this weekend

i don't have school right now, nor nannying hours.  this results in, lotsa traveling, but all within four boroughs.  (i've actually never been to staten island.  am i missing anything?)

 the last two days were very busy yesterday i did two weeks worth of laundry and cleaned my room and the bathrooms.  then i went to drinking monday and got plastered on vodka crans and then my friend david invited me over to his house for movies and matzoh so that was wicked fun then today i cleaned an apartment in astoria for cash and then i went to 36th street in brooklyn for another cleaning job and then i went to chinatown to get a turtle for my sister.

History -- Chinatown: Strangers In A Strange Land back when i got my turtle (like seven years ago) in front of every other store in chinatown there would be a grandma with a bucket full of baby turtles but i guess the city has been cracking down (they are illegal).  I saw no buckets of turtles, only a few stores had the little turtle tanks outside but with stone/ceramic turtles in them.  i hipped myself to the scene by finding a grandma near a tank with the stone turtles and i picked one up and said "turtle?"  and she made some mumbling and pointed at another store across the street that had mechanical frogs swimming in a bucket outside.  i went in that store and said "turtle?" to someone but they didn't work there then i found the right lady and said "turtle" but she didn't respond until the grandma from across the street showed up and then they sold me a turtle.  he is very cute.

and then i ate really delicious Vietnamese curry chicken with awesome bread but then i got really sick because i had been hungover and didn't realize it and that sucked.  so i had a sad train ride but a dude gave me his seat.

 i had a job interview to go to when i got home but i was super exhausted so i called and asked to reschedule it. i wouldn't usually do that but i am pretty ambivalent about this job b/c the pay sucks.  the lady was accommodating so no worries on that front.

It's hard finding a good P/T nannying gig because people don't understand how skilled and valuable real quality childcare is.  I don't want to get too far into it right now but this is an important worker's rights issue and show the devaluing of what was traditionally thought of as "women's work."  if you are interested you can read more about the situation here and here   New York is at least somewhat progressive in that the state passed a Domestic Worker's Bill of Rights.  

According to Jezebel, The law says that domestic workers, including nannies, housekeepers, and elderly caregivers, have:

• The right to overtime pay at time-and-a-half after 40 hours of work in a week, or 44 hours for workers who live in their employer's home;
• A day of rest (24 hours) every seven days, or overtime pay if they agree to work on that day;
• Three paid days of rest each year after one year of work for the same employer; and
• Protection under New York State Human Rights Law, and the creation of a special cause of action for domestic workers who suffer sexual or racial harassment.

But most domestic workers don't know about the law, and if they do many won't fight for their rights because of their immigration status.  sucks.  I have only had one paid day of rest or sickness or whatever you want to call it in the five years i have been nannying in NYC.

I have not worked as a domestic for less than minimum wage since I was a minor.  This is because I have white privilege and also that I am a native English speaker and a graduate degree holder and education degree student.  I can do more than just watch the kids though, I do have other skills like tutoring them in reading and writing and basic math and elementary piano and Spanish and a wealth of creative and cultural skills and willingness to physical exert myself and participate in play.  So in some ways I am worth the high price I seek and have received and I don't want to bend over for the first job offered that  I a bad move.  It would be about thirty hours a week so I would make more money than I do now, but it is lower quality of life for me because I have to work a about 10 extra hours a week to only make about 60 extra dollars.  That doesn't make any sense.  And i'm still in school full time and working additional part time gigs.  too much too muchery.


When I got home I relaxed for a bit and started to feel better.  I watched a program on PBS with Brian that was really good.  hosted by Professor Henry Louis Gates, Blacks in Latin America is fascinating.   Can't wait to see the other episodes in the three part series.


ok time for bed g'night.

Hey stranger

I also put fruit upc stickers up in the train.  cept mine are not organic.  but i wish they were

Greenpoint

Tree eats bike thing

brian von doot doot DOOT: good roomate or great roomate?

exhibit a

• i needed nyquil because i have a bad head cold.
• i didn't want to go by myself because it is super late night-time AND i'm lazy
• brian SAID NO
• but then he gave me medicinal chocolate vodka. (eco- friendly 360 double chocolate vodka)

conclusion: great roomate.

SAVE the Pelham Parkway Trees!

Defenders of Parkway trees ratchet up efforts > YourNabe.com > Bronx


I love the trees on the parkway. My family has lived on Pelham Parkway for 57 years. I would hate to see any of the trees here go. We already lost several this year due to storms. The neighborhood loves the Parkway and I see people enjoying the wooded spaces everyday. We sunbathe, run, dog walk, bike, skate, read, smoke, play chess, date, chat, eat, drink, kiss and play under these trees. It is our piece of nature and its character will be much maligned by the loss of the trees.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/save_the_pelham_parkway_trees_29HZqhWAx30qpPahu5rVNO

 http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010/08/13/2010-08-13_regis_to_city_keep_parkway_trees.html



There was a rally to save the trees today and I attended.  I want to make sure that our voices are heard and that the trees are protected. The mature trees are one of my favorite things about my neighborhood.  They are one of the reasons I don't mind living so far from Manhattan, and one of the reasons I just signed a new lease even though my rent went up about three hundred dollars.

Check out this New York Times slideshow featuring my neighborhood and notice a common feature in all the pictures (GREEN TREES!!)  They are what makes Pelham Parkway a beautiful place to live.  In the spring we step off the train into a green land scented with the blooms of flowering trees.  In the summer we find shade beneath the leafy green canopy and in the fall our neighborhood comes alive with a rainbow of colors.  The apple trees bear fruit and the neighborhood communes.  SAVE THE TREES!

Take a drive down Pelham Parkway South:

if it's in this post then

i'm feeling it!



up first, hyper-realist scuplture by Carole Feuerman courtesy of Sprayblog:

Dos Equis bottles by KAWS

i wanna drink you.


and an ill photo slideshow of nudibranches over at NewYorkTimes online right HERE

That said, updates on my progress on the mega to-do lists can be expected tomorrow as well as photos and fun from my saturday night excursion to see a show by one of my favoritest ladies, the ever-impressive ms. rebecca memoli. 

In technical news I can't get mobile blogging to work on my cell phone anymore which is a bummer, especially as i can't access verizonwireless pix place either, so all cell phone pics are now trapped in cellphone land for the time being which sucks.
However, all is not lost because Brian gave me his old camera (it has a slight defect but who doesn't!) as he has gotten a new one.  ok time to make the sleepies.

BOOKMAN

b00kman! Under the one train 231st and bway. G00d selection, art bo0ks n strange finds.

blogging on da bus!

give some a slight tummyache... but it is awful neat and FUN.  actually the tummyache might be the result of the dirty-water dog i scarfed from the stand as i baked in line for the MEGABUS.  It left fifteen minutes late but I don't care, I'm always late, as long as it doesn't come early then it is the bus for me.

It was more than ten dollars cheaper than greyhound.  and it beats the heck out of the chinatown bus b/c i don't have to go down to chinatown, the workers speak better english and are marginally less gruff, and there is free wifi!  plus i've had one chinatown bus trip where the heat didn't work in January and I had to put on all the clothes I had in my luggage and I was still freezing, and another chinatown bus trip where the exhaust from the engine was somehow coming into the bus and people were getting headaches and barfing so i popped out the emergency hatch on the ceiling because the bus driver WOULD NOT stop and we needed oxygen.  That made him stop.

so, IMHO, megabus gets thumbs up and chinatown bus gets thumbs down except for mega short trips like to philly.

I am super-tired.  i couldn't sleep in the death heat last night and i don't have money to run the A.C.   sucks.  but that's what it is.  also i was nervous because i always get nervous before any trip, stupid but true.  I am going to Cape Cod with my mama :)  never been there and i've never been on  with my mama before  it will be mostly just she and i, but my brother kevin will be around too which is great because he wants to go biking, hiking, swimming, running and kayaking with me.

my headphones died and i had to pay $10 for a crap pair of "colby" headphones in Penn Station.  What a gyp.  they are like $2 at the discount store.  highway robbery!   oh well at least they work.  sort of

ok i'm gonna go take a nap b/c this air conditioning is the bee knees!

ps. i really like this ring:

 (by violet darkling)

i want it!

UPDATE I WOKE UP FREEZING and had to put on all the clothes and towels so i wouldn't die of hypothermia.  geez.  this is very silly.  i'm almost to albany now.  my papa is gonna pick me up.

LISTEN UP LADIES AND GENTS

i need a date.  don't make me bring your moms.

good and grand

this is grand:  instant fun



fun is fun.  today was fun too!  well first of all today was tired because i didn't get home from babysitting until like 12:30pm last night and then i had to get on a train and a shuttle bus and train and the greyhound bus and then come to albany.  Please note that greyhound totally SUCKS!  they sold me an e-ticket, and i selected to print it out, and it was supposed to come in my email, but it never did, and they said i  but it was worth it because i got to hang out with LILY! last night and she is awesome.

why did i go through all this traveling and waking up early and whatnot?  because TODAY is GRANDMA MURIEL'S 90th birthday!  my mom made an awesome cake, my cousin bethany made a neat slideshow of old pictures that made lotsa people cry, and I got to see all my paternal cousins( minus Ravi who was on his honeymoon and my brother Lank who is in Israel, and who I miss very much).  I had a fabulous time hanging out with the little people... my second cousin who i thought was my niece but anyway Ravi's daughter Kohana who is beautiful and sweet and who kept saying "hi" over and over to me, Annika (my precious niece who i love to bits and pieces)  and Nathan, who was instrumental in keeping the girls entertained and who is a little gentleman who held the door for me.  It was a fabulous day and I loved it.

My sister Kara came to me with a paraplegic infant squirrel problem which I was able to solve for her with minimal difficulty.  Big thanks to my beloved Papa for the assist.

awesome pictures i stole from my sister mirmir!

Are my cousins gorgeous or what?

I ate a salad with chicken. It was awesome.  Annika stole lots of chicken from me, but I love her so it's ok.  I also stole some of her chicken fingers so we are even.

Man I love my family :)

i babysat for a kid who thought verizon wireless was the capital of minnesota

hai guise.  ut ohs.  I have bed bugs AND one of the bed bug bites got really infected and UGHGHGHGH.  my room is in shambles.  brian is the best roommate and we spent the morning tearing the room up and vacuuming the shit out of everything and throwing away two thousands lbs of rubbish.  i am not a tidy person, no not at all.  i am extremely uncomfortable in a tidy room as a matter of fact, and will often festoon hotels and offices i spend time in with random bits of flotsam and jetsom just to keep myself at an even keel.  now my room will be clean, at least for a bit.  but how to get rid of these bastardos?
apparently even the neat and tidy in my city are falling prey to these horrible little devils.  my kingdom for a can of DDT.  i don't intend on breeding so it can mutate my chromosomes 'til the cows come home just save me from g.d. bedbugs already!!  and the bite i have that is really infected, well they cultured it and we will have to wait and see if it is MSRA and or what.  i'm on 200 mg of Doxycycline a day and of course it makes me feel disgustor. I hate high dose antibiotics.  I was on them for like a month when I had lyme disease and it was just terrible.  Why do I always have miserable yucky bullsh*t ailments?

WHINE.  well anyway we do have a wee bit of GOOD NEWS!!!

I mostly found a job.  It's in the same building where I worked the majority of the last three years, Solaria in Riverdale.   I like it.  The doorman are cool and i like the fitness room.  and my russian children live there.  i love them.  here's a picture of the little russian girl i was spending everyday with.  she's the blondie.  over the time i was with her she learned to read and add and subtract and multiple and divide and beg change for ice cream and hula hoop and run fast and climb trees.  i like her.  i like being a nanny.  i hope the baby is a good baby

the new kid is (i think) a boy and he is definitely eight weeks old. i sit for  them for the first time this week. they have a dog and his name jackson and he is very cute and he barks a lot.


what else... ok me and brian cleaned my room two million billion degress from dirty and i sprayed poison of bed bugs everywhere.  now i'm eating lunch.  then i start forty thousands lbs of laundry.



Dittocat is home!!! my little prince is curled up beside me once again. he was covered in ticks and very skinny upon his return (from a month long sabbatical in upstate new york) and the ticks are sorted out now and he's attacking the cat food and resting a lot. good to have him home.

i cleaned the turtle tank and bought the turtle food.



i went thrift store shopping with SIS1 and got a bunch of cute stuff! specifically a new long jean skirt, a red cardigan that is adorable, and a black silk victorian high collared shirt with small lacquered buttons up one shoulder.

morning dahlinks

i slept through the night!!  a first since this wretched cold took me.  i'm watching a scary movie with brian.  it  is very silly.  today i get to see my papa.  i'm meeting him at the hyatt by grand central, then we get to eat fancy dinner, then i go to my writing group at the tea spot in the west village.  kelly invited me to lemongrass for karaoke, but i think i might be too sick and broke to go.  we shall see.  the exciting news is i get my laptop back when i see my father.  this will give me access to a wealth of material to make this blog even more lovely and exciting than it already is.

smell ya later