My Trip to Scholastic

Although I only live 90 miles north of New York City I don’t make it down there as often as I would like. Maybe once every five months or so.
However this weekend we had to do some boring personal business stuff in Manhattan, and I jumped at the chance to meet my new editor, Lisa, and see some old friends who live in Brooklyn.
We packed up the kids and left at the ungodly hour of 6:30 so that we could make our business appointment at 11:00. Of course we ended up arriving a good hour or two early but luckily the offices were across the street from Central Park and a handy playground so we ran around and slid and swung and pretended we were an old money City family and lived on Park Avenue.
The kids were very quiet and malleable by the time we had to go sit in a waiting room. Much boredom and waiting ensued, but finally we were free to leave!
The Scholastic building is in Soho, one of my favorite areas of NYC. What’s not to like? Lots of shops, restaurants, people, fabulous art deco buildings…

We found underground parking a few blocks away and then wandered around Washington Square Park, somehow getting turned around in the process. Consequently I was about 1/2 hour late for my lunch date and the child who has to walk was complaining of sore feet.
The husband and kids kissed me goodbye at the front lobby and went off to find chicken satay and dumplings.
I got my visitor pass at the front desk, went up an escalator and to a waiting room.
Note- I carefully brought my camera so I document this excursion and then of course forgot completely to remove it from my purse.
Lisa came down, we shook hands and then went off to a nice seafood/vegi restaurant around the corner. We both ordered healthy not-fattening things and shared a yummy appetizer with wontons and avocado. Mmmm.
I think I talked probably too much, as I do when I am nervous, but not as much as I would have if I had had a glass of wine with lunch.
Alcohol in the middle of the day makes me excessively animated and then wont to collapse face-first in my chopped salad.
It was so great talking to someone about writing, books, my writing and my books, especially since she loves my writing and my books!
I did manage to ask her about her life too but mostly we talked about me.
Oh, and the editing process and other minutiae of publishing.
Then back to Scholastic where my family was waiting for me in the super cool shop they have on the ground floor.

If I had remembered to take a photo it would have looked something like this. You can pretend to see my son crouched between the Goosebumps and Pokemon shelves, and that’s my 3 yo scaling the heights of the ‘How do Dinosaurs eat their dinner?’ dinosaur.
We actually lost her inside the shop, and found her trying to remove Captain Underpants’s underpants. (They don’t come off).
If I had remembered to take pictures, there may have been one like this:

of me and Lisa hugging goodbye.
I thought she was great! Smart and kind, funny and interesting. And I can’t wait to work with her.
We would both have been the dark-haired girl though.