Archives - Weekly Update

Another day, another airplane. As I write this it’s Thursday morning, and I am hopping on a plane to Washington, DC for the American Library Association Convention in a few hours. Yes, I could drive. Yes, I could take the train. But I love flying, and I can get more done on a plane since I drop into a zone and really break away from the day-to-day. Here’s something I miss: I used to play music when the plane took off. I would line up the perfect song, so racing down the runway and taking off was choreographed. I know, I am easily amused, but there was something about cranking up “Jet Airliner” by Steve Miller or something a lot more esoteric that made flying a lot more fun. I actually would plot this out in advance, and there was a trick to getting the song synched to work just as the plane started hurling down the tarmac.

This week I traveled back in time to 1970. This adventure kicked off last Saturday night at my grammar school reunion, where I caught up with people who I had last seen that year. It was a wonderful night of reminiscing eight years of my life. I recognized two people out of the 20 who were there (our class had 104 students in it; the days when 35 kids in a class was no big deal) --- and that is only because their photos were on Facebook. As people chatted, we all remembered different things about those years, and the collective memories were such fun.

I love my office in New York. It’s painted the color of my living room and dining room at home. I chose those colors for the office since I spend very little time in my living room or dining room --- I joke that I can count the days we use them each year, and they usually are smashed between November and January. I have this great dining room table IN my office so I can have meetings and lunches there. I even have turquoise dishes in my office for entertaining. It’s also great space for having people drop by --- one of my favorite things. This week Carol Cassella was in town from Seattle, and we spent some time on Tuesday chatting up her upcoming book, HEALER, which I am crazy about. Katie Arnoldi was in from California, and Wednesday we caught up on the excitement surrounding her book, POINT DUME, which landed on the Los Angeles Times bestseller list the first week it was out. During the writing of this book, Katie had shared with me stories about the Mexican drug cartels who are growing marijuana on federal and state lands. A good look at her research can be found here in the Times this week.

Summer has crept into the city, and the humidity has made June feel like late July or August. My older son Greg is juggling his day between taking a class at college --- conveniently just blocks from the office --- and working with us. And of course, with him being around, adventures prevail. Last weekend, on a whim, he flew to Ottawa. Why Ottawa? Well, he had not seen it and Continental had a great special running, and he could not turn it down. Yes, he is his mother’s son. He can pack in a heartbeat and hit the road.