A Big Thank You

It's a Friday morning. The air is amazingly cool, the sky sunny, and the birds cooing. You walk from the 50th Street 1 train subway stop across Broadway and past 10 firetrucks and roughly 100 bystanders looking up at a tall building. You ignore them (partly because you can't see whatever it is that they are seeing, and partly because you suspect that this may be an elaborate piece of street art) and head to work. You work on 53rd Street between 5th and 6th Avenue and you tend to take the same route because you like to walk past tourists having breakfast. It's always fun to see what other people are eating. By and by your iPod starts pumping one too many White Stripes songs into your head (your husband downloaded his dance mix onto it last New Year's and you refuse to change the Shuffle All Songs selection) but that's okay. You're at work. You wind the iPod earphones around its little black base, put on your ID, and say hello to the guard. The public elevators aren't working, so you take the groaningly slow staff lift and find yourself in the children's room of the Donnell Library. You go to your desk, certain that today will be like any other. And then, about 5 minutes later, your boss comes to your desk with a box in a bag. You remove the box and what do you think you find inside? Take a guess now.

CUPCAKES!!!

Was this the mysterious return of Matthew Holm???? NO! As it happens, author Grace Lin sent me wonderful, beautiful, delicious, nummy-yummy cupcakes as a thank you for my reivew of her extraordinary The Year of the Dog. In the interest of full-disclosure I should mention that the above photograph is NOT of the cupcakes she sent. I failed to bring my digital camera to work today, ignorant of the fact that I would find my favorite food in the whole wide world delivered to me. My sole regret is that Ms. Lin must have stopped by and the guards didn't let her up, or something. Man!

And since I do not have Ms. Lin's e-mail, let this stand a great big wonderful thank you to her for the exquisite little munchlings.

Cupcakes. The greatest gift a librarian can receive.