Oh yeah, I write

Yesterday morning I awoke to the baby's cry at 3am. A typical start to the day. The morning passed in a blur feeding pureed apple mixed with plain yogurt, getting everyone dressed, dog walked, makeup applied. We ventured out with the stroller and carseat to visit friends Jane and Tim who live in a renovated house in Palermo Soho. It took us 3 tries to find a cab that would and could fit the stroller in their trunk. Jane and Tim brought an entire retail stores worth of inventory from Indonesia to BA when they moved here. Opened up shop six months ago and are now liquidating everything and instead going into the real estate biz. They are the only ones we know that moved here with their family like we did - selling everything and taking a big risk that life in a foreign country would work out. Their eldest daughter Laura is thriving. She's incredibly bright and got into the feeder Jr.High/High School for UBA (Univ of Buenos Aires - the best university in the country and free to residents). If she completes school there she won't even have to take the entrance exams to attend UBA. It's quite an accomplishment for a girl who didn't even speak spanish when they moved here two years ago.

We visited for an hour or so, then found a quick cafe to scarf down a steak sandwich while feeding the baby. She fell asleep in the car ride home and I had exactly five minutes to prepare her lunch (carrots, squash, egg yolk and Casan Creme - a cream cheesy product; rice cereal and banana her favorite), change clothes and dash down the street to the La Rural Conference Center. The annual book fair Feria de Libros started Thursday and 3pm was my first scheduled reading at the US Embassy booth. I arrived with two minutes to spare and no time for nerves. The crowd gathered and the set up was much better than last year with a partition between the walkway and the reading space, also a more professional mike. About 25 people sat and listened as I read the two stories published in our now annual Thursdays@3 anthology. This year my stories were short and deeply personal. As soon as I started reading, the hectic morning melted away and for fifteen minutes I was a writer, reader and individual again - not just a mom.