Remembering some of my writers' conference in New York

      While I was at a writers' conference in  Hamilton, New York, in June, the husband sent me an email that he couldn't open his hotmail account. Now how was I supposed to help with that? It asked me a bunch of questions for secret passwords and special questions I didn't know about, or what was the subject of his recent emails--- how am I supposed to know that? Since we didn't have a phone to share, I sent him and his brothers and sister-in-law messages over Facebook. I think they eventually informed him I was trying to contact him, and through the Facebook account of his I "messaged" when to pick me up on that Thursday.
     On the third day at the writers' conference at Colgate U. I finally got to use the umbrella I had been carrying around. It was wet and the big white pine across from my window gently swayed in the wind.
     Greg Ames' reading about a older professor trying to challenge his students to many things (including arm wrestling) was hilarious. He also spoke at length about magic realism and fabulism, Kafka and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the latter of whom read Kafka and thought you "weren't allowed" to write like that. We also read Aimee Bender's "Rememberer", a fabulistic tale, where you change just one thing, her boyfriend devolving from a person into an amoeba she puts into the sea.
I don't know if I can write like that, but it seems I can have a flair for humor, probably more than for the serious, except in the case of nonfiction. I'd love to get a nonfiction book deal!

Sort of off the Right Track (Story of my life)

      One never knows about life's turns. We obviously took the "wrong" turn (a right to incorrect directions from this young guy at the tubing place on the river, who obviously has no idea where "Kentland Farms" and the river put-in is) and found ourselves taking all these turns away from the river. We were planning to meet up with fellow Master Naturalists and canoe the New, and then go to a picnic at the end of the route. But the spouse was tired and after driving around there and back (like 90 minutes of our time) he said he was tired and didn't want to just go to the picnic.
    It would have been a good diversion. I spoke on the phone the other day with my oldest sister -- what  happens in Vegas, will not "stay" in Vegas. My mother has 2 grown children hanging off of her and when she passes, a big chunk of change will be gone and they will expect us to fill it back in. Well, the husband is not about to agree to this. It is stressful thinking about the chaos that will ensue after she dies. I can't even have a decent conversation with the 2 siblings in Vegas, and my mother refuses to live closer to me here. What a mess.
    But I also gotten "off track" with regards to writing my novel. I need to do something as one day the leaches will be demanding more so I need to make some more. Hopefully my mother will be around long enough that I can make some money writing and be a little help later on.

Visiting Roanoke's Taubman and R. U.

                                                         Taubman Musem, Roanoake, VA

      So,  having visitors, especially one with an injury, can present challenges. My son's girlfriend Stephanie had injured herself slipping at the area's well known "Cascades Falls," causing her to break a foot. So trying to manuever around after that wasn't that easy. We went to a movie, she went to Urgent Care and presented her Obamacare card, then we wanted to do something more active, like visit R. U. campus and go around the Taubman Museum in Roanoke. Luckily, both places  had a wheelchair we could "borrow," which was very convenient. We left the crutches with them and returned the crutches for the wheelchair later.
     And the Taubman, which is hugely airy,  had an elevator that easily got us to the second floor. On display in two big rooms were the oils of Bill Rutherfoord. He painted a lot of interesting animals from stories, such as Brer rabbit, Brer fox and Brer bear, I guess to symbolize the old South. There were also very bright colors and other things that represented corporate America, such as a boat and pelican sinking symbolizing the Gulf Oil Spill. Son Zeb said you just throw in whatever you want and say what you want it to symbolize. I didn't get the painting the side sign said was his dad looking pained because his father was a minister and the Catholic Church was giving him a hard time. In the South? I don't believe that, or his assertion in a video embedded in the wall that said the South doesn't really exist anymore. A traditional South with servants and slaves may be gone, but I think some elements still remain.
     The Taubman also had jeweled bags and tiny statues on display behind glass, some Impressionists' works, and some very traditional oils and abstract work. A fairly good variety.
We didn't have time to go to the third floor and I think the post cards, at  $1.00, were a little expensive. But the wheelchair was very convenient and Zeb pushed his girlfriend through the whole exhibition and got a workout too.