Happy Birthday To Me!

What a lovely day I had today...really, this has to go down in the books as one of my better birthdays.

When I went into work today, my boss gave me a box of Rheb's chocolates. Do I have the best boss in the world, or what?! We both adore Rheb's and she said when she was over getting some for her mom recently, she thought of me. She made sure to buy some creams because she knew we had always gotten buttercreams in the boxes we got Mom. What a sweet thing for her to do.

And then this evening we went out to dinner with Katharine Weber. I am not Miss Sociable but Katharine makes being sociable easy. She's a fascinating person and we had a tasty dinner at the Vietnamese restaurant and closed the place! I mean, they were piling the chairs on the tables! Katharine signed my book (with birthday wishes!) and gave me a luscious tin of Valrhona deep dark chocolate that came...get this...from Paris. Swanky, no?!

We talked some about True Confections and I told her how much I had enjoyed it. She mentioned that some people had told her that they really couldn't take the narrator and had to stop reading. And certainly Alice has her issues...but I still found that I liked her. I might not trust her completely but I liked her. The paperback comes out in December!!

Katharine's next book is a memoir about her family. Now, I am not usually a memoir sort of person...but by the time we parted this evening I was dying to read this book. It's going to cover her father's 800-page FBI file, his affairs with known spies (though he was not a spy himself), her grandmother's affair with George Gershwin, her grandmother's grandfather (I think it was) who may or may not have profited from another man's murderous spree in the gold-mining hills of Montana...and more. As she is telling us some of the stories about her family (the travails of her father trying to make a profit from 1,800 East German typewriters had me giggling) I thought, at one point, "Man, if I were sitting in the booth next to us, I'd be listening in just as hard as I could!"

And she had some good news...Caroline Leavitt, an author I adore, has a new book coming out. Katharine said she thinks this one is going to be big. Yay! I have loved all of Caroline's books and I can't understand why more people don't love her. Her books have big hearts and such true and living characters.

She also transmitted greetings from some old Readervillians who she is still in touch with. I know that one of the ladies, Cara, reads here sometimes...so "Hi, Cara!" (I'm a little in awe of Cara. She seems to be both very cool and a very honest person. And she has wonderful cats.)

Mr. Pointy Sticks and I finally wandered home about 10:30 (glad we're taking tomorrow off work!) and I opened my presents from him. Two gorgeous pairs of earrings, Country Weekend Socks, Johannes Cabal the Detective, and (my suggestion when he was panicking a little the other day) a gift card to Borders for more bookish goodness. And last but not least...a new "It Itches" sweatshirt. You see, next weekend we are going up to Philly and I'll get to meet Franklin Habit and I'd like him to sign my shirt. And I can't find it. I'm fairly sure I'll find it before next Saturday, but Mr. Pointy Sticks thought "better safe than sorry" and got me a back-up shirt in case the other one doesn't turn up. He's a thoughty guy.

So, other than the fact that I had my camera with me this evening and took nary a picture, this has been the best birthday ever!