First off, if you follow me on twitter you know how massively bummed I was not to be able to attend the Books Inc. event with Gayle (Forman), Jandy (Nelson), and Nina (LaCour) last night in SF, so to rally, I gathered my tow-headed troops and headed to…THE MALL. (Hillsdale in nearby San Mateo to be exact.) I’ve only been there once. Traffic would be crazy. But I *had* to see my pal Gayle. And my son had to see this girl. Hit Girl.

So we bribed our miniature hit girl with a trip to Build-A-Bear and left two  hours before the event started thinking, oh, we got this in the bag! First 300 in line get to meet Chloe and I’ll get Gayle to sign the new books and…oh.  Um. Where is this line going? Oh, along this wall? And out this door? And waaaaaaaay down this sidewalk into BFE?? Hmmm. “Kids. New plan. Let’s wait by the front and we’ll see them go by. Sorry about the autographs, but there’s no way we’re in the first 300 fans. So we hung out some. Waiting. Chatted. Whined about being hungry (that was all me). Scanning the crowd for super fans….and we found one! Check out this gorgeous pencil drawing of Mia and Adam!

Check out this crowd! Waiting and waiting and then, after a long half hour delay (I told you—traffic! The Bay Area is nuts!) they appeared in the elevator, like Charlie and Willy Wonka and this mall is their Chocolate Factory. The crowd went WILD!