Happy Mother's Day!

It is Mother's Day today, so I will start the blog by wishing all the mothers who may read this a very happy day.  I'm certainly happy because it's the first time in several years that I will be spending it with one of my children.  In 2011 and 2012, we were in Florida without either Evey or Lowell.  I know a lot of mothers in the world have to spend the holiday without their children, but it doesn't mean we like it.  Today will be a special treat to spend it with Lowell and with my soon-to-be daughter-in-law, Emily.  I have gone from two kids to four kids!  That's a good thing.

Emily and Lowell have arranged for us to go to brunch at a restaurant near their home in Columbia, MD, along with her parents, Pat and Phil.  I'll be leaving in just a few hours for that, so tomorrow I will post pictures of us.

This morning I gave myself a little Mother's Day gift when I downloaded the Kindle edition of Lowell's book, Draw a Circle. I also wrote a review on Amazon of it.  I meant to disguise myself by changing my public name to Reby S, but I did that AFTER I submitted the review. Oops.  So the review is by Rebecca Silverstein.  Do you think anyone will notice the same last name?  LOL!  It's available to buy from him still if you are in the area and will see him, but it's also now available in print or as an ebook on Amazon.  Just go to Amazon and put in his name and it will be there.  AWESOME!  My son IS a published author. 

I have a card from Evey that I have opened.  Very cute!  The card suggests I should have a margarita.  I think I will later today!  She sent me a gift back in March by including money on a Disney Gift Card for Mark's birthday that is for the two of us to take the backstage tour of the Magic Kingdom some day.  How cool is that??!! Thanks, Evey!

Mark gave me what I really needed, a new camera!  I have dropped my old camera so many times that the lens cover no longer closes.  Sometimes it doesn't open all the way either, so I've ruined a lot of shots by not noticing the lens cover is obscuring some of the shot.  This new Canon looks like it will function very much like the old one, same type battery and memory card, but in half the size and weight.  It will easily slip into my pocket now.  I'm charging up the battery and hope to use it to take pictures at the Mother's Day brunch in a few hours!  Thanks, Mark!

Yesterday we went to shul, and then I played Mah Jongg at Annie's house.  She also made us a scrumptious lunch.  There were five of us playing: Annie, Arlene, Sue, Debbie, and me.  Mark enjoyed the lunch as well, and had some time to read and talk to Annie's husband, Marc.  I won three games, so it was a lovely afternoon.

NOW it's time to talk about Friday night!  I've saved it for last.  I should have written about it yesterday, but I was gone most of the day, and then I wanted to upload all the photos from the reading before writing about it. I had taken three videos, and they just take hours to upload.

The short version is that it was WONDERFUL!  Those blog readers who are also my Facebook friends have already heard a lot about it and seen some of the pictures.  Some of you have also received the photo album, which included the videos.  If you are reading this and would like to have the photo album, just email me.  It will be on its way to your inbox as soon as possible.

Lowell was brilliant!  He looked great; he sounded great.  His stage presence was amazing.  He read beautifully.  Not all of the 27 students were great readers.  Sometimes I had to try hard to separate the writing from the reading.  I did enjoy the entire evening immensely. I bought 11 books from his classmates, including Marie's book of poetry.  Marie T. is one of the teachers that I worked with at Catonsville High in the English department.  Small world because she became one of Lowell's classmates in the UB MFA program and she was Cindy's college roommate for a year.  She grew up in Laurel and went to elementary school with Cindy and Kip.  Crazy world.  Marie also did an outstanding job of reading!

Rudy, Georganne, Emily, Phil, and Pat attended along with Mark and me, so Lowell had a good representation in the audience. I hope he sold lots of books. I think Mark and I did our share.  Between the two of us, we bought 23 copies. I'll be giving many of them away as gifts. 

He has a website, www.lowellsilverstein.com, with links to purchase the book.  The entire story that he read aloud, "Bathwater,"  is on the website as a sample of the book.  And as I already said, it's now available from him AND from Amazon. 

The University of Baltimore did an excellent job of preparing these students.  The evening was lovely and well run.  There were two "acts," each with half the students presenting.  In case you only came for one half, the professor serving as emcee ran the same intro video, gave the same speech, and introduced the faculty each time.  NO problem.  Even though Lowell was in the second half, I had no problem sitting through those opening ceremonies twice.  I also enjoyed hearing all of the students read. That way I could decide which of the other books appealed to me in order to buy them.  The students were manning tables with copies of their books before the reading, during the intermission between the two halves, and at the end.  There was also one central table with all the books on them to make it easy to buy from several authors in one spot.  Complimentary wine, cheese, and fruit was provided to everyone, along with a beautiful cake, although I never saw the cake cut.  It was a great night.

Mark and I were very glad we brought a big bag to carry out all the books.  It weighed a LOT!  We were also glad we thought to bring umbrellas because it was POURING when we left.  I covered the bag up with my sweater because we didn't want any of the books to get wet! 

I know this is a long blog. That's what happens when I wait a few days to write and there are so many things happening.  Enjoy a few pictures from the reading, Mah Jongg, and Mother's Day.  There will be more Mother's Day pictures tomorrow, taken from my NEW camera!

Some of his books on his table.

Mark and Lowell, both in black by coincidence not design.

Lowell and me, BEAMING!

Lowell and Marie

On stage!

At the podium

Pat, Emily, and Phil

Mark and Phil with Emily

The engaged couple with the parent's of the groom

Lowell and Emily at his table

Signing an autograph in his book!  Now that is really cool!

Lunch at Annie's

Annie, Debbie, Arlene, and Sue.  Fun times!

My new camera.  Thanks, Mark.

Lowell's book is the newest one on my Kindle!