Today is definitely Book Day.

I woke up, grabbed Ray’s leash and my Kindle. And lo and behold while I slept Ann Leary’s new book, “The Children” that I pre-ordered months ago had downloaded.

And not a moment too soon. Tonight I’m going to Barnes & Noble where Ann will be reading from that book. It’s kind of a book party and I’m invited along with a lots of celebs.

I just realized that I have a bunch of different things to say about all this.

When I was a little girl I adored Nancy Drew. The second the bookshop near me had a one cent sale, buy one Nancy Drew book for 99 cents and you get a second book for a penny my father would give me a dollar and I’d run to the store in absolute ecstasy.

If I’d have known Caroline Keene personally I’d have gone crazy with glee.

Of course since then I’ve learned that Caroline Keene is a pseudonym for a group of authors who wrote the Nancy Drew series but that isn’t the point.

Now me at parties. I have a terrible personality in person. I babble on and say weird things to people when I first meet them. I have absolutely no gift for small talk which brings me to how I got to know Ann Leary as a writer.

I really liked her in theory.

She is a very good friend of  Julie’s and one of the people that can make Julie laugh. She is also is really kind.

When Julie found a thin pit bull on the street and was calling all over to find someone to take it in Ann said “Bring him here. I’ll take him until we can find a place for him.” I had to love her for that.

She did have one thing against her. She’s married to Denis Leary.

In spite of the fact that through my ex husband’s music I had met many famous people I always got tongue tied and said nutty things whenever I was in their presence.

I had actually paid money to see Denis perform in Atlantic City so I really hoped not to be anywhere near him for Julie’s sake. Which explains how I came to read an Ann Leary book.

Ann and Denis made a lovely book party at their home for Julie  when she wrote “You Had Me At Woof “. Another reason to love Ann. After the party everyone went to the local book store for a reading.

At their house I mumbled some inappropriate comments to both Ann and Denis and I think one of their kids so by the time we were at the book store I was all red and  sweaty and decided to lay low.

I sat on a chair in the corner trying to hide when I noticed a display of Ann’s books. I picked up “An Innocent, A Broad” and started to read it and I couldn’t put it down.

From then on I read every word she’s written.

I finally had my very own Carolyn Keene.

And I’m not the only one who values specific writers.

Why just this morning I was on Twitter when I read a tweet from a book lover. It was to Karen Gravano, the daughter of Sammy “the Bull” Gravano, best known for ratting on the mob. It seems she “wrote” a book about her famous father.

The tweet said,

Into bed & catch up reading #mobdaughter on ibook by @KarenGravanoVH1 first book iv actually ever enjoyed 🙈❤️👏🏼

So there Mark Twain!

Gotta go. I’m going to write some bon mots on the inside of my arm in case someone talks to me at the party tonight.

Every time my sister Marcia comes into the City we treat it like a mini vacation.

She was here this week to see her granddaughter and my niece in a middle school talent show.

We knew the kid had talent to burn and she didn’t disappoint but I’m nor sure that was true of a few of the other kids.

I was even thinking that being in this show must have been mandatory or why else would the kid who threw around 3 sticks have chosen to perform that as his talent. He had to search long and hard to come up with that. And in truth he wasn’t even that good at it unless dropping one of the sticks was just to show how difficult it could be.

Kindly the audience gave screaming ovations before and after each and every performance.

Then came two very handsome boys introduced as one accompanying his friend on the guitar while the other sang a song he wrote. “Wrote” was a strong word as was “sang”. The kid screamed some words he threw together.

Have any of you seen the Broadway show “Stomp”? This is where a group of dancers use their feet as rhythmic drums and move in unison.

Well we were blessed with the middle school version of this where the only thing the dancers did together was put on red shirts.

We were all entertained out so we skipped the second half of the show and went to dinner.

We chose a French Vietnamese restaurant in my neighborhood.

We no sooner sat down with our drinks when 4 men were put next to us. Two of them were older, I would say in their late 60’s and two were in their middle 40’s. It was clearly a business dinner and the business was international  because they were talking about Hong Kong.

If you’re wondering how I know that it’s because the tables were very close together. So close in fact that when the young guy sitting next to me, let’s call him Clark. toasted the table he included us in his toast and spoke to us a few times during the meal.

I don’t want to suggest that I don’t listen to other peoples conversations because I do especially if it’s a couple fighting or something interesting but the tables were really close so I kind of had no choice.

While Marcia and I enjoyed our meal we mostly ignored the goings on at the next table until one of the older men, let’s call him Reginald, asked the others

“Who do you think will be the next President?”

No one answered so he continued. I didn’t catch everything he said but I did hear

“He never did anything illegal and though it’s true that he lost a lot of money in Atlantic City, everyone lost money there. He’s still a brilliant business man”

I didn’t hear the rest because Marcia started threatening me. “Don’t say a word. They are not our people. Mind your own business. That is a separate table.”

Since she’s my big sister I tried very hard to obey her. We paid the check and got up to leave. I leaned over and looked Reginald in the face.

“By the way boys, the next President will be Hillary”

Reggie looked like I slapped him. I guess he comes from a state without buttinskies but Clark’s face lightened up. He almost shouted.

“I agree and I’m backing her”

All that time I thought Clark included us in his conversation because of our remarkable beauty but it seems he was just searching for a lifeline from those two old right wing fogies.

Glad to oblige, Clarkie.

David and I are either going to have to redefine our relationship or not speak to each other until after the election.

With Donald Trump as the republican nominee I find nothing funny about what’s going on in the country.

When David says hateful things about President Obama and Hillary and with one eyebrow up in a serious voice starts spouting ways that the donald (long time readers know what those small letters mean) has helped our vision in the world as a country that won’t take any shit I want to stab him with a butter knife (more painful than anything sharp) until he’s just a puddle of stupid lying on the floor.

Enough of that, let me tell you about our visit. He is staying here because his son, Marshall was having a back operation.

He arrived on Wednesday at about 4. I had cocktails and hors d’oeuvres waiting for him. Ray was absolutely ecstatic.

He had dinner plans at 7:30 so that’s 3 and a half hours of chatting. Usually on the phone we speak for about 15 or 20 minutes.

After about 45 minutes we had clearly run out of talk especially since I refused to let him speak about politics or quote one of the 500 John Wayne movies that he has committed to memory.

There was one break in the chatter when the babe with the husband and 3 kids called which made clear that all that bullshit about him being too honorable to dabble in that relationship was exactly what I knew it was, bullshit.

After that he started calling everyone he knew to see if they’d have a drink with him before dinner so he could escape before 7:30.

I was just about to suggest that he see if the doorman was free when his ex sister in law agreed to meet him.

I was asleep when he got home and the next day he was with Marshall so we really didn’t see each other until this morning when we had breakfast.

A lovely breakfast I might add. David was being very nice. He even commented that I barely burnt the eggs. There were a few slip ups when he asked for salt and pepper and I brought him salt and ginger and then cinnamon. I finally put on my specs and gave him the pepper.

He only got a bit ugly when in serving Ray his eggs and cream cheese I put the knife back in the cheese container. I had to scrape off the top of the cream cheese before he would use it on his (nicely browned) bagel.

When he leaves I’m going to have to scrape off the top of the cream cheese again before I feed it to Ray.

We talked about Marshall’s recovery. The doctor said that because he was all muscle and no fat his pain would last longer. I guess that’s the downside of being a hunk.

David remarked that it would be good when Marshall would be able to run again because he couldn’t live without running. Then David said that he too used to run regularly.

“You? I’ve never seen you get off the couch fast”

“I was still running when I moved to NYC from Darien”

When I expressed disbelief he insisted that he ran many 10k’s.

“Unless the K stood for the the silent letter in knearly 10 inches I find that hard to believe. What made y0u stop?”

“I got hit by a gas truck”

We sat in silence while I’m sure he was thinking “Only something major like that could have stopped my constant quest for exercise ”

And I thought “HAHAHAHAHA”

Busy day today.

I’m giving Verizon the finger.

I haven’t had phone service for over a month. They said it would be 4 days when I first called. Now I’m living with only a cell phone just like the kids.

I’m not going to tell the whole boring story but when I complained that they sent me a bill anyway they said they would take their charges off but I still have to pay the taxes.

I’m calling Time Warner and getting that cable phone.

Next month my blog title will be Time Warner can kiss my ass.

David has to come to NYC tomorrow and he’s staying at my house.

I warned him not to try any funny stuff.  After all I am a woman alone and I just tweezed my eyebrows so I can’t take any chances.

I know he should be grateful but I’m expecting a whole lot of bitching.

He criticizes my cooking, my lack of tidiness, even my peignoirs.

He insists that even without holes my big tee shirts should be called “sleepwear”. What a hick. They are Ralph Lauren. They are referred to as “distressed”.

Love and kisses, Mattie