So: The Famous Broccoli Joke.
It all started at the very first Burbank convention. The hotel restaurant had -- well, not bad prices for a sit-down restaurant, but steeper than most of us broke con-goers wanted to pay -- but they gave you your money's worth in huge portions. (Much later when I was gluten free, I ordered the hummus and cucumber appetizer plate and it was enough for a meal.)
The last night of the first convention, fourteen forum members gathered in the hotel restaurant. Not only were we all on tremendous Xena: Warrior Proncess highs, we'd just seen Lucy Lawless and Renee O'Connor for the first time in our lives, and Brittany Powell had just walked through the restaurant and waved at us. We were hanging from the ceiling. Tengaar received a gigantic piece of broccoli with her meal. She said later that it was the size of a tree. I think she might have exaggerated just a tad... but the broccoli wouldn't have fit comfortably in one of my hands, which means it was bigger than Scully was when she first came to live with me.
I thought -- and think -- that we did a remarkably good job of communicating with each other considering our very different religious/political/social/cultural backgrounds. Lepanta would make a big deal out of that part later in the podcast she'd record about the convention. However, there were times when you could see the red lights flashing, and whenever that happened, one of the people involved would say "how about that broccoli?" and point to Tengaar's plate. We all posed with the broccoli. I have at least one picture of every person in the group (separately or in pairs) pointing at the broccoli, and our very first big-group forum picture has that same piece of broccoli in a corner.
Maybe six months prior, someone on the forums had decided to make "Keeperships" where you could pick one thing to be the "keeper" of (I was "Keeper of the Campfire). Lepanta said that she wanted to be Keeper of the Broccoli, so I spent several hours working with PAINT and broccoli pictures to make a banner for her.
The joke died down over the years -- actually I think I was one of the chief culprits keeping it going, lol -- but I mean, we took broccoli pictures at the very last convention I ever went to.
This is a t-shirt Tengaar made for me and gave me when we went to the Grand Canyon. Please note that this isn't an old picture -- I scanned it in about five minutes ago (while fending Rachel off the scanner). I don't wear it too often, but that's mostly because it's one of a kind and I don't want to stain it or wear it out.
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