First, some reminders of upcoming stuff:
June 6th – I'll be on NBC 10's show 10! at, um, 10:00 AM in Philadelphia. Will I stammer and sweat less than when I was on WGN? Will I be fined by the FCC for dropping accidental f-bombs? Tune in and find out!
June 6th – I'll be reading and signing at the Rittenhouse Barnes & Noble, 1805 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA at 7:30 PM.
June 7th – I'll be reading and signing again at the Astor Place Barnes & Noble, 4 Astor Place, New York, NY at 7:00 PM and there are drinks to be had afterwards... regardless of what Jenny Craig says. (Apparently seventeen dirty martinis are BAD for you.)
June 10th – I'll be reading, signing, and “in conversation” with Stacey Ballis on the B&N Heartland Stage at Printer's Row in Chicago, IL at 11:00 AM. Come if for no reason other than ROBIN GIVENS appears right after us!
July 27th, 28th, and/or 29th – I will not be at that convention and instead will be having drinks at the Four Seasons on one of those days with anyone interested in hearing my advice on turning blogs into books. (Specifics TBA.)
Because of the above, this would be an excellent place to post a photo of me posing with the new car with the caption “Knows nothing about turning blogs to books, and yet...” but I am not petty.
OK, yes, I am totally petty; I just don't have an actual picture of it, but it looks kind of like this. (The great irony is the only places I've driven it so far are to my trainer and to Jenny Craig. Also, I gave myself a touch of whiplash because my neck can't handle the fine, fine Bavarian acceleration. Hey, look at me - I'm a human bobblehead!)
Anyway, I'm thrilled not because we're a two car family again or because I'm no longer trapped in the house every day while Fletch has the car at work, but because this is tangible proof of how hard we've worked for the past four years. Being able to get financing directly from the car manufacturer probably doesn't seem like a big deal to most adults, but considering where we've been, this is a gigantic leap forward.
In other news, our old car is now housed on the street and within the first twelve hours of being parked there, it got booted. One of our neighbors didn't recognize our car (despite the fact I've waved hello to her from it every time I've driven by on the way to my garage for the past two years) and called the police to say it belonged to one of the kids who go to school around the corner. The police came and found our car legally parked with a permit. So they didn't waste a trip, they ran a search of all the cars we've ever registered and found three outstanding tickets Fletch had from five years/three cars ago, and we got booted. We immediately paid the old tickets online and then spent two days arguing with a bunch of city employees who said we didn't have a boot on our car because there were no tickets against this car in the system. Aarrggh.
Long story short, all is fine now and the boot is finally off. However, what really makes me mad is we can't get the police to come when we call 911, and yet they have all the time in the world to find a way to ticket an innocent car. At least now I know the next time there's a knife fight in front of my house or kids are selling drugs or vagrants are breaking into a construction site, I can call to report an illegally parked automobile and a cruiser will be there lickety-split.
Also, I'm never waving to that fucking neighbor again.
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