an easy reader a day keeps illiteracy away

today while routing in some books, i became re-energized in my plan to read one spanish easy reader a day. certainly, if i read a book a day in spanish it will help me to understand spanish better. no? but instead of an easy reader i couldn't help but read "if you give a pig a pancake" in spanish. what will happen if le das una panqueque a una cerdita? yo no se!

why must i improve my spanish, you ask? where might i be off to next, you ponder? well, my dear beloved poor forsaken blog readers i cannot tell you that just yet. but i will say this: when bolshevics wine and dine you on your one year anniversary, asking you in all earnestness if you will please do them the honor of running away with them ... the answer is always yes. si? si!

of course, i shall miss mi amor el bolshevik as he has just informed me that he will be going to panama for the holidays. ay dios mio!

fall is here ... thank god

that's right ... today is the first day of school. yay! the children are no longer here 8 hours a day. yay! oh sweet relief. guess what? it's quiet in here! like a library or something.

let's see my poor forsaken blog readers ... what has been going on?

i went to honduras to visit my beloved bolshevik for a few days. that was lovely. i will not summarize it for you, but i will instead quote the bolshevik .... "that image of the man at pico bonito hotel, walking up to us as we arrived and offering us rum drinks in coconuts ... that will stay with me until the day i die." indeed, bolshevik. indeed.

also, the manager of happy new shiny library has sadly retired. we all loved her so. and now we are awaiting the arrival of a new manager. this is a little frightening since we do not know who said manager will be. shhhhhh. it's a surprise! i typically love surprises. but not this one.

anyhoo, now that it is fall we get to go back to our regularly scheduled programs, which means anywhere between 1 to 3 programs a day instead of the intense summer schedule of 3 to 5 programs a day. phew!

our highlight this month is the girls club & boys club. do not let the name fool you. it is not "boys and girls club." the boys and the girls will not be mingling. instead we do girly activities with the girls and boy stuff with the boys. we are imposing strict gender roles! but it's so fun. the kids really get into excluding each other. is that wrong?

anyway, yesterday at girls club we made these fab bracelets out of toilet paper tubes. we had some fun fabrics that we got from Materials from the Arts and we used them to cover the toilet paper tubes (you can see how this was accomplished with the bracelet on the right). then we glued on all sorts of bling. oh how i love bling! we used glitter foam shapes, beads, rhinestones, feathers, sequins ... anything that could be glued down. i must say that i had insisted on purchasing a bunch of glue guns with our grant money, and it was one of my most useful acquisitions.

and that's the story for now.

que pasa

oh dear blog readers, i am lucky if there are any of you left out there. it is quite the shame how i have forsaken you. so what's been going on?

we've had a crazy busy summer here at happy shiny new library. there are no less than a gajillion children here and it is quite overwhelming. we have weekly theme parties where we typically have attendance of about 100. i am quite looking forward to our "rock star" party next week where we will play playstation karaoke. yay! we've made some awesome crafts, had a videogame day, had an author visit. good stuff.

you may or may not know that the bolshevik has absconded to honduras as bolsheviks often do. he is studying the spanish and i am quite jealous because
1. i would like to live in honduras for a month and have hondurans do my laundry.
2. i really need to improve my spanish speaking abilities so that i can better communicate with the patrons of happy new shiny library.

so today i am cataloging some of the spanish easy reader books. for those of you who are unfamiliar, easy readers are books meant for K-2nd grade kids and typically only have a few easy words per page, often accompanied by big pictures. so now i am reading the spanish easy readers in hopes to improve my spanish. i have learned about the life cycle of a bear, or an oso as it is called en espanol. i have learned how to get ready for school. soy listo para ir a la escuela! but my favorite is this book about telling the truth (shown above). now i wish i could get a picture of this first page ... there are about 5 kids, all on scooters, and they have their arms crossed and are making very angry faces. they're like a little gang out 7 year olds. very intimidating. and in big block letters next to them it says DECIMOS LA VERDAD! that's right. this gang only tells the truth and all you liars out there better watch our of you will feel their scooter wrath.

and that's my day here at la biblioteca.

costa rica adventures: we end with a trip in a miniscule plane

since we lost an entire day due to my passport woes, the bolshevik and i tried to think of ways to make up time. on our last day we had planned to drive our SUV back to san jose for our afternoon flight back home. after having learned how deceitful the road maps are, i use our navigation system to deduce that this will actually take about 4 hours. at best. so the bolshevik comes up with the clever idea of dropping off our rental car at nearby tamarindo beach, and taking a plane from tamarindo to san jose, which is only a 45 minute flight. he is so very clever that bolshevik.

so on our last day we wake up around 7 am and spend our last hours of vacation at the beach. the bolshevik hides in the shade of a coconut tree, while i do yoga in the sand. then i have a quick swim in the ocean, and we return to our hotel for our last casados ever. so sad.

after dropping off our trusty SUV, we are driven to the "airport" which is really just a big awning with a couple of benches and small stand selling gum and water. don't let the picture fool you, there was no indoor space at the airport. there was also no security, no x-rays, no metal detectors, no luggage carousel. nothing. so we sit on a bench and wait. there are about 6 other people sitting around waiting as well and i start to worry that this is going to be a seriously small plane we are flying in. i hate planes. especially small planes. it is aroud this time that i decide to take some xanax, and concentrate on feeling anxious.

then our plane lands, and i watch as the one aiport worker loads our luggage up. we board the plane and i believe i count 12 seats. this is definitely the smallest plane i have ever been in. not only can i see the cockpit from our seats, but there is no divider or anything between us and the pilots. i could have easily chatted with the pilots, given them some constructive criticism on flying, pointed out areas of note from the air, etc etc. you know, had i not been paralyzed with fear, i could have been quite social. other plane passengers seemed to be having a fine time, making jokes and patting each other on the back. fools. all of them.

i spend the first half of the trip clutching onto my backpack for dear life, while also digging my nails into the bolshevik's arm. he is such a good sport. after a while i calm down slightly and the bolshevik tries to distract me with more car games.

we eventually make it to san jose alive, and we have just enough time to stop by the duty free shop before boarding our plane. i pick up some chocolate covered pineapple, as i am determined to find good snack food.

the plane ride home is uneventful. and since i had just had that terrifying small plane experience, i was SO well behaved on the real plane. i should have gotten one of those pins with the plane wings on them that they give to kids. or extra pretzels.

there was no one in the third seat in our row, so the bolshevik and i are able to spread out a bit. we spend most of the trip watching flight of the conchords episodes on my laptop, while eating chocolate covered pineapple (SO good).

and thus concludes our costa rican adventures.

the end.

costa rica adventures: things get brighter, then seriously foggy

we wake up on friday morning in a much better frame of mind. i am still hivey, but less so. and the bolshevik and i are just thrilled that we finally made it out of the tri-state area.

we sit on this lovely patio dining area, and have what the costa ricans refer to as casados which means "typical meal." their typical meal includes rice & beans, eggs (scrambled or fried), a couple slices of cheese, a few slices of tomato, a selection of fresh fruits, coffee or tea, and fresh squeezed fruit juices (we had the option of orange juice, watermelon juice or "mixed fruits"). pretty sweet. dare i say that the boshelvik and i first bonded way back when over our mutual love of brunch (although it may still be a point of contention that he prefers pancakes to waffles). anyhoo, you can imagine that we were very pleased with this spread.

after breakfast we waited for our car and took a short stroll aroung the grounds of our hotel. even though the hotel wasn't in an area known for natural beauty (ie next to the airport), it really was very pretty. there were paths and trees and little benches and exotic flowers. very nice place to wait for your rental car people to pick you up.

by 9 or so we get in our trusty SUV (with GPS) aaaaand ... we're off!

aaaaaaand ... we're lost! turns out that costa ricans don't believe in road signs. anywhere. no road signs. why label your roads? i guess if you don't already know how to get where you're going you probably don't want it enough and therefore are not worthy of being shown the way. but after driving in circles for a little while our handy little GPS system finally kicked in and got us onto the panamerican highway. it was about this time that the bolshevik remarked that once we got on the "real highway" we would probably make excellent time. and then i informed him that this small two-lane highway was actually the biggest road in costa rica. and that is when the GPS system chimed in with it's lovely automaton faux british accent, "in .2 ... miles ... turn ... onto ... unpaved road." turns out almost every road in costa rica is named "unpaved road."

so we are having a fine time getting jostled up and down as we drive over huge potholes on our unpaved rocky muddy costa rica road. we pass beautiful sights and hop out of the car to take pictures now and again. it's kind of like driving some adventure video game, where you have to keep both hands gripped tightly to the wheel while you get bounced around. after a while we get the hang out of it, and start playing a car game that our friends the Confined Nomads taught us. so we're having a fine time, no? it's a costa rica driving adventure, right?

suddenly, with no warning from our GPS system we approach a small bridge that is very obviously "out," and i don't mean that it's gay. it has two huge piles of rubble blocking the entrance, and it is quite apparent that we are not supposed to drive on it. then off to the side is a steep gravel ramp of sorts that leads to a small river. it is at this point that the bolshevik remembers reading something about how in costa rica sometimes you have to drive through rivers. and lo and behold as we are wondering whether or not to drive through this river, a little subaru outback comes zipping past us, through the river and onto the other side of the road. so we decide to go for it, thanking our lucky stars that we upgraded from our compact car.

as we are bravely traversing a river in our SUV, we notice that those big metal things that hold up bridges (columns? i-beams?) are no longer attached to the bridge beside us. they're just hanging out in the water, leaning against some rocks, while the bridge above it is supported by nothing. glad we didn't try to cross that one.

it takes us several hours but we finally make it to santa elena. during our car trip i tried to think of some phrases i could use on a pharmacist so that he or she might take pity on me and give me some cortisone. since i have no idea how to say "hivey" in spanish, i settle on soy allergica a los todos el mundo. necessita prednisone.

anyhoo, we walk around santa elena a bit, get some helado, and that is when the bolshvik spots a pharmacy. so i go in and try to give it my best shot. there's a young woman sitting behind the counter sucking on a lollipop while reading a magazine. i quickly realize that this will be easier than i thought. i don't even give my sad sad allergic story. instead, i merely say necessita prednisone. then, get this, she stands up and grabs a box with the words "prednisone 5 mg" and says "esto?" and my dear blog readers, without a prescription and without any explanation of my medical woes, i am sold 50 mg of prednisone for the bargain price of $3. i heart costa rica.

as it is too late in the day to start any true adventures, we make a reservation for a canopy tour (more info on that later) for the following day. then we go to the ranario, frog pond, where we see all these cool tropical frogs. turns out the boslshevik loves frogs. who knew? then we get back into our SUV for the oncoming adventure of finding our hotel.

the navigation system gets us a bit turned around and we wind up leaving and returning to santa elena several times. i believe it was the third time that i helpfully pointed out, "there's the ranario again," (much in the style of clark griswald in european vacation when he keeps saying "look kids, big ben!" fyi: there is no traffic circle by big ben). and that dear blog readers is when the bolshevik and i got into our first fight. but we got over it fairly quickly.

on the drive further up the mountain to our hotel we are suddenly enshrouded in mist. turns out the monteverde cloud forest is not just a clever name. it is seriously cloudy up there. we drive down a long private road, boucing around for several miles, and when we are truly in the middle of nowhere we see a cluster of green cabins on a hillside. we assume that they are overlooking a beautiful view of mountains and valleys. but due to massive fog we can't actually see past the cabins.

so we are given our very own huge cabin (this thing could easily sleep 4-5 people), with a wood burning stove and candles for "lights out." turns out this place is run on generated electricty, and the power is shut off every night at 10 pm.

we grab a quite bite to eat in the main cabin, which kind of looks like a tropical ski lodge, and then head back down the mountain for our night time rainforest tour. when we get to our SUV, a small monsoon has begun and the fog is so thick we can barely see 5 feet in front of us. oh but my courageous bolshevik drove us down the mountain safely.

after our tour (in which we got rained on a lot and we saw a tarantula), i drive us back up the mountain through the fog and rain to our hotel. they don't call it the rain forest for nothing. and apparently it rains outside the forest as well. when we get there it is completely dark, even the little light posts on the pathways between the cabins have been turned off. since we don't have a flashlight, we wind up using our navigation system as a light source, trying to shine it on the pathway. the bolshevik and i run up and down several different pathways getting soaked in the rain trying to find our cabin.

after running up to numberous cabins, we finally correctly identify and enter our cabin. we putter around in the dark for a while, lighting candles and attempting to start a fire. why didn't i pay more attention when the men in my family were making fires all through my childhood? drenched to the bone, the bolshevik and i cuddle in front of the pathetic fire i build ... thus ending another day of costa rican adventures.

to be continued ...

costa rica adventures: day one in which shit hits the fan

ok blog readers, let's begin at the beginning. day one. our flight was scheduled to leave at 8 am, and as a punctual person i tow the line and always follow the rule regarding arriving at the airport 2 hours early for international flights. the bolshevik does not believe in this rule. he thinks it's bullshit. but as i was the one booking our cab to newark, i was the one who got to call the shots. the shots being that we arrived at the airport at 5:30 am. okay, so that's a little too early, but better early than late! anyway, my beloved bolshevik was very good humored about the whole thing and proceeded to lightheartedly poke fun at me as we waited in line to check in. of course, that was before we made it to the counter and i was told i was not allowed on the plane.

say what?!

that's right. the woman at the continental airlines counter told me i was not allowed on the plane. you are probably asking yourselves, "but why, miss dewey decimal? surely you are an upstanding citizen who should be allowed on commercial aircrafts?" well, i would tend to agree with you (except for the time i shouted out "we're all going to die" in a particularly scary bit of turbulence. but in my defense it really was some scary turbulence. and that was years ago. pre-9/11).

anyway, the reason i was not allowed on the plane is because my passport is expiring soon. now of course i checked my passport expiration date before i left, and it doesn't expire until the end of the month. so i deduced that since it wasn't expired at the time that i was leaving, nor would it be expired by the time i returned, then i was okay. but apparently, having your passport be close to expiring is just as good as having it actually be expired. this leads me to wonder what the point is of even having an expiration date at all if your passport can be considered "invalid" before it has actually expired. and according to the lovely staff at continental airlines this is information i should have looked up on my own. i should have wondered if travelling with a passport that wasn't actually expired would be a problem. oh yeah, that seems so likely.

so the arguments went something like this:
continental airlines staff: well, it is up to the traveler to make sure all their documents are valid.
me: but it is valid! it doesn't expire until the end of the month!

continental airlines staff: it is the traveler's responsibility to make sure that their documents are valid in regards to the country they are travelling to.

me: but why would i even think that my non-expired passport may be a problem?

continental airlines staff: it's the traveler's responsibility ....

and so on and so on.

so then the continental woman started printing out the bolshevik a boarding pass! like the bolshevik would just go to costa rica without me! i believe i shouted something like, "he's not going to costa rica without me!" to which the bolshevik nodded in agreement, and then she put the bolshevik on a standby flight for 5 pm that day. but she refused to put me on a stand-by flight, saying that she couldn't because my passport is "expired." then we proceeded to get into the above-mentioned argument all over again.

fast forward to 7:00 am when the bolshevik and i took a cab from newark airport to the passport agency in downtown manhattan. i got some passport pictures taken at a bodega next door (seriously, is there anything you can't get at a bodega?) then the woman at the passport agency told me that i cannot get an "emergency passport" unless i have proof of my intent to travel (and my ticket for a plane that left newark 5 minutes prior to this conversation was not proof enough). so we went through the back and forth of how i can't get on a flight roster without a passport, and i can't get a passport until i'm on a flight roster. grrrrrr.

but finally after a call to continental, i got some very helpful person to officially put me and the bolshevik on the standby flight and she promised to email me the flight info asap. back to the bodega where, for a small fee, i was able to check my email and then print out my travel itinerary. seriously, i heart bodegas.

i was told i could return at noon for my shiny new passport, so the bolshevik and i tried to kill some time in the big bad city. did i mention it was cold and rainy that day? did i mention that we were dressed like two people who were only lightly layered because they assumed they'd be on a plane to costa rica? anyway, the bolshevik and i had a very nice breakfast, then did some shopping at macys. of course everywhere we went people assumed that we were tourists, as we had our luggage in tow. "oh, are you visiting new york? where are you from?" they'd ask. "no," we'd answer sadly, "we're from brooklyn ... it's a long story."

by 1 pm i had my passport in hand, but we still had several hours to kill before our flight. running out of things to do, we decided to catch a movie. it was while we were in the movie theater that i realized my ankle was getting really hivey. now, i had been hive free for a few weeks, but i think the stress of the morning's ordeal had brought them back out again. by the time we got to the airport my whole ankle was swollen. and it was around this time that i realized i only had enough cortisone for the length of my trip. no extra cortisone for this kind of emergency. what was i thinking? i mean, growing up my mom had a whole pharmacy of prescription drugs in her purse at all times. why hadn't i been more prepared?

we made our 5 pm flight, and by the time we landed in costa rica it was about 11 pm and we were completely exhausted. i hobbled behind the bolshevik with my swollen hivey ankle, and as we made our way to the car rental counter, i cursed myself silently for having ruined our vacation. we lost a day because of me, and it looked as though i'd be all hivey and annoying. why would someone as awesome as the bolshevik want to hang around with me? obviously, i am nothing but problems.

the car rental guys explained to us that the area we were going to, santa elena, was several hours drive and that the roads there are really bad and there was a bridge out and pretty much we would be crazy to attempt going there that night. they also told us that it would be completely impossible for us to drive to santa elena in the compact car that we reserved. to sum up, if we wanted to make it to santa elena alive we'd need an SUV and we'd need to drive said SUV the following morning. so we agree that we would upgrade to an SUV, and we even decided to pay an extra $8/day for a GPS.

then (this is the awesome part) they offered to drive us to a hotel nearby and offered to pick us up after breakfast, and rent us the SUV then (thus saving us one whole day of car rental fees). how nice is that? so they drive us (for free) to a cheap but clean hotel nearby, telling us they will pick us up at 8 am (for free) after we've had our complimentary breakfast.

so we're driven down all these windy rocky streets with small one-level houses with roofs made of corrugated metal, and we approach these big doors that look like they hide the operational headquarters of a drug cartel behind them. but when they opened up and we were let inside, we saw a lovely tropical garden and a small brightly colored hotel.

once in our room i soaked my hivey ankle in cold water (just an aside: the showers in costa rica are like 4 times the size of showers in the US. several people could have soaked their hivey ankles in this shower and had plenty of room), and i decided to take my entire stash of cortisone in hopes of ridding myself of hives through a drastic pharmaceutical counter attack.

and finally, after about 19 hours of travel mishaps, we fell asleep in our first cost rican hotel room.

... to be continued ...

apparently, i am also thankful for pants

you may have noticed that i have not spoken about svelteness lately. that is because svelteness is at an all time low (weight gain being at an all time high). you may be wondering to yourselves how this could possibly be so. "how could this poissibly be so, miss dewey d?" is how your wondering probably sounds in your head. "with all your punking rope and semi-reasonable eating habits? how could this be?" well, i'll tell you ... i blame the hives.

that's right, the hives! you see, i stopped mentioning the hives. not because they have gone away, but because they are so god damned annoying i can't even stand to discuss them. but i am on some super powerful meds to keep the hives at bay, but these super powerful meds also seem to keep the svelteness at bay as well. ... oh, long lost svelteness, how you have foresaken me!

anyway, this lack of svelteness has created a bit of a problem when it comes to the issue of pants. this issue being that i can no longer fit into my tight jeans (which as a resident of billyburg is a serious problem. i am lucky i have not been ejected from The Paradise in some sort of biblical fashion).

i have implemented a new plan which i call "shock and exercise" in which i will shock my body with intense exercise in hopes of tricking it into losing weight. i am proud to say that i have been going to the gym every other day for two weeks now!

now, if you've ever had to cram your non-svelte self into a pair of tight jeans which no longer fit you, you will know that it's not a pretty sight. and it doesn't do much for the self esteem. not at all. so i broke down and bought a pair of my favorite jeans on ebay (citizens for humanity straight leg "avedon" jeans. love them. maybe one day i will tell you the story of how i contacted citizens of humanity regarding my old fave pair, which are actually limited edition and i can only assume are priceless in value).

ANYWAY, the jeans arrived yesterday and it was SO nice to put them on and feel what it feels like to have a pair of jeans not cut off the circulation to your legs. and even though this pair is a whole TWO INCHES bigger in the waist than my beloved limited edition pair, these look so much more flattering as they actually fit the current state of my body. and of course they are still "tight fitting" (but in a comfortable way) so i am not at risk of expulsion from the 'burg. phew. what a relief.

so last night at around midnight was my first opportunity to try on these new jeans, and of course i was so filled with excitement that i felt i had to tell the bolshevik about them asap. can you believe that he is not interested in discussing the crucial topic of jeans at 12:03 on a school night? what gives?! he said something about sleep and tiredness. whatevs.

and that dear blog readers is why i had to bore you with this tale. because i know you guys will be happy for me and my new jeans which make me feel a little less unsvelte (as long as i don't look at the size tag).

post office blues

i have never been one of those people to hate the post office. on the contrary, the people in the greenpoint post office have been nothing short of lovely. they are SO nice there. but not the williamsburg post office, which is now my official post office. the people in the williamsburg post office are downright mean. mean isn't even strong enough of a word. they are cruel and heartless there. not to mention highly incompetent. i could stand the meanness if they were at least efficient.

so there is this super expensive daily face peel that i LOVE. it's SO good. the bolshevik has been stealing it for me from his roommate on the sly. but his roommate will soon be moving out (this is a very good thing), so i will no longer have access to the face peel. anyway, i found it on ebay and was able to get a good deal on a 60-day supply. so i order it. and i have it sent to my house. sounds simple, no?

i had the package sent to my house, big mistake. i notice after about a week and a half that i haven't received the face peel. so i contact the seller on ebay and she tells me that she had sent it out immediately and that she got a confirmation that the post office had attempted to deliver it to me weeks ago, but i wasn't home. so i check the usps website and see that in fact they had tried to deliver my package on 11/3 and that they were now keeping it at the post office. but they didn't leave any sort of notification slip AND they never tried to redeliver it in the weeks since then.

so i go to the post office on saturday 11/15 and i wait in line. i notice that the woman behind the counter is rather rude. she keeps rolling her eyes every time someone asks her to look for something. mind you, she is working the pick-up window so looking for packages is her sole job. when i get there i hand her my tracking number and tell her that i am looking for my package and that i never got a notification and this is my tracking number. she picks up the piece of paper, rolls her eyes and says "what is this?" i repeat to her that it is my tracking number. she tells me i need to stand aside and write down my name and address for her.

a minute later i return to the line with paper in hand showing my name and address. i give it to her and she disappears for 15 minutes. FIFTEEN MINUTES! trust me, i timed it. at one point i saw her talking on the phone standing conspicuously close to a container of chinese take-out. i then rapped on the glass and said, "could you please stop talking on your cell phone and please start looking for my package?" it's polite to say "please."

when she returns she tells me that she heard me tapping on the window and that she wasn't talking on a cell phone. it was a regular phone. then she tells me that she cannot find my package and that the manager is working with the money and cannot look it up on the computer. i don't know what that means. but she says she will take my number and call me when she finds my package. i ask her if she could look for it again and she refuses.

at this point i am so pissed off i decide to call the customer service number which they have conveniently posted on the wall. the people at the customer service number tell me that my package is in fact there and that there is no reason that anyone needs to look up anything on a computer, and that they just need to look for my package.

i return to the window and tell her to please look for my package again, and try to plea with her a little telling her i came all the way here and i don't want to have to come back. she looks at me and says, with heavy attitude, "i've already explained this to you and i'm not going to say it again." then she looks at the person behind me and screams, "next!"

i leave. furious. and without my magic facial peel.

monday i receive a call from costumer service telling me that they still can't find my package, but they are on it! and they will call me when they locate it. they are unimpressed with the detailed account of the postal worker's meanness.

then i get a call wednesday saying that my package was re-delivered and i wasn't home! how dare i not be home! i then explain that i work during the week, hence why i went to the post office on saturday.

she says i can come pick up the package at the post office. i tell her i already tried to pick up the package at the post office and the woman refused to look for it. i beg her to have the package re-routed to the library, but she says they cannot do that. i concede and tell her i will pick up the package thursday on my way to work.

so this morning i wake up bright and bushy-tailed and get to the post office at 9 am. turns out the post office doesn't open until 9:30 even though the customer service woman told me 9:00. so i wait, knowing i will most likely be late to work because of this. a charming crazy woman keeps me company, spewing psycho about how her mailman doesn't give her her mail. he only delivers junkmail. "he must be chinese," she says. "or spanish." i take out my phone and pretend to call someone.

then it is finally my turn at the window and my rude friend is there. i say to her, "i am here to pick up a package. i never got the notification slip."

"i remember you," she says. "i already explained this to you. i'll call you when i find your package."

"i got a call yesterday saying my package would be here. and they said i could pick it up today."

she looks for the package again, and comes back empty-handed. we fight back and forth and she tells me she has no idea what i'm talking about and that no one has called me. and then, dear blog readers, i start to get pissed. and i start to yell. and i say things like "just give me my god damned package. it's here and i want it NOW."

then she tells me not to get rude. so i guess instead of finding people's packages she has taken up giving lessons in manners as a new career path.

then i ask her what to do since my package is obviously lost. she says it is not lost and she will call me when she finds it. then she mutters that i am "wasting her time." she screams "next!" and i storm off into the sunset.

after several more phone calls to customer service, i am told that of course my package is at the post office. then they give me a name of a manager and tell me that the manager is expecting me tomorrow morning and this manager will give me my package.

tomorrow happens to be my day off, so after going to the gym and before meeting my mom for a shopping trip, i will go to the post office for the third time this week. i am bracing myself for the upcoming fight with rude postal working. bring it on!

to be continued ...

it's hard work being so awesome

poor bolshevik wanted to surprise me so badly, but it really is stressful planning an entire trip without any help. so last night over dinner i was handed an envelope signed and sealed (quite literally) which would reveal the destination of our secret trip. i could've held onto it and never opened it, but really who has that kind of self-control. lo and behold we are going to costa rica! yay! i want to see volcanoes and rain forests and play with monkeys and go on a zip line through the jungle and go sailing and see butterflies and eat ceviche and stay in a treehouse and smell tropical flowers and ....

rule out paraguay

it is not mountainous. and although the bolshevik and i disagree on what is a place that will make people go "ooooh, i've always wanted to go there," i think we can safely rule out nicaragua. i'm keeping panama in the running because of their canal.

go vote!

1 out of 40 new questions

today i learned:

1. i will not need a malaria vaccination. phew.
2. they speak spanish in this magical place that the bolshevik is whisking me away to

me pregunto adonde vamos. lo suspiro.

is your bathroom breeding bolsheviks? you should be so lucky.

i may need to get vaccinated! yay! no, not because of some rare hivey disease that is afflicting me. because i am going on a trip! yay! a trip!

you may be wondering, "miss dewey decimal, where pray tell are you going?" well dear blog readers, the truth is i have no idea where i'm headed to.

you see, when the boshevik asked me to block out several days for us to go on a trip i assumed that it was somewhere in the continental united states. you know, a long weekend at a b & b somewhere with horsebackriding and maple syrup. he told me i could compose a list of yes or no questions, and i could ask one daily until the day of our trip. so i compiled a list with such hard hitting questions as "will salt water taffy be available where we are going?" and "is the state we are going to one of the original 13 colonies?" and he chuckled along answering "no" to all of my questions, leaving me rather perplexed and intrigued.

but then. oh then, dear blog readers, this morning i get an email telling me that i may need to get vaccinated for our trip. vaccinated! now, i am a woman of the world dear blog readers. i have been to many a place. and when i went to study abroad i did get a bunch of shots. i also got a bunch of shots when i entered grad school to study my fair profession. so i think i might be covered. but my darling bolshevik mentioned that i may need a malaria shot. ooooh, that means we are going somewhere tropical, despite his aversion to sunlight (apparently he comes from a long line of vampiric bolsheviks). anyhoo, i cannot tell you how excited i am.

now i must go compile a new list of questions, as my original questions are null and void. yay! and of course dear blog readers i shall keep you abreast of any new developments. and i wil soon be posting my new and improved list.

xoxo
miss dewey d.

pure as the cold driven snow

i have today off! poor bolshevik had to leave for work oh-so-early this morning while i relaxed in bed watching episodes of the office. he he he he. anyway, once well rested, i decided to do a massive and much needed cleaning of the paradise bathroom! yay! it's super clean and shiny in there now. and while i was walking to the closest laundromat to wash my bathmat a man yelled "snowflake" at me. what is this? library in the hood? i am home, damnit! keep your racist remarks to yourself! i only take that shit at work!

now, i realize i went to the "project side" of the street to do laundry, but shouldn't i be able to walk around the block without it being brought to my attention that i am in fact white? the other laundromat is several blocks away and more expensive. the worst part was that instead of actually saying snowflake to my face, he waited until i had walked past him and then he said it loudly like he was coughing, but he was obviously saying "snowflake." and when i looked around i was the only snowy colored person in the vicinity.

i didn't say anything to him. i just kept walking. but i want to know, what is the point of that? does it make you feel good about yourself? do you feel more like a man? oh, you win big tough black man. i'm just a fragile little snowflake. i'll stay on my side of the street from now on.

breakfast and bike racks

have you ever been excited by something, and when you wake up in the morning you remember this something and then you start your day feeling kinda good? i assume it's like christmas, but i've never celebrated christmas so i wouldn't know.

lately i've been waking up earlier than usual, and in this new found extra time i have added two things to my morning routine:

1. i email The Bolshevik
2. i go to dunkin donuts and get a flat bread egg white sandwich (have you tried one of these? i typically fear eggs from fast food places but this sandwich is pretty tasty. and only 260 calories!)

so while i was parking the fancy mobile on graham ave i noticed this bus stop looking structure on the corner of graham and metropolitan. i was immediately perplexed, since i know that the bus stop is across the street on the other corner of graham. upon further inspection i realized that this is no bus stop. it is a covered bike rack area! how awesome! so if it is raining your bike seat won't get wet! i was ecstatic (even though i don't typically ride to graham since it's so close to The Paradise. but maybe i will start riding there!). anyway i knew that i had to take a picture so that ms. bitchcakes could see it.

also, it makes me proud of brooklyn, being the trendy trendsetters we are, creating useful bike racks. unlike those stupid david byrne bike racks, which are actually quite difficult to lock a bike to (i attribute these to manhattan). last i checked that was kind of the whole point of bike racks: locking your bike to them. also, i like how the website states that these faux-arty bike racks are "installed throughout manhattan and brooklyn." there is one on bedford ave and that is it. i hardly consider that "throughout" brooklyn. but whatevs, keep your impractical unimaginative pop art bike racks to yourself.