Hello to Gaudi, then Howdy to Manny

How nice to see your new book in the book store, eh? Sister Nguyen Michael Jackson Goldberg Slash Maria de la Cruz, known to her friends as Slash, but currently using her pen name of Rachel Rodriguez, had her Book Release party yesterday at Books, Inc. for her new children's book "Building on Nature." It's perhaps a sign of the times that Slash's last Book Release party, for "Through Georgia's Eyes," was held in the exact same spot, except that bookstore, known as "A Clean Well Lighted Place for Books," went out of business and was taken over by this bookstore.

Her new book is a children's illustrated work about the architecture of Barcelona's Antoni Gaudi. As in the the last book, illustrator Julie Paschkis is brilliant.



Rachel's niece Sofia was there. Good thing they don't look alike or anything, right?

Sofia and the other kids participated in the hands-on reading of the book. It was a lot of fun. There was cake. There were several TIAPOSIANS present to cheer on their sister and Tiapos Emerita -- Large Pants came, and Blonde Bombshell and Mississippi Motorhead too.

And it's a very beautiful book, in some ways more accessible than "Through Georgia's Eyes," because Gaudi's buildings are easier to imagine than Georgia O'Keefe's paintings -- at least through Plotnik's Eyes.



Then last night it was on to BrainDead Stadium to see the Plotzers take on the BrainDeads. Plotnik isn't much of a local fan but he has to say there's no more beautiful place to see a ball game.

See that line of police cars? They were ready for the yahoos in back of Plotnik and his four friends. There were at least 20 of them, all Plotzer fans, all drunk out of their minds and soon spilling beer and swearing and jeering at the BrainDeads -- and ready to fight. Blogmaid figured it was a good time to vacate the seats, so we did.



When we told the usher what had happened, he put us in GREAT seats -- maybe the best seats in the whole ball park, which happens to be a handicapped row just to one side of home plate. He also scanned our original tickets and dispatched stadium cops to the old seats to hopefully throw those idiots into those cop cars.



NotThat Lucas and The Great Mushnik wore their BrainDead gear, to no avail last night, and Blogmaid and her husband Bill managed to stay merry until they found themselves in an enormous line after the game to pick up their car. In a city that prides itself on efficiency, how about one parking valet for at least 300 people waiting for cars? Plotnik is afraid to call to find out how long it took them to get home. But Blogmaid is still smiling here.