Say "Cheese"…and Wine

Every once in a while, my talking computer barks out an email from the Illinois chapter of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. I listen and think, gee, that event sounds interesting. And then I find out where they are meeting, or when they are meeting, and I hit the delete button.
But then came the announcement for last night’s soiree. Downtown Chicago. 5:30 pm. Wine and cheese.
We live just south of the Chicago loop. The wine and cheese party was at Carus publishing – they’re the ones who publish Cricket Magazine for kids. Who knows, maybe Cricket is looking for stories about Seeing Eye dogs. And if they’re not? Wine. And cheese! I signed up.
Carus is at 70 E. Lake. A fairly easy walk for Hanni and me. Except during rush hour.
It’s not the traffic that’s the problem at 5 pm – it’s the commuters! Workers are so eager to catch their trains or get to their el stops or talk to friends on their cell phones that they don’t watch where their going. Hanni only got stepped on once during this trip, pretty good. But she was bumped into more times than that.
At one corner Hanni finally retaliated. She ran me right into the poor soul standing there waiting for the light to change.
“Hey!” the woman shouted at me.
“Sorry,” I said.
No answer.
We waited a bit. A noisy corner. Difficult to hear the traffic and figure out when the light turned green.
“Are you crossing here?” I asked the stranger.
No answer. Man, she really was mad at us. We waited. It was especially hard to judge the traffic. I needed help.
“Are you going this way?” I asked, pointing across the street. No answer.
That’s when I realized. The woman we ran into must be developmentally disabled. I left her alone.
Just then a young man walked up. “God you are in your own world!” he complained, nudging the woman so hard that she ran into us. Yeesh, it’s a violent pedestrian world in Chicago! “Take off your headphones!” the guy shouted to his friend. “You can’t hear anything!”
The stranger at the corner wasn’t developmentally disabled – she was voluntarily hearing impaired! The guy kept shouting to her as they crossed the street. We crossed along.
Hanni and I made it to 70 E. Lake. The book writers and illustrators were nice to us. One helped me find a seat, and Hanni immediately curled up next to me to recover from the trip. I drank wine. And ate cheese. And learned a lot about Carus Publications.               Any writers out there who are reading this blog: Cricket and Lady Bug and Baby Bug and all their magazines receive far too many stories about farms. And too many stories about summer adventures. They want more stories with an activity connected at the end. So if you have a story in mind about a winter activity in the city, send it to Carus. If the story centers on boys, all the better – they get far too many stories that relate solely to girls.
Our trip home was much easier – the commuters had all arrived at their destinations. Hanni and I made it home.  Safe & Sound.