rachelpink rides the bus

I'm Missing Matthew and Tammy Already. . .

<---See these two? They're cute, and I miss them.

Getting away to D.C. this weekend was a blessing. And I need to visit more, that's for sure. Too much time away from Tammy and Matthew makes my heart hurt. We did so many things, too many to list. Matthew experienced many firsts. His first hotel room, his first orange juice, his first giant ice pop (courtesy of me).

He was positively angelic on Saturday when I had babysitting duties. I was a disaster. But Becca and her family swooped in at noon and got me back on track. So many tricks Becca knows! She got Matthew to eat lunch. Her girls were kind and didn't laugh at me when we realized I'd put his diaper on backwards (lesson not learned--I did it again later in the day). Chelle was there too, and she helped mind the munchkin and keep him entertained. Becca's husband hauled the stroller up the steps of the museum, and again--I can't thank them all enough. Plus, we had fun! Becca's girls are awesome, and so different. Grayson was quiet, and cute as a button. And seeing Becca again was great even though there's never enough time to chat.  Someday--someday soon. And Chelle came too--I haven't seen her since high school, when we both liked Depeche Mode and worked at McDonalds.

It all made for a wonderful weekend full of carousel rides, friends, perfect weather, the smell of cinnamon almonds, and time with people I love. If I could give this whole weekend a great big, long hug I would.

Classy

I'm taking a class! Someone buy me a composition notebook.

I just signed up for a 10-week humor writing workshop at Gotham. Taking a writing class is something I've always wanted to do--and now I'm doing it. Class starts on October 30th--I'll be in New Orleans. BUT, it's an online class so that's not a problem.

I'm psyched. I want homework. And a Trapper Keeper.

:)

When I send Tammy an email, I get so excited that I regress to my tween years. Here's a generic example:

Tammy!!!
Mathew is so awesome:) Woohoo! He liked the books!
XOXO Rachel

I just sent her an email about my visit tomorrow and I think I used fifty exclamation points and more than three smileys in a tiny email. Here's the thing--I'm really excited. I can't quantify the excitement into adult-speak (I know, shocking), so I'm reduced to excess punctation and emoticons.

Oddly enough, when I write my nephew, I sound slightly less juvenile:

Hey Donovan,
Hope you had a good day at school! And that you're working hard on my Christmas card design :)
XO Aunt Rachel
p.s. Tell mom and dad and Delaney I say hello!

A little background: I've "hired" Donovan to design my Christmas and Halloween cards. He's drawing pictures for me, I'm paying him $20 per holiday. His preferred payment? A Toys R' Us gift card.

His response to my email was more adult and on-topic than mine--he is all business:

i finesht the book an your cristmis card should be done any day now im working  on your holloween card anthey should be to you by the twony eathe

No smileys and exclamation points for me--that kid is all about deadlines.

I'm thinking that if I rely less on emoticons and smileys, I just might get some of my writing mojo back.

You think??!!??  ;)

Wanderlust

"Wanderlust" feels so good on the tongue. When I first learned the word fifteen years ago it made me giggle. It was a dangerous-sounding thing.

Historically I'm a bad traveler. When I went to London and Dublin and Trinidad I could never relax. I would panic and wait for a catastrophe to happen. I would miss my "things" back home. I spent more time worrying about not fitting in than I did about enjoying the simple pleasure of being a stranger in a strange land. I look back, and it's a sad mess. The idea of any travel made my stomach hurt.

Business travel remedied the panic a bit. So did a developing sense of my own self worth. If you feel uncomfortable in your skin, I guarantee that you'll feel even more uncomfortable in a new and different  neighborhood.  Even a train trip into NYC set me off (this being the time before I lived and worked there) into a panic spiral. Strangeness terrified me.

I had a bit of a break-through a few years ago when I jaunted off alone to Paris for 24 hours knowing only enough French to ask for coffee with milk and a chocolate croissant. I left Paris full of joy (and bread and wine and galletes)--but the experience didn't propel me forward. Absentmindedly I'd say, "Yes, I'd like to return to Paris"--but I haven't.

Now, in bright, bustling 2007, I've developed a serious case of wanderlust. Too many episodes of "No Reservations,"  Eat, Pray, Love, stories of Meg's trip to Costa Rica (even with the menacing monkeys)--I want to go somewhere NOW. In the weeks ahead I'll go to New Orleans and D.C. and those are wanderlust band-aids. They're not far enough from HERE.

I want to go to an ashram in India and spend a month being quiet in a small dark room. I want to ride in a dangerous bus and ferry turtle eggs in plastic bags to safety. I want to ride a Vespa in a country where they drive on the wrong side of the street. I want to go somewhere dangerous and romantic and scary. I want to visit a farmer's market where the produce is confusing.

Me being me, I know that this urge might end. I hope not. I hope it stays around long enough to be satisfied. The debt needs to go, and then I'm not saving to buy a house. I'm saving to spend a month with monkeys. I'm saving to swing in a hammock on a beach in a far-flung place. I'm saving to shake myself up with unexpected newness and dangerous, killer, not-to-be-trusted monkeys.

Me Want

ME WANT new Eboy toys for KidRobot.
(Link)

Just Nothing

I'm sitting on the couch and knitting a hat and watching Serenity for the 30th time and it's raining and it's just perfect.

Manhunt

Chuck and I were finishing up our dinner at Valverde last night when a commotion broke out. Police cars zoomed around the street. We got up to leave and asked what was going on. Domestic abuse, so it seems. A big crazed man with no shoes or shirt punched his wife in the face in the middle of our block. We didn't see wife, but those who did say she was in bad shape. And the cops swarmed because the shoeless/shirtless man took off on (bare)foot.

We stood on the corner watching cars zoom buy, and then we spotted Kambri at the tail end of a hard day. She'd been stopped by the police and questioned about the runaway man. As we talked, another cop car made a cinematic u-turn and sped off.

I can't find anything about it on Google News today. I guess this happens all the time.

The Cranky Candlemaker Gets His Big Break

Stayed up past my bedtime last night to watch my angry, candle-making friend review a dull movie on the local news.
(Link to the video--it's a must watch).

I'm trying not to curse as much. . .

. . . but Jaimie found this picture and I love it. It sums me up nicely.

Morning-Time Hilarity

LOLCATS meets Post Secret. Hilarity ensues.

Thanks for the link, Chuck :)

(Link)

This is so confusing.

So I'm looking around Etsy for knitting inspiration and BOOM. I see this. Can someone explain? Is there something I'm missing? I hope not. I want these cushions to go away.

Reading Day/Knitting Day

I want to take a day off to read. And then another day off to knit.

I'm almost finished with Eat, Pray, Love and Eclipse and Coraline.

I read the introduction to Alan Greenspan's book and I want to read more. I felt very smart reading it on the subway, but it's a read-at-home book. I need to concentrate.

And I'm dying to start reading  Stardust and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.


And there's so much knitting to do! Baby things are on the needles--sweaters and ponchos and hats. There's a hat I want to make for me. And a new scarf too. And that's just the tip of the knitting iceberg.

Oh! How work interferes.

Bye Bess!

It's sad-making that Bess is leaving for brighter, greener pastures because I won't see her every day.

But mostly it's happy-making because she's leaving for a kick ass job. And she'll send me lots of YA books. And she'll work with my friend Lila.

Book Festival

It was a perfect day for a book festival. Sunny and cool, the kids of Brooklyn were out of in force. Hundreds of the wee ones stopped by our booth, and they all had a chance to make their own mini-Eyewitness book.
I had the geeky pleasure of helping this guy's son make a book. That guy didn't say much, but his kid was ridiculously cute. Impossibly cute. As were all the kids. I've never met a more polite crowd of parents and kids. It was all joy and glitter glue.

I just uploaded a few pictures at the company flickr site.

Hugs All Around

I've had two delicious days.

Sunshine and cool weather.

Bought new red shoes and a red jackety blazer thing for work. 

Went to the Buffy the Vampire Slayer sing along and had a ridiculous amount of fun.

Ate pumpkin gelato.

Stayed out late for two nights! Didn't die.

Visited the new Grey Dog on University place. It's so pretty.

Bought kimchi and purple bell peppers at the green market.

There's so much more that's so good and I am filled with happy.

Dedication

Chuck and I had brunch at Valverde today. As we were leaving, the owner pointed to something on the take-out menu. That something? A mention of ME. Printed on the menu. They call me their guardian angel.

Could I love them more? Doubtful.

The Interpol That Almost Wasn't

First--I'm a bloody idiot!

I bought the tickets to Interpol awhile ago. I plugged this into my Outlook calendar: "Interpol with Henry."

Henry and I are also going to The Cure. He bought the tickets for that show.

Can you see where this is headed?

That's good. Because I didn't.

So I meet Henry outside of MSG. We go through security. Bags are checked. People are wanded. Henry buys a T-shirt. I buy a tote bag.

And then it's time to go through the gate and get to our seats. Henry and I both kind of stepped to the side. I'm waiting for him to reach into his pocket and pull out a ticket. He's waiting for me to rifle through my purse and pull out a ticket.

Uh-oh.

It was funny and kind of horrible. I said I'd find a Kinko's and print out the tickets. Henry suggested Will Call. Now I definitely requested electronic ticket delivery, so I was REALLY nervous that it wouldn't work. But it did! The whole drama was fixed in 5 minutes. And it was funny. But I'm such an idiot!! I'm lucky that Henry is a good man--he didn't give me a hard time at all for being a spaz. And he could have. I deserved it. I deserve it still.

OK. So the show.

I almost wish the ticket debacle hadn't taken longer to fix, because the opening act was HORRIBLE. I think they were called Liars.

I made up some fake album titles for them based on their set:

'Songs You Will Never Dance To At Your Wedding"
"Soundtrack To That Cannibal Snuff Film I Saw At A Seventh-Grade Sleep-Over"
"9 Out of 10 Serial Killers Agree--The Liars Rock!"

Ugh. I hated them.

Cat Power was next and what a difference. She was just lovely. I hadn't listened to her music before, but now I will. Very pretty. I'd like to see her perform again. She had some snappy chill dance moves.

And Interpol? Great! They rocked. High energy. Good times. Oh, and they're hot. Delightfully musical and hot. But that's secondary to the music.

The whole experience gets FOUR unicorns because it gave me everything I want from a concert:
1. I got chills twice
2. I left with a desire to be in a band
3. I came up with an interesting book proposal at 10:15pm
4. I felt at peace with the universe
5. I left with a desire to take dance lessons (weird I know--but good concerts make my mind work in unexpected ways).

Brooklyn Book Festival

Come and visit me this Sunday--I'll be working the DK tent at the Brooklyn Book Festival. You can make your own Eyewitness book. You can say hi to my department. You will feel book love, and the weather looks delightful.

I'll get there around 12:30 or so.

Mail Threat

Click to enlarge. This is the creepiest piece of junk mail ever. That bear is threatening me with the book! I don't care if the font is cuddly, I'm scared. I've been warned.

A Little Braver

We all had the omakase menu tonight at M0rimoto. I was braver than I've ever been.

I had a mountain peach and a buttery piece of toro and tuna tartare and kobe beef with special white sweet potatoes and a morimotini and a tiny cup of matcha green tea with a tiny macaroon and sashimi and my first oyster and, oh my. . . . what an absolutely decadent and lovely business dinner.

Reading Eat, Pray, Love

I'm not reading Eat, Pray, Love--I'm destroying it. Folding down pages, writing in the margins, re-reading certain passages until they start to crumble. And I've only gotten through "Eat."

So much more destruction awaits.

Writers like Elizabeth Gilbert and Anne Lamott remind me that I can be spiritual and liberal and a disaster. They write about being whole and living a good life without prescribing any particular wholeness or goodness. I read their books and I realize that I'm a work in progress and I will always be.

I like that and I believe that.

It's 9/11 and I will find time to read from Eat, Pray, Love today.

Rusted Roots

Going to get my root canal finished this morning. I'm so psyched!

No. Not really. But I've promised myself a Jamba Juice if I behave like a big girl and don't freak out.

Juice bribery is awesome.

In other news:

Kim and I are going to see The Frames tonight. Uh huh. Glen Hansard. Fantastic.

Chuck is back. He had a really really really rough time with his parents. So I made him ice cream pie and bought him lots of beer. He should be all fixed soon. And it only took the cat 4 or 5 hours to forgive him for going away.

She Trips

I've got some fun coming up on the horizon.

First, I'm going to see Tammy and Matthew (and Becca and her kids!) at the National Book Festival at the end of the month. I booked a hotel and my Amtrak tickets this morning.

I am palpably excited. I get to babysit Matthew on Saturday while Tammy is working--he's all mine! Those blue eyes, that blond hair--that baby is pure awesomeness. Yeah. Yeah. Double yeah!

And while mom was here this weekend, we talked more about New Orleans. I realized that I didn't have a record of my hotel reservation, so I had them re-send it. And that makes me even more excited. I want to eat sandwiches the size of my head.

Shecky

Just got woken up from a dead sleep with an author's travel non-emergency. It was resolved with one phone call that I didn't even need to make. The dispatcher kept mispronouncing the author's name and yelling to her co-worker, "His assistant is on the line," over and over.

Did I mention I was sleeping? Heavily, deeply sleeping? F. This is only the first tour stop. More unexpected travel drama to come! This will not please Genius Cat who is entirely annoyed that I've disturbed the nighttime peace.

Since I'm now brightly awake and on the cat's bad side anyway, I'll share a story.

I called Gloria tonight. She sounded good and passed the phone over to Donovan. He was chatty and nutsy.

He told me his teacher got the little box o' books I sent along. "And they all said DK," he cheered, "Do/novan Ke/mpster publishing." (Slashes for google-proofing)." Then he told me that tonight was open house at school. I asked if they were doing anything special for the parents. "Well," he said first, "my grandma might come, and definitely my mom--but not my dad. He came last year." I laughed and told him that my dad only came to one open school night (fourth grade--year of crazy teacher) when I was a kid--so if Donovan's dad even went to one more school night in the next ten years, he'd be one up on my dad." Donovan found that fact hilarious.

Then we needed to wait until Gloria left the room, because he had to tell me the surprise he'd prepared for her at open school night.

"I drew a big picture of me, and then wrote a bunch of stories. One is a comedy story for kids."

"A what? A comedy story for kids? That sounds so cool. You have to make me a copy."

"There's no copy," he said. "But it's written on a tiny piece of paper, like a note, so I can write it out for you."

"That would be great," I said, stifling my excitement. "So tell me more about this story. What's it about."

"It's about the time we went to the zoo and rode the camel. It's like: "Can you believe it? A kid like me rode a camel for entertainment??" He said this with a Catskill's comedian's intonation.   "And I tried using TWO big words: "entertainment" and "embarrassed." You know, it's a comedy story for kids."

I must see the finished story! I must!

How crazy awesome and fantastic is that a kid in second grade is writing "a comedy story for children." It's so sophisticated. It's so funny.

Then he passed the phone to Delaney. She told me she cut herself on a scissor. I said, "Please be careful, pumpkin. Scissors are sharp."

"Why?"

"They just are. They're dangerous."

"Why?"

"Well, because you just cut herself."

"No I didn't."

"But you just said you did."

"No. I want to talk to grandma, grandpa, and KEVIN."

"I'm at work. They're not here."

"Why?"

"Grandma is at her work. Grandpa and Kevin are at home."

"Why? Why are you and grandma at work?"

"To make money."

"Why are you at work to make money?"

"Just because."

"Why?"

And then she dropped the phone and went away.

Cat Genius, Potty-Mouth Rachel

Happy-Making

1. I'm meeting Meg and Anna for drinks tonight. Always happy-making.
2. Sue and I are planning a secret trip to Vegas.
3. Vince and Jaimie and Ann and Sarah still visit me even though my office moved.
4. My new office is pretty and uncluttered.
5. Chuck's absence has made the cat grow fonder of me.
6. I like wearing headbands.
7. Seven weeks until New Orleans!
8. Mom re-joined Curves. Now she needs to practice drinking heavily so she's wholly ready for New Orleans.
9. The sky is blue, the clouds are perfect.

Suggestion

Don't drink two cans of Red Bull at 6pm if you plan on falling asleep. Even if you believe you need the artificial energy to get the laundry done.

I'm just saying.

I Don't Understand Facebook

There. I said it.

Facebook confuses me. What's happening? Why am I adding applications? Henry turned me into a vampire and I turned Jaimie into a vampire, but I don't understand. I have a hamster on my page that people can vibrate. And a wall that people can write on. And a virtual squirrel that people can feed and pet. And holy Christmas it all seems like a lot of work and maybe I should be reading a book, calling a friend, knitting a present, or making dinner plans.

Facebook and blogs and Twitter and Flickr and MySpace. There's never enough time to see everyone I want to see. Virtually, it seems like I have lots and lots of time. Time to throw sheep, post pictures of food I cooked, and blog about my day.

I should call people more, and throw less sheep. But I hate the phone. I hate it. I call my mom, my grandma, and the kids--and that's it.

Sometimes I wish people still wrote letters. Betty and Aunt Jean used to send me letters but they died. Henni and I used to send each other letters, but then we stopped. I get letters from my ex-boyfriend's grandma and I know that might seem strange but it's not. I write her letters back and I'm careful to write big so the letters are easy to read. 

I buy note cards and post card books and promise myself I'll send them to my friends. Last week when I moved offices, I found all the note cards and postcards in a tidy drawer. Tomorrow, I'll buy stamps. 

Gluten is for Suckers

Maya, my most excellent nutritionist, sent me a really simple recipe for mac and cheese. It only took 20 minutes to make, and it's pretty damn yum! Annie's makes a gluten-free mac and cheese mix. And then I threw in some cut-up asparagus. Voila! Delicious and perfect for lunch. The cheese powder is the color of Kraft (but all natural). Comforting.

Saturday Sunshine

Saturday was a perfect, breezy, blue-sky day, and just a peek out the window made me smile.

But peeking out the window wasn't enough. I needed to get OUT. I packed a blanket, a notebook, and a knitting project and headed to Central Park. The kitty gave me a forlorn look as I walked out the door. So forlorn that I almost stayed home--almost. Kitty lost and I left.

You can't believe how many tourists there were milling about the park. Hundreds and hundreds of them, cameras and travel guides and maps in hand. The mayor just told New Yorkers to be nice to tourists. I think he should tell tourists to be nice to New Yorkers. For instance, it's never nice for an entire family to block a sidewalk. And when a person, like me, tries to pass--they should not get a dirty look. I'm just saying. . .

Tourists aside, it was a perfect day in the park. I found a good gently sloping rock near the Heckscher ball fields. And I knit. And wrote a letter. And called my mom. And half-napped. And eavesdropped on three young tourists making plans for the evening.

It was all kind of perfect.

Perfect until I left the park and stepped into Whole Foods. I needed to pick up a few items from the grocery list my nutritionist gave me.

The Columbus Circle Whole Foods is a nightmare. The organization is completely confusing, and everyone shopping is mean and evil. Even I turned mean and evil. The organic goodness doesn't do much for soothing the souls of shoppers. I needed two things: gluten-free mac and cheese and Ezekial Bread. I found them.   Look--here they are in my kitchen. But I lost a little bit of joy in the aisles of that god-forsaken Whole Foods. I'll stick to the Union Square branch. It is much less evil. Even a day later I'm still steamed!

Whole Foods. Bad.

Central Park in the sunshine. Good. 

Two Views

What I saw when I looked up:

What the sun saw when it looked down:

Hats Off

Here's another hat I made for Lylablu:

Right now I'm working on an earflap hat, a blanket for my grandma, and another baby sweater. And just wait until real autumn weather strikes--I won't put my needles down.

UPDATE: I finished the earflap hat last night. It's cute, even if this picture is a bit psychotic.

Who is Crazy Cute?

Delaney is crazy cute.

She's an awesome ballerina.
She's v. seriously showing off her kitty shirt.
She's smiling big for Dora.