San Francisco Day 2

If I’d remembered to bring my color coded schedule spreadsheet (yep, not just a geek but a forgetful one) Thursday would have been a full page of different colored overlapping squares.   Things I know were in my plan included the kick off motivational speaker, the AGM, lunch with Victoria Alexander (and about 2000 others), a few visits to the goody room, the Passionate Ink cocktail party, the Romance Divas dinner party, and a lot of networking.

What did I start my day with?  A walk to Chinatown at 7:30 that ended with a 9:30am call to the liquor store.

Because $12 cocktails and $9 beers got old real fast.

So my morning Chinatown walk was beautiful.  I am In Luv with the SF weather.  To someone who hates to sweat and does it in anything over 65 degrees, the city is a slice of meteorological heaven.  And there are so very many people of every shape, color, and mood in this part of the city, most of them so very very busy.  I haven’t seen so much – actually, any – bronzed beach babes strolling along flashing their perfect summer tans and surfboard abs while they sip their iced Chai and debate beach or pool for the day, which would be the view if I slogged through the 100% humidity to walk in the morning at home.

I could be very happy with this every day.

Back in conferenceland the hotel was starting to simmer to life.  The lines were building at the elevators, and the goody room / Blaze signing had matching lines snaking down the hall.  It took a nanosecond to decide that there was no way I was getting in either room before the start of the AGM, so back down the hall, and back down the elevator I went.  I found a few new friends at registration, where I snagged a cup of hot tea before it was rolled away for the morning, then headed up to the meeting room for my first official event of the day.

The AGM itself got off to a confusing start.  When we entered the conference room there was no sign in area or other visible sign of tracking attendance.  Once the meeting was under way, the chair stated that the minimum number of members present to form a quorum had not been reached, so no new business could be voted on.  There was a bit of back and forth over “how do you know a quorum hasn’t been reached if you weren’t keeping track of who came and who didn’t”, but we moved on after the offer to do a head count was made and declined.   (There were quite obviously, I’ll say, less than half the number of people present needed to reach the  quorum number, and even with the proxies we were no where close.)  The next few minutes the chair seemed flustered and confused, as she lost her place in the “script” and wasn’t sure where the meeting was going.  Eventually we got back to the reporting of business.  The new RWA office looks wonderful – nice slideshow – and the board and support staff are understandably excited about the upcoming move.  The financial report followed, and there was an introduction to the candidates for next years BOD.  Then on to the part we’re all waiting for – questions from the floor.

There were no fire works this year, but some legitimate complaints, concerns, and related comments from the membership were brought to the board.  PAN membership and revisiting Erotic Romance as a recognized genre were debated, but the board was obviously tired of these topics.  While polite, their answer was along the lines of We just addressed this topic and do not intend to revisit it any time soon.  Complaints about the website were answered with “But we won an award!”  (I’m very happy that someone found it worthy of an award, but the members themselves aren’t so impressed.)  The unsatisfying survey that recently went out came up, and there was some good discussion on how to improve them in the future.

Lunch followed.  Decent food, but only one cup of coffee at the end.  Victoria Alexander was a fabulous Keynote speaker, and had us laughing hysterically as she took us down a sort of "Writer’s Last Lecture” full of nuggets of near-wisdom.

After lunch it was quiet time.  Tried to get a bit of a nap as well, but soon it was time to get cleaned up and head down to set up the PI party.  It took a combo of “pretty please” and “our contract said” but we finally had almost enough seating for our events – right in time for the party to get under way. 

And an amazing party it was.  Ninety minutes flew by in a blink.  Between the contest announcements (congrats winners!  They’ll be on the website as soon as I can get the final list up) and amazing speakers, there was just enough time to mingle with the 100+ guests and take some fun pictures. So many faces to finally put to names!

Then it was off to the Romance Divas party.  What ended up being over 80 Divas met at Buca de Bopa for a family style Italian feast.  Barbara Vey made a guest Diva appearance, and filmed a short video that is on her Publishers Weekly blog.  As at any good Italian feast, the family and laughter were more important than  the food.  But damn, was it some good food.  And piles of it.  Platters of salad and trays of garlic bread started off the meal.  Soon after, enormous platters of Lemon Chicken, Eggplant Parm, Spaghetti with Meatballs and Marinara sauce, Rotini and sausage, and Fettuccine Alfredo were being passed around.  And quicker than we could empty a plate more would arrive.  Then just when we thought we couldn’t eat any  more, the chocolate cake and cheesecake came out. Oh My – absolutely amazing dinner, with the best writer friends you could wish for.

It was near 9 by the time we headed back to the hotel.  The walk back seemed a bit longer than I liked, probably due to the heels that rarely come out of my closet and that had been on my feet for 6 hours by then.  I was glad to head up to the room with Jen, Lori, Betty, Dana, and Lori to kick off our shoes and have a few drinks.  Eventually we headed down to the ‘networking’ area, and caught up with some ‘business’ as the publisher and editor parties ended.  But midnight came knockin’ and my glass slippers were starting to feel more like horse shoes, so soon off to bed I went.