I’m hearing about this new trend in the baby world: the gender reveal party. What happens is the doctor or sonogram tech writes the gender in a sealed envelope which is then delivered to a baker. The baker then bakes either a pink or blue cake with neutral frosting. Then a reveal party is hosted and the cake is cut to announce the gender to all, including the pregnant woman.

So….what do you think? Have you heard of this? Hosted one for yourself? think this is gag worthy?

I’m not a huge fan for a couple of reasons- mostly personal…

I didn’t find out the gender of either of my kids. For one, in Judaism, bringing anything into a house for a baby before it’s born is considered bad luck. We had everything on order a the baby store, but nothing in the house. I also like the surprise of it. There are so few things in life that are surprises, why not hold on to the one huge one?

Two. There’s room for some major errors. There could be a sonogram error. True story- my niece was supposed to be my nephew. The mistake wasn’t discovered until her delivery. Surprise! It’s a girl. Good thing my sister-in-law is like me and also superstitious or they would’ve had a room full of blue. The baker could also screw up. Anyone follow www.cakewrecks.com. Funniest site ever, but also a good indication that bakers are not infallible. What if they bake the wrong color cake? Or give you the wrong cake?

I also see this gender reveal party as a trend in parenting to make a celebration of every little thing. Don’t get me wrong, I love an excuse to party. But for parents, it gets exhausting to celebrate 100 days of School, Valentines, Elf on the Shelf, Joey’s student of the week, and so many more I don’t even know about yet.

What do you think? Am I being an old curmudgeon? Should we embrace that life is short and we should celebrate the good stuff? Talk to me about wackiest made-up holiday you’ve heard of?

It happens every summer. An ear worm hits the airwaves and it’s in your head all summer. Some I like, some I could live without. (Remember the summer of Gangam style).

This summer, I’m humming along to Imagine Dragons, On Top of the World, Fancy by Iggy Azalea, and I could live without Happy by Pharrell.

What’s in your head this summer?

This weekend my boys begged me to drive them to a local Pokemon tournament at a local comic/collector shop.

Now, I knew what they didn’t; that the tournament would be a micro version of comic con or similar con. They’d never seen or been to anything like it. Nor had I, because my choice for the weekend would’ve been going to the Nationals game or hiking in Rock Creek Park. But life is kind of funny. In high school, it wasn’t so much that I made fun of the kids who were into computers or RPG games, I was just ignorant and too busy playing sports to pay much attention to cliques that weren’t my own. So God has a sense of humor when he gave me two boys who embrace the so-called Geek lifestyle.

As an adult I understand that Geek is just a teen construct we put on kids who didn’t fit into the Beverly Hills 90210 version of high school. I recognize that if you can fill an entire convention center with people of like-minded interests, it ceases to be counter culture, and is the normative lifestyle. But it was hard seeing a bunch of teens that you could tell were counting the seconds until graduation day. I kind of wanted to start a mini breakout session with social skills advice and some personal grooming tips.

We walked into the comic book store and my boys were taken aback. “There’s so many grown-ups here,” my 11 year old whispered to me. He’d expected other elementary aged kids. I was a tad surprised too, but I encouraged them to enter the fray and offer to trade cards.

It took a while, but by the end of the afternoon my boys were chatting with people of all ages because they had this one common interest. They left with promises to be back next week. As for me, I got some story ideas…I think you can count on a NA story set in this “geek” world.

Last Saturday I had the honor of being one of the featured authors at the Frederick Book festival put on by the awesome Vivi Dumas.

This was only the third book fair I’ve attended as a signing author and I need to work out some kinks in the Lynne Silver booth. As I realized this Saturday, my little 6 foot table is my store front for the hours I’m at the fair. And like a regular store front, if your window dressing isn’t appealing, customers will zoom right by doing the eye avoidance stance.

Here is what my table looked like:

Pretty boring, right?

And here is what my neighbor and new friend Jean Murray’s table looked like:

Pretty, Right? And goes with her series which is this awesome modern Egyptian mythology. Which table would YOU stop at?

Jean’s? Yeah, me too.

In just a few weeks I will be at Author’s After Dark in Charlotte, NC (If you haven’t registered you should), and I need to step up my game for the book festival. I already ordered a shimmery silver table cloth to go with the Lynne Silver brand, and I’m thinking I’ll stop at Five Below for some hot pink boxes to hold swag. What do you think? I’m open to ideas. Get your decorating hats on and help me out. What do you look for at book fairs?