Random Friday

I'm yearning to go here, to my Jamaican homeland, to the waters I grew up in, and today, I am booking flights for the man and I to do just that shortly after Christmas. My Aunt Grace used to say, don't wait to plan a trip and book your flights and accommodations, because the anticipation of it can be just as delicious as being there, and it lasts longer.

I wanted to repost this tweet from Senator Mazie Hirono a while back, but I was pledged to keep the fact that I was collaborating with the new Justice confidential until her book came out. Now I can finally archive this post that made my heart sing back when Hawaii Democrat Mazie Hirono first tweeted it. Mazie Hirono is a member of the Judiciary Committee of the Senate, and so she met one-on-one with our Justice in the run up to her confirmation hearings, which is when this photo was taken. How lucky am I, to have had the chance to work with two such extraordinary women on writing their memoirs. The power and the goodness and the glory in that room!

Is this not a beautiful street of brownstones? It's in Park Slope, Brooklyn, a neighborhood teeming with literary folk who call New York City home. My daughter and her love will soon be moving there. I know so many people from my magazine and book worlds who live near to their new place. This one is a block in one direction, that one lives three blocks in another direction, another one is two blocks south. To welcome the newlyweds to the neighborhood, my Park Slope comrades have been texting me recommendations for hole-in-the-wall eateries with sublime food, nearby farmer's markets, and other cool stuff that I'm supposed to share with them. I think the young uns landed well, and I'm just thankful the owners of the brownstone they're moving into were less focused on what they could get for their rental apartment, and more concerned with who they might get to live there. I think they chose well, too.

Back in my own hood, my living room rug has just about given up the ghost, with visible spills and stains on the light colored carpet where people habitually sit. I've been perusing rug sites for a new floor layer, and I keep coming back to that carpet there. It's from Ruggable, ergo washable, and something about the pink and the blue and the nod to old elegance charms me. What do you think of it? Don't spare me. Tell me true. As my daughter likes to say "I'd appreciate your perspective, even though I might not listen to you."

That's my son when he was here on Monday evening to go to the gym with his dad. I was on FaceTime with my daughter and he was energetically waving hello to his new brother in law while teasingly ignoring his sister. Oh, siblings.