It's been a full week since I have looked at my WIP - it's been a vacation, if you will, and an excuse to get together with my other writer friends (and make them play a little hooky too!)
So I went on a downtown writerly-no-writing adventure, a beautiful sunny day in NYC. I finally got to meet IN PERSON, writer, mom and arts activist extraordinaire Milda de Voe, who I had been "set up" with by our mutual friend, musician and composer Dorothy Papadakos via email a few months ago. (Milda has started a non-profit reading salon in the financial district for writers (who are also parents) called Pen Parentis.) Upon meeting me in cyber-space, Milda immediately got me in touch with her partner-in-crime, writer/mom Arlaina Tibensky, to set me up to do a reading in December when EDGES comes out! (Yay! My very first scheduled reading!)
Excited, I arrived early at Le Pain Quotidien on Warren Street and West Broadway. What was Milda like in person? I was writing in my journal when up walks a gorgeous, slim redhead wearing a black sweater with sparkling dark blue nail polish. (A big plus, in my book!) For the next two hours, we talked a mile a minute, finding more similarities than just a love for community building through the arts.
We hugged goodbye, already old friends and I walked by Ground Zero and Century 21 (I didn't go in, I swear!) past Trinity church and the financial district to 75 Broad Street where I was meeting my Girls Write Now mentee Meg in front of her school. We had a date to go have bubble tea. (One of Meg's favorite things in the whole world is to go with her friends to Chinatown to a bubble tea joint called Ten Ren. Going there is the highlight of her week, so I thought it would be fun to go together, see her where she is happiest.) We hopped on the J to Canal street, and wove ourselves through the streets to Mott. She ordered her usual strawberry with a big red straw, and I ordered green apple, (with a straw to match) watching as the server placed tapioca pearls in the bottom of the cup, and then poured a cold tea-like drink over them. Would I like it? I wanted to like it, just because of Meg. (The one time I had it before, it was more like a milkshake, and I didn't like the two textures together.) We sat in the back and pulled out our straws . . . OMG . . . it was delicious!
Meg breathed out a sigh of relief. Then we went strolling down Mott street, talking about her plans to go to the University of Rochester at the end of summer, the up coming AP tests, the prom. I bought presents for my daughter who is turning five next week, while Meg imagined decorating her dorm room with Chinese lanterns.
Thank you Milda and Meg, for a wonderful day!
