We had to skip the next two because we were too traumatized by the first one. Nevertheless we worked up the nerve this year to take another chance. We decided to be on the safe side this time and fly the entire distance. Things weren't off to a promising start when our 2 o'clock flight out of Tucson was delayed an hour. Once again we arrived less than an hour before the event began. We freshened up a bit, and changed into our twin costumes, and waited for the elevator and waited and waited and waited, but the elevator never came and we walked around to the other elevator, past the rowdy party that had something to do with football, went downstairs, through the lobby and down the escalator, to the ballroom, where we were promptly thrown outside. (Be patient were getting to the actual event sometime soon.)

Outside we met up with a couple of RATSAers; Tangy Nancy and Eric the Mad Poet. And we all got our pretty red bracelets and picked up our goodie packets which contained, a program, a silent auction list, a bookmark, a menu for Buck's BBQ Co. (Featuring Outback catering), an ACS One day memorial response service flyer, a Magic Mountain coupon, and a nifty sun visor from NBC's Sunset Beach. We stood around in the brisk California breeze waiting for Jeff the Webmeister and his buddy Dave, who finally arrived, and we gave them their pretty red bracelets and directed them to the table where they could pick up their goodie packets which contained, a program, a silent auction list, a bookmark, a menu for Buck's BBQ Co. (Featuring Outback catering), an ACS One day memorial response service flyer, a Magic Mountain coupon, and a nifty sun visor from NBC's Sunset Beach.

We were all waiting casually out in front and somebody decided that wasn't organized enough for a classy event like this and they got us all to stand in a line and wait to go into the ballroom. Creating a bottleneck at the front of the line were two guys checking for weapons with their scanners. We considered asking for a strip search instead, but didn't want to hold up the line.

We collected our two chips and our raffle tickets at the door, and put them in our goodie packets which contained, a program, a silent auction list, a bookmark, a menu for Buck's BBQ Co. (Featuring Outback catering), an ACS One day memorial response service flyer, a Magic Mountain coupon, and a nifty sun visor from NBC's Sunset Beach, and went in prepared for an evening of revelry. After examining the auction items and the minimum bids we decided that was not what we would be reveling in. They were auctioning a signed program from the second annual Nurses' Ball and a set of Eddie Maine and the Idle Rich memorabilia, a full color autographed poster of Nikki Cox, vintage black and white General Hospital poster of none other than Joe Kelly, (Doug Sheehan) one of Port Charles "most notable private investigators", a vintage black and white poster of Jackie Zeman (Bobbie Jones), a General Hospital polo shirt size medium, autographed script from the third annual Nurses Ball, stuff from other soaps/films/TV, and an autographed picture of Garret Wang.

We went to see if we could find Razz. Granted it's difficult to miss Razz, and we didn't have to look hard. She fooled us, she found us first. Razz suggested to one of us that we play blackjack with Joe Mantegna, Star Of Many Films, who was looking neglected among the primarily Daytime Audience. We promptly lost two chips to Mr. Mantegna and went to the Casino bank to buy more. We quickly returned to the table and started to win and win big. When we left the table our four chips had burgeoned into twelve. Joe (he was our pal Joe, by this time) kindly posed for a picture with us.

We moved over to the next table which was being manned by the handsome Kurt Robin McKinney, whose on some Soap like "Guiding Light" on the infamous another network. He had a professional Dealer with him who was helping him grasp the subtleties of the game. She asked us if we were fans of Guiding Light. No, General Hospital, of course, we replied. She said that Kurt wasn't on that show, and we pointed out that he had been on GH as the first Ned Ashton (and was hence worthy of our attention.) We volunteered that that Ned had slept with his aunt. "Monica?" The dealer asked surprised. "Oh sure tell everyone!" Kurt groused. In return for our indiscretion we lost half our chips.

We noticed that new people were signing at the autograph table and wandered over there to check it out. Two GH actresses, Felecia Bell (Simone Hardy) and Nancy Lee Grahn (Alexis) were at the table as was the man whose presence had made us make the impulsive decision to attend the event; Jack Donner (Sub-Commander Tal, Original Star Trek, Enterprise Incident), one of the very first Romulans ever in existence. So we stood in the very long line, had a couple margaritas, a plate of pasta, said hello to Jeff Lindstrom, and bought an 8x10 black and white picture of Felecia Bell. There were a few celebrities at the autograph table whose identity was a complete mystery to us, but we let them sign our program books that we had taken out of our goodie packets which also contained, a silent auction list, a bookmark, a menu for Buck's BBQ Co. (Featuring Outback catering), an ACS One day memorial response service flyer, a Magic Mountain coupon, a few chips, a raffle ticket and a nifty sun visor from NBC's Sunset Beach. Felecia Bell signed our black and white photo and we discussed calendars with her. She particularly expressed interest in the Ingo Rademacher calendar. Nancy Lee Grahn had already left the table and gone to deal by the time we got to the end of the line.

We wandered off and took pictures, ate raspberry tarts, bought a pre-autographed picture of the absent John Ingle (Edward) and eagerly awaited the arrival of Sarah Brown (Carly). She was late. She, Tyler Baker (Nicholas) and Susan Brown (Gail) arrived and went straight to the autograph table. So we had to stand in the line again. (Amazingly behind the same set of young DOOL fans, who giggled a lot.) While we were waiting in line Drew Carey cut in front of us to get behind the table. Actually he cut in front of Jeff's buddy Dave, and said to Dave's delight, "Excuse me, Buddy." We bought more black and white 8 by 10 pictures of Susan, Sarah and Tyler. Sarah recognized us as we approached her. "Weren't you two at the GH Luncheon?" We admitted it and presented her with a special gift; a collection of positive notes about Carly from RATSA. (And nobody say, "What positive notes?") She was thrilled. But Tyler, next to her, looked a little disappointed. We explained that there were just too many good notes about him to download. We talked to Susan Brown and told her how glad we were that her character was back on more regularly. She agreed, and told us she "hoped Kevin will stay sick" for awhile.

We went back to the gaming tables and lost some more chips. We took pictures of Tonja Walker (ex-Olivia Jerome) and John Aniston (Victor DOOL) dealing. We ate some more dinner {the pasta table again; we didn't want to risk the Mexican food table.) As we were standing, there being a definite lack of table space, and consuming our meal, Armin Shimmerman (Quark, Deep Space Nine) entered the room, and seemed to immediately attract every tall, good-looking female in the room. We separated too look for Ron Moss, myself to the Autograph table, Teresa to the Dealer's table. Ron was still signing. I went back to find Teresa, and saw James Woods enter the ballroom. I joined Teresa by the stage where Charles Shaughnessy (ex-Sean DOOL) was waiting to go on. We meandered back to the gaming tables, where James Woods, GBS (Great Big Star) well-lit by the media, was dealing black-jack and sucking up all the attention in the room. Until Teri Hatcher (Lois of "Lois and Clark", like everyone doesn't know.) came with a platoon of marines and took her rightful place as darling of the media.

We gazed in awe at these two stellar personalities, but shunned their (already completely full) tables and went to the Roulette table where Sarah Brown was conducting the game. We lost a few chips and won a few chips there, just about breaking even. After she finished there, the marines (the ones not physically attached to Teri Hatcher) took pictures with Sarah. We thought this was a good idea and followed suit. We said goodbye to Sarah for the evening.

We ran into Susan Brown. We asked if she wasn't going to be dealing. She said she'd been on The Wheel of Fortune, where a lot of kids had been playing. She said it was very difficult because she had too stop the wheel so one of the children would win but not let them see her doing it.

We went back up towards the stage. A young man who stars on "Moesha" performed a rap song especially written for the evening. Lark Voorhies' band "Three Degrees of Heat", played for awhile. They were pretty good. Chairs had become available and we gratefully sat down, right next to the dessert table. (Coincidence, sheer coincidence)

A little later in the evening, Thyme Lewis (Jonah DOOL) joined Crystal Carson (ex-Julia GH) to present the raffle prizes and presentations. Thyme announce the lost items, a camera (immediately claimed), a roll of film (which was never claimed), and a lost child's blue jacket, last seen in a goodie packet which contained a program book, a silent auction list, a bookmark, a menu for Buck's BBQ Co. (Featuring Outback catering), an ACS One day memorial response service flyer, a Magic Mountain coupon, and a nifty sun visor from NBC's Sunset Beach. The Jacket was never found, to our knowledge.

They raffled off a trip to Jamaica and then auctioned off another trip to Jamaica. They auctioned off some set visits. The Voyager set visit was raffled off and the ungrateful winner was under the impression she'd put her ticket in the DOOL set visit. Thyme Lewis generously offered the Voyager winner a DOOL set visit and another ticket was drawn for the Voyager prize.

People then went to the back to wait in line to see if their bids had won on the silent auction. This left all the seats empty and the RATSAers (Pam, and Mad Poet and Razz, Jeff Lindstrom, and us) sat around and chatted while the room emptied out. We offered to help the sound man move out his equipment, but he turned us down.

It was about midnight when we decided to call it a night. We picked up our goodie packets with the program book, a silent auction list, a bookmark, a menu for Buck's BBQ Co. (Featuring Outback catering), an ACS One day memorial response service flyer, a Magic Mountain coupon, one chip, five black and white autographed photos and a nifty sun visor from NBC's Sunset Beach, and headed for the door. Crystal Carson and Thyme Lewis were still there chatting and signing autographs.

And that was our exciting evening with many stars of Films, Primetime and Daytime. And we had a much better trip than the first time, except Jon Lindstrom wasn't there. *pout* We missed him.

T n' T

Roving RATSA Reporters

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