Toronto Trek 17
July 11-13, 2003

Regal Constellation Hotel - Toronto, Onatrio Canada

Guests
Anthony Stewart Head: Rupert Giles (BtVS)

Hey guys Toronto Trek has come and gone now. I had such a great time, I didn't want it to end. Here's a summary of my weekend. On Friday night I battled the heavy Toronto traffic to pick up my membership and to attend the Meet and Greet for ASH. Friday nights in summer are always bad, people going to the cottage and others coming home from work make for busy highways or as you Americans would say freeways. I had never been to that particular hotel out by the airport (there are literally dozens there) so I had arranged to meet my friend Diana in the lobby, not that I knew where that was either. I got to the hotel and found a pretty good parking space. I had been driving with comfortable shoes on, but wanted to change into a pair of heels for my photo with ASH, as I'm barely 5 feet tall and figured heels would be of the good, all things considered. I stepped out of the car, and proceeded to change my shoes when I saw a familiar dark blue car drive by, so I stepped up on the car and waved my shoes to catch her attention, and I directed her in to the spot next to mine. That went well. At least we didn't have to look for each other in the lobby. Registration went smoothly too, and we had time to kill so we went into the dealers room where I picked up the Storm Front CD. I'm sure I'll find it comforting to let JM read to me. :), and checked out some of the other stuff for later. I figured I may as well take the CD out to my car so I wouldn't have to schlep it around with me all night, or risk losing it so I left Diana in the lobby and headed out.

When I came back, Diana was sitting where I left her but she was frantically pointing to the left. I looked over and sure enough there was ASH. Gotta say, he looked mighty fine. Apparently he showed up the moment that I left, and Diana kept wondering what was taking me so long to get back. So we sat there and watched him talking to JCB, and then he headed up to his room. I don't think she's his Con manager because that's the only time I saw them near each other for the rest of the Con.

Next we checked out where the Meet and Greet was to take place and we waited patiently in line with a few others. We couldn't figure out why there was only a handful of us lined up when it was already 10 minutes to 8 (the designated time) and found out shortly after that the entrance we had lined up at was for those with special needs only. We were given instructions to go back upstairs, and halfway round the hotel to get to the other entrance. You'd have thought that they would have figured out we were somewhat challenged ourselves, for being in the wrong lineup and all but we finally found it, and lined up, with 5 minutes to go. Heller and Kelly from Crumbling Walls lined up behind us, and we were chatting away, when we noticed we four were the only ones without little yellow tickets. Great, now we had no tickets for the Meet and Greet. While Diana and Heller waited in the lineup, Kelly and I dashed back to the registration desk to get the coveted tickets. The clock was ticking and the lineup was beginning to move! Finally we had the necessary paper, and we raced back to the lineup, and managed to get in and get reasonable seats for the event.

I was tongue tied when ASH first came and sat down with us. He looked fabulous. For the more shallow among us, he was wearing Dolce and Gabanna (sp?) glasses, a tuck out style white shirt and a beautiful light tan suede jacket. In conversation, I found out that he has no tattoos or piercings other than his ear, and that it was his own horse he was riding in 7.1, and that said horse has won lots of prizes a/o awards. I mentioned to him that his character really got turned around last season, and he said well yeah, he wanted more time at home, which complicated things and part of it was to isolate Buffy. I also commented on the not touching thing and he laughed and smiled. He mentioned the bit in the Killer in Me where Giles says something to the effect of "you think I'm evil if I bring a group of girls camping and I don't touch them", and how awkward he found it considering he has a 14 year old daughter, but said that Joss insisted on keeping it in and that Joss found it hilarious.

I found him to be incredibly sweet and not very Giles like. There's absolutely nothing stuffy about him. He giggles like others have said, and it's very endearing. Then it was time for the photos. I was extremely nervous. I hate having my picture taken to begin with. When I'm nervous I talk too much sometimes. So I walked up to him and muttered something about he must be exhausted and I've never done this before, LOL. He just smiled at me and said something about letting a pro take over, and put his arm around my waist and cuddled into me, while they took the picture. I remember thinking about how soft his jacket was, and then the flash went off. I stepped away just as Diana was taking a picture as well, and he grabbed my hand and asked me to come back for another shot. He laughed and said that here he was calling himself a pro and he'd messed up the shot. He really didn't. Diana was to be taking the photo while the Trek photographer was, and it was supposed to be a pose for just the one shot, and if you blow it too bad. He thanked me for the photo and I walked away in a cloud. I was supposed to be taking a picture of Diana but honestly I don't know how that's gonna turn out, I was in such a daze. Ok all you seasoned Con goers, it was my first time. I'm sure I'll get better with practice. After that we both floated upstairs and watched a sing along screening of OMWF. It was kind of corny but fun. They even had a dancing area so those so inclined could dance along to some of the dancing numbers. It was great to watch the first Spuffy kiss on a large screen. By that time we were both exhausted, and my feet were killing me, the comfy shoes being in the car and all, and we decided to call it a night, both driving home to our respective homes.

Friday was a good day, Saturday not so much. Due to circumstances beyond my control, one of them being nasty Toronto traffic, I didn't make it to the hotel until ten minutes after One. ASH began at One. When people tell you that there are four seasons in Canada, winter, winter, winter and construction, they are only half kidding. I didn't feel comfortable about going in after he had started, so I did what I do best when I'm upset, shop. I headed off to the dealers room where I bought a nice picture for ASH to sign. I also noticed a really neat Spike photo that I'd never seen before so I figured why not? I picked up the Once More With Feeling CD, and I bought a copy of Nikki Stafford's book Bite Me, which I intended to have
her sign later.

Purchases in hand, I left the dealers room feeling considerably better than I had going in.:) I met up with Diana in the lobby and we headed off for the autograph line. It was a long line, and it was all for ASH. There was no waiting for Gil Gerrard and Erin Gray, Felix Silla, or Julie Caitlin Brown, when she arrived. The other guests signed at other times. I think the lengthy wait was starting to get to the mother and daughter in line behind us. They started playing rock paper scissors, and the daughter was talking in a really creepy voice. It didn't bother me a bit. Not for the first fifteen minutes anyway. After that it got a little tiresome. I didn't know if I could take much more, and was seriously considering abdicating my place in line to get away from the endless litany of rock paper scissors, which by this time was seriously affecting the state of my mental health, and their immediate physical safety. Dunno if they could see the tension in my shoulders, or whether they got bored with that game because they decided to play I Spy instead. Now that put me in a happy place. Memories of Spike playing that game with Harmony and Andrew. Yes, that was much better.

Finally it was my turn to go up. I blurted out something to the effect of "well here we are again" He looked up and smiled at me. I'm sure I had that same deer caught in the headlights look I wore when we did the photo at the Meet and Greet. I honestly can't remember what else we talked about. I know we did because Diana asked me what it was that we were talking about, but I dunno. He looked wonderful. For the shallow, he was wearing a grey long sleeved tee-shirt, and no glasses this time. He asked the correct spelling of my name and smiled and took my hand and said "thank you my darling" I managed to say, "no, thank you", I dunno how, because I just melted into a big pile of goo after he said that. Yes, after that, all was right with the world. LOL,they could have bitten me on the backside with those scissors, hit me on the head with the rock, and held me down and given me paper cuts on my fingers, and it would have been okay.

After that Diana and I headed back to the dealer's room to find Nikki Stafford, so that she could sign my book. It was great meeting Nikki. She's very outgoing, and a local girl, and we actually have some on line friends in common so that was pretty cool. By that point Diana and I were pretty hungry, and she took me out for a birthday dinner (my b-day is at the end of the month) at one of those all you can eat type of affairs. Well, we ate a lot considering we hadn't eaten since breakfast, and the food was great. We were both pretty tired, and I suggested she go home to her family, and I went back to TT. I walked around, and talked to a few people and then noticed a table that had some really neat limited edition collector plates. There were Buffy, Willow, Xander and Spike plates. I had to have the Spike plate. If you have the Spike calendar, it's the July pose, with the words "I'm sorry baby, I'm a bad rude man" written on it. Well it was the July pose, and my birthday's in July, it was meant to be. You all know I love to shop by now right? I took my new purchase out to the car, and looked through the TT calendar, and saw that there was a Buffy memorial panel starting in ten minutes so I figured what the heck, I'll go see what it's like. It was great. We all sat around and talked about the show and how we were going to miss it. The panel was over after an hour but we all got so engaged in discussing things Buffy we extended the meeting to the corridor. It was getting late, and I wanted to get an early start on Sunday so I bid my goodnights and left.

Determined to make a better go of it on the Sunday, I once again set out on the Highway. Traffic was light at that time in the morning, so I pretty much flew there. I got there just after 9 am and the Buffy auction wasn't going to start till 10, yay me. Mission accomplished. I had a little time to kill so I went to the dealer's room and bought some photos. By now, you KNOW that I like to shop, and then headed back to the lobby where I met Diana. We headed off to the auction. There were lots of people already there, as the actual auction started at 9, but we managed to find some seats and settled in. ASH arrived promptly at 10, and got right into the swing of it. He was a virtual dynamo, signing anything that hadn't been signed, and adding his signature to stuff that had been signed to bring up the value, all the while entreating us to bid higher, "Think of the children" he kept imploring us. They auctioned off a Frank N Furter doll and photo both of which he signed while singing and dancing away. It was a hoot.

ASH's talk was scheduled for 12 PM and there was no way I was going to miss it, so we headed in early. Our seats were good,located in the center stage area, although the way the room was set up, pretty much any seat would be good. When we were seated, we noticed there was a guitar on stage. This looked to be a good omen and sure enough it was. ASH came on stage and told us he was going to sing to us. He started off with a song called Highway Highway by Steve Davis as I understood him, and then did two more from his CD Music for Elevators. In one word, wow. He had warned us that the songs were kind of sad, and that they made him think about his family. They were about long distance relationships, and one was about how much he missed his children. I've got to say, I was really moved. My eyes misted over a bit, and when Diana questioned me about it, I told her my allergies were bugging me. They were really soulful songs, and he sang them beautifully. I was surprised that he was so generous as to share his feelings, and this part of his life with us. I'm definitely going to look into getting his CD.

When he was finished, you could have heard a pin drop. He put down the guitar, and asked for questions, but started giggling, because we were all kind of somber, and he realized that he had kind of caused us to be so. He giggled some more and told us he warned us they were sad. Someone in the audience asked him why he wasn't in much of seasons 6 and 7, and he asked the guy where he'd just been. Then he patiently explained about wanting to spend more time with his family, and how Joss was very understanding about it. Then the guy told ASH that he thought Giles best moment was when he came in the door and confronted Evil Willow at the end of season 6. He told ASH that Giles was badly needed. In his absence, Willow overdosed on magic, and Buffy started sleeping with Spike. ASH laughed out loud, and said that there were people that would be happy to pay for that experience, (I had to laugh here too, I can think of a person or two myself) but that obviously the guy wasn't one of them.

He talked about the sadness of filming the last episode. He told us an odd thing happened at the crater scene. Two dogs came out of the desert. They were in pretty rough shape, he said. Their owner was found but he was dismayed that she didn't seem at all concerned about it. He said he just didn't get it. Why have pets if you're not going to look after them properly? He never said, but I wouldn't be surprised if he had a few words with her about it. You could tell that it bothered him that since the dogs belonged to her, they
couldn't do anything about it. He told us he loved doing OMWF. He said he wouldn't leave the set and was acting just like a groupie, hanging about while the others sang their parts.

After ASH's talk, we took a break for lunch then we did two more Buffy panels, Forgiveness in the Buffyverse, and Redemption in the Jossverse. Both were really good. Then it was time to start saying good-byes to some of the people I met over the weekend, and then soon sadly, time to go home. Would I do it again? You bet I would. I had a blast meeting people whose names I recognized from the internet, fanfic writers, list owners, and just general posters like me. Good times! I think I'll even have MORE fun next time now that I'm a little more clued-in. I'll definitely do more panels next time. The TT organizers were great too. I can't speak too highly about them. Sharon Vernon who was in charge of the Buffy programming and Stephen Christian who I believe was in charge of Communications were always pleasant and helpful. Whenever I e-mailed them with a question, I always had a cheerful reply by the next day. Things looked pretty glum to me when JM cancelled, but they really pulled this baby out of the fire.

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Fraidy