And here's the long-awaited Big Damn Shindig post! Man, having this much fun should be illegal.

Over the weekend, we proved without a doubt that they couldn't take the sky from us--in fact, Mother Nature tried her darnedest to GIVE us the sky! Kristin (our lovely hostess) reported Sunday morning that we'd gotten 10 inches of rain on Saturday. As last year was known as the "2004 Rickstravaganza" (posts one and two), this year was referred to as the "Ten Thousand Miles of Rain" Shindig, as the Weather Channel reported that the entire East Coast was in a deluge, stretching all the way down to Cuba.

I left for the Shindig early, on Friday evening, to help out. On the train ride over, I listened to the audio book of Jim Butcher's Storm Front, which was awesome. I got the package notice an hour before I left--perfect timing! The audio book usually retails for $49, but being fabulous, I found it on eBay for $20. I finished it Monday morning, and I'm now scouring the web for a similarly discounted audio version of the second book in the series, with no luck so far.

I've come to realize that it's much easier for me to block out time to listen to an audio book than to read a book. It's the same for my sister. And this even applies to books I've been waiting for for months! I've had Anansi Boys for weeks and Son of a Witch since it's been out, and I've barely cracked the covers. I'm only just finishing The Big Over Easy, and it's been out since late summer. I fail at literacy.

Anyway, it turns out I was too late to help with the tents, which had been put up by Kristin (who had been kicked in the abdomen by a horse the previous week, and definitely needed the extra hands), Jen (the Australian), and Ryan and his wife Courtney. I was able to help out with signage and heavy-lifting, and only got mildly electrocuted by the icicle lights we were hanging around the tent's perimeter!

The next morning, we were treated to sausage, toast, and Kristin's mother's "Living Legend Eggs" (yes, that's a Jaynestown reference), which more than live up to their name. Best scrambled eggs on the face of the planet. Ryan and Paul (Kristin's brother) spent a lot of the morning fussing with the tents, which had survived the night's wind and rain against all odds. Around 11, when people started arriving, Paul came around with the "Big Damn Heroes," two massive sub sandwiches, one three feet and the other six feet long. We take our Firefly-themed food very seriously at the Pennsylvania Shindig!

After lunch and a prolonged meet-and-greet, we launched into Firefly Jeopardy. I was lucky enough to be picked out of the hat again, and even luckier to be on the Blue Bell team. The three bells--blue, red, and purple--were quite infamous last year, as in both games of Jeopardy last year, the Blues triumphed and the Reds failed miserably. I had been on the Blue team last year, paired with Steve, whom we later dubbed "Freakish Memory Guy." Steve ended up on the Purple team this year: it was his enormous brain against the curse! Can't you just feel the drama?

Well, the Curse won out. Or maybe, my team's combined Freakish Intellect won out. We triumphed, 16,000 for us to 7,000 purple and 200 red, or thereabouts. Though no one questioned Freakish Memory Guy's title when he remembered the name of the partygoer in "Shindig" who had his gun confiscated: Courtland. It was this year's equivalent of my remembering last year the two characters that are seen using sugar tongs throughout the series: Inara and Jayne. As I said, Freakish.

I felt good about myself and justified in last year's victory. For a long time, I'd been thinking that the only reason I won then was because I was paired with Steve, whereas this year, I was the one ringing in with the correct answer more often than not. I don't feel guilty any more, huzzah! I credit my success to my River costume.

Which reminds me! Costumes! Ryan and Courtney outdid themselves. Last year, Ryan came as Wash and Courtney had costumes for Kaylee and Saffron. This year, Ryan had a screen-perfect Jayne costume (he even grew his facial hair to match!), and Courtney was equally impressive in her Ariel EMT uniform. I was going for River's Objects in Space/Jaynestown outfit, though far from screen-accurate.

Before Rhyme's massive DVD auction, I gathered up my "Once More, With Feeling" cast for a runthrough. Last year, a bunch of us randomly burst into the musical and ended up singing from the beginning all the way through "Standing." Kristin suggested I put together something more organized this year, and it was so! We spent a few minutes going over the group numbers, then went back to the tents for the auction. (Well, first I changed in to my Zoe costume, because my River costume was far too cold.) There must have been over a hundred titles up for grabs! She gets huge numbers of free DVDs as a job perk, and she generously donated them to the Shindig to pay for Kristin's expenses.

After dinner (dessert: strawberry shortcake), as Kristin and a team of helpers set up the screenings and made popcorn, we put on our Singalong. Courtney made a fabulous Tara, Cephme made an impressive Giles, Sami was woefully underused as Dawn, Dan was endearing as Xander, Jessica had tremendous fun with Anya, I heartily mocked Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy, and Mark came in at the last minute to play Sweet. Somehow, Scott ended up as Spike, even though he's never seen the episode and had to learn the music during the auction! I tried to rope in Kristin as Willow, but she weaseled out of it, giving the role to Josie, who also played Marti Noxon (the parking ticket lady). Ryan popped in long enough to provide David Fury's "They Got the Mustard Out." Jimmy, Steve (Freakish Memory Guy), and Rob voiced the "Going Through the Motions" demons and Joss' sung "Grr! Argh!" at the end. I'll write about it in a seperate post, illustrated with Ryan's pictures.

After the Singalong, we watched Jaynestown and Trash and cheered wildly for our real hero of Canton, Rick, the Mudder that throws himself in front of the bullet meant for Jayne. Our love for Rick blossomed at last year's shindig, when one of the fan-provided questions at the trivia bee inquired at the character's name. No one knew. The answer key said "Rick," but none of us could remember the name being mentioned, and it wasn't in the credits. A shindigger later observed that the actor had played Rick on 24 and that in the shooting script, the character is actually named Meadows, but our the name stuck. Rick became the Shindig's Figwit.

Because of the uncomfortable weather and temperature, I decided to turn in early rather than watch "Safe" with the others. I wasn't the only one. We'd all had a long day!

Sunday's events will be chronicled in a later post.