winners, Deborah Ann Woll (Vampire Jessica) called, but the mic sucked at picking her up on Cory’s cell phone. She offered up a head shot with an autograph and personalized message to the highest bidder, and low and behold Jean Armitage won it. You go Jean!!!

I took a lot of pictures, but since I forgot my glasses and it was a new camera, I couldn’t see the settings, some of the pics – okay a lot of the pics were just trash. The ones you see here are the ones that turned out. Sorry there weren’t more Cory.

Now for some personal time:

I found a good looking man who gave me some suggestions for a beer to drink, so I took a few pics of him. He then sauntered over and I was just starting to talk him up, when roomie crashed my party. She wanted to return to the hotel, so away we went and so did my hopes of a boner that was bigger then my meat on a bone meal from the previous night’s dinner.

We returned to the hotel after saying our goodbyes to the “brothers in blindness” and all our new friends. It was a fabulous time. I loved meeting and spending time with a ton of people I didn’t know and sharing a hotel with a literal stranger. All that was missing was some man meat, but making new friends & future plans with some of them almost makes up for it.

Since I killed a few more brain cells this weekend I hope I didn’t forget anything of importance, but I’m sure I did, so please forgive me. Oh yeah, the CHM Beerfest was the last hurrah for the Rock Café, it is now officially closed. So thanks roomie for nipping the pint glass for me with their logo on it.

I’m ready for the next trip. YEE HAW!!!

Posted in Choroideremia, Deborah Ann Woll