Boston, you’re not Boring

Let me tell you something about Boston –  Not once, ever when I have been there, has anything even remotely normal happened to me – and that was certainly true this go around.  As a matter of fact, I’d have to say that Boston kicked it up a notch this time – putting the icing on the cake when the fire alarm went off in my hotel way, way too early in the morning and we had to evacuate, and then popped a little cherry on top when my flight got delayed and turned the trip into a big of a rush, now that I’m here in Baltimore. I love Boston a lot, but it is not screwing around when it decides to be interesting, I’ll tell you that for free.

Wanna see? Sure you do.  Here’s the seemingly normal Boston crowd. bostonleft 2014-03-14 bostonright 2014-03-14

It all seems pretty normal, if you call what I’m doing on this book tour anything remotely normal, but it’s not normal. See this? This is Michelle. These are her first socks.

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Seems normal, doesn’t it? SURE  IT DOES. Until you find out that they might be her first socks, but they’re also her second project.  Ever. That’s not normal.

Also not normal was the wonder that was Susan.

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Susan walked up and said it was her first sock, and I looked at it, and the thing is perfect.  Totally perfect. It’s got complex cables, it’s the right size, there’s not a mistake on it, it looks like a 1000th sock. I was totally flipped out until I realized there’s only one. That’s a little more normal.

This is Deborah. She was pretty normal, and it was her birthday.

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She was pretty normal until she handed me a challah that she’d baked, and I remembered that last time she and her husband brought me butter tarts, and I started to wonder if they’re normal after all.  I’m not objecting, in any case.

Betsy isn’t normal either, in the best possible way.  The last time I was in Boston, Betsy came and showed us this:

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It was a picture of her nephew Patrick recovering from brain cancer. She’d started trying to help by starting up PatPat’s Hats. Last night she came to do three things. 1) get a book. 2) tell me that you guys have made a tremendous difference to her cause and (drumroll please)

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Show me a picture of Patrick, now five years old and healthy.  Happily for Patrick, and sadly for a lot of kids who get cancer, that’s not normal, but I think we would all love it if it were.  (You can do some other nice knitter stuff to help raise awareness of pediatric cancer here. It’s underfunded.)

Last but not least:

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Everyone’s favourite Knitting Nuns. The sisters of the Holy Nativity Convent.  (They’re a self supporting convent, which I think is just so cool. There’s candles and stuff, but Mother Macrina makes amazing batts and roving.) I know a lot of us dream of making things for a living, and here they are. Getting it done. It’s lovely. The nuns brought me some beautiful soup, bread and pudding, and it was delicious and meant I got to skip two restaurant meals. (Plus, Mother Seraphima gave me Dr. Who stitch markers. That’s a cool nun.)

Finally,  something not normal happened right at the end.  I was ready to leave, and the bookstore events lady asked me if I would like to sign the men’s bathroom wall.  Apparently they let authors do this (but they’ve never asked me before.)

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I signed between Sue Monk Kidd and Wally Lamb.  It wasn’t normal.