Sunday, Sunday

Hey Cupcakes!

It’s just a few days before I leave for California! Can’t wait! I have a lot of last minute things to wrap up (like printing patterns, handouts, and stuff like that). I also have to pack the quilts I’m sending west for my lecture. I needed them yesterday for a trunk show/lecture with The Empire State Quilt Guild in Manhattan.

Here are the Katmandu kits that were shipped out yesterday. Jeff is filling out the Fed Ex forms in the dining room.

 

  While I was in our dining room I took a pic of this little vignette. I love this butterfly head. It really works with the wallpaper and is just kinda weird. We found it in Frenchtown, NJ (which is right on the Delaware River, north of Lambertville and across the river from Bucks County, PA.)

Ah, Manhattan. How I love the smells and energy and the buildings. I always get a tad homesick when I’m there. I don’t go often enough anymore despite I live a stone’s throw from the Hudson River. I told Jeff that we’re going to do a once a month trek to the city to keep up with the trends, etc. Hell, Evan learned to walk on 43rd Street and ate his first SAND-wich (literally) at the playground in Central Park. He used to walk around Manhattan like he owned it and, at three, could tell you how to get from midtown to Chinatown without missing a beat.

Here’s me driving into the Lincoln Tunnel.

  

Here’s me inside the Lincoln Tunnel (which kinda sounds like the title of a gritty NY porn movie).    Can you imagine what the cars all around me thought as I snapped my own fat-faced picture while I sped through the tunnel?  

I actually got on the street parking right across the street from the guild’s meeting location!  A miracle!  I almost licked the ground in appreciation!

   This is where the guild meets.  8th Floor.  Very New York!  LOL

The hall at F.I.T. was packed. It was hard to maneuver as a speaker as there was traditional audience seating in front of me, then lots and lots of tables and chairs, like a dinner theater, beside me. So I was never sure quite where to look, how to play the crowd, and if they could even hear me.

Here’s the room (kind of blurry – I screwed up my camera – Evan fixed it for me later that night but too late for the NY experience).  You get the idea. 

    

I don’t know why, but I was nervous. Talking in public rarely affects me that way. Maybe because it was a hometown crowd. And wherever I lecture (and even when I was doing standup comedy or stripping) the audience is always the same. You have those who embrace you and get into the spirit of it. Then there are those who want you to prove yourself to THEM. They sit there stone faced and just kinda stare at you – psychically mocking you – make me laugh, you’re not so hot, I’m above all of this. There were a few of those. Ironically, dispite the “New York reputation” real Manhattanites aren’t like that. They are some of the most generous, fun, easy going people I know. Now transplanted Manhattanites are a tough bunch and it takes them YEARS before they become less frenetic like their native New York neighbors.

Here’s the drive out of Manhattan last night….

First, I had to get on the George Washington Bridge on the way back to New Jersey. 

Then I stopped in Fort Lee (where we owned our first house) and took a photo from the street behind our old house).

    

This is a random photo (meaning I didn’t take it) but it’s so lifelike that I wanted to show you how New York really looks from New Jersey).

 

 

YIKES!

Click this for a link to a review of my lecture that showed up in my email this morning. I’m not sure how I feel about it (she nailed me on some levels– which I find amusing) –

     —  but I think this broad fits into one of the “I’m above it all” transplant groups. Actually, as I read more of her blog, I did like some of her writing and her musings.  This is one of those examples, however, where your average blogger juuuuuust starts to boarder on QUILTZILLA!  Oh well, I guess I AM a public figure now and open to whatever people want to write.  So, in that spirit, I’d like to say:  I HATE DR. PHIL!  LOL

BACK AT THE RANCH

 Before I got home I met Jeff and Evan at the Longhorn Restaurant. It was an hour wait (for heart attack food no less) but we LOVE the 9 Pepper Steak Salad. I hadn’t had a thing to eat all day (besides two diet Cokes and two coffees) I was starving (although if I ate off of my own body fat I’d live for another 3 ½ years).

  Cold and over the wait among screaming babies and out of control running/climbing toddlers (with parents who weren’t watching them), we loaded up the truck and we drove to Cloves – our favorite Indian restaurant in Mt. Olive. It’s sure as hell not what you’d call affordable (and a long shot from Longhorn prices)—over $100 for 3 of us.

No matter the cuisine, Evan always chooses something that looks like or could double for Fajitas!

   

I had to take a photo of Jeff. He’s always wearing a baseball cap. I think he’s too old for the “Leave it to Beaver” look 24/7.

He disagrees. 

PICKLE POSSE YARD SALE BOOTY

I got the books that I ordered from the last Pickle Road Yard Sale from Terri (the first of every month). I am really, really happy with the books I got. Here they are for your drooling pleasure. 
Click on them to see larger images. 

    

   

We bought a new supersize printer this weekend for fabric designing.    It’s an Epson R1800

 

It has 8 color cartridges (which sucks) but photos printed on it will last 200 years!  No fading.  You can also print really super long things.  As a matter of fact, rather than using regular paper we’ll be using ROLLS of paper!  Neat-0.

Here’s Jeff trying to figure it out in his office! 

PODCAST ALERT

 

Oh, I got a note from podcaster supreme, Annie Smith!  She wants to do a telephone interview with me tomorrow – I’m going to reveal something that you budding designers and textile dreamers will be very interested in.  Stay tuned!

 Later, Pickles!  xoxom