This is an old building in downtown Chanute, Kansas, that I
absolutely fell in love with and wish I could own. That window alcove? That's where my writing desk would go. It looks northeast, so would have great natural light all day. The building is currently unoccupied, runs half the big city block to the alley behind and has viable outside steps leading down to four different basement units along the side street. No one I talked with could tell me anything about the building, so I'm going to do some research and see what I can learn on my own.
absolutely fell in love with and wish I could own. That window alcove? That's where my writing desk would go. It looks northeast, so would have great natural light all day. The building is currently unoccupied, runs half the big city block to the alley behind and has viable outside steps leading down to four different basement units along the side street. No one I talked with could tell me anything about the building, so I'm going to do some research and see what I can learn on my own.We had an interesting talk & book signing in Kansas City on Friday - actually, Mission, Kansas. We were given an address in Kansas City (MO) that was an old Catholic school and NOT the right place. When I tracked down Megan's contact by phone, she gave me an address in Mission. When we arrived, they were already half-way through their "luncheon", which was really the stroke survivors and caregivers who had brought sack lunches. The gal in charge couldn't get the DVD player on her computer to work at first so we could show "Chicken", the award-winning short film made by an Idyllwild Arts student in 2006 that is a great introduction to Megan's story of her brain aneurysm and recovery. So, Megan just launched into her spiel while we got the technology working.
Given the small size of the group, our late arrival, and other factors I won't go into here, Megan and I figured we might sell, maybe, 3-4 of her books. Let's just say, we were wrong. And, the drive to Kansas City / Mission was well worth it.
From there we came to Greenfield, IA, where my youngest brother, Charlie, lives and is the town's Methodist minister. I went to church to hear him preach this morning and as we were all leaving the sanctuary, I told him that was the best sermon I've ever heard. (It was also the shortest - about 5 minutes!) The kids were showing us what all they learned in vacation Bible school that just finished, so the pastor's portion of this morning's service was "blessedly" short.
This afternoon, Charlie and I prepared a mostly vegetarian dinner for a few friends of his. It was an excellent dinner - yes, I AM bragging about my own cooking! - and the friends hung out until after 10:00 chatting and chatting with Megan and me. It was fun to get to know these folks.
We'll be here until Tuesday or Wednesday, when we head across Iowa to the Quad Cities where we both have several events lined up. Tomorrow we're going to try to catch the attention of someone at the Des Moines Register for an interview / article. And one of the gals who was here tonight is going to try to stir some interest in a PBS or NPR interview, too.
It's nearly midnight, I'm pretty tired, so I think I'll grab some recreational reading material and head for bed.
NL
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