Thursday, November 13, 2008

Another sunny, windy day. Yesterday we forgot to mention that we are also getting to know Parisa, who sits on the other side of us.

Parisa’s stuff is very cool. She sells necklaces and pillows with religious images on them. Her website sells other non-religious items, but she can’t sell that on the street because it is considered “merchandise”. Religious items fall under the first amendment.

We are thinking of talking her into making some Jewish things, too, so we can give Adam a gift. While we were talking today, one of the vendors from down the street came by. Parisa asked him why he packed up so early and he said all his stuff was broken. Some crazy guy comes by his stand regularly and just kicks his table, so all of his Buddhas fall into the street. The vendor usually calls the police, but by that time the guy is long gone. We felt really sorry for the vendor and were a little afraid that that crazy guy might find us, too.

After the vendor left, we had a funny experience. A man from Kenya and his tour guide stopped in front of our stand. The tour guide exclaimed: "These are dynamic!" And the man took pictures of us, yelling: “I have to send these to Kenya!” We were very excited about this. How cool is that! They’ll know us in Kenya!

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

It is really getting cold out here--the kind of cold that seeps into your bones! We don’t know what we are going to do about the weather. Why it is so cold even when the sun is out? And why does the sun skip this block entirely, when we can see it shining on the other side of the street? This morning we froze right next to Chane, who sells lots and lots of T-shirts.

They are really funny: “I hate mayonnaise” and “Eat your fucking vegetables”. Chane has a letter from a judge that says his T-shirts are printed art (we agree). We think he’s really cool. He owns three stores in Mississippi and a gallery where he displays pop art. Early in the morning, we often watch his stuff when he gets himself some coffee, and he helps us out when we need to do something urgent ourselves!

This was a very mellow day. Sinje nearly finished Adam’s sweater. She is trying to submit it to an online contest by December 1st. It looks fabulous!

Thursday, November 6, 2008

It rained today so we couldn't go outside, but Alystyre called and adopted two of us.

We were very happy because she seemed like such a nice woman. She is a yoga teacher and a screen writer who has lived in Soho for 16 years. She's giving the Annes to her friend, who also loves yoga. :-)

Sinje is still feeling very emotional. She watched The View and heard Whoopie Goldberg say: "Now I can finally put my suitcase down." So Sinje told us, "I'll make you all suitcases, so you can put them down, too." We don't think she meant that literally, but we really appreciated it. At night, Sinje read Faith Ringgold's book about Martin Luther King to her daughter. It's all about his "I Have A Dream" speech, and how he saw the Promised Land but didn't think he'd get there--although he hoped that we would get there someday. Sinje says we are seeing it too, now.

When the kids were asleep, we all sat in silence for a while and thought about all the people in the world who feel oppressed or desperate. And then we sang "We Shall Overcome" for all of them.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008


Sinje is crying. We are very puzzled about this, as is she. We all thought that she would be jumping around after Obama won, but she just went into a state, and today when she woke up she started crying. She thinks these are tears of relief, realizing only now how scared she has been about what could have happened, and how angry and sad she feels about what has happened over the last eight years. But there is much more there. We'll find out about it over time, I think. For now we just have to live with a very emotional owner who keeps running out of the room quickly, so her kids won't see her burst into tears again. But Sinje was also really happy. So happy that she decided to take us out onto Prince street today to dance, even though it is not Thursday yet (our usual day out). Tomorrow it's supposed to rain anyway, so we were thrilled. At 2 p.m., a very nice woman with the beautiful name of Alystyre stopped by and wanted to take two of us with her. She didn't have any money on her, though, so she said she would try to call Sinje tomorrow to arrange a meeting (in case it rained). What a nice end of the day... :-)

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Election day! We are all very very nervous. All day we have been praying. We have been so busy that we haven't even noticed that none of us have gotten adopted today. A couple of people wanted to, but one woman had a grumpy husband who shook his head and another had no cash.

Sinje is feeling a bit shaky today because of the election. She has been wearing her knitted coat and a couple of people stopped dead in their tracks (the coat looks pretty spectacular). One woman wanted to order one and have Sinje send it to Texas. Now that made her feel a lot better, even though we won't know how we will all feel at the end of today when the election results come in. All day we have been praying: "Go Obama! Kick that man's &*#!"

Today was the first day that we played on trapezes.

Wow, is that fun! We love flying so much that it is hard to take turns, but there is only room for two of us at a time.

A few very strange things have happened since last week--or rather we don't find them so strange. Slowly, we have begun to take over Sinje's life. She created an online shop for us on Etsy. I, for one, showed her how to use the "move" tool in Photoshop so she could make us a really great banner for her store. She also learned how to take fabulous pictures of us on a spiegelreflex camera. She's never used one of those before! And, one of us snuck in and replaced her screen saver. Boy was she startled when she saw me making a summersault on her desktop.

Sinje scratched her head over and over again and said: "I didn't do that!"

We also helped her navigate through the Diamond District yesterday. Sinje was trying to find some brass chain for our trapezes. She got so freaked out by the weird characters on 47th street that she nearly bolted and headed home. There was one guy with wild glasses who yelled at her, "We buy gold!" and tried to pull her into a store. When he opened his mouth all his teeth were covered with gold and diamonds. No tooth enamel anywhere. A couple of diamond store guys whispered, "Only for you..." and tried to touch her. No one seemed to notice Sinje's wedding band. But, Sinje was fascinated by the diamond-shaped street lights. "Diamond District? No kidding! Everything here is diamonds."

Sinje ran in and out of stores asking for brass chain, but all she got was people trying to sell her gold, silver, or diamonds. When she was just about to give up, we said: "Just one more store, PELASE! We want to swing on trapezes today!" Someone at one of the stores had suggested 46th street, so we walked one block south. Suddenly we found ourselves in mecca! The store had everything we needed: all kids of metal chains, connectors, even trapezes. Sinje couldn't believe it. We bought lots of stuff and got home on time for her to pick up her daughter from Pre-K. Sinje thinks this is all some freaky chain of coincidences, but we know better. So today we told her, don't worry, we will all get adopted. We're just getting ready. It seemed to make her calm down. Now if we could only pull some strings for this election! We hope the praying has helped.