Neyuki writes: Sunday at seven was the start of the Orpheus ball. The parade didn’t end up getting there until about 8:30 or 9:00, though. When Elijah’s float came in, it was pretty obvious he was having a blast. He was grinning and throwing stuff. When the parade was about halfway over, he came walking down the parade isle and was giving people hugs before going up into the VIP stage area. When the parade was done, I saw a couple friends who said he had been talking to Dominic Monaghan and asking where he was.
When Dominic got there, my friends and I were the first ones he saw, and he gave us one of his smiles that I think anyone would die for. We all snuck up into the VIP area, which wasn’t very hard, and got hugs and pictures. I also got an autograph from Dominic. Elijah was very busy, so we didn’t get to see much of him, but Dominic was being really sweet and talking to everyone. Elijah’s sister Hannah was there too, and she was lovely. While up there, I got the promise of a dance from Dominic. We got found out and kicked off by the security guard, but after a while Dominic came down. We stopped him and and asked him to bring up our medallions for Elijah to sign, and got more pictures. He went up with them. We waited for a while and he finally came back, but said they were still on the table, then went to bug Elijah to sign them for us. A minute later he was back, up on the VIP stage, and dangling the medallions over my head. He also promised then that I could have my slow dance the next day at Orpheus. When they were leaving I got a hug from Elijah and said bye to Dominic.
The next day was the Orpheus ball. My little sister came with me to that, and we were in the first level of VIP, but there were two. Once the parade came by, I yelled at him, and he saw me. He recognized me and grinned, then threw some beads at me, which the person next to me caught. I introduced him to my sister when he came up. Later, when Better Than Ezra was playing, he went up and sang while they played for one song. It was wonderful and I got some pictures of it, cause I knew a short bit beforehand about it. My dad’s cousin runs the ball, so when he got back from stage, now in street clothes, we got wristbands and got to go up to the second VIP level. I got my dance from him. We had to leave pretty soon after that, but he gave us both hugs and kisses. I must say that Dominic Monaghan has to be one of the sweetest people I have ever in my life met.
I’ll try to get you the pictures in a bit. I’m going to pick them up in about twenty minutes from being developed, then I’ll see about scanning some, and try to take some digital pictures of the medallions with autographs. Oh, and from what I saw, Sean Astin was not in fact in Bacchus, and if he was, I somehow completely missed him for the entirety of the ball, which I doubt.