TENTACLES
Thursday, July 26, 2007
My darlings! I'm here in New York, sharing an apartment with Jenny Crusie and Lani Diane Rich and having an absolutely marvelous, magic time. We've been hashing out Dogs and Goddesses (www.dogsandgoddesses.com) and playing with out Macs, and talking talking talking. I went for lunch with my agents first, and we thought deep thoughts, and then back to apartment where I met Lani in person for the first time, and she's as fabulous as Jenny. Then off to dinner.
The thing is, New York restaurants are noisy. We ate at a fabulous little place called Bus Stop Cafe, and I couldn't quite hear the waitress. It sounded as if she was extolling the pleasures of the Seafood planner, which had scallops, shrimp and salmon.
Sounded good to me -- I love fresh seafood. So Jenny got her plate of roast chicken and mashed potatoes, Lani chose scallops and shrimp, and my plate arrived without a trace of carb on it (I almost mugged Jenny for her potatoes). And amidst the shrimp and scallops were white pockets of something, which I really hoped were fingerling potatoes but instead were something pale and rubbery. I realized to my horror it was squid, so decided to go for the red frizzly lettuce. Uh, no. Tenatacles! Tiny little red tentacles littering my plate. Oh, the horror, oh the humanity!
I tried to get Lani and Jenny to eat them but they politely declined, and I drowned my sorrows with blueberry pie before we headed back to the swelteringly hot apartment (Jenny had turned off the AC and I hadn't even realized they had any! The woman will die.).
So we started talking (the opening is always "so, Mesopotamia" and the closing is always "I gotta pee."
So we played with Mesopotamia for a while, with color coded index cards and thought great thoughts, and I fell sound asleep while Jenny and Lani just kept on talking. At one time I surfaced and said "who's Dennis?" since I didn't remember a Dennis in Dogs and Goddesses, but they just told me to go back to sleep. Which I did, with Jenny hogging eight pillows and Lani and me on our separate fold-out sofas and nary a pillow in sight.
This morning we headed off to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Mesopotamia, of course) and had lunch with the divine Dale Burg with her tales of seducing famous actors (plus two mega famous thriller writers but I don't drop names -- no, she didn't seduce them, we had lunch at the Met cafeteria with them) and then headed off for the Mesopotamian gallery. Great bas reliefs. Trust me, there's nothing more exciting than bas-reliefs if you're writing about Mesopotamian goddesses (and their dogs).
Then off to the Japanese section (of course) and then the most important part of the day -- shopping! Kimono wrapping paper, Mt. Fuji note cards, a Great Wave silk scarf for my mother on her 93rd birthday with the cheerful thought that I'll get it when she shuffles off this mortal coil (though maybe I'll be tactful enough not to mention my Evil Plan). I mean, she'll probably live to 120 but it's a great scarf and worth waiting for.
Then fabulous pizza at Pizza Fresca on 20th Street (a quatro formaggio pizza to die for and a delicious red wine ), conversation with Jennifer Enderlin, and then back to the apartment to discuss strategy. Now Jenny's disappeared and they're going to want to talk Dogs and Goddesses till three in the morning and I'll fall asleep again and probably pop my head up and say "Dennis?" at an inappropriate time.
But at least there were no tentacles today. So life is good.
The thing is, New York restaurants are noisy. We ate at a fabulous little place called Bus Stop Cafe, and I couldn't quite hear the waitress. It sounded as if she was extolling the pleasures of the Seafood planner, which had scallops, shrimp and salmon.
Sounded good to me -- I love fresh seafood. So Jenny got her plate of roast chicken and mashed potatoes, Lani chose scallops and shrimp, and my plate arrived without a trace of carb on it (I almost mugged Jenny for her potatoes). And amidst the shrimp and scallops were white pockets of something, which I really hoped were fingerling potatoes but instead were something pale and rubbery. I realized to my horror it was squid, so decided to go for the red frizzly lettuce. Uh, no. Tenatacles! Tiny little red tentacles littering my plate. Oh, the horror, oh the humanity!
I tried to get Lani and Jenny to eat them but they politely declined, and I drowned my sorrows with blueberry pie before we headed back to the swelteringly hot apartment (Jenny had turned off the AC and I hadn't even realized they had any! The woman will die.).
So we started talking (the opening is always "so, Mesopotamia" and the closing is always "I gotta pee."
So we played with Mesopotamia for a while, with color coded index cards and thought great thoughts, and I fell sound asleep while Jenny and Lani just kept on talking. At one time I surfaced and said "who's Dennis?" since I didn't remember a Dennis in Dogs and Goddesses, but they just told me to go back to sleep. Which I did, with Jenny hogging eight pillows and Lani and me on our separate fold-out sofas and nary a pillow in sight.
This morning we headed off to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Mesopotamia, of course) and had lunch with the divine Dale Burg with her tales of seducing famous actors (plus two mega famous thriller writers but I don't drop names -- no, she didn't seduce them, we had lunch at the Met cafeteria with them) and then headed off for the Mesopotamian gallery. Great bas reliefs. Trust me, there's nothing more exciting than bas-reliefs if you're writing about Mesopotamian goddesses (and their dogs).
Then off to the Japanese section (of course) and then the most important part of the day -- shopping! Kimono wrapping paper, Mt. Fuji note cards, a Great Wave silk scarf for my mother on her 93rd birthday with the cheerful thought that I'll get it when she shuffles off this mortal coil (though maybe I'll be tactful enough not to mention my Evil Plan). I mean, she'll probably live to 120 but it's a great scarf and worth waiting for.
Then fabulous pizza at Pizza Fresca on 20th Street (a quatro formaggio pizza to die for and a delicious red wine ), conversation with Jennifer Enderlin, and then back to the apartment to discuss strategy. Now Jenny's disappeared and they're going to want to talk Dogs and Goddesses till three in the morning and I'll fall asleep again and probably pop my head up and say "Dennis?" at an inappropriate time.
But at least there were no tentacles today. So life is good.
posted by Anne Stuart at 9:14 PM
2 Comments:
Hiya Anne -- sounds like you're having a marvelous time! Did you ever figure out who was Dennis?
When is Isobelle's story coming out? I can't wait to read it!
We once went with friends to an elegant buffet, where I was just about to serve myself some of an interesting-looking rice salad, when I realized that the pretty little lavendar-colored "flowers" were not flowers at all, but tiny octopi. I passed. Later one of the women at our table happily noshed away on fried octopus, and I think she even went back for seconds. I'd as soon have eaten a tarantula...
Lynda
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