“OMG, is that STILL on?”

why yes.  yes, general hospital is still indeed on the air.  and yes, i’m still watching!

the annual fan club weekend happened over the summer, and it kicked off with a special fundraising event hosted by vanessa marcil (formerly “brenda barrett”) and maurice benard (“sonny”).  i’d originally planned on staying at the hotel that hosted the event that weekend, but ended up deciding to stay home and drive in for the shenanigans.

when i got to the ballroom and found a seat, there were these autographed cards at each place setting.

roadogs rescue, who was the beneficiary of the event, had brought in some of their sweet dogs who are currently waiting to be adopted into their forever homes.  they were so cute.

a representative from roadogs started the evening as she took the stage to welcome everyone and thank us for being there to support the rescue.  she spoke a bit about the origins of roadogs and then brought vanessa and maurice onstage.

they were joined by joshua benard, maurice’s son.  he had a briefly recurring role on the show this year, so he was also a familiar face.

and since we were relatively close to the studio where the show films, we were joined by even more familiar faces - carolyn hennesy (“diane”), finola hughes (“anna”), laura wright (“carly”), rena sofer (“lois”), and eva la rue (“natalia”) - plus michael sutton (“stone”).

it was fun to listen to them banter with each other, and they hung out for just a little while before heading back outta there since some of them had early calls the next morning.

if you watched the show in the 90s, you’ll know who michael sutton was.  he played “stone cates,” who was the center of the AIDS storyline with kimberly mccullough’s “robin.”

even if you don’t watch soaps, rena sofer should be somewhat familiar to you.  she’s had roles in a lot of shows over the years like friends, once upon a time, seinfeld, heroes - and a bunch of other ones i can’t remember.  she was really nice, as was her husband (who happily took all of the photos with her fans).

i was especially excited to meet vanessa, who i’ve been a fan of since her first appearance on general hospital.  plus, she was in “the rock” with nicolas cage, the OG 90210, and the early ‘00s show las vegas, which the hub and i watched together back in our early years together.

fun fact: vanessa inexplicably blocked me on twitter a long time ago.  i swear i don’t know why, and i also swear that i never said anything bad about her (why would i?  i love her!).  my best guess is that she maybe went on a mass blocking spree at some point and i ended up as a casualty of it…?  anyway, i kept that little tidbit to myself when i finally did get to chat with her a bit.  she’s just as gorgeous in person as she is onscreen, and very sweet and friendly.

maurice stopped to sign a poster that was going to be put up for an online auction, and i just happened to be sitting right there.  heh.

my next event was on a smaller scale, with evan hofer (“dex”) and tabyana ali (“trina”).  they did a fun little panel where they shared stories about their experiences with the show and talked a little about their background and how they came to be on general hospital.  i’ve met them both before and i love that they both attend fan events like this with their moms (who are also happy to meet and chat with their kids’ fans).

next up - the main cast event.  it’s the best part of the weekend, and i was excited because i’d managed to score the top tier ticket this year.  woohoo!