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We got to ride the train from Seattle to Portland. It’s actually a type of transport that I don’t seem to be afraid of. Cool. It was sunny and beautiful for the trip, which all the natives to the area said was highly unusual for November.
The signing was at Powell’s Books. The crowd was large, spilling out into the mall for the question and answer session. I got a lot of what I got at Seattle, which is so glad I was back in the Northwest after so many years away. We had a lot of fine artists making us pictures as gifts. It was all Merry art, actually. I still haven’t got all the Anita art up at home, where am I going to put it all? A lovely problem to have though.
It was amazing energy in Portland, a lot of questions, a lot of just . . . people energy. A lot of pictures were taken, and I did have to ice my arm this time. I’d been doing pretty well, but it was the fourth signing. One of the things that saved me from having to ice sooner was that for the first time I got a day, or so, scheduled between events. That helped my injured arm recoup. We signed for a little over five hours. The bookstore employees, who were real troopers, though our picture person kept changing, asked, “Is it always like this?” We had to say, “Yeah.” Five hours was because I pushed it. I didn’t try and conserve my arm, because I knew there was no event tomorrow, and, in fact, this was it. It allowed me to push my limits and get us all out of there sooner. Though some of you guys were disappointed I didn’t ice up a second time since I did more Q & A during the icing. Greedy.
By the time we finished it took both Jon and Charles to get my arm in my jacket. Eek. But, more ice, and before bedtime that night I could move. I tried something different this tour, and tried to change how I sign my name. The actual movement of my arm. It helped save my injured part, but left things higher up, strangely more tired and sore. It was still an improvement. So, those of you who got the big, loopy signature, that was what was going on. It hurts less.
Today is our last day here in the Nameless City, that I’ll blog about when we get home. We’re making a list of last minute research still to do, though one of the buildings we most wanted to go to is closed today. Bother. But we had another interesting meal at an Irish pub this time. This is the longest I’ve gone, maybe ever, without writing to make pages. Okay, longest in over twenty years. It felt weird at first to not be actively working. I noticed that the blogs were getting longer and chattier, and some of my e-mails have been enormous. The writing has to go somewhere, I guess. Which proves to me that some of you guys who want to write use up the steam you need on blogs, e-mails, letters. Writing is writing, and if you do too much of one kind it takes heat away from the other. Or, it does for me.
I’m going to go and check our list of research. I’ve checked it twice already, but you know me there are always more alternatives for my list than just naughty or nice.