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windinthemaplesLet's flip to the last few pages and spoil the ending.
I met Janet Evanovich last night! She signed a couple books for me, talked to Graeme, and posed for a photo all while at a big book-signing at our downtown Borders. How awesome is that? Awesome. :D
Now, let's see, where were we?
I rarely drive in Chicago. I have anxiety over big city driving. That and the handy availability of public transit and walkable neighborhoods means that I rarely drive here. That's probably not a good thing. So yesterday, I gumptioned up and drove to our local Target. (A really easy drive, in city terms, with a big spacious parking lot to dock at.)
I haven't been to a big store like that in months, so it was really fun to plop Graeme into the cart and browse around. (Man, they have everything, that Target.)
I'd bought a really cute summery skirt at that Summer Solstice festival I attended, so I cruised around with that in mind and found a pair of flip-flops and some tops to match it. We stocked up on Luna bars and toothpaste, fruit strips and hair ties. I even got a pair of sunglasses at the optical shop to replace the pair I lost in Vegas. Graeme was having a frustrated day. The only thing that entertained him, it seemed, was pawing through the Schleich animals in the toy department and waving to his mirror image in the dressing room. The rest of the trip he was running a low-grade whine. I know that's just a communications error. I don't know what he wants, he's frustrated with my not knowing, and then his little toddler emotional center goes haywire. The box of raisins in my purse helped.
We spent a couple hours back at home before it was time to hop the bus for the book signing downtown. I knew, because I'm on her mailing list, that Janet's latest book in the Stephanie Plum bounty hunter series, Finger Lickin' Fifteen was being released and that one of the stops on her very short tour schedule was here in Chicago. The rest of things was just me traipsing the innocent fool's path and having people take pity on me. :D
I couldn't find my bus fare card and I was out of cash. I managed to find a roll of quarters from our laundromat days. At the bus, though, when I asked what the cash rate was, the guy looked at me and Graeme and my roll of quarters and told me to just go ahead and ride for free. :D
At the bookstore, a three-story monstrosity of a Borders on Michigan Avenue, there were people seemingly everywhere, masses at the registers, and balloon bouquets sprouting up from anything they could be tied to. Every aisle had people standing around with their Evanovich books and I had no idea where to even begin. I backtracked to an employee at a nearby door and said, "Is there a line forming already for the signing? Where do I go?"
He looked at me and looked at Graeme and said, "Here's a purple wristband. You can go upstairs already with it."
So dopey-dopey-do, I head past all the people in the aisles, hop on the escalator, and then stop completely lost at the top again where there are people snaked through all the bookshelves but no discernable place to start.
I find another employee and say, "I'm not sure where I'm supposed to go. Could you tell me where the line starts?"
And the employee spots my purple wristband and says, "You're purple. You go ahead up to the third floor."
And dopey-dopey-do, this still hasn't sunk in. I go up to the third floor, not sure what's going on, and there an employee spots my wristband and steers me into the event space to the end of a fifty or sixty person line there. We wait. We laugh at the person in the Cluck a Bucket chicken suit and get handed these awesome "I Love Ranger" or "I Love Joe" pins depending on our preference. (Ranger, naturally, but not if he's neutered by familiarity.)
One girl ahead of me said she'd been there since 9:30am. (It was currently 6pm.)
WHAT?!
And then I started to piece it together and realized that I'd just dopey-dopey-do'd my way past hundreds of people in line. They were all in line! They weren't lurking in every aisle of the three-story store shopping, they were waiting to inch their way up to the room I was in, to meet Janet and have her sign their books. It would have been impossible to shop--the store was packed with nothing but Plum crazy fans.
The bounds of my luckiness in earning, by being pitiable, baby-laden, and completely obtuse, one of these coveted purple wristbands was pretty awesome. Janet was wheeled out in a wheelchair with a giant white cast on her foot and we all inched forward bit by bit with employees turning our books to the right page and snapping our photos with our own cameras and an hour and a half later, I had a fussy baby and the very great autographs. :)
And still, the line through the store's every bit of carpeted space wound on and on. I can't imagine, she would have had to sit there forever.
Home to Daniel and yummy Chinese food leftovers and a new episode of Top Chef Masters on the DVR. Such a Yay!Day. :D
I met Janet Evanovich last night! She signed a couple books for me, talked to Graeme, and posed for a photo all while at a big book-signing at our downtown Borders. How awesome is that? Awesome. :D
Now, let's see, where were we?
I rarely drive in Chicago. I have anxiety over big city driving. That and the handy availability of public transit and walkable neighborhoods means that I rarely drive here. That's probably not a good thing. So yesterday, I gumptioned up and drove to our local Target. (A really easy drive, in city terms, with a big spacious parking lot to dock at.)
I haven't been to a big store like that in months, so it was really fun to plop Graeme into the cart and browse around. (Man, they have everything, that Target.)
I'd bought a really cute summery skirt at that Summer Solstice festival I attended, so I cruised around with that in mind and found a pair of flip-flops and some tops to match it. We stocked up on Luna bars and toothpaste, fruit strips and hair ties. I even got a pair of sunglasses at the optical shop to replace the pair I lost in Vegas. Graeme was having a frustrated day. The only thing that entertained him, it seemed, was pawing through the Schleich animals in the toy department and waving to his mirror image in the dressing room. The rest of the trip he was running a low-grade whine. I know that's just a communications error. I don't know what he wants, he's frustrated with my not knowing, and then his little toddler emotional center goes haywire. The box of raisins in my purse helped.
We spent a couple hours back at home before it was time to hop the bus for the book signing downtown. I knew, because I'm on her mailing list, that Janet's latest book in the Stephanie Plum bounty hunter series, Finger Lickin' Fifteen was being released and that one of the stops on her very short tour schedule was here in Chicago. The rest of things was just me traipsing the innocent fool's path and having people take pity on me. :D
I couldn't find my bus fare card and I was out of cash. I managed to find a roll of quarters from our laundromat days. At the bus, though, when I asked what the cash rate was, the guy looked at me and Graeme and my roll of quarters and told me to just go ahead and ride for free. :D
At the bookstore, a three-story monstrosity of a Borders on Michigan Avenue, there were people seemingly everywhere, masses at the registers, and balloon bouquets sprouting up from anything they could be tied to. Every aisle had people standing around with their Evanovich books and I had no idea where to even begin. I backtracked to an employee at a nearby door and said, "Is there a line forming already for the signing? Where do I go?"
He looked at me and looked at Graeme and said, "Here's a purple wristband. You can go upstairs already with it."
So dopey-dopey-do, I head past all the people in the aisles, hop on the escalator, and then stop completely lost at the top again where there are people snaked through all the bookshelves but no discernable place to start.
I find another employee and say, "I'm not sure where I'm supposed to go. Could you tell me where the line starts?"
And the employee spots my purple wristband and says, "You're purple. You go ahead up to the third floor."
And dopey-dopey-do, this still hasn't sunk in. I go up to the third floor, not sure what's going on, and there an employee spots my wristband and steers me into the event space to the end of a fifty or sixty person line there. We wait. We laugh at the person in the Cluck a Bucket chicken suit and get handed these awesome "I Love Ranger" or "I Love Joe" pins depending on our preference. (Ranger, naturally, but not if he's neutered by familiarity.)
One girl ahead of me said she'd been there since 9:30am. (It was currently 6pm.)
WHAT?!
And then I started to piece it together and realized that I'd just dopey-dopey-do'd my way past hundreds of people in line. They were all in line! They weren't lurking in every aisle of the three-story store shopping, they were waiting to inch their way up to the room I was in, to meet Janet and have her sign their books. It would have been impossible to shop--the store was packed with nothing but Plum crazy fans.
The bounds of my luckiness in earning, by being pitiable, baby-laden, and completely obtuse, one of these coveted purple wristbands was pretty awesome. Janet was wheeled out in a wheelchair with a giant white cast on her foot and we all inched forward bit by bit with employees turning our books to the right page and snapping our photos with our own cameras and an hour and a half later, I had a fussy baby and the very great autographs. :)
And still, the line through the store's every bit of carpeted space wound on and on. I can't imagine, she would have had to sit there forever.
Home to Daniel and yummy Chinese food leftovers and a new episode of Top Chef Masters on the DVR. Such a Yay!Day. :D
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no subject
Date: 2009-06-26 12:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-26 01:08 pm (UTC)I really like Top Chef Masters. It's like Top Chef but without all the whining.
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Date: 2009-06-26 03:08 pm (UTC)