Good morning!  It is Friday!  That is exciting to me in so many ways!   I was supposed to be heading out this afternoon for the MS 150 but sadly my commitments caused me to have to cancel out.  I do have one work commitment today – and tomorrow I have a funeral to attend and a birthday celebration.  I am bummed about the ride, but as I sit here with a sinus infection coughing and sniffling it is probably for the best.  I do love that ride though and have to figure out a way to make it work along with New York and not becoming over committed/ booked.

Today I will talk about the 2nd official day of the expo in New York:

BEA Day 4:

Last Friday, Cindy (roomy) and I woke up early to get ready to go to breakfast at Adriana Trigiani’s home.  Yes, you read that right.  We were going to her home in Greenwich Village for breakfast at 7:30 am.  We walked down the block to another hotel to meet up with Candice and Jill, and the 4 of us took the subway.  Note:  I never take the Subway in New York, I do not know my way around well enough but when others know their way around I am happy to follow their lead. 😀

We arrived a little early so we sat in a beautiful park in the area.

Far end of the bench: Candice, Cindy, and then Jill closest to this end.

When it was time to go to Adriana’s we joined about 12 other blogger/reviewers at her home.  Adriana was gracious as always.  She had out lovely china for us to use saying, “What’s the point of having china you do not use, only to die and people saying, well she had a lovely set of china.”

Adrianna is someone I could listen to for hours.  For people who have not read her books I say if you listened to her speak, so passionately and witty, you would find yourself wanting to read everything this woman has written.  She is an amazing story-teller.  What a gift!

About 9:30 am Cindy and I grabbed a taxi back to the Javits.  After walking around for about a half hour I wondered over to the autograph area to see who was signing.  As I was reading the names I seen one said, “Adriana Trigiani signing 10 – 11 am”.  I thought, that can not be right, when I left at 9:30 she still had a good 15 people in her home and she was completely relaxed and chatting away – but sure enough, unless Adriana has a twin, there she was with a long line leading up to her to have books signed.

Amazing. 

😛

Friday as you can imagine I was quite wiped out.  Before I had gone back to the Javits that morning I had stopped at a little store and picked up an iced coffee and this bag of some sort of grainy chips.  After I got the Javits I stared at this bag of chips and thought, seriously, I am not carrying these around.  So I put them in my shipping box to keep. 😀  Later, actually not that much later as I was wiped out – I was in the shipping area, people watching and eating those chips.  My Facebook and twitter status was something like this:

Is it wrong that I am so tired that I am hanging out in shipping, people watching and eating grain chips?

I did leave the Javitz for a while to go relax at our hotel room and catch a break.  At  4 pm that afternoon I had a ticket to the narrators tea, but I also had an rsvp in to go with a group of bloggers to have cocktails with Dorothy Benton Frank.  I tried (and failed) to do both.  Since Dorothy’s event went from 3:15 – 6 pm, I thought I could do the first half of the authors tea, leave there by 4:30, catch a taxi and catch up with the rest by 5:00, hang out until 5:45 or so and then catch up with Cindy at the Random House Canada get together. 

Yeah… that didn’t work.  At 4:30 when I left to catch the taxi I started by the Javits and could not catch a cab.  I moved around to other blocks eventually winding up by my hotel.  I tried until I was hot and tired at 5:30 and then I called the wonderful ladies who had sat this gathering up apologizing for my lack or appearance and then caught up with Cindy to go to her invite.  Sadly, I could not do it all. 😦

Cindy and I were at the Random House get together for a little over an hour.  They had lovely horduerves and she and I were able just to relax and talk and that was nice as we were both tired out.  We ended out evening by going over to Chipolte which Cindy had never had before and I told her it was a must!

That was out Friday.  Back in the hotel we were asleep in no time. 😀

Today, this morning I am going garage sailing.  YAY!!!  Then I have a meeting, and this afternoon a friend of mine and her daughter our coming over to help me open up my BEA boxes.  (You may remember Camryn, she wrote YA reviews for me last summer 😀 )Then I will spend my later afternoon organizing the books.  All of which, as us book lovers know – is so much fun. 😀 

For the previous BEA recap posts…

BEA Day 1:  What is up with my pants????

BEA Day 2:  Blogger Con and I love Harper!!!!!

BEA:  Day 3:  Least Favorite Book Of The Expo