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There is indeed nothing new under the sun, so last week when I thought I invented the Trailette, boy was I wrong! Someone immediately sent me a photograph of a 1947 Trailette, most likely a competitor of the early Airstreams. Now that I think about it, I believe our family lived in an Airstream at Bisbee\u2019s Shady Dell Trailer Park when we first moved to Bisbee in the late forties.<\/p>\n
Even so, I\u2019ve given myself permission to use the term once more to refer to what is essentially a four-city book tour\u2014Seattle, Fort Myers, Tucson, and Phoenix. Short, yes, but in many ways sweet as well.<\/p>\n
Since this week\u2019s blog is a continuation of last week\u2019s, those of you who haven\u2019t done so, may want to divert at this point and go back and read that one, thus preventing me from having to chew my cabbage twice. Last week’s blog is listed to the right under Recent Posts. That\u2019ll be part one.<\/p>\n
Because I\u2019ve been around a long time, and because people tend to be repeat customers, when I\u2019m doing events, I try not to tell the same stories over and over. My mother, Evie, would call that chewing my cabbage twice. In addition, I\u2019m always looking for something that will make people laugh out loud because that\u2019s something there\u2019s been far too little of for the last three years\u2014laughter.<\/p>\n
Last week\u2019s blog dealt with a staging problem at the event in Fort Myers, Florida, which prompted me to talk about a previous staging problem at the library in Sun Lakes, Arizona. In a word, watching me being hauled up onto the stage in Florida may have been the first time some of those people had laughed in years, and since prat falls are always an essential ingredient in comedy, I thought, \u201cWhy stop there?\u201d<\/p>\n
So last week\u2019s blog was about those two things\u2014being dragged up onto the stage in Fort Myers and about my landing flat on my backside when a rolling stool skidded out from under me in Sun Lakes, Arizona. Telling those two stories together was so much fun that, when I arrived at Sun City Oro Valley, I did a do-over. When I reached the part where I fell flat on my butt, I punctuated the words by giving the lectern in front of me a resounding smack with my hand, after which I continued with the talk.<\/p>\n
Pretty soon my Apple Watch started buzzing on my wrist. I thought it was a news update from one of my news feeds, so I ignored it. Yes, there\u2019s a war going on, but since I didn\u2019t need to know about that in the middle of a book talk, I forged on. However, the watch continued to buzz, buzz, buzz! Finally I looked at it. \u201cWe see you have taken a hard fall,\u201d the words on the screen told me. \u201cAre you in need of medical assistance?\u201d By then, I had ignored the warning for so long, I\u2019m surprised the EMTs weren\u2019t already on the scene. I selected the \u201cI\u2019m okay\u201d button and pressed that. \u201cPlease provide more details,\u201d the watch insisted. On the third try, I pressed \u201cI DIDN\u2019T FALL!\u201d After that, the watch finally got the message and stopped buzzing<\/p>\n
Once again the audience loved it. So last night at the Poisoned Pen, I told the story yet a third time. (See that\u2019s the wonderful thing about doing live events as opposed Zoomers\u2014you can use the same material over and over.) When I got to the part about missing the stool, I slapped the lectern again, and guess what. Not long after that, the watch started buzzing again. \u201cWe see you have taken a hard fall. Are you in need of medical assistance?\u201d This time I was quick enough on the \u201cI\u2019m all right\u201d trigger that there was no danger of anyone dispatching an ambulance.<\/p>\n
The thing is, you really can teach an old dog new tricks. I told the same story today at Sun City West, but this time around I was smart enough to smack the lectern with my right hand\u2014the one NOT wearing the Apple Watch, and we made it through just fine.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s Tuesday afternoon. The last event is over. I\u2019m tired and sitting in the quiet of my hotel room. I brought home some leftovers from lunch for dinner, YAY, La Pi\u00f1ata!! So I don\u2019t have to venture out again, but I can\u2019t sign off from this blog without talking about the glorious Tucson Festival of Books. I used to go to the festival and walk the mall getting my steps with no one any the wiser. Then, a couple of years ago, Bill Viner of the Bill and Brenda duo who came up with the bright idea of a book festival, dubbed me the Queen of the Festival. Now, as the old saying goes, I are one\u2014a star, that is, at least in Tucson. People recognize me. They stop to talk. They want to take photos. And this is all very wonderful, but it\u2019s also hard work. It means the once I set foot in Tucson, not even on the University of Arizona campus, I\u2019m recognized one sight\u2014in restaurants, in stores, in hotels. It means that I have to be ON even when my body is longing to be OFF.<\/p>\n
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In addition to all those ego-boosting chance encounters, I made some very meaningful connections. In all the years of showing up at TFOB together, Thomas Perry and I have become friends. It was wonderful to have a chance to visit with Ann Hillerman and learn about her new home in Tucson. And it was really amazing to meet Elizabeth George for the first time. Although we probably live less than five miles apart as the crow flies in the Seattle area, we had never met and were delighted to learn the we\u2019re both fans of miniature dachshunds. And it was equally delightful to meet in person with fellow U of A alum and up-and-coming mystery writer, John McMahon. And lest I forget, there was that big hug from Craig Johnson. When the hug was over he said, \u201cI knew you were a girl from the West, because you know which way to duck so we don\u2019t knock each other\u2019s hats off.\u201d<\/p>\n
While out on the mall, a dark skinned woman, sitting on a walker and wearing sunglasses gave me the tiniest of waves. Believe me, I understand what an honor it is when a Tohono O\u2019odham reaches out to a Milghan, (an Anglo) in public. I went over and asked if she was from the reservation. She allowed as how she was and that she had been to the event I did years ago at the tribal museum in Topawa. As we chatted, waiting for her son to return from the food tent so he could go buy her book and get it signed, she told me the when my first husband and I left the reservation in 1973, her family bought our bright blue Chevrolet Vega. (Long connection there!)<\/p>\n
One last thing about the festival. It runs like a fine tuned machine on a literal army of volunteers who guide authors and visitors from place to place; who wipe down tables and haul trash; who escort authors from speaking venues to signing venues; who moderate panels; who supervise the parking garages. Those are the guys who make sure that the wheels stay on the TFOB bus.<\/p>\n
I also ran into Rick Cole, a friend from my days in the insurance business in Phoenix in the late seventies and earlier eighties. And I saw a Pima Hall girl from my days at the U of A. Best of all, I also got to stay at The Arizona Inn, a place in Tucson that is brimming over with happy memories.<\/p>\n
By the time I left Tucson, the only thing missing on my TFOB wish list was the scent of orange blossoms, but that one came true last night when I arrived at the hotel here in Phoenix. The orange blossoms are out here, because Phoenix really is that much warmer than Tucson.<\/p>\n
So now I get to go home to Seattle. I hear it\u2019s supposed to rain later this week. Big surprise, but I\u2019ll be glad to be back. I guess you really can go home again\u2014in both places.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There is indeed nothing new under the sun, so last week when I thought I invented the Trailette, boy was I wrong! Someone immediately sent me a photograph of a 1947 Trailette, most likely a competitor of the early Airstreams. Now that I think about it, I believe our family lived in an Airstream at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8,33,6,168],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-festivals","category-books","category-tour-2","category-u-of-a"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3nsBA-ES","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2534"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2534\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2541,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2534\/revisions\/2541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}