Take advantage of more events in the city

Austin and I checked out Eastern Market about a week ago and it was fantastic. I got an awesome pair of silver earrings and another set of keys for Anna.

I’m glad I found the Eastern Market when I did. It’ll help with my goal of gifting presents that are handmade or local.

On facebook I’m a fan of Washington Post Weekend and their updates show up on my news feed. It’s a great way to stay informed about what’s going on in the area.

That’s right. I will be seeing his body tonight. Wow. It’s like a freak show: “for only $5 you too can see a 200 year old corpse!”

I wonder what he would have thought about this.

Apparently the Mecca of craft festivals, Crafty Bastards is held annually on the grounds of a neat community center in NW, DC (I think it was the neighborhood of Adams Morgan but it was a part I had never been to before). It was packed. I heard someone say there were over 150 vendors, and I didn’t see EVERYTHING, but I was a little disappointed in the breadth of their selection. Some of it, particularly the jewelry, was kind of junky. There were some cool screen-printed t shirts and a fetus cookie cutter that made me giggle nervously but not too many other memorable things.

What was particularly enjoyable was the dj-ed breakdancing competition on the lower level. This was all outside so the music carried and everyone was really into it. Some of the dancers were really good, better than I’d seen anywhere else. I loveeee breakdancing. Alex took lots of pictures. He’s set a goal sort of similar to mine I think, except his is more photography-based and mine is for the experience.

My day was positively STOLEN by Mo Willems, the ingenious author behind the Don’t Let this Pigeon Drive the Bus and Knuffle Bunny books (just to name a few). When I got to the mall I went straight to the book signing section with my mom’s copy of Knuffle Bunny. Thank goodness I got there when I did because by the time he was slotted to sign the line was so big that the volunteers had to split it into three parts. But I got through! The little girl in front of me had Knuffle Bunny in Spanish, and he told her that there was talk about translating another.

So he signed my book and I went off to hear Jacqueline Woodson in the Teens and Children tent. She was a wonderful speaker, very engaging and standing up there on the podium she seemed real cool. Apparently she is a very prolific author but she must have become big after my teen-fiction time because I’d never heard of her. She was political, too, basing a character’s death in one of her books off the real events of a police-brutality-type shooting in New York City.

I was really waiting for Sharon Creech to speak at the same tent. She was just as I imagined her to be. So gracious and motherly… She brought her family along with her and they sat in the front row. She said that one of her more recent books, called An Unfinished Angel, was based on a story her little granddaughter told once that went “Once upon a time, in Spain, there was an angel. The angel was me. The end.” She did a reading from the book with the help of her publisher and friend, and it was cute because she put on a [bad] Italian accent to play the angel.

After that I rushed over to the Children’s tent because there was a half hour before Mo Willems was going to do his reading. And that is how I stumbled into Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black, co-authors of the Spiderwick Chronicles. They were HILARIOUS. Tony D is an incredibly effortless artist and he gave two kids from the audience his drawings as a prize for answering trivia questions. A lot of what they joked about was over the little kids heads but they were still able to entertain them, they were fun to look at, they laughed a lot…

Then there was Mo. And all I will say about that is I sat like a child with the smallest children in the very front, in the dirt, and got some awesome pictures and a video that will be on youtube right after I finish this post.

A day well spent. And overdue. I’ve been trying to go for the past three years!

I added a new section to my Microsoft Works Calendar-my master calendar-for city events. There are three or four things on there already including the National Book Festival and the Washington Ballet’s performance of Don Quixote.

Local and not…

I am determined to see the Avett Brothers when they play Rams Head. Owl City plays in September at the same venue Alex’s band is playing this Thurs.

Tonight I went out to see a local band (with a Hindi name that I’ve forgotten) at Calvert House and they were AWESOME

Get out there and explore! And don’t pay for it, because so many things in DC are free!

Went to the OKC Arts Festival; volunteering at the Paseo Arts Festival

Sadly, I had to miss the Dragon boat racing at the park, but there has been word of my work creating a boat team for next year!