Barbara Bush

Barbara Bush came to Kepler's in Menlo Park this evening to talk about her recent book, Reflections, with part of the proceeds from the evening going to Project Read. So Georgina, Yenda and I walked over from the library to thank her, and hear her speak.

We got to go "backstage" (to the children's book section) before the talk to meet Mrs. Bush and get our picture taken with her. People always have trouble taking pictures with my camera. The first two ladies who tried ended up taking three odd little video clips of us standing there, waiting to be photographed. I finally figured out why it wasn't working, though, so we at least got one good picture.

The talk itself was short and moderately interesting. There were protestors outside, but there wasn't really much to protest inside. She mostly just shared humorous anecdotes from her book and exclaimed about how much she loves her husband and her children (which, I'd say, is a non-protestable sentiment, regardless of what you think of her husband or son). The Q&A session that followed included such fascinating topics as how many grandchildren she has, and who her favorite author is. The latter led to her comment that she reads "to relax -- to escape from the problems of the world that lay so heavily on my men's shoulders." This escape from problems was evident in a later question, when a woman was cut off in mid-sentence as soon as the phrase "opinion on a woman's right to choose" came up. Mrs. Bush wasn't going to be answering questions like that.

Actually, there were a few other, slightly weird comments (not to mention some weird audience members), but I won't go into them all now. It was definitely a good thing that she was doing for Project Read, so we all appreciate that.