Left Coast Crime

Even though this posts on Saturday, I’m writing it Friday night. Did I really get home from Hawaii this morning at 7? I was supposed to arrive at 5:30 a.m., but the plane was delayed two hours getting to Kona. The Kona airport is basically outside and it was kind of chilly. All those people dressed in their shorts were shivering. Actually the weather was very untypical the whole time I was there.

It is supposed to rain 11 days a year. It rained four of those while I was there. When the sun finally came out, the wind picked up and was bad enough to make them cancel the whale watching boat ride I was supposed to take. That’s not to say that any of it was uncomfortable. I kept the door to my patio open the whole time and let the air blow in my room. I sat on the beach watching the sunsets (when the clouds made it possible to see them), went on a wonderful trip to the north end of the big island and back with stops at the Parker Ranch and several towns, and watched a sea turtle as it slept on the shore.

It was my first Left Coast Crime conference. I met lots of great people and there were lots of fun activities. Opening night featured a dessert buffet and some getting to know you games. Every night there was some kind of entertainment. They screened a movie or some TV shows and one night there was a nicely done production of a play someone at the conference had written based on a Charlie Chan book. A lot of the actors were from the University of Hawaii at Hilo. They were very actorly in their performance, which I particularly enjoyed. One man seemed to have a signature wave of his arm he used to punctuate a scene. The play was preceded by a luau minus the pig for budgetary reasons. No loss to me the vegetarian.

The panels were fun. My brain is still in tired mode so I hope this makes sense. These panels were the first I’ve done since the crochet mysteries started coming out. It was extremely neat to find out some people in the audience had actually read one or more of my books. I have to admit that me and my fellow panel people all had a hard time with the Hot Sex and Cold Blooded Murder panel because most of the sex in our books is suggestive rather than overt and mostly off scene. I’m not sure what the people in the audience came expecting.

Even with having fun, I managed to get a lot of work done on the book I need to turn in next week. What a great place to work. I’d look over my shoulder and see the ocean – and sometimes rain drops. I also sat on the balcony crocheting samples of the patterns in the book.

Another really nice touch was the gourmet grocery store in the mall a short walk away. Instead of having to eat in a restaurant, I was able to pick up fruit and salads and vegetable sushi. I hate having to eat somewhere and order something and tell them to hold the shrimp, but I still get charged for it.

Hawaii didn’t go to daylight savings time, so between the half of my clocks at home that haven’t been changed to daylight savings time and my brain which thinks it’s earlier than it is, I’m still a little confused. But nothing a good night’s sleep won’t cure.