Rudi and I spent the day in the boroughs of Brooklyn and Manhattan, but the best location we stopped by far was our very own Burrow back home.

Rudi has come up to the city, so we can spend a day bumming around NYC.

He got in some time in the Village while I was wrapping up work, and then we checked out a local coffeehouse.

My roommate joined us for dinner & we ended up at a Ukranian diner, where we stuffed ourselves full of pierogies, borscht, potato pancakes, and the like. The walk to the subway was definitely needed after that.

Tomorrow I’m hoping we have time to check out the Christmas window displays (Macy’s is already out, at the very least) and maybe one of the other Christmas markets. I suspect Rudi might like to go to Brooklyn to do some music shopping, as well, before we catch a bus home.

It’s been a good trip, but now I’m just looking forward to getting home to my cat.

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. On the flight to Kansas City, I had an entire row to myself.

2. My college roommate works in NYC, so she and I got to spend this evening catching up.

3. For both work projects I’m traveling for (both of them video projects), everyone involved has been super nice and very kind and giving of themselves. It makes the work I do feel valuable in a real sense, rather just in the theoretical, and that is a huge gift.

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world lately?

My time in Kansas City has come to an end, but we had a great time & got some good footage for the project we’re working on.

Two fraught flights and a jam-packed late-night shuttle bus ride later, and we’re back on the East Coast.

We’ll spend the next two days here in NYC, I’m looking forward to it.

This is the first night of a multi-city work trip, which means I was so tired I fell asleep on a Spanish-language channel waiting for it to come back from commercial. I was just very confused when I woke up and found a telenovela on.

Otherwise, though, Kansas City has been very nice so far. I can’t wait to see it in the daylight.

I’m too sleepy to wrestle with photos, so use your imagination to enjoy a shot of a gorgeous magenta sunset along the horizon from my airplane seat.

I’m not loving this week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic from That Artsy Reader Girl, so instead I’m going to share the 11 books I currently have out from the library:

1. The Library Book by Susan Orlean — The amount of time this book is taking me is not indicative of how much I’m enjoying it.
2. Woody Guthrie and the Dust Bowl Ballads by Nick Hayes — I’ve had this graphic bio out since this summer, and it’s been living in a bag I haven’t looked in in a while. I need to finish it and get it back to the library.
3. Knitting the Fog by Claudia Hernández — This poetry collection is in the same bag with Woody. I hope they’re having a good time.
4. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong — This book was everywhere earlier this year. Honestly, I have no idea what it’s about and even whether I still want to read it.
5. Wayward Son by Rainbow Rowell — I meant to reread Carry On first, but the sequel came in before I figured out where my copy has gotten to.
6. The Undefeated by Kwame Alexander and Kadir Nelson — I loved this picture book history of Black American history and have kept it out because I haven’t yet had a chance to read all the biographical reference pieces at the back.
7. Book Love by Debbie Tung — This is a collection of bibliophilic cartoons. I like to read a handful at a time and then put it back down.
8. Autumn by Ali Smith — This got such good reviews when it first came out, both in the U.K. and here, that I picked it up when I saw it in the library’s window display, but this is another one where I have no idea if I even want to read it. Books sometimes just like to visit my house.
9. Look Both Ways: A Tale Told in Ten Blocks by Jason Reynolds — I am very much looking forward to reading Jason’s latest middle grade novel.
10. Kiss Number 8 by Colleen A.F. Venable — This is a coming-of-age graphic novel set in 2004 and I literally raced through the first half when I picked it up last night.
11. Bittersweet by Susan Wittig Albert — I’ve never read of of her China Bayles series, but this one, the 23rd in the series apparently, is set at Thanksgiving, so we’ll see!

What do you have out from the library right now?

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