Whenever anyone invites me over across the Sound for a Peninsula RWA Chapter function, if I can make it work to go, I go. Because the first thing I have to do is take a ferry ride. I love ferry boats–always have. There is just something so magical about driving onto a boat and sailing across Puget Sound.

Oh, I could drive around, but why? It takes the same length of time, but I spend half of it sitting in my car, with a perfectly good view of the water and can just sit back and leave the driving to a man in a snappy captain’s uniform. Now I am sure all the people who commute that way every day are shaking their heads at me, but I only do it every so often, so to me is a huge lark.

Friday I was off to Girls’ Night Out at the Kitsap Mall, where the Peninsula Chapter of RWA along with Barnes & Noble were holding a booksigning. Did I mention that I got to leave before the kids got out of school, spend the afternoon riding a ferry boat, and then hang out all night at a mall? Oh, life is good.

It got even better because I had a quickie dinner with fellow Avon author Suzanne MacPherson, where she had roses for me for my 2nd week showing on the NYT list. Love Letters from a Duke has climbed to #30. Then we went our separate ways as she was signing at Waldenbooks and I was off to B&N. Dueling booksignings as it were. But being friends, we sent people back and forth between the two. Believe me, there were plenty of people there for a whole battalion of romance authors.

But while she was next to the Disney store, I ended up looking at this all night:

The signing went like this:

Cherry Adair, every 10 minutes: I want some Rocky Road ice cream.

Me, the enabler to end all enablers: Go get some.

Cherry Adair, doing her best at sounding sincere: No, I shouldn’t.

Me, again enabling: Why shouldn’t you? Consider how hard you’ve worked handing out free bookmarks and signing your name. Those hardcovers are heavy lifting. You deserve Rocky Road ice cream. (Of course it is easy to encourage someone else to eat ice cream, while you determinely avoid said temptation when you have a half gallon of Tillamook Mudslide tucked away in your freezer at home.)

And I’m supposed to tell all of you that she resisted with the determination of a marine. That, and she mentioned something about how if I showed the picture of her cowering behind the table eating a large dish of said ice cream she’d hurt me. So instead you’ll have to do with a picture of me and Pat White (with Cherry and her alleged ice cream carefully edited out):

Now the funniest thing about the entire night, was the crowd of women. Never in my life have I seen so many pregnant women. And I mean PREGNANT. Like they should have had a OB on call at the customer service counter. The theories for this extraordinary phenom bounced back and forth down our signing table, until I did a little math and figured it out. Nine months ago, we all lost our power in that huge wind storm. In late December, when it was really cold. If you get my drift.

So between Cherry’s ice cream cravings, Pat’s fun sense of humor, and seeing other friends like Gerri Russell, it was a great Girls’ Night Out. And the ferry ride home in the dark, with the stars above and the lights twinkling from shore made it perfect. Sorry no pics of that. You’ll just have to imagine it.

What would be your perfect girls’ night out?