Invitation to Kittencon

by Tom • Mar 18th, 2008 at 11:56 am •

I would like to, at this time, officially invite all of our readers (and, as always, correspondents) to our house for kittencon, our yearly celebration of kitten’s birthday in particular and high weirdness in general. It will be held during April 4-6, 2008.

I had been hoping to be celebrating sending Riding the Hell-bound Train off to the publishers, but, unfortunately, that is not to be. A lot of the early Urbanagora articles have needed extensive revision and rewriting. I’m approaching a quarter of the way through the 90,000+ words in the book and it looks like it will be a June release.
In any case, here’s the link to the webpage with the details on the weekend. Some of you do not know where the house is. Please send email to the address near the bottom of the page and we’ll give you the information that you need to get here. If any of you are from out of town, the hotels do fill up for this event, depending on how many are there. (In the past, we’ve had anywhere from 20 to 100 attendees). We’re having a book reading on Friday night and a live “Dr. Demento-style” concert on Saturday night, so I’m expecting a big turnout.
I sure hope you can make it over. I’d like to personally spend time with each and every one of you, especially our new posters.
Tom Trumpinski

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There Are 13 Responses So Far. »

  1. Comment by thetodd on 17 March 2008 at 6:31 pm:

    I will be attending. I’m not sure which day(s) and times yet, but I’ll be there.

    Perhaps we should arrange a specific time and date for Urbanagora people to meet up. The reason I suggest this is twofold:

    1. The event is 3 days long. If some people only show up on Friday and others on only Saturday, we’ll miss each other.

    2. Some people are probably not interested in Kittencon, but they are interested in meeting others from UA.

    I expect to be in Champaign the whole weekend, so if there’s anyone out there who would like to meet me but is unable/unwilling to attend this event, let me know, and we can arrange something else.

  2. Comment by thetodd on 17 March 2008 at 6:36 pm:

    Oops - forgot to put my email at the end of that comment. My Gmail username is thetodd.

  3. Comment by Segen on 17 March 2008 at 6:38 pm:

    1.) How do I get to your house?–No address listed.

    2.) I LOVEEEEE cats!

    3.) Anyone is welcome to stay on my couch (I live in Champaign) if he or she would like to save some money.

  4. Comment by segen on 17 March 2008 at 6:40 pm:

    1.B) I did not carefully read your post regarding the house address. I will email you.

    4.) I guess anonymity is over for me! However, I have wanted to meet many of you in person. Consequences.

  5. Comment by thetodd on 17 March 2008 at 6:47 pm:

    Segen, I’ll take you up on your couch offer. Thanks. It’s very kind of you.

  6. Comment by Segen on 17 March 2008 at 6:51 pm:

    All–

    I am sorry. I only have one couch. It is now taken.

    Offer rescinded! :-)

    ~Segen

  7. Comment by tet on 17 March 2008 at 9:13 pm:

    I’m looking forward to meeting both of you in person. I think you’ll really like the Elderwife, Segen.

    Todd, this is going to be fun. Wait til I take you downstairs and turn you loose in the library.

    The two of you might want to go back to January of 2007 and read the three articles on the household so you know who the people are and how the houses are laid out.

    Tom

  8. Comment by Segen on 17 March 2008 at 9:31 pm:

    Tom:

    I read your earlier posts. Here are my questions:

    1.) Why do only the women get kitchens? Why don’t the men have kitchens if everything is “equal” as you say?

    2.) Why doesn’t everyone do their own laundry?

    3.) How do your children feel about your marriage?

  9. Comment by tet on 17 March 2008 at 10:14 pm:

    1) The men have no special rooms whatsoever except for the ManCave–not even their own bedrooms.

    I would never construe the term “equality” as meaning that everyone gets exactly the same thing each time. What we have is communism–”from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs.”

    Each of us has the same right to be heard, to be supported in situations where we’re between jobs, to be loved and appreciated. That’s real equality–the only way you can get material equality is to lower everyone to the lowest common denominator.

    Getting back to the kitchens questions–the Elderwife agrees with you about each wife not needing a kitchen. The reason that I wanted the present setup is that all of the successful group marriages of five or more people had a kitchen for each wife. I figured it might be important.

    Besides, what the hell would I do with a kitchen?

    2) Elderwife does her own laundry (with a little help from me). Kitten does her own if I get a bit behind. The major reason I do laundry is that I am not physically able to do a lot of other chores because of my damaged heart and eyes. Shovelling snow, for example, would probably kill me within 15 minutes or so.

    I also do vacuuming in the main floor of the house and help a bit with the financial planning.

    The other Spice have jobs around the house that they’re really good at. Some do more than others, depending on what their shifts are like at their jobs and so forth. If we really get behind on the chores, we hire maids or groundskeepers to come in and get the place up to snuff (especially if there’s a special event coming up).

    3) The children (and the older grandchildren) think it’s kind of weird, but they’re pretty darn tolerant.

    The efficiency of a five-person marriage allows us financial reserves which enable us to help any and all of our five children when they need it.

    For a while, two of the five lived in rental units near us (in a square block area in Champaign) until all of us saved enough money to buy houses.

    I’d say it’s positive overall.

    Tom

  10. Comment by Segen on 17 March 2008 at 10:36 pm:

    Do your collective children think of you all as mothers and fathers? Similarly, do you think of all the children as your own?

  11. Comment by Anonymous on 18 March 2008 at 4:59 am:

    Segen said-

    Do your collective children think of you all as mothers and fathers? Similarly, do you think of all the children as your own?

    -
    Child popping in here. The answer (for me) is “mostly no” to them all being parents. I have parents, step-parents, in-laws and that’s more than plenty parental dealings for me.

    My upbringing was very much “it takes a village” so I’m used to a lot of extra people, but those extra people are bonuses, not more important. I generally consider them “housemates” or “friends” of my parent in this household.

    I like all the spice as individuals. I have been friends with one or two of them to varying degrees over the years. As a group they are a little bit of overload at times.

    Yes, I think this is pretty darn weird. I have had a very hard time in several social settings because one or more of the spice have ABSOLUTELY NO edit button and talk very freely - truth, yes; but VERY hard to explain to the mundane folk.

    There’s a lot more to it than what I feel comfortable discussing here- there’s a lot of intracacies and subtle nuance to dealing with this all the time. I’ll try to let the house know when I plan to attend the shindig and you can ask more questions if you like.

  12. Comment by Kit Fenderson-Peters on 19 March 2008 at 5:54 am:

    The wife and I are coming! Hide the whiskey.

  13. Comment by xap on 19 March 2008 at 8:42 am:

    I think i mentioned this to one of you at some point, but just in case….
    the xaplings and i will be there from sometime mid-day Saturday until Sunday afternoon :)

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