Monday, March 20, 2023

After Left Coast Crime

Annamaria on Monday

It's Sunday afternoon and though most of my dear ones are gone, I am still here in Tucson. Because I wanted to stay here for the Sunday morning events, I had only one choice if I wanted to fly home today: fly to LAX and take the redeye to arrive early on Monday morning. I declined. I have taken the redeye many times in the past, but I think it is now against my religion to suffer that ever again.

So, after heartfelt goodbye hugs to friends I see all too infrequently, I am in my room working on my blog in between a lovely lunch and up coming dinner with writer friends who live nearby.  My plan was to prepare for writing this post by walking around the grounds of the hotel and photographing the wildlife alleged to be nearby and easy to find.  I walked and looked and walked and looked.  Nada.


Here are a few photos of the area that are , more or less, worth looking at:






This is as close as I got to seeing a cowboy


I know.  I owe the readers of MIE something better than this.  But the past few days have been so warm, so full of affection and friendship and have included one of my loveliest birthdays ever.  i am still basking in the glow of it all and cannot summon my usual determination.

I wanted, at the very least to show you all a photo of one of the legendary creatures that live nearby - a roadrunner.  I went to all the places where other attendees of the conference said they saw them.  No dice.

Here is the best I can do:


I am pretty sure that you laughed as hard as I did.  As far as I can tell, cartoons like this one are one of greatest artefacts of American culture.

Meeet meeet.

11 comments:

  1. We miss you already, Sis. Thanks for helping to make LCC 2023 such fun for us all!

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    1. It was so good see you in Barbara again after such a long time. Please let’s meet for a nice dinner in NYC!!!!

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  2. Annamaria, so, so lovely to meet you finally and sorry I didn't get a chance to say a proper goodbye. I'll be posting on Thursday with my own post-LCC post and a few creatures you can steal! xxxx

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    1. Such a pleasure to meet you Wendall. It’s great to have you with us.

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  3. This brought back memories of my own LCC experiences in sometimes unlikely places. But with all the old and new friends attending the event, I usually didn't have much time for sightseeing anyway. A belated Happy Birthday, Annamaria, and hope to catch up with you in person soon.

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    1. Thank you, Zoe. I so Miss seeing you at these events. Please say you are coming to Bouchercon!!!! AA

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  4. Had I but known, I could have sent you a pic of a roadrunner in our backyard here in Tucson. So glad we had a chance to catch up over lunch. It was a lovely LCC!

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    1. Lunch yesterday out the icing on the cake for me. Thank you for that. I hope your “cousin” Vera will be back in circulation by the next time we meet. AA

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  5. From Annamaria:
    Wish I could have been there. Your Wiley Coyote antics made me think of this video on Twitter (yeah, ugh) that I was pointed at a couple of days ago, although in this case, he's the hero with a happy ending...
    https://twitter.com/GoodNewsCorres1/status/1635686606978920466

    EvKa wrote the above. It came to me as the notification of a comment here, but when I logged in to respond, it was missing???

    I loved the videos of the very brave a determined kid, EvKa. I have no idea why Blogger hid it. Next time try writing in Arabic. Grrrrr!

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  6. I had many happy moments with you at LCC, and I finally saw my own roadrunner. What a thrill! Thank you for sharing the pix and memories.

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    1. It was wonderful to have some quality time with you, Sujata. Your interview with Juliet was DELIGHTFUL!! You did us proud. AA

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