Up a Creek

He would have been there, if he were a woman--and alive

Mill Creek, that is, and I found it an exceedingly pleasant place to be.

Thanks go out to the warm and welcoming Mill Creek Women's Club for hosting me at their March Luncheon yesterday. The Club members have been long time contributors and volunteers to the YWCA's Pathways for Women and Working Wardrobe. Through their efforts, a couple local women's shelters have been able to furnish their rooms with family-style bunk beds, and many people starting over have found job-interview-style clothing at the Wardrobe. Even my author event was a fundraiser, thanks to University Book Store Mill Creek's donation of 15% of the book sales to Pathways! Hooray! If you live up that direction and would love to get involved and make fabulous friends, I highly recommended hanging with these classy women.

I'm happy to report that, in addition to having generous hearts, the ladies also generous attention spans, alertness, and senses of humor, and I managed to get through the event with no major disasters besides sitting in water and blotting one reader's book. (When I hoped you would "enjy" the book, that was pirate-talk for "enjoy." Go with it.)

As always, when I gather with avid readers, we swapped reading ideas. I'm thrilled to have turned people on to Maud Hart Lovelace's Betsy-Tacy series and Sydney Taylor's All-of-a-Kind Family. In turn, Jessica Perez, who runs the YA Book Club at University Book Store Mill Creek (among her many responsibilities there), suggested local author Justina Chen's North of Beautiful and Rachel Hawkins' Hex Hall series for me and my sixth-grader. Tellingly, Jessica reports that the YA Book Club is made up entirely of adults and one brave teenager...

An Chinese-Irish blessing for all this Saint Patrick's Day:

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind always be at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
and rains fall soft upon your fields.
May you "enjy" Christina's books
and recommend her to friends.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand!