GLLA Recap...
This past weekend was my 4th GLLA (Great Lakes Leather Alliance) weekend. I think it was the best one yet.
We were able to go because of good luck and good friends. My entrance fee was donated to me by a leather brother and amy won hers in a drawing. We also got bumped to a room with 2 beds in it for the stay in the hotel, which meant that 2 very close friends could share the room with us and split the cost which worked out very nicely. The only bad part of the weekend was Friday when I accidentally broke my cell phone by dropping it from a height of three feet onto the bathroom floor. It immediately flew into three pieces and the screen went all white and faded to black. It really wasnt such a big loss, the phone itself was a huge piece of shit, it was just an inconvenience and a money drain when I didnt need one at all. I wound up getting a new phone and signing a new contract and am happy though.
Friday I attended 2 classes, the first one was amazing and helped me understand my D/s relationship better and is going to help both of us further it I hope. The second class I attended was a class on sensation play using staple guns. Not medical staples either, these are electric and manual staple guns like you find at hardware stores with half inch or quarter inch staples. The class was very informative and really touched my sadistic side, I want to try stapling someday soon.
Immediately after the stapling class, I joined two of the girls from the room and we went for dinner. One of us had a discount coupon for an Ethiopian place near the hotel so we went there. Holy Hell it was good. Everyone orders a main dish and it all comes on a large plate which sits in the middle. No silverware, instead you eat using a bread type food almost like a crepe in consistency as silverware. We had goat, lamb and a salad dish with a side of collard greens and two different lentils as sides also. Most of it tasted amazing, I didnt care for the salad dish or one of the lentil sides. I do want to go back to eat there sometime though, it was amazing.
Friday night was a good night, I wandered down to the atrium and sat in the table area with a bunch of friends and met a few new people. One of the people was making absinthe, complete with sugar cubes. I have never seen it made or tasted it before so when he offered me a glass of it I eagerly took him up on it. Three sips later my face was numb. Then the small group across the table offered me something called Barenjager, basically a version of Jagermeister made with honey. It tasted very nice and when he dropped an ice cube in it became very smooth and honey like. Meanwhile I had made it through my first full glass of absinthe and was given a second one. I drank it too. Around midnight the table broke up and most of them went to the Rocky Horror Picture showing but I decided it was hot tub time. Very good decision. A very dear friend that I love a lot was also in the hot tub and we talked for a few hours, something we badly needed to do. She told me all about what was going on with her and I did the same with me and pretty soon it was like we hadnt spent any time apart despite it being months since I had seen her. This is a very good thing, of course. I spent some time in the pool and then wandered back to the atrium and sat with some new friends for a bit and then decided it was bedtime around 4:30am.
At 7:30am alarms began going off in the room and the girls started stirring and getting up for the day. It was Saturday.
I went downstairs around 8ish and hit the continental breakfast. One of the waffle makers had fried so there was a huge line and I met a friend in line and we decided to opt for bagels and cheese danishes instead of waffles. Peanut butter shmeared bagels are a highly underrated breakfast, let me tell you. After breakfast and an hour or so of talking and hitting up the vendor area, the Sprint store was open so i ran and got my new phone. Its a Samsung Seek, a decent enough phone which will hold me over until I can afford either an Evo or a Moment. Then it was class time.
The first class on Saturday was supposed to be on cupping and fire play but the cupping presenter couldnt make it at the last minute and it turned out to be on electricity and fire play. Basically he had a couple of different zappers, a stun gun and a violet wand. The wand was used in a few new ways I havent seen before and I learned a new way to use flash cotton, a way I might incorporate into my fire play. Also Saturday a guy from Bloomington asked me if I would be willing to come down there sometime and do a fireplay demo for their group sometime. Thats something I really hope to do.
The first class Saturday was the only one I was interested in so I wound up hanging out with friends and looking through the vending area and silent auctions the rest of the day. Saturday night was another great night, I got to see my leather brother receive his Masters Cover, the final piece of leather earned on a very long journey through this lifestyle and a really huge honor. I cried like a little girl with a skinned knee when he got it, and I wasnt the only one. It was a total surprise to him and the look on his face when the other Masters called him forward to present it is something i will never forget.
After the presentation and some time spent gathering myself back up, I went to the dungeon. I ran into the roomies there, one of them was having a very nice scene and the other was watching. We started talking and decided to do a cane scene together. I hadnt used canes in a while and pretty much used every one of my canes on her back during a very nice scene. I do love playing with this girl. We both had a very good time and then watched a few other scenes going on. Then I met the friend from the hot tub and we decided it was hot tub time again. After a couple of hours it was bedtime, somewhat early at around 3am.
Sunday is always a good day at GLLA, the brunch happens. The brunch makes me both happy and sad, sad because its the last major event of the weekend and happy because there is unlimited bacon. There were a couple of leather presentations also, one I knew about and was happy to see and another I had no idea was going to happen and made me cry again. Its good to see friends get the honors they deserve, it makes me feel good.
After the brunch there was much packing and loading up of the car and a last meeting to attend. It was a good meeting of a local group I am a member of and went well. After the meeting we spent a while saying goodbye to people here and there and then hit the road to pick up the dog from his vacation weekend and the cat from the vet clinic and then came home. Its always good to come home, as much fun as the weekend always is :)