I promise I haven’t forgotten you.

I’m home from Utah. It was an exhausting trip and I can’t tell you how excited I was to exhaustedly dump my stuff on the living room couch late this afternoon.

I promise I will tell you about the trip — about the Yarn Harlot, about the new additions to the stash, about getting up at 4 a.m. Okay, maybe I’ll just gloss over that 4 a.m. stuff.

Please be patient just a bit longer. I’ll share the details once I’m able to put together a coherent post — probably sometime after the polls close in D.C.’s primary tomorrow.

I hate to travel.

Oh, don’t get me wrong. I love being other places, visiting friends and family, and seeing new sights.

I just hate the process that’s required to get there. I hate packing. I hate figuring out whether I have the right clothes for the predicted weather in my destination and whether their meteorologists are as inept as ours. I hate worrying about whether my contact solution is now against the rules. I hate having to choose just one or two books and one or two knitting projects to take with me. I hate cleaning. I hate stressing about whether the cats will have enough food or if I ought to have someone check in on them after all.

I hate having a timetable. I hate having to arrive at terminals a ridiculous amount of time early. I hate waiting in lines, particularly behind people who don’t bother to prep until they arrive up at the metal detector. I hate airport prices. I hate the delays that inevitably don’t happen until you’re already trapped in the terminal or at a layover. I hate the idea of being stuck on the plane for what seems like days and days. I hate stale-tasting airline food. I hate uncomfortable seats. I hate airplane bathrooms that smell funky and that require knowing advanced yoga in order to get in and out. I hate not being able to use my iPod when it’s unclear that it will prevent anything anywhere. I hate strange male seatmates who seem to be under the impression that it is somehow appropriate for him to sit spread-eagle and invade my personal space.

I hate sleeping in other people’s beds. I hate my odd hours affecting other people. I hate not having internet access. I hate having to remember to hide my stuff so that other people’s cats won’t be tempted to spray my bags or my clothes or my shoes.

Usually I’m fine once I get there. I just hate that in-between transition purgatory.

But I feel better having shared that. Thanks.

I think I may have cooled off finally from my trip to New York City. Although each time I leave the cool tunnel of the Burrow, I have flashbacks.

We pulled into Penn Station shortly before 11 and after briefly venturing into the heat, we opted to return to the air conditioning (although not in the stations) of the subway. We surfaced at Grand Central a short time later and walked the couple blocks to Coliseum Books, across from the New York Public Library, where Debbie Stoller was scheduled to speak. After assuring ourselves that there would not be a problem with seating, we backtracked a shopfront to Pret a Manger, a UK-based pre-made sandwich shop we fell in love with on our first trip to London. Why can’t Americans figure out how to make tasty sandwiches ahead of time and not have them taste dry and stale and gross by lunchtime?

Rudi dropped me back at the bookstore and headed off to Virgin. I unpacked my sock and waited to be amused. It didn’t take long. Debbie is as funny as her books and she passed around great samples from her crochet book for us to fondle. (It does, however, make it tough to work on picking up gusset stitches if every 45 seconds you have to put down your knitting to hand the next sample on to your row-mate.)

After the talk ended, Rudi returned and we walked across to sit in the “shade” at Bryant Park so I could try and coordinate meeting up with everyone that evening. The heat made me short-tempered, which didn’t make it easier to work out details. Eventually I resorted to the “call me later when you know what’s going on” method of handling things.

We went into the library, which while it may be the most iconic library in the world, is actually crap. Sure it looks nice. But you can’t actually handle the books. Hell, you can’t even handle the magazines without asking. I want to be able to browse. Clearly it was not designed to encourage a love of literature or literacy.

Shortly, the appeal of vaulted ceilings and marble benches wore off and we were forced to consider other means of entertaining ourselves. We contemplated a museum visit. Erik had suggested a perfectly lovely one that I couldn’t remember where it was and since there were no helpful periodicals lying around to consult… we opted for the more pedestrian but easily accessible option of a movie.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a movie on the 12th or so floor of a building before, but our theater was located high above Times Square. I don’t think it was merely the altitude nor the air-conditioning that made me enjoy Little Miss Sunshine so much, but it put me into a more positive frame of mind.

We hiked back to Grand Central where we waited in the food emporium for Karen and Michael’s train to arrive and for Eri to slog uptown from work. Then we hustled (at least as much hustling as can be done in 110 degree humidex) up to Radio City to get in line for An Evening with Harry, Carrie, and Garp.

The evening featured some celebrities. Whoopie Goldberg opened the evening, but she was very wooden and seemed like she needed to have brushed up a bit more before going on. Tim Robbins introduced Stephen King. Stanley Tucci introduced John Irving. Kathy Bates introduced J.K. Rowling. Soledad O’Brien orchestrated the Q&A.

Here’s the sad part:

I slept through a good portion of John Irving and Stephen King’s readings. The heat and the lack of sleep just caught up with me. (I do know that King read from a story that inspired(?) Stand by Me and that Irving read from part of A Prayer for Owen Meany.)

Periodically I would awaken briefly, laugh or nod at something they were saying, and then doze right back off. As John Irving left the stage, Erik leaned over and whispered, “Now’s the main act,” hoping, I think, that I would finally rally.

He needn’t have worried. I would have awoken from a dead sleep for the author of the Harry Potter books.

Rowling took the stage to the adoring screams that normally accompany a rock star. She settled into her chair and began reading the Pensieve scene from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince where Harry and Dumbledore witness Dumbledore’s visit to Tom Riddle in the orphanage. She then answered a few questions from pre-selected members of the audience.

One person wanted to know whom (other than Harry) she would bring to life of her characters. Hagrid, she responded, because she thought all of us could use a Hagrid in real life.

Others were angling for insights into the final book of the series. Aunt Petunia has secrets we don’t know about, Rowling admitted. And, to the crushing disappointment of many in the room (sorry, Mum), Dumbledore really is dead. I believe “He won’t be pulling a Gandalf” were her exact words.

The other two authors returned to join Rowling on the stage and they each answered a few more questions, including one to Rowling from Salman Rushdie and his son.

And then it was over. We chatted briefly upstairs as we waited for the crowds below us to dissipate and then descended to the heat and humidity outside. Eri scooted off to catch a train down to her Nan’s in Newark. Rudi returned inside to find his wallet, which had accidentally been left behind. And then the rest of us trekked back towards Grand Central, ate a quick bite, and then put Karen and Michael on their train back to Connecticut.

Erik, Rudi, and I headed toward Brooklyn, where we were greeted by the already cooling house of Erik’s mom, who was kindly letting us stay there in her absence and who had asked a neighbor to come over and turn on the a/c. (Poor Erik was not so lucky, as his a/c was down for the second night in a row and his bedroom thermometer read a balmy 95 degrees. (He packed up his things for the next day and joined us back at his mom’s.)) But Erik did take us down to a pier near his house where you could see the Verrazano Bridge, Manhatten, Staten Island, and the Statue of Liberty through the haze. It was lovely.

The next day we slept in, had lunch with Eri at a sushi place by her office (I had an asparagus roll and a kampyo roll featuring a Japanese vegetable the waitress said was a type of squash), met up with Erik to return the keys at a Starbucks in Midtown, checked with Amtrak’s 1-800 line to learn that our train was late, and then ended up missing our train when it was on time after all. Oops.

Amtrak was lovely and booked us onto a slightly later train and we were home by 10, tired but happy we’d gone north to see our friends and a couple of really cool authors.

Our trip was lovely but exhaustingly hot and I just couldn’t face doing anything more strenuous than eating ice cream and napping on the couch when we got home last night. So Thursday’s regular Three Beautiful Things appear today instead:

1. Eri and the Internet gods made it possible for us to take Amtrak to New York for a very reasonable price. The train takes about the same amount of time as driving (although maybe a little less), but you don’t have to find a parking spot for it. And while it takes more time than flying, it is more spacious, they let you use electronic devices the whole time, and they don’t forbid cell phones (unless you want to avoid them by travelling on the Quiet Car). We experienced a few difficulties with their 1-800 number, but the people at the station were kind and helpful. Overall a very nice experience.

2. We made reservations over the weekend to take a long weekend trip to visit Rudi’s mom in September. She has been cajoling us to visit her for a while, but I think she thought it might be a lost cause as we head into the fall semester. The fact that the Yarn Harlot will be speaking a few blocks from Jenny’s house has nothing (nothing, I say!) to do with the timing of our visit.

3. Karen’s Michael remarked that he thought it unusual that people a decade out of college should still have such close bonds as I do with some of my college friends. It hadn’t occurred to me, but I suppose it’s true. But I have whole handfuls of people from college I am still in touch with (at least around birthdays and Christmas if not more frequently) and who sometimes read the blog (hi!), so I guess I am remarkably lucky. Maybe it helps that most of us were, at one point or another, part of the substance-free crowd in college, so we were a tightly knit bunch of characters to begin with. But there were plenty of other folks who were also part of that community at the same time with whom I never had a bond or with whom I lost touch, so I don’t think that accounts for it wholly. But whatever the reason, enduring friendships are a truly beautiful thing and I am grateful for all of mine.

Rudi and I are heading north on Amtrak in the morning to join friends Karen and Michael, Erica, and Erik (and maybe old college pal Mike) for An Evening with Harry, Carrie, and Garp.

That’s right. By this point tomorrow I will have been in the same room with J.K. Rowling.

Oh yeah, and some guys named John Irving and Stephen King.

I am so excited!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We’re hoping to meet Karen and Michael for lunch at some point tomorrow afternoon. We might go see Debbie Stoller of Stitch and Bitch fame give a talk at lunchtime, depending on when Karen and Michael arrive. Otherwise, we’ll be seeking a museum filled with air conditioning for refuge from the hottest day of the summer.

I probably won’t have internet access tomorrow, so expect a full report on Thursday night after we get off the train.

It’s hot. Really hot. Gross.

I felt kind bad yesterday because my travels took me no further than the mailbox. I sat inside and read and knit and watched tv. I felt a bit like a sloth.

But, I reasoned, I’d make up for it today.

Until I went to the farmers’ market. It took merely 30 minutes for me to be soaked to the skin. At which point I gratefully retreated back to the Burrow and our new air conditioner.

But maybe it’s okay to lay low this weekend. We do, after all, have a busy week ahead of us:

• Monday we’re headed to a sneak preview of a movie.
• Tuesday Rudi has his weekly bike ride and I have my volunteer gig as a knitting tutor.
• Wednesday we head north to New York City on an early train to spend the day bumming around the city with friends before hearing John Irving, Stephen King, and J.K. Rowling discuss their craft.
• Thursday we do more sightseeing and friend-visiting and return home.

So, yeah, I guess it was a good idea to rest up this weekend…