Tour Time

I'm off! First stop, Seattle. Then San Francisco, then Portland, then Pasadena, then Denver, then Minneapolis, then Chicago, then Nashville, then Rhinebeck, then Portland, Maine, then Toronto, and then I'm going to hide under the bed for A WHOLE YEAR until I'm able to form complete sentences again.

I've blathered about the tour everywhere, and I assume people are sick and tired of hearing about it, and I certainly feel rather dull talking about it all the time. But then someone will email and say, "What? A tour? When?" so I feel compelled to list the dates one more time, just in case. 

You can find them all here.

On my flight to Seattle, a most amazing thing happened. I was waiting with everyone for our gate-checked luggage when a lovely woman tapped me on the shoulder and asked, "Are you Clara Parkes?" This usually sends me into a panic. What did I do? How am I in trouble? Where will they interrogate me? Will I miss my connection?

I nervously nodded and said yes, and she reached into her purse and pulled out a copy of my book. She'd been reading it on the airplane. Probably at the exact moment I was snoring and drooling in my seat. That, my friends, is a moment I won't soon forget. 

On the next leg of my flight, I sat next to a charming man from Nashville who works for Service Corporation International. He told me all about it, all the places he's lived and worked during his 25-year career there. It's the nation's largest funeral company if you didn't know. (I didn't.) Lovely man, pulled my suitcase from the overhead for me, likes his beer cold, and recommended I go to the bubble gum wall when I'm in Nashville. Apparently it's a wall where famous people stick their bubble gum. Yup.

In the meantime, tomorrow I formally launch myself into orbit at Third Place Books. Butterflies! Excitement! Two weeks of getting to hang out with knitters every day, talk with them, make them laugh, and hear their stories. Could anything be better?

Will I see you along the way?

* Correction! Apparently the wall is here in Seattle. But still...why?