Kuro Neko Con 2011~ Day 2. Maid cafe, running on an hour of sleep...

Kuro Neko Con Trip, Day 2

I woke up very, very early, running on very little sleep at about 5:30 AM. I went in the bathroom, got undressed, and tried to turn on the shower. Pulled the shower thing forward, turned it, lifted that little nob thing.... nothing was turning on! I was annoyed. This shower was like a puzzle. After about five minutes of trying, I yelled out to Samantha, who was still sleeping... "Samantha how in the Hell do you turn this shower on?" I was sort of laughing at myself. She was sleeping pretty hard, so Shawn yelled back "Pull the nob!" I go back to the shower handle, and yank it. Nope.

At this point, I had a towel wrapped around me. Eddie straight busts in! No knock, no nothing, to turn the shower on. I was like... uhh, wow. o_o He messed with it for about a minute, still couldn't get it going, and Patrick came in. I was like, "Uhh, hi everyone." Eddie got the shower to turn on, then they left. Interesting and awkward way to start the morning. I got into the shower, got clean and got out. I had brought in my PJs so I had something to wear while I was doing my hair and makeup without having to wear my somewhat tight and itchy costume all morning.

Me and Samantha were the first ones to get ready. Notice the cat shirt, lol.

Samantha was the next one to wake up, and we went down to breakfast together. There was a pretty good selection down there. Note: I was NOT in my maid costume at this point, but in my PJs, just saying. It was about 6:30 AM. I got myself half a bagel, a piece of wheat toast, yogurt and a glass of orange juice. There was a tempting waffle machine but with my blood sugar I would just be hungry again in an hour. Had to at least try and go whole grain.

We went back up to the room where everyone was still sleeping, including Patrick and Louie on the floor. Shawn was sort of getting up. I finished up my makeup, including those awful fake eyelashes, and put my costume on. Samantha helped me lace it up, and I was concerned about bending over and people seeing my underwear and felt very uncomfortable. Patrick and Louie got ready really quickly, and were done about the same time that I was. We all decided we would drive up together, though I warned them that the con didn't open until 11 and they might be stuck waiting around. Luckily, they had a little tilapia that morning so were pretty laid back about everything.

We stopped at a Walgreens and Louie did me an awesome favor by going into the store and buying me a Tide to go stick just in case I spilt coffee all over myself. I didn't end up needing it, but it was very helpful of him regardless just to know that I had it just in case. I'm pretty sure if I didn't have it I would of spilt at some point, that's just how these things go. Here's me and Patrick sitting in the car.

We got to the con at about 8:45 AM, and I went to the back cafe area to meet up with Cara and Miyuki, aka Maid Sama. They were basically the bosses of the establishment for the two days because they had done it the previous years.

Here's a picture of me, Kellsey, and Jess (or Lavariel) the morning when we were setting things up.

Getting the maid cafe set up was a LOT of work!

It would of been a lot easier, too, if I was in my normal work outfit of athletic shorts and a t-shirt. We were wrapping up flowers, putting labels on treats, figuring out how to make everything on our menu (mainly drinks), putting drinks in ice, learning the ropes of HOW we execute doing a maid cafe, etc.... There wasn't really anything out of the ordinary about our serving. We were just pretty much told to be like waitresses. I was expecting us to be more forward and touchy like in a real maid cafe but I was happy that we didn't have too. There's only one man right now that can get close too, but other than that I don't like touching anyone. Not even putting my hand on someone's shoulder or anything. I'm not really a touchy person.

We put up a lot of decorations. Mainly streamers and such. Me and Andrea did a really good job at wrapping up some poles with pink and white streamers, and there were little butterfly stickers put up. Most of the stuff was pretty gaudy, but it was meant to be that way.

Me writing up the menu "Specials", which were basically homemade goodies....

The cafe openned after openning ceremonies, and I was assigned to be one of the waitresses. Me and a couple other girls, like Sakura (her real name is Sam), Kellsey, and Autumn were all asked to help and serve people food. It was a tough job. After about an hour I was kind of wishing I would of been a hostess. I liked the attention though, it was fun. I got tipped a few times too. There was one table that Sam gave the menus too (and flirted with) that I gave drinks too and smiled at a lot. They ended up tipping us $20! Cha-ching! This wasn't much though because at the end of the day they were going to divide up the tips between all of us. If it hadn't of been this way I would of made $15, but I can see why it was that way. How were the hostesses supposed to get tipped? Or the girl that had the hard job of clearing tables and helping with drinks? It was very fair how it all came together.

I didn't actually end up getting any tip money because as soon as it was over at 3' before the Ouran Host Club came in I flat bailed. I was like, wow, I've been in here since 8 am without break and haven't been able to see the con at all. So yeah... wasn't really planning on coming back the next day when I had to leave early anyway. So I let them divide out the tips amongst themselves and cut me out. I figured that it'd only be like $3 or $4 anyway and I really wanted to find my group.

All of the maids. (I'll write a little about my experience with each.. Starting from the left)

• Kara. She was our boss, and set everything up. She was very kind to me when I talked to her on the phone about maid orientation and I appreciated her overall patience with me. She was very organized and pretty nice to all of us during the con, and appreciated the work I put in on the first day.
• Andrea. This is Dave's girlfriend and I spent a lot of time sitting and talking with her when the cafe got slow around 1 PM. We both got pretty bored at the same time.
• (in back) Gina. She is SUPER gorgeous. I'm pretty sure she's Italian or Spanish or something. She was really friendly with me and laid back but helped me a lot with making drinks. She came in sort of late and she didn't talk to Kara before the con, but because she was dressed up and worked last year Kara was fine with it. I'm happy she did work with us.
• Miyuki. I'm unsure what her real name is but apparently her nickname is "Maid Sama." She did a LOT of the decorating and made the table settings look really nice. She kept really busy, even in our down time, so I didn't talk to her very much.
• Sam, or Sakura. She was one of the first people I talked to when she showed up, and she reminded me a LOT of Carmin Vaughn for some reason. We talked quite a bit too, and I really like her. She said we should meet up for Sakura Con. : ) It'd be cool to get a big group together next year. She seemed to have prior waitress experience.
• Kellsey. She was sort of the cutesy one of all of us. She made her WHOLE costume herself, which was really cool in my opinion-- even the pleats. I sort of guessed she might be LDS because her dress had that reserved cut with the small shoulder covering sleeves, but turns out my judgement was wrong. She was super nice and I liked her too. In fact, I liked everyone that I got a chance to talk too in the cafe for the most part.
• Jess, or Lavariel. She got on my case about people not being served, even if I had been running around like a maniac trying to get everyone covered. She said that "people were complaining." This was right at the beginning when everyone was flooding in, and it made me a little on eggshells and had to step up my game. This was really the only contact I had with her, she seemed cool though. She dated Brooke Combs for awhile.

After I left the maid cafe I called Samantha and Shawn, but Shawn didn't pick up. I then called Eddie and he said they had left to get something to eat. It was about 3' and I was sort of sad that they left without trying to get ahold of me at all. I figured they just thought I was still working, so I called up Patrick and he said he and Louie would come get me.

I ended up walking around the vendor hall a bit, and try to take in what people had been doing all day. It was a lot like last year, lots of nick-nacks for sale, LOTS AND LOTS of art vendors. Probably more art vendors this year than last year. Shawn noticed a significant difference but I didn't really get a chance to look that much. I had found Sarah from my Japanese class and we walked together for a bit.

These guys were in the vendor hall and they wanted a picture of me so I took one of them, too. The one on the left was really hot, admittedly. I'm sure a LOT of girls at the con thought so too because it seems like anime fanatic girls are mad about Asian guys. They were selling mousepads with boobs on them.

Patrick and Louie came to pick me up pretty fast and we went back to the hotel room where I ate some ramen, popcorn, a rice crispy treat.. whatever I could get my hands on. I was STARVING! I hadn't eaten since 6 AM and it was about 4 PM when we got back to the hotel room. When Shawn, Eddie and Samantha got back Eddie noticed the wrappers and I just laughed at how much I had ate. I thought the food was for everyone, and I thought he'd be happy someone had eaten at least some of it.

We then started getting ready for the rave. I pretty much just touched up my makeup-- for *some* reason I had been breaking out sort of badly, and put my hair up into a ponytail. I wore the typical black tank top and shorts, like I always wear to raves. Next time around I'm gonna bring my rainbow socks and some bright makeup or something, but this year I spaced it. I didn't even think I would be going to the rave but because they had a DJ this time around I was stoked.

I went with Patrick and Louie to the rave, but we took a-- errr, side trip. We drove around the city and enjoyed some Tilapia, just to relax. They didn't plan on going to the rave but wanted to swim at the hotel. They dropped me at the school, after being a little lost and paranoid, and I said my goodbyes and thank yous and met up with Samantha, Shawn and Eddie. Eddie and Shawn were playing Magic the Gathering and I could hear music coming from inside. I was pretty excited, it was about 6 PM.

The Rave

I was pretty stoned and exausted in this picture, to be honest with you. I was wearing Louie's nametag that says "Big Brave" because I didn't end up getting one after being a volunteer. I got my volunteer name tag on the second day, but nobody seemed to notice that my nickname on my tag made no sense what so ever. It was between "Big Brave" and "Poopsicles" or whatever Patrick choose as his nickname on his tag. I thought Big Brave was a little more believable, even if i'm not the large Mexican man that picked it. If anyone asked I'd just say it was a soccer nickname or something.

Samantha said that this time spent outside with her boyfriend and Eddie playing magic was the best because it was so peaceful and nice out. The same thing could of been said for me, I had just had my best time of the trip too. I was pretty ready to go dance though, regardless if it wasn't really a RAVE-rave (the kind where people are on Ecstacy and dancing until 2 am... I mean this one started at 6 and was supposed to end at 11'... hmm...). Me and Samantha went in first, and met up with Sarah Welker and her group. They were playing hardcore music, and I was having a blast dancing too it even if I usually hate dancing. I've found that dancing to hardcore music is pretty fun though because there's really no right or wrong way to do it like in hip hop. Lots of crazy nerds jumping and running around, it started out pretty good.

Samantha was annoyed as hell that Shawn wasn't in the room, and we went back outside after two songs to go get them. Shawn sort of bitched that they would be in in just a second and that we should of just waited. I didn't really care either way but I knew that it meant a lot to Samantha to have a good time so I came with her. Once Shawn was in, Samantha started having a way better time too and we all danced for about a half an hour before I met Naomi.

Naomi is this really pretty girl from Priest Lake that wanted to dance the whole time like I did, so we danced together for like two hours. We got pretty pissed off by the fact that a lot of the people in there were just standing around instead of dancing... You have to have almost EVERYONE dancing for it to be a good time. I just think people got insecure, and we just tried to make the most of it. At some points, it was just me, Naomi and this girl dressed as a Panda. Really fun. : )

I danced off and on with Samantha, Shawn and Eddie and realized that they had left the room at about 8:30. I went out and asked what was up and they said that they were ready to head back. I was starting to get annoyed with how many people weren't dancing too, so I decided I was fine with leaving. I said my goodbyes, and we got in the car.



On our way back, I asked about what everyone did that day because I didn't get a chance to see them much. I was also talking about how much fun the rave was until it got lame and how much fun Naomi was. Samantha told me that she thought Naomi's outfit was sort of gross because she was wearing a really high cut shirt that says "Trash" with her bra sticking out the bottom. Eddie and Shawn agreed, and I did understand where they were coming from. But, I had to defend her case on the fact that because it WAS a rave, she was probably expecting it to be like 102+ degrees in there and so she dressed really skimpily so she wouldn't get too hot. I saw girls in there with there shirts completely OFF, even if it was only 100 or so degrees. Samantha and me got in a bit of an arguement in the car about this for like 10 minutes or so but it passed. I think she thought I called her immature, which then I had to defend that I didn't call her that... It was pretty stupid. I understood where Samantha was coming from, but at the same time I felt that because it was a rave you can't really judge how someone is dressed.

After the rave me, Shawn, Eddie and Samantha ended up going to a sushi restaurant after stopping back at the hotel to get ready first and decide if we wanted to go out to dinner or not. This place was really nice, and there were little plates of sushi going around on a conveir belt. We ended up getting a big bento plate for about $12 and it was super delicious! I immediately knew what I wanted-- the sushi bento, which had 4 pieces of cali roll, shrimp tempura, some random weird seafood tempura thing, and three pieces of sashimi. Great deal for $13.50. Eddie couldn't decide what he wanted, so I recommended the katsu. We all ended up getting the bento deal except for Shawn who got beef teriyaki with vegetables and rice. He ended up pretty much picking out the beef. I think his dish was only like $8 and it was HUGE! This was a great place to eat.

I was already done with my meal for quite some time when they got done with there's. For some reason I seem to eat way faster than most people. Shawn and Eddie fighting over a piece of chicken or something, haha. I ended up getting sesame balls from the convier belt that were filled with anko paste, and had everyone try them. Everyone actually liked them, I was surprised!

Pool War

When we got back to the hotel, I went down the the pool to go sit in the hot tub for awhile. Again, it was busy as hell. I got into the pool, not really caring about my hair as much, and there were about 10 little boys swimming around and splashing eachother, along with me, Eddie, Patrick and Louie. Patrick began a game of tag, and wanted me to play,  but I didn't want too. So I told one of the kids that looked about 9 or so that my group said they could beat them in a game of tag (hahahaha). Immediately, they started a game. Three 9 year old boys against Eddie, Patrick and Louie. I got into the game too for awhile, and we all played for about a half an hour. It was fun because we were getting killed, these kids could swim super fast. About 40 minutes later, I was pooped out and called an end to the game.

I went back up to the room, hoping to get some sleep. I was pretty beat to shit. Everyone was on the floor playing a game that Louie brought that is like this crazy war game that takes forever. I was on the floor uploading pictures and working on the math homework. Samantha lended me her computer because it had a card reader on it. So I was sort of excluding myself from the game, but they didn't seem to mind much. Afterward, I got up on the bed and started playing my DS. When everyone started settling in, someone said SOMETHING that made us all start to laugh our asses off, I had no clue what. We laughed and made a TON of noise until like 1:30 am and I'm like "Guys I really don't want to get in trouble. shhhhh" But at the same time I was laughing my ass off too.

I decided I was going to sleep on the floor, and Patrick jumped up on the bed so he would have a place to sleep. Eddie didn't seem pleased by this, and he was like "Emily get back on the bed right now!" I just laughed and let Patrick sleep up there. Patrick is totally straight, and even if he was gay I doubt he would actually try anything. Yes, Patrick and Louie joke around about gay stuff a lot but they're not actually that way and Eddie should just calm down, haha. I was about to go to sleep on the floor when Tyler Davenport messaged me because he was freaked out by some movie and we ended up talking on the phone about it in the bathroom. Pretty interesting night.

Wow, three hours to write this. I better get going. I'll write about day 3 later. Should be a lot quicker than this. Sorry this entry was so long, I just really want to be able to remember everything before I forget.

yours,

Emily