The first thing you should know when you call hardware stores in NYC to see if they have axes, is that all of them, without exception, will ask you who you are planning on killing.

The second thing you should know is that after you pick up the axe, you will have no problems finding a seat on the subway.

The third thing is that random passerbys will engage you in conversations like the following.

“Whoa. You mean business,” the man says as he comes out the door and sees you.

“Yeah, well,” you said, not really wanting to explain the show for which the axe is a prop. “There’s not much call for them in the city, I’ll admit.”

“He must have really pissed you off.”

You smile. “It’s so true. There’s really not a reason to have an axe in the city unless you’re planning to off someone.”

If you say that, the passerby will suddenly find something else very interesting on the other side of the street.

All of which makes me wonder why I could buy an axe in a city with no need for cutting firewood.

I’ve already slipped into “tour time” where time is told not by the clock or calendar but by location. Everything has become, “the other day when we were in…”

So, I added photos that we took the other day to the web album.

Move To NYC, Day Two

Surprise! We were comfortable with the things we were going to have to leave behind because of space. What we did not anticipate was the weight of what we did manage to get into the truck.

We have bottomed out the suspension. Totally. The truck is so overweight that after A LOT of thought, we are going to switch to a larger truck. It’s that or risk breaking an axle in the Rockies. I’d much rather swap trucks here on a shady street.

This won’t throw off our arrival date, because we had some slop built into our schedule, but it will change the rest of the trip since we probably won’t leave until tomorrow.

I read Wax, the second standalone story/chapter in the mosaic novel New Amsterdam by Elizabeth Bear for Subterranean. They’ve just posted the audio files at Subterranean Online

Abigail Irene Garrett drinks too much. She makes scandalous liaisons with inappropriate men, and if in her youth she was a famous beauty, now she is both formidable–and notorious. She is a forensic sorceress, and a dedicated officer of a Crown that does not deserve her loyalty.

She has nothing, but obligations.

Sebastien de Ulloa is the oldest creature she has ever known. He was no longer young at the Christian millennium, and that was nine hundred years ago. He has forgotten his birth-name, his birth-place, and even the year in which he was born, if he ever knew it. But he still remembers the woman who made him immortal.

He has everything, but a reason to live.

In a world where the sun never set on the British Empire, where Holland finally ceded New Amsterdam to the English only during the Napoleonic wars, and where the expansion of the American colonies was halted by the war magic of the Iroquois, they are exiles in the new world–and its only hope for justice.

This font emporium that I love, sent out a coupon as part of a celebration of World Book and Copyright Day. That’s today. Did anyone else know this?

The connection between 23 April and books was first made in 1923 by booksellers in Catalonia as a way to honour the author Miguel de Cervantes who died on that day. This became a part of the celebrations of the Saint George’s Day (also 23 April) in the region, where it has been traditional since the mediaeval era for men to give roses to their lovers and since 1925 for the woman to give a book in exchange. Half the yearly sales of books in Catalonia are at this time with over 400,000 sold and exchanged for over 4 million roses.

In 1995, UNESCO decided that the World Book and Copyright day would be celebrated on this date because of the Catalonian festival and because the date is also the anniversary of the birth and death of William Shakespeare, the death of Inca Garcilaso de la Vega and Josep Pla, the birth of Maurice Druon, Vladimir Nabokov, Manuel Mejía Vallejo and Halldór Laxness

So, after getting back from building monkeys, I had to go online to try to cancel an eFax service. Here is the transcript of the account. Oh. And monkey socks that Jenny Rae gave me for my birthday. No reason to show those, I just like them.

{Amy R.} Hello, Mary. Welcome to online support. I am Amy, your online Live Support Representative. How may I assist you?

{Mary} I want to cancel my account.

{Amy R.} I am sorry to hear that you wish to cancel. Please give me a moment while I go through your records. In the meantime, please type the number corresponding to your reason for cancellation:

1) Moving to another provider
2) Bought a Fax machine
3) Business or role changed
4) Short term project completed
5) Financial reasons
6) Problems with Faxing or Billing
7) Dissatisfied with Quality of service
8 ) Too Costly

{Mary} 4

{Amy R.} Appreciate your feedback. Please give me a moment.
{Amy R.} Thank you for waiting.
{Amy R.} Mary, I can understand that currently you do not need the service however, it is always good to have a alternative faxing service as you may not know when the need for faxing may arise.
{Amy R.} In the current scenario, as a special consideration and goodwill gesture, your eFax account will be credited with $25.90 so that you may utilize our services without being billed our monthly fee for the next two billing cycles.
{Amy R.} Since you will not be charged any monthly fee for the next two months you may keep the account till then. If however, you still feel that you do not have any use for our services by the end of the two months credit period, then you can always contact us back anytime.

{Mary} I do not want the account. I have kept it open, just in case and have not used it for about a year. Cancel my account, please.

{Amy R.} Mary, I can completely understand your wish to discontinue, as you will not be charged any monthly fee for the next 2 billing cycles, you can retain this number at least till the end of two months credit offer.
{Amy R.} I would also provide you with an additional gift balance of $10.00 with which you can send up to 100 pages of faxes for free (per page per minute within US & Canada) along with the monthly credit.
{Amy R.} At the end of 2 months credit period, if you feel that the fax number does not serve your purpose, you can contact back to us anytime to process your request. We will just crediting your eFax account with $25.90 and $10.00 as gift balance for which you will not be charged any monthly fee for the next two months.

{Mary} No, thank you. Cancel my account now.

{Amy R.} Okay, I understand and respect your decision for cancellation. I will cancel your account with us immediately.

Actually, I only had to say it three times, so I guess that’s not too bad, as far as dealing with trained monkeys goes.

YouTube – Robbie Rotten spot (Season 2) (correct spot posted now)

Ooo! Someone posted the Nick Jr. Lazytown spots on youtube, and I’m actually in one. In the middle of this one Robbie’s periscope pops up and that’s me. I mean, it’s only a pair of eyes on a stick, but it’s still fun.

They also have a song from the original stage show. It is interesting to see what design elements remain in the television show and which ones changed.

And finally this one
Most of the drumming by Ziggy are my hands, except the closeups. One of the grips on set was an actual drummer so, with Þor’s permission, I asked Riki to sub for me. He did a great job.

A nice relaxing day. I got up and went to have my haircut, then went grocery shopping with Rob and Wayne. Boy, are we showing him the highlights of Reykjavík or what? Oh! And I’m now going to write a sentence that I never thought I’d write. Rob bought wine in a box.

That’s right. Dr. Loosen, a wine producer who makes a riesling that we like, actually has it available in a box. Box wine gets a bad rap because it usually has a terrible product in it, but if the wine is good, then the box is very handy because as you pour wine the bag inside the box maintains the vacuum. This means that the wine doesn’t oxidize. While it’s not as romantic as opening a bottle of wine for dinner, having the box of wine means that we can have a glass of wine with dinner without worrying about needing to finish it the next night. Handy. But still…wine in a box.

After that I met Sarah, Jodi, Julie and Sam for coffee at one of the few places which has decaf. You have no idea how much I miss being able to order a decaf and not have the waitstaff look at me like I’ve sprouted an extra head.

As a change, I thought I’d share a letter from my dad about my folks recent trip to London to visit my brother, Steve.

London May-June 2005 highlights.

Dear Mary,
&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp We arrived on Saturday morning and Steve was visiting with Josh out at the airport so we just hung out at Steve’s place and did some housecleaning and took a nap.
&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp Steve came home around 10 or 11 pm and I was watching a cricket match on TV and he got all upset that I would do something so un-American in his house.
&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp Sunday we just went pub hopping and looked for an Irish session that I had found out about on the internet. We found it at the Porterhouse pub and it was wonderful indeed. They told me of another one (with roughly the same people) that was happening on Thursday at a pub named the “Narrowboat.� The days run together even while they are happening, so to look back at them is a mess. One evening Marilyn found a police line and a lot of well dressed people (tux and fancy gowns) arriving at the Royal Opera House so she staked herself out there to see who might show up that was famous. It turned out that it was the Centennial celebration for the Chelsea football club and these were old timers showing up.
&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp I think Tuesday night we went to see “The Producers� and it was a hoot. The accountant’s voice got tired in the last scene or two, but other than that it was fabulous.
&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp Tuesday we took a day tour of Oxford, Stratford and Warwick. The tour guide was wonderful and talked a blue streak the whole way to Oxford and then had the gall to say that the tour guide we would pick up in Oxford would be really talkative. She was certainly that, but just couldn’t hold a candle to him if there were a contest for being talkative. Oxford had lots of places where Harry Potter was filmed.
&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp We also visited some other Harry Potter locations on Wednesday. Stratford on the Avon was a quaint town, and Shakespeare’s birthplace was restored and made into a museum. It is not where he wrote his plays as it was really his father’s house. He lived somewhere else in town but since he was a contemporary, nobody thought it worth saving apparently.
&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp Then we went to Warwick castle, the best preserved medieval castle in all of England. This is the place to take children (like me). There were walls and towers and dungeons and torture chambers and a power plant where they installed their own electric generator in 1900 keeping up with the times. It is owned by some entertainment company that has a famous wax museum in London so the state rooms had appropriate wax figures in them.
&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp On Wednesday we went to Bath and some little town I can’t remember the name of, but which is owned by the historic trust. It is something like Williamsburg, except older. You are only allowed to move into the town if you had a grandparent that lived there. This is where some Harry Potter scenes were shot. We finished up the day by going to Stonehenge. The tour guide for this trip was not nearly as good as the one on the day previous, but he was still good enough. Bath was the highlight of this day trip.
&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp On Thursday, Steve had to work so instead of going out to see the sights of London, we cleaned house again. Thursday night we went out to find the Narrowboat and the session. We found it and except for it being so far from Steve’s place, it was my favorite pub of them all. Of course the experience was enhanced for me because the fiddler let me play her fiddle for several tunes.
&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp The Narrowboat was the 101st pub that Steve has visited since he has been in London. He is not counting a second visit to a pub in his count.
&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp That doesn’t look like we did as much as it felt like we did so I’ve probably left out something really important. Ask your mother and Steve to fill in the missing parts.
&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp Love,
&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp Dad

shudder

Rob has gone to the post office. I hope to see him again.

Rob and I took a break from work to see Finding Neverland at the St. John’s Dome close to where my studio is. I loved it. The performances were uniformly strong, the film was beautifully crafted and I wept like a baby at all the places the director wanted me to.

Besides spending a relaxing day at Woodthrush Woods, my mom, Rob and I went to Grandma’s house. I spent the rest of the day working on the book I’m doing for Grandma’s 100th birthday.

She lives by herself, still has a valid driver’s license and can thread a needle. Remarkable.

I’ve come out to Chris Parks’ house because of problems with the truck. Poor Dave, who was assigned to come pick up the set from the studio space in NYC had the worst driving karma. It took him six hours to make the hour and ten minute trip from Princeton. Since I had to come out tomorrow anyway, I offered to drive the truck up and let him relax.

We went to Dana and Mark’s Read for a Christmas Brunch to exchange Secret Santa gifts. You might recall that we exchanged Secret Santa names at Thanksgiving. I drew Þor’s name and gave him a copy of The Marionette Sourcebook by Luman Coad. It’s a really great resource and he seemed very pleased.

Sarah drew my name and gave me Independent People by Halldór Laxness. I’m really pleased with it.