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Rain murder crime scene

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Minuteman Mike Day 2. I see you!

Minuteman Mike Day #1

Day #1 log - Minuteman Mike is outside apartment building again today. Only variable is that he is parked on a different street. Regular spot taken. Possibly with lady friend.

Walking home in rain w/ bubble umbrella

Dulce De Leche Cookie Sandwiches with Macadamia Nut & Coconut

Oh Abra! How I've missed you!

Abra Moore is back!

Taxicab Nightmare

It was a quiet Sunday morning. I left my hotel early after the big show to head off to LaGuardia airport to catch my 10 o'clock flight. Little did I know what horrors would ensue. My first mistake, hailing a taxi cab. I should have just let the Hotel bellboy catch me one. But no, I was cheap and didn't want to pay a tip. The cab driver didn't quite understand what I meant by LaGuardia. That should have been the first major warning. And then when he accepted me in and we headed down the wrong direction on a one-way street (with 4 lanes of oncoming traffic), I should have asked him to just drop me off at the nearest street corner immediately. But no, I was patient. That is until I realize he didn't know where he was going. By that point we were crossing the Brooklyn bridge and it was too late. For the next hour and 15 minutes, I was taken on an excrutiately slow ride through Brooklyn, the Bronx and Queens. At one point, I saw an exit sign for Long Island and almost fainted. I panicked. I pleaded with the driver, but he had no clue where he was going. He was constantly checking a map, calling another cab driver for advice, going very slowly, taking illegal turns, missing green lights and passing red ones. Then when my time started to slip away, I pleaded in tears to get me to the airport. I was going to miss my flight. I made a tearful call to my parents and continued to beg the driver to hurry up. He kept saying sorry and not to worry about the fare. I wasn't worried about the fare. I was worried about missing my flight!

Finally, we reach the airport and I breathe a sigh of relief. I tell the driver to drop me off at the USAirways terminal. The driver takes me to the first terminal he sees, the Delta Airlines one. At that point, I started screaming at him to get me to the right terminal. So he went around and only half-stopped at a stop sign, and then proceeded to rear-end the vehicle in front of him. The man from the other car started screaming and cursing at him. At that point I knew my contract with the driver had ended, he no longer could deliver me to my destination. I grabbed my things and bolted out of there without paying the driver one cent. I pleaded with a Hertz shuttle bus driver, who had seen the accident, to help me. I was shaking and sobbing uncontrollably. He was sympathetic and took me to my terminal. A couple on the bus, gave me some tissues as I told them about my hellish joyride through the burroughs.

I caught my flight just in the nick of time. They had started boarding when I got there. If the driver hadn't crashed into another car, he would have probably taken me to another wrong terminal or I would have had to negotiate some discount (the fare was at $45). But instead, I got a life lesson, free trip and a story to tell.

I'm so excited...

"and I just can't hide it. I'm about to lose control and I think I like it..."

Just one more day before I fly off to NY for a whirlwind weekend at the big show. I find myself trying to do 10 things at once getting ready to prepare. I figured just packing would be a 3-4 day process and I started on Monday. I can't say much about it specifically, so I'll talk generally. My schedule will be jam-packed with travel, customer service, networking, booth-maintenance and partying. Yes that's right. Us book-folk like to party hardy! We make absolutely any excuse to get together and have fun. You wouldn't necessarily think of book people that way, but we are social creatures by necessity. Our job is people and we are constantly connecting with each other. Authors are celebrities, teachers and librarians are nurturers, book buyers are demi-gods and publishers are creative beacons.

Off I go to do some more packing and fill numerous small 3 0z, plane-friendly tubes with various beauty gooks. Wish me luck! I'll try to post some pictures when I come back

Why I don't talk about work...

 
It's far too dangerous.
 
Publisher's Weekly Article: The Big Chill

Blast from the Past!

At the wee age of 17, after attending the Lilith Fair, I decided to marry my fervor for a new type of music with my desire to make a mark on the internet and created a fan website. The celebrity was Abra Moore, a talented singer, not terribly famous but well-known amongst a devoted following and in the late '90s, at the height of her success. The plan was that information was manageable and traffic would be moderate. Exactly what I needed to start up my very first website.

I never quite completed it. It was more work than I had imagined and I still to this day don't quite have the knack of HTML coding. But I'm proud of my little venture.

It's not up any more but thanks to Archive.org you are able to see a bare-bones archived copy of my site.

Raquel's Abra Moore Website
http://web.archive.org/web/20010711181029/members.aol.com/gerenukz/music.html

If you've ever had a burr stick to your clothes...

... and liked it, then please please please check out this website.

Joie de Vivre et Joie de Blog

I've been shamefully neglecting this poor blog. My mind wanders back to it on ocassion but when I start to contemplate it's future I only come with ideas for several other blogs. What hinders me most about this blog is it's title. I'm thinking of either changing it or abandoning it completely for other potential projects. For example...
 
A book blog would be fun to write. I'm not terribly good at writing reviews (I'll leave that to Bev who's a born professional in that department), so my blog would be more about the book business. But the business is so broad. Would I focus on publishing versus bookselling? Since I'm in children's publishing, would it be focused on children's books? All of this presents a major dilemma, which is personal and professional bias. I'd basically be raving about the company I work for and all the excellent books we produce. Plus it would be a financial burden to buy books from other publishers to keep up with the joneses. Who's going to send free galleys to someone who works at a rival publisher! Scratch that idea right off the bat!
More realistic ideas include a classic movie blog. That would be exciting. But it wouldn't be full of boring movie reviews. No! It would have movie-inspired articles. I could talk about my passion for blonde-Bette Davis films, how I'm half in love with Richard Barthelmess and how Norma Shearer is highly under-rated as an actress and as a woman. It would also be a vehicle to express my love and devotion to Turner Classic Movies and to recognize Netflix, which has an awe-inspiring variety of classic DVDs for rental which allows me to feed the fire!
 
My other idea, which is my personal favorite, would be a blog chronicling my Spring and Summer. I've made plans to have the most fun-filled summer ever! I'm filling my calendar with lots of exciting things to do. My goal is to develop my social life and become more adventurous and outgoing. I'm obligating myself to accept more invitations even at the cost of slight personal embarassment or discomfort, which is just simply a result of my deep-seated shyness. I actually started this new experiment in March and have so far attended or planned 10 social events. So if I want to chronicle this new chapter in my life, I need to start straight away!
 
Well here's to happy adventures in blogging and a potentially life-altering year!

 

Soaring

I'm flying to Indiana tomorrow for a business trip. Will be spending sometime looking at a warehouse full of children's books. Woohoo! If I weren't such a book nerd, this trip would be much less exciting. I was contemplating wearing my new bright red H&M trenchcoat, but I think I will chicken out and wear the khaki one. Ever since watching Love Actually, I've been desperate for a bright red winter coat. Now that I have one, I'm terrified to wear it. What if people stare at me?!

Anyways, I'm off to compensate for my weakness by painting my nails bright red. That oughta do it. Wish me luck on my trip, I'm terrified of airplanes and the one I'll be going on is super duper small! I'm flying white-knuckle all the way.

Brilliant Idea

It's amazing what you can think up whilst in the throes of ennui. The other day, I was driving with my mom and we had a lengthy conversation about various types of miscellanea. In the midst of this, I hit upon said "brilliant idea". It occured to me that IF milk can be produced into cheese that it would be possible to turn coconut milk into coconut cheese. You could possibly make a sweet soft cheese or maybe a more acidic hard cheese. I wasn't quite sure if bacteria or mold would need to be involved, as is often the case with cow's milk cheese. My mind thus began racing. I could introduce my new food invention into Latin American countries and call it CoQueso (which is the marriage of the words "coconut" and "queso" [Spanish for "cheese"]). And if it was popular there, I could bring it to the US as an alternate cheese for vegans or a great product for coconut afficianados. There could be coconut cheesecake, coconut cheese frosting for cakes, amongst various other desserts.

It wouldn't make my millions off of coconut cheese, but if it was successful it would be a nice venture. So why am I divulging my brilliant idea for CoQueso (patent pending)? Because 10 years earlier someone had already thought up the idea. Ahh well!

http://www.unido.org/userfiles/PuffK/ISED_R85.pdf

On the way to class...

I don't know how it happened, but when I started by current lit class for graduate school I was what you could consider a "non-writer". Sure I barely keep up this blog and I write e-mails and some papers for school, but I don't really do any creative writing. Now, with only a couple of weeks left for class I will come out of this course a bonafide "writer". And its not even a writing class. But the course is taught by a published writer, most of the students in class are Creative Writing majors and the atmosphere and dynamic of the class just encourages writing. We wrote responses to everything we read, and were encouraged to read as writers and to look for what the author was trying to accomplish and how he/she carried it through. We read our writing out loud, which, over time, became a performance that influenced our written responses. And our mid-term and final papers involved mimicking other writers in sytle and form to fully understand their methods and learn things for our own writing. And I wrote a non-fiction essay about a seeing-eye dog and by some miracle it came out very well and I got an A! Now, I can't stop thinking of things to write about. Each night I think of story ideas and scenes until I fall asleep. Then the next day my fingers are itching to get at the computer to tap away at the keyboard with the new tale. What happened? Where is the Raquelle who found writing so painful and difficult? Who is this new Raquelle who actually likes to, wants to, needs to write?

It's all very strange, but I'm very grateful.

26 Year Marker

On the 25th of November, I turned 26. I turned 26 on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. This day is in commemoration of the brutal Trujillo-sanctioned murders of the Mirabal sisters, Patria, Minerva and Maria who protested Trujillo's dictatorship. Trujillo and the Mirabals were from the Dominican Republic. My mom is Dominican and one of the many godchildren of Trujillo (he baptized kids like crazy).

So there is historical and ancestral reasoning behind my hatred for my birthday. This is a very good cover up for the fact that I just don't like getting older. On my birthday, I always think about what I've accomplished and its never enough. I'm a late bloomer in many ways and I get supremely jealous seeing other people younger than myself accomplishing goals that I still have on my "to-accomplish-list". Plus I'm starting to get pressure to get married and have children from family members. I was spared of this until recently.

So now I'm old, errr. Older. I found a grey hair. I plucked it. Now I just have to appreciate my 26th year and make of it what I can before I turn 27 ::shudder::.

If you want to buy me a present...

If you are ever so inclined to purchase me a present for ::insert gift-giving occasion here::, then this is your guide to what my greedy soul wants. Otherwise, take inspiration from this list for your own materialism! Do I sound bitter? Mayhaps. I am broke. So right now, these things are pipe dreams until I get a fat juicy bonus in the New Year ::fingers crossed::.

~ Alfred Hitchcock: The Master of Suspense, Pop-Up Book ~ Each spread is a different Hitchcock movie. Genius!
~TiVo ~ So instead of watching junk I don't want to see on TV because I'm bored, I can't watch junk that I DO want to see on TV when I'm bored. Cheers!
~ Coach KATY Travel Tote ~ I'm spoiled. I only crave Coach bags now. I'll have to wait until this is out of season to get it.
~ Kitchen Aid Mixer in Empire Red ~ Sexiest piece of kitchen equipment there is. You know you are a true chef when you have one of these sitting in your kitchen just waiting to go into action.
~ Laptop ~ Any. As long as it has MS Word and doesn't weigh 15 pounds like my current one.
~ Subscription to the New York Times-Sunday Edition ~ Its the only newspaper worth reading these days. And the added bonus is The Book Review!!
~ BOSE Wave Radio ~ So I can listen to NPR in any part of my apartment.
~ Digital Cable ~ So I can watch Turner Classic Movies. ::sniffle::
~ One Year Subscription to Real Simple ~ It's the NYT-Sunday Edition of the magazine world. I've been collecting them since 2003.
~ Vacation to France or Ireland or even Maine ~ I just want to get away!
~ iTunes Gift Card ~ Self-explanatory.

More Time Please...

Now, more so than ever, I am feeling a major time crunch. I feel as though there are not enough hours in the day to do all the things I need to do. And because of this I charge up a debt which carries over to the next day, then the next and then the next and I feel that I can only (barely) catch up on the weekends. In fact, I had to re-arrange my weekend plans just to clean and do homework. How depressing...

Right now I'm sitting at my computer, typing this entry and procrastinating on writing my 7 pages on 7 essays (1 page for each essay read) for class on Monday. I really do not want to do this. This weekly homework used to be an ok task until our professor started making us read them aloud in class. ::cringe:: Now there is the added pressure of making them worthy of other people's eardrums. Those other people just happen to be a group of writers. (kill me now!)

But all is not lost on the time issue. I feel that instead of looking for more time to do more things, I really need to give myself fewer things to do so that I can do everything else at a reasonable pace. I also need to become more organized with my time so that I don't waste precious minutes and hours having mini-nervous breakdowns. How do I do all this? I'm not quite sure. But I'm working on it. Wish me luck!

Cosmos are good for killing spiders

Who knew this women's magazine was a stealth arachnid killing weapon?!

Nothing expresses my status as a single girly girl who lives alone than my recent encounter with a spider. For anyone who has had the pleasure uhmmm... displeasure of watching Psycho (1960) , knows the tremendous feeling of vulnerability when your taking a shower. So when a spider decided to crawl in through the bathroom window whilst I was showering and park itself in a spot on the ceiling right above my head, I completely freaked out. I knew that the arachnid had to go. So I stepped out of the shower and dripping went tip-toeing into my bedroom to grab any available weapon I could. The closest thing I could find was the last issue of Cosmo on my nightstand. So I grabbed it and dripped my way back to the shower. I made a comical effort to kill the spider by throwing up the Cosmo at the ceiling and running away quickly, lots of girly shrieks ensuing. Now normally I'm not scared of spiders but being in this vulnerable position, especially living alone, I panicked. And what's most embarassing and what shames me tremendously is that I crossed the threshold over to impossibly girly when I grabbed the girliest magazine in the WORLD to kill this spider. Shame! Shame! The tomboy of my youth would be so disappointed. ::sigh::

Linkage

After finding my blog linked at an apartment site for "old-fashioned London apartments" (don't they call them flats over there?) I thought it would be interesting to list how some people have found my little nook in the world wide web. This is not a novel idea of mine, it's shamelessly stolen by the great bookyeti.

Keywords:

1. hearts cristiano ~ I hear ya! I don't care what the Brits think, he's a okay in my book.
2. boruc handsome ~ why yes he is! huhmanah huhmanah!
3. grown men don't cry music video code ~ I'm still trying to figure this one out.
4. old fashion high society names ~ Like Willoughby van Dyne IV?
5. beginnings are hard, endings are sad ~ It's the middle that counts!