50,000 Talking Dogs

On Friday I made an author visit to my youngest crowd ever: the second-grade classroom in which my friend Leeann teaches.  It was pajama day, the last hour of the last day of one of the last weeks of the school year. After I had a seat in the reading nook, the kids gathered ‘round and asked lots of excellent questions, including:

“What’s it like to be an author?”

"Where do you live?”

“Where were you born?”

“Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

“Do you have a dog?”

“Does she have a goldfish?” (Whispered to the teacher.)

“Do you have a husband?”

“Did you always want to be a writer?”

“Do you have any kids?”

“If you had some, would you be inspired by them?”

“When are you having a baby?”

“How old are you?"  

When I told him, his eyes popped and he yelled, "That's five years older than my mom!"

One little girl smiled shyly at me and said, "You're pretty."

Another girl in thick glasses and freckles sidled up to me and absently scratched my leg like a cat for what felt like five minutes. I didn’t want to make her feel strange or awkward for scratching me, so I just kind of endured it while the boy to her left folded himself into Child’s Pose to cope with his restlessness.

I really enjoyed myself, including our group storyboarding session at the end. (The title of our book? 50,000 Talking Dogs ... owned by an alien named Paul Stanley from Planet Blastoise). Afterwards I signed autographs. One serious young man named Gary instructed me to re-do my signature, this time in perfect cursive. Of course I obliged, because he was an eight year-old named Gary.

On the way home I missed my exit and drove the wrong way for 7 or 8 miles until I realized the sun was setting on the wrong side of the road.

This Tuesday, I’m blogging at the Girlfriends Book Club, and next weekend I’ll be judging the Edible Book Challenge at the Oshkosh Public Library, which should be another fun event.  Somewhere in there I’m also wrapping up a grant proposal, finishing novel edits, moving my office, planting my garden, getting a haircut, and kicking-off a living room renovation because I didn’t learn my lesson with our winter remodel. Oh, and I just found out I'm going to have another nephew this fall!

 Happy Mother's Day...Happy day.