Pen-Elayne on the Web

NY(U) Is Book Country

I'm inclined to agree with Roxanne, who expressed the same sentiment about yesterday's NY Is Book Country that she'd had about the Ninth Avenue Food Fest, my other favorite street fair: is that all there is? Maybe it was the humid and gloomy weather, maybe we were all just tired, maybe I'm just getting old and cranky but I dunno, these festivals just aren't as interesting to me as they were a half dozen years ago. Still, it's good exercise and a nice excuse to get together with friends. And as Roxanne was in town yesterday and my ex-husband Steve always attends these things (as he's a librarian I think it's in his blood), we all arranged to meet at Japonica (which wound up being open after all) for lunch and good conversation, and the food was as great as ever - it even passed Roxanne's rather high-from-having-lived-in-Japan standards!

We then headed down to Washington Square Park to check things out. I got a $15 poster and looked around, but there really wasn't that much to interest me, so I decided to have fun with my digital camera instread. Here's Roxanne and Steve with the WSP Arch in the background. Roxanne asked me not to publish her picture on my blog, so I took a head shot of Elizabeth Edwards from her college days and pasted it on top of Roxanne's head because she reminds me a little of our next Second Lady:

Steve decided to wander off in one direction, and Roxanne and I went to see if any tickets were still available for the Daily Show writers Humor panel - fat chance:

We headed back to the next side street over, where the "graphic novels pavilion" was, and I took a snapshot of Neal Adams which didn't come out well (the bag in my hand blocked the shot), but we did run into Peter and Kath David and daughters Ariel and Caroline (Kath's blog post isn't kidding about Caroline being an energy ball; the conversation was fairly brief and mostly consisted of plans for Ariel's upcoming bat mitzvah). We wandered a bit more so I could get goofy shots like this:

Yeah, I know the shot itself isn't goofy but I got a real kick out of the booth name. Anyway, we'd both had about enough so Roxanne went yarn-store shopping whilst I strolled across 4th Street toward 7th Avenue, past the [insert clever collective noun here] of sex shops, and subway'ed it back up to the Bronx, where I rested and, as y'all know, finished up the fifth Harry Potter book which has now taken its place on my bedroom bookshelf beside the others:

Today we head out to Julia's place in a couple hours, but since that's just driving (on a drop-dead gorgeous day) and sitting around, I don't think I'll wind up quite as tired. Then again, we have to drive past two airports, so one never knows...