LA 09 Con Report - The J's in all their glory ;-)
LA Con - "Hey baby...where you taking baby?"
Wow, I am back from LA and it was FANTASTIC! I have been trying to read all the other reports to remember every detail of the panels. It's hard to remember when you are there - it all goes by in a blur and then your brain fries and boom, you need others to refresh your memory as to what was said and done.
I won't go too much into the panels since there are other great reports out there. I will, however, tell the tales of the photo ops and autograph sessions ;-)
The title refers to Jared's pre-occupation with a baby during his panel, lol. It was freaking adorable when he thought it was a cat meowing in the audience and the mother said, 'it's a baby' and well, I am sure you have read the exchange that followed. I want a sound file of him saying, 'Hey baby', hee hee. And then he said, 'where's the baby?' a few times randomly. And my favorite was 'where you taking baby?' when the mom was walking out during the panel with a fussy baby ;-)
Pattyshadopath and I went last year and here we were again - same hotel, same two J's and we were ready to be dazzled again!
I'll start with the photo ops since they are right after the breakfast. I will say this about the breakfast - I'm torn about the new policy of assigning tables. Yes, it does eliminate the need to wait in the corridor outside the door all night to get a front table), but because we bought out tickets a few months after they went on sale, we got a row farther back in Gold than we did last year. So, our breakfast table assignment was pretty far in the back. Last year we were at the front table, mostly because we got up at 3 and went downstairs at around 4 and only had two people in front of us in line. Sigh. Anyway, we were further back at the breakfast, so I really was grateful for people's reports on what was said - I did hear 99% of it, but the boys were a bit far away so some of it may have been hard to catch.
I did love their entrance. When Jensen immediately admitted that it was his fault they were late because he hit the off button instead of the snooze button. Then he said he showered and dressed in something like 12 minutes and then proceeded to walk right up to Jared, expose his front teeth and ask if there was something in his teeth ;-) It sort of set the tone for this convention, which I like to subtitle, 'the one in which Jensen was either on happy pills, still drunk from their private wrap party of the night before or just finally got comfortable enough at these things to out-goofy Jared. It was hilarious ;-) I have been to two other cons and seen vids of even more and I have never seen Jensen quite so loose - he even instigated things like dancing on stage, wiggling around to the music, saying outrageous things, etc. It was fun as hell. Jared, of course, was his normal adorable self - he never disappoints. He's a bundle of energy, warmth, humor and goofiness all rolled into one ;-)
Sorry, got sidetracked a bit.
The photo ops. We were getting the duo one and the Jared solo, so the duo was first for us. We were making our way in the line towards the room and Patty was first this year - we switched from last year. Last year she was after me, so she was kind enough to remind me to smile and give me that moral support from the sidelines! So, we switched it this year and she was first. I didn't need to remind her to smile- she did wonderfully, but then again, it's easy to smile surrounded by those two guys ;-) Anyway, my mind was working furiously, reminding myself to relax and smile and not grimace as I think I have done in the past. The set up is that you enter the picture area from the right and Jared is on that side, so when I took a step, I was actually right in Jensen's eyeline.
Now, I have to say that although I am a Sammy and Jared girl, I do love Dean and Jensen, but I have not had as much interaction with Jensen in past cons. He's gorgeous of course, but it's Jared who does weird things to my insides, lol. Okay, back to what I was saying - I made eye contact with Jensen and since I wasn't really expecting to look directly at either of them (weird, I know, but it goes by so fast that there really isn't time for a chat, so to speak and since I am pretty short, I didn't take the time to look up to meet Jared's face- the boy is tall, especially when you are inches away from him!)....so I am looking right at Jensen and out pops this, "Help me smile good". Oh dear. The look on his face was so funny - it was like he was thinking, 'uh, okay, I'll try, but I have no idea what you want me to do', so I get between them, Jared puts his hand on my shoulder, I put my arms around their waists, snap, picture is taken. Now, I think, it's over, I can relax, I smiled, all is right with the world.
But then I feel a tap on my shoulder from behind and I turn and I am facing Jared's chest - he had tapped me to get me to turn around because he wanted to say something. Now mind you, I still haven't looked directly into his face - maybe I was afraid of being frozen or struck blind because it's too much like looking into the sun . He says, 'Help you smell good?' Seems he had misheard me when I blurted that thing out to Jensen and thought I said 'smell'. Now I can't really say what happened in my brain at this point , but something weird took over and found myself slapping Jared in the chest with the back of my hand like a sort of gentle scolding and then I said, 'Not smell! Smile!' as my hand was slapping his chest. It came out like I was gently correcting him like a mother would do, lol. My brain was yelling at me - you just hit him and scolded him, albeit in a nice tone, but STILL.....ack. I don't know what his reaction was because once again, I found it hard to look him in the eye - that whole freezing blinding thing ya know.
I got out of there and proceeded to laugh with Patty about my actions. I can say that his chest is very firm...yep, just like it looks...firm. Since that is where I come up to him, height wise, I got familiar with that part of him later in the solo ops, lol.
In that one, I went to him and immediately said, 'I'm sorry for hitting you before'. I don't know if he remembered or not, probably not, there are tons of people getting pics and it's all a blur to him, I am sure. Now, let me go back a second here - we were watching other people before us get pictures and it seemed that Jared was giving everyone the full frontal hug. Previously, I had seen people ask for a hug and he would do that - you know the pics, he is hugging you full on and you both turn your heads towards the camera. In my previous photos with Jared, he would always wrap his arm around my shoulder, my arm would go around his waist (and he was sitting on a stool, which maybe is why the hugs this time - he was standing the whole time), and at last year's LA con, I even got the cheek to cheek smush. But this time, he was full on hugging....hmm, this was going to be interesting ;-)
So, I got my arms around him, he did the same and my face went smack into his chest. For some reason, I am not smiling in this pic - I'm not grimacing or anything, but I think the sheer reality of the fact that I was in a full on hug with him did something weird to my brain and the muscles that controlled my mouth went haywire - the brain just couldn't handle the stimulus, lol. But it is funny to see his huge hands covering my back near my neck. By the way, he smells really good ;))
So, right after the picture, he did answer my apology about hitting him. He said something like, 'don't worry, I run into things all the time, they bounce off me' or something to that effect - once again - brain not connecting very well at this point, so the memory may be suffering a bit ;-)
I will add that having ones arms around Jared is very enlightening. He is absolutely solid - hee hee - very fit, ahem, as we all saw in that infamous bird kissing pic ;-)
Now, on to the autograph session.
Patty had given me a copy of the adorable pic from the SPN Magazine of the boys at the Chicago Convention, posing for a photo op, so I decided to get that autographed. The gifts I brought for them were giant Gummy Bears - now, that needs some explanation. Here is the web page where you can see them:
www.vat19.com/dvds/giant-gummy-bear-on-a-stick.cfm
I got a red one for Jared and a green one for Jensen. I thought hey were hilarious - they weigh a half pound each and are each the equivalent of 88 regular gummy bears. It was a perfect gag gift and the visual aspect of plopping that down in front of them was well worth it.
They were wrapped in clear plastic and all I did was tie a card around the stick of each one saying 'enjoy'.
Jensen was first at the table, so I waited until he signed my photo and then whipped out the Gummy Bear and held it out to him. I said, 'I brought you a giant Gummy Bear.' He took it and just stared at it with a look of surprise on his face. I think he said something along the lines of 'No, really?' or 'Wow,' or something. I went on to say, 'It weighs half a pound', he just kept staring at it and chuckling. Then I crooked my thumb towards Jared when Jensen looked up at me and I said, 'I have a red one for Jared, so you can switch if you want'. I have no idea why I said that, it was just that I found that I had a few extra seconds and since I hadn't planned any kind of speech or even what I was going to say, I just blurted that out.
He thanked me and I moved along to Jared. Patty was telling Jared about her gift and I'll let her tell the story, but since I knew how amazing both of her gifts were, I wanted to make sure Jared looked further into her gift bag later on. The handlers did have a tendency to take gifts away from them quickly, so I was worried that Jared wouldn't fully appreciate the cleverness and awesomeness of her gift! So, before I whipped out the Gummy Bear for him, I said, 'You have to look at that doll', pointing behind him to where Patty's gift was sitting in the bag ;-) Then I whipped out the red Gummy and handed it to him. His eyes lit up and I said, 'I got you a giant Gummy Bear, it weighs half a pound and is the equivalent of 88 regular ones' (at least I think I said that last part, I don't really recall now, lol). Anyway, he was dumstruck by it, he kept squeezing it and I think he did say something like Jensen did, in other words, 'No! Really, wow, that's big!' or whatever. But then Jared said something that really cracked us up - after I told him it weighed half a pound, he said, 'That's like a steak!' All I can imagine now is Jared eating the Gummy Bear with a plate and fork and steak knife, delicately slicing off an arm or a leg or a head as he gobbles it up, lol.
He thanked me and we moved on. I may not have all of that exactly right as far as what they said, but my mind is a blur, so that's pretty close. It was well worth it - the Gummy Bears may never get eaten by them, but it was worth it to see their faces when they were confronted by an overgrown monster Gummy Bear. I thought the bears were a good choice too - they have both mentioned gummy bears before and we know Jared loves candy, but also the giant Teddy Bear in Wishful Thinking sort of put a 'bear' theme on things this season ;-) And how perfect is it that before the autograph sessions, at the duo panel, the giant mute Teddy Bear dressed fan entered the room silently and got in line to ask a question. Very funny moment ;-)
I know there is a lot more to remember, but for now, I will end this with just a few words. I loved every moment of seeing both Jared and Jensen - they really were wonderful. They answered questions seriously, they were both heartfelt and open and entertaining as hell. Jensen was so loose that it was a joy to behold. I particularly loved the one question that someone asked both of them. She asked Jensen first since his panel was first. She asked (and I will be paraphrasing), 'If we didn't know Jared at all, what story would you tell to convey what he is like'. Jensen answered this one so sincerely, it almost made me choke up ;-) He said (once again, paraphrasing and if you see the vids, you get the exact words), 'I've known him awhile and I know what Jared is like when he's sad, when he's angry, when he's had a fight with a girlfriend....but with all those things, he is passionate about what he does, he loves his friends and family and his dogs and they love him...' It was adorable and very heartwarming.
Jared's answer to this question was to briefly recount the infamous first season bar fight during off hours and he said that Jensen came back in to rescue Jared since Jared had gotten tackled by a few of the guys who jumped them. He said Jensen had gotten away and didn't have to come back in, but he did because he stands up for his friends and he's a stand up guy.
Both great responses. I always love how, at all the cons, Jared and Jensen never just flippantly answer a question for a laugh and then move on - they may do the funny answer first, but then they do answer the question seriously. As for the serious questions- they always treat them seriously and answer them respectfully.
I think I am talked out for now - I am sure I will remember other things later! I can't report on any other panels since we didn't go to any! We did hit the dessert party for a bit and we got to chat with Richard Speight at our table and Steve Carlson. I did tell Steve as he was leaving that I liked his haircut, lol. He was very appreciative; he told us that some other woman told him she didn't like it and I think his feelings were hurt. I was being sincere - the new haircut was much better, in my opinion, lol.
I had a GREAT time with Patty - we giggled and laughed so hard! In fact, poor Patty may have pulled something from laughing! ;-)) We hope to do it again next year!
All in all, anytime seeing Jared and Jensen is a FANTASTIC, WONDERFUL, ENCHANTING time! The boys rock and long may they continue to rock!