Rhyming Round!

I almost forgot! There's still time to get in your rhymes or poems about hippos, dik-diks, or both.

Get your rhyme in by midnight today to be in the running for the second-chance handbag. Send your rhymes to: marie at mariejavins dot com.

Craftsy Gals

I love Flirt, even if I blurt out stupid crap on the phone to them. Even if I decided not to get the chicken skirt.

Here is a video of the women of Flirt doing their thing. They are even making the chicken skirt! And as a bonus, while searching for this, I found out that the ex-Limelight, a church-turned-nightclub, is now becoming a mini-mall. I didn't care that a church became a nightclub, but a nightclub into a mini-mall? Sacrilege!

Marie's Hair in the 21st Century

A Japanese hair fashion magazine sent a photographer to shoot images of my hair salon last time I went in for color.

And here we are! That's me with the super-white calves and the too-long hair.



Here's a closer look. The salon my colorist has moved to kind of looks like something in Space: 1999. Back when that show was on TV, we knew that all spaceships and stations were white inside, like someone who had spent too much time at IKEA had gone into spaceship designing.

Brand New Bag

Congratulations to Susan Daigle-Leach of Arizona! She won the drawing last night.

Well, this morning. Rather than wait up and draw the name at midnight last night, I went to sleep.

I assigned each entrant a number, then used something called Random.org to generate the number "8." Which was the number I'd assigned to Susan D-L.

I'm heading to the post office soon to send off Susan's new handbag.

Thanks to everyone for participating. Even a few strangers came over from Katy Wolk-Stanley's Twitter feed or from Larry Hama's Facebook post.

The bonus round is to send in a rhyme or poem about hippos, dik-diks, or both to marie at mariejavins dot com by Monday night. We'll vote here for the best rhyme. I already have a few really excellent ones.

If you didn't win, don't worry, we'll do this again and again. It will be a long time before I have a new book to promote, so let's keep working on the old one!

Win A Bag!

I haven't written Curse of the Hippo yet. I know, I know. Big loser. By the time I write it, I'll have forgotten all about the crappy stuff that happened to me in Uganda and Namibia in 2005, and how I had to race across Africa by bus, then move to Kuwait and Cairo to get over it.

Worse, my other book Stalking the Wild Dik-Dik has slowed down on the selling front after backlisting like a champ for a few years.

So what to do? Write the new book or try to get new readers to pick up the old one? Well, both would be the smart approach. But damn that day job... where's the time to write a book?

To drive a little traffic to my last book and hope that someone who hasn't bought it already will buy it (it's really cheap on the used list), I'm going to have a little contest.

It goes like this:

1) Go to the Amazon listing for Stalking the Wild Dik-Dik.

2) Look for the answers to these questions.

A. How many pages is Stalking the Wild Dik-Dik?

B. Does the last line in the second paragraph of the product description make any sense?

C. In the product description, was Marie described as "irrepressible," "groovy," "irregardless," or "unflappable"?

3) Send the answer to me, along with your name, e-mail address, and mailing address. Send to marie at mariejavins dot com. Subject line: bag drawing.

I'll print each e-mail. I'll put them all in a sock or hat (depending on how many there are) and randomly choose one. I will force Denise or Roberta to watch so that no one suspects I'm just eating the bag and not really doing it. That person will get this handmade safari-print bag, that I made myself. I actually designed it for Tracy's trip to Botswana, but it's been so popular that I made a few more.

Enter by Friday night! That's 11:59 pm on Sept. 4, 2009. The drawing will happen on Saturday and I'll send out the prize on Tuesday morning after the holiday weekend. Shipping is free.



Depressed that you might not win? Sharpen your rhyming skills. Here's the BONUS ROUND... make a short rhyme that involved either the term HIPPO or DIK-DIK or both and send to me with the subject line: rhyme. Rhymes are due by midnight on Monday, September 7, the four-year anniversary of when I was chased by a hippo. We'll vote on them here next week!

No obscene rhymes please. Unless they are hilarious.

Stupid Things I Say Sometimes

I did something really embarrassingly stupid yesterday. So I thought I would share.

First, I fell in love with this chicken skirt:



I called the store. The chicken skirt was on their website.

"Hi. I really like that chicken skirt on your site, but I wasn't sure what size to order."

"Did you measure?"

"Yes," I explained. "But I don't fit into the categories. I appear to be a Small in waist, but, uh... according to your site I should order an XL for my hips."

"You must have measured wrong!"

"No, no... I measured right. But the thing is... I'm not an extra-large. I'm sort of normal-sized."

"Well, that doesn't make sense. If you're a size four, you couldn't be XL."

I reddened, though I was on the phone and she didn't know who I was.

"I meant normal like... size 8... so maybe I am XL... but..."

I thought for a minute and then blurted out:

"If I'm XL, what do the fat chicks do?"

There was a silence on the other end and then the woman diplomatically suggested I come in to be measured.

But I can't. I'm too mortified by what had just come out of my mouth. At least I called from work, so they couldn't see my name on their Caller ID.

Disney Buys Marvel

Note to media personnel:

All your jokes about Spider-Man and Snow White? They were a little funny at 10:30 yesterday morning. Not so funny the hundredth time, and the farther away they get from people who actually know what they're talking about, the more obvious and painful they become.

Please stop. You sound ridiculous.

Rice Ball

And just like that, a rice ball photo materialized in my in-box. I must check with Marc to find out which Midtown Italian restaurant he found rice balls at.

It Takes A Village

Roberta loves the rice balls that show up every year at the Italian street fair. They are the stuff of legend in the neighborhood, and have been for years. Rice balls have probably kept the entire downtown area sated for decades. Their recipe is a secret. More or less.

I have never tried them. Not because I don't want to, but because I don't want to wait in the rice ball line. I counted the number of people there one night. 25 people in line for rice balls!

But Roberta braves the line at the fair, which this year ran for five nights. She was under deadline pressure on the rice ball front. She had plans on Saturday and would never get back in time to acquire rice balls, and had a family obligation on Sunday. But she does love the rice balls, so she was determined to get some.

The first night, on Wednesday, she waited for me. I was making a Yancey-baby-quilt and the class went over. I texted Roberta at one point. "Late. Better go on."

She texted me back a short while later.

"Missed rice balls. Trying again tomorrow."

She'd waited in line but the last three rice balls had been sold to the person in front of her in line, my former next door neighbor, April, who bought three--one for herself and one for each of her kids.

Roberta had run into T the next morning. T is an older woman who lives across the street. She's a classic, with time for everyone. She does favors for the people on the block who can't get around so well, and always carries dog biscuits for her furry friends. She's best friends with A, an older woman who sold her house last year and moved into an old-folks apartment on Sixth Street. I adored A, because she was smart and practical, roamed the streets in her housedress, and had a filthy mouth. I once watched her give her flip-flops to a young Spanish mother whose new house had a basement flood. The mom had on fancier shoes, not made for wading. A stepped right out of the shoes and went home barefoot.

Roberta told T about having barely missed the last of the rice balls.

"I'm going earlier tonight," she explained. "I'll definitely get them this time."

"I don't even like rice balls," T told Roberta.

But Roberta was delayed, and on Thursday night, the rice balls sold out right in front of her again. At least she didn't know the person this time.

"You've got to get here earlier," said the woman selling the rice balls. She remembered Roberta's disappointment from when April snagged the last three the night before.

She ran into T again on Friday morning. T was upset that Roberta had missed out again.

"I'll get your rice balls," said T. "I'll go for you tonight.

"No, no," said Roberta. "I'm going to the beach for a few hours but I'll be back in plenty of time."

T shook her head and insisted. Her friend L said "T, Roberta can get her own rice balls."

"I'll call you if I'm late," promised Roberta.

But of course she wouldn't dream of calling a neighbor to pick her up some rice balls. And of course was delayed at the beach. At 8, Roberta parked her car and ran over to the fair with Tom, who also lives near us.

They weren't real thrilled when they saw the massive queue for the rice balls. But then Roberta spotted T, mid-way through the line.

"I saw your lights were off and you weren't home yet, so I came over to wait on line for you," said T.

Stunned, Roberta offered to take her place. But T wouldn't let her.

"You go have fun," said T. She waited and bought three rice balls (in case Tom wanted one) and wouldn't take money for them.

Roberta took her rice balls guiltily, but with gratititude. "Don't worry about it," said T. "I know where you are if I need you."

Which is true. Roberta has a car and in case of emergencies, T has her phone number. I remember when T got comfortable enough with me to show her where her emergency meds were kept. There are responsibilities that come along with living on an old-timer block, in an actual community.

Roberta hadn't gone ten feet from the rice ball line before she ran into April.

"Did you get your rice balls this time?"

"Yes."

She'd then run into L.

"Did you get them?"

"Yes! T got me three!"

She ran into more neighbors at the fair, and Tom shook his head. He has never lived on my old block but he knows it's an old-style community.

Later that evening, Roberta ran into T again.

"I ate two and saved one for tomorrow because Tom doesn't like them."

T gave Tom a high-five.

"I don't like those things either! What's all the fuss?"

I'll have to wait for next year to find out.

Cheapskate's Night Out

I was congratulating myself on being a clever cheapskate yesterday afternoon.

In the morning, I'd located a $10 near-back-row ticket to see Carrie Fisher's one-woman show. Score!

Then I'd gotten free tickets to see The Bacchae in Central Park. Some 20 years back, someone would have to go hang around the line in Central Park all day to get our tickets. Years later, we'd have to wait at the Public Theater in the afternoon to get tickets. Nowadays, you just click on the "Virtual Line" and you know in advance if free tickets await you at the box office.

Next, I headed to get a student facial after work at Christine Valmy. These are about thirty bucks. Borderline-cheap. By that I mean, what's cheaper than getting a student facial? Not getting one at all. But I splurged.

I ran into a problem after that. I got out by 7:10 and raced to the B train to get to Central Park by 7:30. At 7:30, reserved tickets are given to the standby line.

That's when my cheapskate luck hit a snag.

The B train stopped mid-tunnel.

And sat.

And started again.

And sat some more.

I looked at my watch. Minutes ticked by.

Oops.

My superstitious side chastised my prouder self. I shouldn't have been self-congratulatory earlier. My cheapskate skills were not as sharp as I'd thought.

I finally got off the train at 7:35. My tickets were gone. I worried about the friend waiting there for me. Maybe we'd just go to dinner then.

At the box office, the clerk shook her head. "Sorry, your best bet is to try the standby line."

The line stretched up the park. I got in line with my friend.

"Why not," said the man in line in front of us. "It's just a few more minutes and you're already here."

I heard an usher yelling from the front of the line, but couldn't tell what he was saying over the sax-playing busker along the path.

Oh shut up so we can hear, I thought.

"Single file" was what the usher was saying. Not "Tickets for tonight's performance are gone."

We got in. The play was odd but the staging interesting, and of course the music was by Philip Glass so I'm not complaining. A small raccoon roaming under the feet of the row of theater-goers in front of us enhanced the performance. Crickets chirped, the weather was cool and perfect, and the only irritant was overhead planes and people looking at their mobile phones.

"I must remember to do this more often," I thought.

Theater in the park. Free if you have an unlimited Metrocard.