It’s been a crazy week. My kids had their end of year band concerts on Monday, and the Saturday before that, I chaperoned the middle school band to a competition at Six Flags New England. 
But the best bit was finding the fire department waiting at the town line to escort the band buses home. They heard about their two first place trophies and decided to give them the VIP treatment. 
The rest of week was stuffed with endless baseball in the endless rain. I don’t know how parents who have more than one kid in more than one sport survive spring.
In the middle of all this, I had to decide whether or not to go to New York for BEA. That's Book Expo America, the publishing industry's biggest event. This year I had a special reason to want to go. My friend Kiki Hamilton was going to be there for her first book signing. Miraculously, my husband could actually take the day off to get the kids to wherever they needed to go. I got my train ticket, registered online and off I went! 
The weather was a perfect sunny 80 degrees. I didn’t get lost OR lose my train ticket, BEA registration, cell phone, car keys, parking garage slip or any of the other things I regularly misplace, being the absent minded writer type that I am.
Being in NYC always feels like coming home. Maybe because I grew up in another big city (New Delhi) the energy of a big busy gritty city feels so utterly familiar.
I found Kiki without a hitch. Despite having been online friends for years this was the first time we ever met for REAL!! It was so awesome be there for her very first signing. 
I also met most of the Class of 2K11 thanks to Kiki ... 
And ran into Anindita Basu Sempere, a fellow SCBWI New Englander. And met the lovely Cindy Pon. 
And got and as many books as I could carry. I could go on, but I’ll let the pictures do the talking.
But it's good to be back in suburbia ... even if there's more baseball practice this evening (groan!).
