This week’s Top Ten Tuesday asks which authors we’d love to meet. I’m fortunate to have both some amazing bookstores and the National Book Festival here in the city, so I’ve been able to meet many of my favorite living authors. I turn into a hair-twirling word-bungler around writers whose works I admire, giving me all of eternity to regret the interaction, but that doesn’t stop me from trying. If given a shot, I’d love to embarrass myself in front of:

1. J.K. Rowling
2. Toni Morrison
3. Jason Reynolds (I’ve come really, really close)
4. Katherine Paterson
5. Neil Gaiman
6. Brian Selznick
7. Naomi Novik
8. Erin Morganstern
9. Fannie Flagg
10. Rebecca Stead

(When I originally made the list, I accidentally put in twelve authors. It was hard to knock a few of them off the list, and I’d totally love to meet any of them!)

How about you? Which authors are you dying to meet?

My weekend began with a trip to the garden, where I spent time pulling out plants and trying to reestablish some order. The epazote is gone, along with at least one tomato plant that it had been providing support to. The crazy seven-foot-long tomatillo is gone, and I unearthed my first potato of the season in the process of yanking it out. The Sweet 100 tomatoes I grew from seed are still going strong and there are still more peppers to come. I need to get some greens in the ground soon or they won’t take hold until the spring and I should really harvest the basil soon, but the last big harvest I did went to waste, so I’d rather wait until I have time to make pesto.

I spent the afternoon in Georgetown, stopping by the library to exchange one book for another, and spending some time sitting in the sun before doing a little shopping. I bought work shoes (which I’m not fully convinced about yet), a pair of jeans (which Rudi tells me look good, but he might just have been trying to get me to leave the house without a second wardrobe change), and another bra (my third in a week).

Last night, Rudi and I went up to the Tenleytown neighborhood for their Art All Night celebration. We ate bibimbop (the restaurant was one of the stops), did the Time Warp with a band, and bought a painting of a D.C. bookshop.

My pumpkin mug full of tea and a slice of pumpkin spice kringle we bought at Trader Joe’s Friday night

Today included the farmers market, cleaning, two cultural street festivals (Turkish and Latinx), an hour’s worth of work, and the premiere of the tv show God Friended Me, which Rudi and I both enjoyed. I should have spent more time cleaning (my apartment has looked like it exploded thanks to all the recent floods and our moving stuff away from the problem area) or at least painted my nails so they’d dry while I read, but I didn’t. But my hot chocolate was tasty and the book — by an author whose work I’ve loved, but which didn’t appeal to me through the first few chapters — has finally picked up some steam.

A Turkish shadow puppet theater was one of the highlights of the festivals this afternoon. Known as Karagöz and Hacivat (after the two main characters), the tradition dates back 600 years and is passed on from puppet masters to apprentices. The puppeteer was not mic’ed, so he was really hard to hear over the music spilling over from the main stage, but as best as I could tell, this guy, Karagöz, came across this plant, drank from it, kept getting poked by invisible somethings, got pissed off and cut off all its leaves and them tried to yank the rest of it out. He’s currently sleeping off all the exercise. The bird, who, earlier flew off with a plant of its own (maybe the same plant), is annoyed by this and pecks at Karagöz before going off and complaining to a dragon who then summons some other flying creature who turns Karagöz into a goat. Hacivat shows up, also gets turned into a goat, gets turned back into a man, and then gets Karagöz turned back into a man. I’m glad I saw this after I did all the gardening…

October — filled as it is with birthdays and anniversaries (none of them mine), cider doughnuts, and fall foliage — awaits. I look forward to the beautiful things it holds.

We did not art ALL night, but we did art SOME of the night…