A week and a half until my head explodes. What fun.

Friday night we bummed around the house and Takaza was kind enough to run down to the corner taqueria for dinner for us and Linnaeus. After dinner and some Tivo goodness, we called it an early night.

I woke up far too early on Saturday morning, at about 6:30. Ick. This gave me time to make coffee, read the paper, and stare at my laptop for a while, which was nice. We had originally intended to meet Roho and Genet for breakfast in Antioch, but Dan was feeling a bit oogie so we delayed our departure for a bit. Instead, we met them in McHenry, where we toured the (small) facility of the charity for Midwest FurFest this year, Wildlife in Need. WiN is a tiny organization dedicated to the rehabilitation and return of injured wildlife. It was formed after the small animal sanctuary that was run by McHenry County Conservation District shut down in 1995. We met Bill and Karen, a very nice couple who handle WiN’s raptors in one of the three or four enclosures in their back yard. Monica, the foundation president, handles waterfowl at her house in Woodstock, and another person handles small mammals at a third location. They only have two raptors right now, and these are the two that will be at MFF: a red-tailed hawk and a great horned owl (I’ll try to post some pictures when I get home). Both of these birds are imprinted and thus cannot be released to the wild, so instead they help with the foundation’s educational efforts.

After a quick tour (in the rain, which started right when we arrived), we had a nice chat about their work, what we were hoping they could do at Midwest FurFest, and what to expect. I suspect that they are going to have a really good time, once they get around the weirdness, and I’m sure they’ll be touring the convention and buying stuff in the Dealers Room before the weekend is over.

Roho and Genet opted to go to lunch with Bill and Karen, but since we had just eaten we instead too our leave to run some errands. We ran into a horrible thunderstorm in Fox Lake (torrential downpour, 1/2″ hail), but then were able to get over to our storage unit, where we picked up a few things we’ll be needing for MFF. Then we made a couple of stops in Antioch, including the always-yummy Antioch Packing House, where Dan got some beautiful strip steaks. From there it was back to the city.

Dan cooked up the steaks when we got home (yum!) and then Paul and I hopped the El over to perromutt‘s place, where we arrived earlier than expected to help celebrate his 27th birthday (oooh, so old. Not). I had a really fun time seeing a bunch of folks, some new, some not. I’d list them all but I have to head home momentarily :-)Both Paul and I started to get tired early, so we took our leave and slogged back home through the pouring rain. At least we had umbrellas!

On Sunday, we have the last in-person Midwest FurFest staff meeting. Good meeting, and we got lots of last-minute details ironed out. I have a ton of work to do over the next week and a half, but once things start it’s all downhill. I have an excellent Assistant Director in Neowolf2, and a fabulous staff that I know I can rely on. Those two things make the prospect of the convention a heck of a lot more palatable.

After the meeting, Dan and I came home and got into a small cleaning frenzy, bringing some order to the living room and kitchen. We ordered some pizza and relaxed for the rest of the night, watching Tivo. All in all, an excellent weekend.