My First Conference Blog 2 0f 5

WARNING! Moments of Country Mouse in the City ahead. No laughing at my expense allowed.





Day two dawned bright and sunny. My writers’ group was unable to get the White House Tour, so I decided to do something even more exciting. My all time favourite painting in the world is Renoir’s Luncheon of the Boating Party. And it was just down the road from where I was staying. With a free subway pass in hand, I hopped the Metro and trotted up to the small gallery called The Phillips House.
It was closed til 9, forty-five minutes from there. I decided to walk around the neighbourhood, admiring the variety of old money townhouses and embassies, not realizing until then that my knowledge of foreign flags was sadly lacking. But it was cool just the same.
Needing to practice my schmoozing, I started up a conversation with a young gal who was also waiting for the gallery to open. She was a British art student, splitting her time between DC and London and who was as friendly and charming as I knew the British could be. But too soon the gallery opened and I flew in, preparing myself to finally view the Luncheon of the Boating Party.
It was there, all right, its own lighting, bench and room. Gorgeous. I can tell you honestly that the postcard, prints and such don’t do the colours justice. And big, one of the biggest paintings I’d ever seen. A coup for the Phillips Collection, indeed. I’d finally completed a life long dream.
It was on to the next one. A wander around the Smithsonian. It even had its own Metro stop.
Speaking of the Metro, it’s hot down there. And the escalators were the longest I’d even seen. I took a picture of them, being the country mouse I am. But the trains are clean, and everyone appears to behave themselves. Or maybe they were on edge because of a recent train collision on their red line.
I exited the Metro at my stop, and found myself on the Mall. Okay, it’s not the mall I visit back up in Canada, and the lawn was being reworked, but how many malls have you been to that have an Egyptian obelisk named for George Washington, at one end, and the Capitol building at the other? Why, not even the Champlain Mall in Moncton can boast that much.
Pictures were in order. I didn’t see the reflecting pool, and still don’t know where it is, in relation to where I was, but pics were still needed. And after the appropriate snaps, I was off. Smithsonian forgotten, I wanted to see the White House. And according to my map, it wasn’t far away.
I pity the poor cops on Pennsylvania Avenue duty. Standing in the middle of the barricaded section of street. One bicycle cop was checking his email on his smart phone. I still got a couple of good photos, despite the tourists, cops and cement barricades. Enough to say I was there.
With tummy rumbling and guessing that the hotel food would be expensive, I noticed a Subway restaurant icon on my map. I was off down the street to the Ronald Reagan building for lunch. I figured I arrived at his airport, so I may as well eat at his building. Then I could tell everyone I had lunch on Penn Ave. It ended up being a wrap from Great Wraps, but who needs to know that?

Tune in Tomorrow for my official start to the conference.

My first conference! Blog 1 of 5

WARNING! May contain moments of lapsed memory, proof of conference head, and symptoms of chocolate withdrawal. Reader discretion advised.

I’m going to attempt to blog about my trip to Washington, DC this past week. I went there to attend the Romance Writers of America’s national conference, and I must say the experience was well worth it. First up, I got a terrific deal on the flight, and then I finaled in Daphne, a contest showcasing excellence in mystery and suspense. How cool is that? It was accompanied by a Death by Chocolate party. Well, if you can’t die peacefully in your sleep at age 100, death by chocolate would be a great alternative.

I arrived unable to meet up with a friend to catch a shuttle to the hotel, but decided to brave the subway. How hard can it be?

I’m proud to say it wasn’t hard at all. The biggest problem was trying to figure out the vending machine that spits out subway tickets if you manage to decode the instructions. Just as I was feeling a bit like Tom Hanks on an adventure to save humanity, a very nice couple walked up and offered me a pair of tickets, good anytime until Thursday. I snatched them out of their hands in a flash, and was off. I actually met up with some fellow writers and we traveled to the hotel together. I’d begun my conference!

You see, I went there for the schmoozing. I roomed with a pair of veteran conference goers and wow, they really know what to do. One gal, and she knows who she is, took me under her wing. Because she knows me, she told me she’d nudge me when I was in danger of putting my foot into my mouth.

I’m bruised all along the left side of my body now. But I did manage to shove that size 9 into my mouth one time, telling a strange man waiting for the elevator beside me that he looked terrible. Oh, well, nobody’s perfect, right?

Of course, too late did I realize that I could be telling the man with whom I had an editor appointment that he looked awful, but I have to live dangerously once in a while.

We stayed at the Marriott near the zoo. One roomie did her research and discovered the older part of the hotel was the best deal. It sure was. On the sixth floor, you could pick up the local McDonald’s wifi, which was more than others could do.

I personally don’t think that a hotel of the Marriott’s caliber needs to charge for wifi in their standard rooms. The room was lovely, with a dressing room and spacious bathroom, and yet, oddly, two three-quarter beds instead of double. And you can’t tell me that’s the US double beds are smaller than in Canada. You Americans aren’t any smaller than us Canucks, and being from the Great White North, we need to cuddle in the night to keep warm, so if anything, we’d take the three-quarter beds, not you down in sweltering DC.

Tune in tomorrow when I begin my first full day in the US capital.

dog days of summer

Many of you get dog days of summer. But where I live, a hot day is something over 20 degrees celsius. That's room temperature. We did get it this weekend past, but alas, Monday came and our perfectly hot and humid weekend was over.

But that didn't stop us from doing everything summer, like attend our son's soccer game. Here's me bundled up against the rain and cold watching my poor son deal with a soggy field. You wouldn't know it by my smile that they lost.

fill 'er up!

Sometimes a writer has to ‘fill up’.  It can be forced on them through a writer’s block, or it can be taken gently through a time between deadlines.

 

I’ve been on vacation this past week.  I forced myself to finish my manuscript so that I could mail it from the States where it would be cheaper, right at the beginning of the holiday.  Then I was free, and surprisingly, I didn’t feel like writing until today, a week later.  

 

This need to ‘fill up’ is hard to describe for those whose work or recreation doesn’t include any creativity.  I’m not being pretentious here.  As a soldier in the military for many years, my job wasn’t creative.  A fellow soldier said once that we could train apes to do our job.   It didn’t require creativity, that’s all, and unless we had a hobby that did, ‘filling up’ time was a hard concept to grasp.

 

It’s kind of like a holiday for the brain.  We all need a holiday but this is something more.  It’s a pushing away of any creative thoughts.  It’s denying the urge to write.  It’s absorbing the world around you without analyzing what’s going on.  Some writers don’t experience this need, and that’s great.  They have the creative stamina to keep working.  But I do, occasionally. 

 

And I’m glad it’s happening somewhere sunny and warm.

Technology saves the Day!!

I gave my kids cell phones because I wanted them to be reachable. But I told my son to use the house phone when he was at home to save our minutes. Yesterday, he was talking to his girlfriend on our house phone. I needed to remind him of something, so I texted him using my computer. Our service provider allows that. I don't have the brain capacity to learn such a high tech computation.He answered, adding that he was going to bed soon, as he felt 'garbagey'. New word, but rather apt, I suppose. He was a bit under the weather. I'd noticed that much when I went downstairs to the inner sanctum of the basement's TV room to tell him to clean that pig sty up.Well, this morning, my husband flicked on his bedroom light and told him to get up. It was what we do every school day.I added my voice to that order when I got up.Nothing happened, which in itself is the norm. He's a teen. Jumping out of bed early on a school day is against their personal code of honour.Finally, his older sister came downstairs."What's with Alex?""He's not up yet," I answered."He's sick.""How do you know?"She shrugged. "He texted me."Oh. He texted her across the house. Hmm. I went into his bedroom, and found him peeking out of his blankets. "I'm sick," he whispered hoarsely. "And you and Dad don't care.""Why didn't you tell us?""Too sick to talk."He was warm, and a bug had been flying around his school, so this wasn't unexpected. I told him to go back to sleep, I'd deal with him later.When I returned to the kitchen, I asked my daughter what her brother had said in his text."He wrote, 'I'm sick. Help. Save me.'"So, I pondered, technology has saved the day. We would have kept yelling at him until someone got mad and it set the whole house on edge, especially since I had to drive my daughter to her university classes within the hour."So the cell phones earned their keep," I commented. "Don't you think that's nice?"My daugther gave me one of those unsympathetic, older sister looks. "He's faking it."Technological changes may be new and exciting, and we're grateful for them, but there are some things that never change.