I could have a snake?

This morning, a few of my co-workers were complaining about the high humidity here in the Bay Area. I laughed so hard that they started exchanging furtive glances. Little do you know, my pretties.

Here are a few pics taken on my road trip out west. Felix is the artiste responsible.

1. I joined this CSA and look forward to a delicious surprise box of produce every week now.

2. I read one of the best YA novels ever: Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist. Go read it right now if you think it would be fun to read a book about two kids that meet at a punk show and spend the night together, narrated alternately by the boy and the girl.

3. I joined KQED and one of my prizes is a coupon for a free half-pound of Starbucks coffee. Does anyone want it? I'm not a coffee drinker unless said coffee is brewed for me by someone else and then served to me over ice with soy milk, chocolate syrup and a bendy straw. First person to send me their mailing address at daisers at gmail dot com gets it.

4. I want to keep the details secret for now, but I'm going to guest-write an upcoming column about books in a library-industry journal. I'm nearly peeing my pants with delight.

Some interesting things that have happened in the last three weeks:

1. I moved to Northern California and started my new job. I love it, to tell you the truth. I get to weed the juvenile and young adult fiction as well as the picture books, and I'm starting a new storytime for one-year-olds (12 to 23 months only). And I'm on the desk less often than in New Orleans, and it's reference only! No checkouts, no making library cards, no telling anyone they have fines. Totally awesome.

2. Dishdash -- totally the best restaurant ever. I went with Becky, Rae, Felix and Claire and had the zahra. Felix ordered that and I ordered the sambusak and we shared, and I would never have guessed that I'd prefer cauliflower in yogurt sauce to spinach cheese pie, but yeah, that's how good the zahra is.

3. Posing naked for pictures in the Utah salt flats.

4. Taking Susie to the beach in Santa Cruz. She loved it so much that she can never, ever go back. I would actually go so far as to say I will almost certainly never bring her to a beach again for the rest of our lives.

5. The coffeeshop in my library...well. First, there is a coffeeshop in my library. Second, all the sandwiches are named after books. My favorite is the Tuck Everlasting. Also, sometimes I run into Becky there. Well, only once so far.

6. My cute little studio apartment with big fancy hotel-esque bathroom (sink and dressing table on the outside, tub and toilet on the inside). The complex is posher than the lifestyle to which I am accustomed: it has three pools and a giant hot tub and a tennis pro that gives free lessons to beginners, and a gym and a billiard room and continental breakfast on Sundays.

7. The local public radio station. I joined last week and they're sending me a messenger bag and a one-year subscription to the New York Review of Books. Awesome. And This American Life is about to start....I better go.

I'm moving 2100 miles away in two days and can't write shit. But here is a press release from Matt M. about a new drink invented by his man. Matt says that this is an important contribution to the cocktail canon.

"Want a pop pop fizzy pop confection? Try a Parker Posey. Pour San Pellegrino over bourbon and snap crackle pop you've got a sparkly Southerner with fizziness!"

I can't submit this to Mark Hurst's site because I don't have a photo or screenshot, but I did have a broken experience at Office Depot yesterday.

I went in to ship a bunch of packages via UPS. Most of them were to my new home in California, but one was to the little girls I used to babysit in New Orleans. I'd bought them the latest Lola and Charlie book, But Excuse Me That Is My Book, because they'd loved I Am Not Sleepy and I Will Not Go to Bed, I Will Never Not Ever Eat a Tomato, and I Am Too Absolutely Small for School when I lived near them.

So the way shipping works is that you bring your packages to the counter and use a self-service computer for the first half of your transaction, filling out an online form that asks for your address, the recipient's address, and a couple of other questions about the package including whether you packed it yourself and what the contents are. So in the "contents" field for this particular box, I typed "book." To my surprise, I got an error message that read something like, "You must list contents of five characters or more." Huh? Why? I changed it to "a book" and that worked, but: why?

I was going to write a long post describing each day of my trip to New York, but I can't be arsed. I'm moving! to California! in eight days! So instead I will merely list a few highlights.

• The poached pear I had for dessert at Dervish


• Eating Herb Crusted Warm Goat Cheese Salad and shopping at Toys in Babeland with Nadia (who describes our day more fully here).


• The cutest boy ever who's also almost the best songwriter ever concert


• Raspberry Parfait at Tavern on the Green


• My new sparkly pink I heart New York t-shirt


• Champagne and blue cheese fondue on radish slices at Home, which also happens to serve the best mac and cheese I've ever had


• Drinks at the Rainbow Grill. $22 for a Sapphire and tonic, but it was ten ounces of gin on the rocks and a separate bottle of tonic. They also serve the best mozzarella (buffalo milk, I think) that I've ever tried.