2002 Pasadena Xena Convention

DISCLAIMER: The following is a purely subjective view of what happened during the convention weekend. Most quotes are paraphrased or simply my own impressions of the moment.


My Report: Day 3 - Sunday Breakfast

This is without doubt my favorite portion of the entire weekend (as you will soon see why). A lucky few of us had the opportunity to get "up close and personal" with some of the most kind and generous people on the planet.

My new friend Penny was one of the first people to line up outside the dining hall doors. When I got there she let me stand with her in line, even though the line had grown rather long by then... And it was only a little after 9am. The breakfast was to start at 10! Anita Ellis arrived about a quarter after 9. She was amazed at how many of us were so early. She had just come from church and asked us to give her a few minutes to prepare herself. She would then let us inside. We were all like, "Take your time. We can wait." We didn't expect her to let us in ahead of time anyway. We just wanted good seats.

So around 9:30 they let us go in and be seated. The woman who had bought Hudson's dress came shortly before that and Anita told a staff member, "She's sitting at one of the reserved tables. She gets anything she wants." Very sweet. Penny and I sat at a table just in front of the reserved guest tables, which was on the upper level of the two-teered room. The lower level filled in with latecomers (e.g., those who were on time ). We soon discovered that they ended up with the prime spots, as many of the celebs started their milling around down there to make up for them not being up top. This turned out to be a big disadvantage for us as we ended up getting the short end of the stick, for the celebs had to rush through our last few tables.

The friend of the woman who bought HL's dress sat at our table so we included both of them in the group. They were very nice and extremely generous. The one at our table bought one of Claire's "Barbie doll" videos Anita auctioned off for Kevin's family, for 300 dollars. (Another copy was auctioned off for the Foundation.) Then the woman with the dress bought an autographed, first issue, trading card of Greg's, from Dark Angel, for something like 500 dollars ... also for Kevin's family. They were amazing!

At about 9:40 or so, Anita announced that this was the first breakfast, in all the years they had been doing this, that had half of the people eating 20 minutes before start time. LOL! So we all gave a cheer for the Sheraton staff for being so well prepared and on the ball. The rest of the morning was pretty much a series of chaotic bursts. Anita only had one guaranteed guest (Hudson, of course) and then whoever else decided to arrive. Josie Ryan turned out to be the first guest to arrive, soon followed by Katherine Fugate. Anita joked how ironic it was that a Kiwi be the first to arrive... and early! Hudson showed up soon after 10 to a standing ovation. Gradually, throughout the festivities, Alex, Tsianina, Tim, Adrienne, and Michael made their entrances. Some came during several speeches, and I found it annoying that one table in particular kept interrupting the speakers to shout out "Good morning" to each new arrival. It was fun when we were all just eating and chatting amongst ourselves, but quite rude once the program had begun. Hudson responded in surprise to her, "Good morning Hudson!" with, "Good morning... People." However, Alex had the cutest come back to her welcoming fan fare. "Good morning children." LOL!!!

The program Anita had for us started out with a brief welcome and explanation of the history of the James Ellis Foundation. Anita founded it in memory of her father, and it helps students with cancer, or who have parents with cancer. In addition, it is now helping Sept 11th victims and their families. She also shared her gratitude of the relationship the foundation has with the Xena actors and fans through the charity breakfasts. Then they showed several wonderful video montages of former brunches, thanking the celebrities and giving us a glimpse of the Sept 11 charity cruise several of them put together in New York. I was quite choked up and teary eyed through it all, as I would assume most people were. It was terribly difficult to watch all of the clips with Kevin. They typically generated applause and cheers. To give you an idea of the love and appreciation that permeated the event, my hands were completely red and raw by noon when they made us all leave. Anita also had this year's scholarship recipient say a few words about how the Foundation is helping him through this difficult time of accepting his illness, fighting back with therapies, and trying to continue working on his law degree. The genuine affection for Anita by him and everyone was quite evident. He's a handsome, young man, who seemed a bit overwhelmed by everything (in particular, finding himself sitting next to Hudson during breakfast ). Later, his mother got up and thanked everyone as well.

Early on, Anita was playing "Simon Says" with the lower section when she interrupted Hudson's breakfast to have her go over and help. The final players had to stand like statues and not laugh. Hudson's job was to get them to do so. At one point, I saw her either blowing in someone's ear or biting it or something. Too funny. Anyway, they soon finished and as she was walking back to her table, passing ours, I asked her if she had gotten anything to eat. She smiled and said, "Yes," then came over to me and said, "but I'm waiting for more eggs. It wasn't enough." With that, she started talking with us -- a stay that lasted for about 10 to 15 minutes! She asked us how we were doing. We said, "Fine. How are you?" She said, "Fine," then proceeded to share with us some of her feelings and experiences during the weekend regarding Kevin and everyone's reaction. She said that Anita was the one who told her on Friday about Kevin, and her response was, "...Say that again." She couldn't believe it. She had to be told twice. Nevertheless, she immediately felt it in her heart that he was ok. This helped her a lot. It's his family who is in pain and on whom we need to focus. She said that there was talk of them canceling the Friday evening show, but her take was, "He would want us to go on and have fun." So they did it for him. On Saturday, the last thing she wanted to do was get up on that stage and talk to people. However, the minute she came into the building she could feel how low the energy was and she knew she had to do something to bring everyone up again. "Kevin would want us to have fun."

Then she got very emotional talking about a Xena fan name Caroline she had met, who just died of cancer. (This week was certainly a rough one for Hudson.) She was terribly grateful that on Caroline's last coherent day she had the opportunity to talk with her. She was amazed at how clear minded the woman was. Penny told her that she witnessed the same thing when her parents died. I said it's like they new their time had come and there was no fear, and it was their time to let everyone know that it was ok.

Finally, I got up the nerve to tell her that I had a confession to make. She looked down at me with those mischievous eyes of hers and said, "Yeees?" I revealed that I was the one who first shouted out for her to auction a kiss for Kevin's family. Before I could continue she put her hand on my shoulder, looked into my soul with the most sincere expression and said, "Thank you for doing that!" I almost died! I told her I knew it was asking a lot of her, but - "No. You did the right thing. Thank you." To which I thanked her for agreeing to do it. It meant so much to me since I didn't have any money to give to the fund (though I intend to when I can). She interrupted me again and said that it's not about money. It's about giving. I told her I really wanted to contribute something and she said, "You did! You did contribute. Because of you we raised 6,000 dollars. That's a lot. You should be proud of that." I said I was, very much so. By this time, I was shaking and getting highly emotional and told her, "But you did it. You have the most giving soul I've ever met. It meant so much what you did." She gave me the sweetest, most loving smile and put her arm around my shoulder. I responded by putting my arm around her waist and giving her a squeeze. Not that I'm complaining in the least, for few people can say that they've pressed one side of their face into Hudson's abdomen, but I did feel kind of awkward. She was standing, I was sitting ... It would have taken too much time and effort to scoot my chair out, stand and give her a proper hug ... so I just went with it. I mean, come on! How could I not hug the woman?!! She is just too wonderful for words!!!! Nevertheless, out of respect, I didn't squeeze too long. I let her go, thanked her again, she thanked me, then she thanked the whole table for our lovely talk, "I needed this." I quickly asked her if I could get a picture with her later and she smiled and said, "Absolutely," then went back to her breakfast.

AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! I am sooooo in love with this woman!!!!!!!!

At around 10:30 or so, Anita finally sent out all the celebs to mingle from table to table. Foremost on everyone's agenda was getting their pictures taken with the stars. Alex was the first to come to our table. She tried to get us conversing, but then someone mentioned getting a photograph with her and up we all got. We did the photo thang and she went on her way. Later on, we became aware of some major ruckus going on down on the lower level. Though I didn't go look, apparently some people got Alex into some mighty fun shenanigans and had her laughing up a storm. I was able to see her later on, looking much more like her usual self, pink faced and glowing with fun. This made me feel so much better. The woman just needed to laugh!

I think Hudson, Alex and Michael took the longest time with people, as well as Josie who kind of did her own thing and started mingling way before everyone else. I didn't see Katherine much until the very end (of course, being as small as she is, it wasn't hard to lose her in the crowd ). Michael, too, did his own thing and focused more on talking and sharing with everyone, while quickly fitting in photos just before moving onward. Unfortunately, this meant that the last group of tables (which included ours, dagnabit!) only had time for quick photo ops. We got so annoyed with everyone hogging the guests' time that we had to perfect our photo taking down to a quick "Hi... we just want your picture... next... next... next... Ok, great. Thanx! We love you! Bye," just so we could get to meet everyone. Michael and Hudson were the last two to come our way before noon, when we were all kicked out of the room. We barely got to say hi to Michael, which greatly disappointed me, as I wanted to hear all of the stories he was obviously telling everyone else.

Ironically, Hudson was the last guest to come and take pictures with us. As she finished the table next to us, she immediately eyed me as she came over to our table. However, several of the ladies were in position to get their pix first, so I just chilled and let them. I noticed though that after each picture, she would eye me as if to say, "Next," but someone always zipped in there before me. Finally, I took a picture of Penny with her, and then it was my turn. Hudson had inched her way over towards me while the others were getting their pix, so after Penny, she looked at me and gave me this, "Come on little girl," expression. So I made my move and squeezed in next to her. She put her arm around me and I did the same to her. Penny took our picture and then *Bam!* Hudson spontaneously gave me this huge hug! I was stunned. I whispered, "I love you so much. Thank you!" She whispered back, "Thank you." We then released, gave each other a smile and I quickly got out of her way so she could move on...

AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But wait! The morning wasn't over yet! As we were leaving, I caught sight of Katherine talking to some people in the far corner of the room. I asked Penny if she would take a picture of Katherine and me. So we made our way over, the other people around KF dispersed, and I went and asked her if I could get a picture with her. She enthusiastically said, "Sure," followed by, "Gosh! You're pretty," as she motioned me over to her side. Then, as we got in our positions, she enthused again, "You're so pretty," or some such thing. So there I was, blushing from head to toe, going "Oh, gee, thanks," as we looked at the camera and *snap!* I can't wait to see that picture! LOL! I then told her that I've read some of her comments and stuff at her website, and she's like, "Yeah I know. I'm a loon." I went "No! NO! I read your words and go 'How did she get into my brain!' It's amazing." She laughed and told me that she has gotten emails from people who tell her she's whacked and should be locked up. I told her if that's the case then so should I, cause I am thinking all the same things. We laughed some more, by which point Josie was standing next to me waiting for Katherine, so I thanked her again and made my exit.

And that, my friends, is the insanity that was the 2002 Charity Breakfast! (As humbly perceived by little ol' me. )

ps. Everyone at our table exchanged email addresses so that we can exchange pix. Whoohoo!

Copyright - Sarah Mears, 2/20/02; Edited: 3/1/02
Charity Breakfast [Pictures]

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