Returning Home

Next week I will be doing a book signing at Barnes and Noble on Court Street in Brooklyn Heights, NY. I am a Brooklyn Girl. I will always be a Brooklyn Girl. And I am returning to my old neighborhood.

This was Our building, which is now housing for Brooklyn Law School students. Our old apartment was on the 7th floor. I will share a childhood memory, my friend Claudia and I threw every single lipstick my mother owned out of my bedroom window and into the garden below. (The garden is the plant life behind the three people pictured walking in front of the building.) What possessed two 6 year olds to do such a thing? We thought watching stuff drop 7 floors looked pretty cool. What wasn't cool was seeing my mother trying to simultaneously keep herself from losing her temper with me and trying to keep the enraged building manager (aka Super) calm.

What I also remember is my mother sitting down with both Claudia and myself and asking us to explain why we thought throwing all of the stuff out the window made sense. My mother patiently listened to our explanation; We "wanted to be like scientists and do an experiment". I remember discussing safety issues involved with throwing things out of a 7 story window and littering being against the law. My mother helped us come up with other ways we could still conduct experiments, but safe ones.


Next time your kids do something and you wonder "What were they thinking?" Count to 10, take a couple of deep breaths, etc. Talk it over together before jumping to a conclusion and losing your cool. Kid logic and adult logic can differ, try fact finding before you make the accusations, condemn the guilty party and take every single privilege away from them until they leave for college.

Now, if you want to talk more about how I really did walk around Brooklyn Heights without shoes during the summer as if I were Pebbles Flintstone, meet me at Barnes and Noble at 7PM on January 19 in Brooklyn Heights!