Favorite Messenger Bag: Rickshaw Bagworks found in Paradise Garage

When I first got my Mac Powerbook G4 just before I officially started Katie James back in 2005ish, I treated it to a pink carry case from Casauri that I found in Kate's Paperie. It served me well for years, but the pink took dirt in between the nylon that I couldn't scrub out, and a mysterious blanch spot appeared on my monitor's pixels that I blame on things pressing down on the laptop monitor while I'm carrying the bag or putting it into bigger bag with other things.

Now that Katie James has gone digital with Katie James Pixelated, I'm on the computer all of the time, and traveling more to meetings or to 'vacations' where I work during the day, and stop for dinner with whatever family I am with. This means lots of trips to Panera with lots of cords for phone and computer, my Griffin elevator (a raised surface for my laptop), notebook, folder of current scraps of paper notes, etc. So I usually carry two bags at minimum to contain this maddness.

Then I had to buy a new Mac, and I wanted to start things off right. I wanted a mini-office on my shoulder. And I wanted to ride my bike with it if I wanted to. Enter Columbus bike stores. I am addicted to them. I seem to buy all of my clothes from them. Paradise Garage is my current favorite, and when I asked about messenger bags, they passionately presented me with the Rickshaw Bagworks line, out of San Fransisco.

The messenger bag had all that I was looking for:

• a framed structure so that I could place things in the middle of the bag that would not smush up against the laptop
• a separate pocket for the laptop
• front pockets for other stuff like cords, external harddrives, lip gloss...
• big front pocket that folds over, and has magnet strips if you don't feel like buckling it (this might be revelutionery for actual bike messengers b/c it replace the velcro that can be noisy when they enter offices, but the Rickshaw Bagworks bag also offers the velcro opportunity under the magnets)
• cool color combos.

I would change two things about this bag:

• better placement of pockets for cell phones and little things. This bag may have been designed with men in mind, and men may not be as into pockets as women are. I want an easy place for my cell phone and metro card on the outside of the bag.
• the magnetic strips are cool for lazy days, but if you don't buckle it, the straps hang, and that's not very neat and tidy.
  

But these thoughts on improvement are not a deal breaker. I am SO happy with this bag. I don't have to carry two bags anymore, and packing it now is like clockwork. I ended up buying it from Paradise Garage to reward the brick and mortar store for their great find (keep retail stores alive!), but you can also find more styles on Rickshaw's website. Actually, I don't see mine on their website (brown with pink trim), so shop around!

Thanksgiving in New York Plans

After driving through two straight years of snow storms and traffic jams and overturned tractor-trailors, one of which was full of Rice Krispy treats, I decided to take the year off and not leave. I think I have gone out of town at least once every month since May. This decision was made pre-engagement, possibly in the summer, so even in post-engagement, I'm sticking to my guns. David's family is going down to South Carolina, and I knew that with his film job, he would not know if he really could take off. That could mean for a very expensive plane ticket that I do not believe in, so I did not jump into the plan. Also, my pet sitters have been paid nicely by us this year, so I need to not pay that anymore for the moment.

That means Thanksgiving in New York! My sister, Kim, and her boyfriend, Michael, are coming from Boston. Here are our plans:

Kim has already given rigid instructions on how we can only buy things from the grocery store when we know what we are making. She has ordered sticky buns from WholeFoods, but was out of time on the pies at her local bakery. We will find or make a pie. Kim has pointed out that we must cook the stuffing the day before.

Katie has yet to buy the turkey thing that you cook the turkey in. She needs to go online and search for how to cook a turkey. She also needs a baster and a gravy boat. Luckily, she just picked up some pottery that she made over the summer at Mugi Pottery, and one of her strange looking pots could double for a gravy boat. That's the nice thing about beginner pottery. It could be anything.

Katie listened to the radio today about all of the flight delays that were starting because of rain, and felt smug.

Katie, Kim, Michael and David will head to Madison Square Garden on Wednesday night to watch OSU basketball in a tournament. We will drink beer in $15 seats and have fun. It is the first time for all but David to be at MSG.

David flies to SC on Thursday morning, and will take a shuttle to his Thanksgiving dinner, which is at 3:30pm. Katie thinks he is cutting it close.

On Thursday, Katie, Kim and Michael will perhaps wonder down the upper west side to see if we can see any balloons being blown up for the Macy's Day Parade. However, we will most likely be cooking. Dinner is at 4pm. We will then buy, or will do this on Wednesday, movie tickets to Enchanted, which David's friend Evan location managed. It's a fairy tale come to life in New York, by accident. Looks funny.

On Friday, Kim and Michael head back, and Katie will miss them. Aunt Janie and Win come to town to take out Amanda and Jeremy, and Katie will join them for dinner if Kim and Michael truly leave.

On Saturday, Katie will perhaps show everyone her Paris pictures, properly titled and tagged, and if she's lucky, will take pictures of her shopping purchases there. eee!

Bonjour!!

We're back! The afternoon I landed back in NYC, I refused to get on the computer, relishing in my internet-free bubble from Paris. Plus I was so engrossed in The Other Boleyn Girl, which I started on the trip, I called in sick to myself (I'm the boss, remember?) to read and catch up on my Paris journal which was hard to update because we were moving so fast.

I don't know where to begin for this post, or future Paris posts, so I've included some pictures that tell a short story of our trip. There will be more Paris posts to come. The weather could not have been nicer to us - dazzling sunshine and cool breezes prompting purchases of new scarves. I survived with my French-English dictionary, but realized that I really should have at least learned numbers, so that when I asked "Combien?" ("how much?"), I could understand what the heck they said. Also would have helped for bartering at flea markets! Landing back in New York - language-wise - was not that drastic, since everyone around me was still speaking different languages, so I could easily still keep my Parisian habits of greeting someone with a "Bonjour" and not looked at twice.

All I know is, going to Paris is like taking Yoga. It needs to fit into everyone's schedule. Both are good for the mind, both are inspiring. But Paris gets to be visually and audio-ly stimulating. And as my mom said, it's so nice to be amongst people who are well dressed, and creatively dressed, all the time.

The Metro. This is one of the few older stations with the original ironwork.

As of October 18th, the transportation union went on strike, so we got out just in time! Apparently, the French finance minister (a woman), wants to Americanize the French style of working. I'm not so sure this is the greatest idea, since I'm re-evaluating my style of working, and realizing that it needs more creative and relaxing time.

We had many destinations, but only hit a few! We missed the Eiffel Tower, but did b-line to the Mona Lisa. This is a picture of my mom and I completing this goal. However, I was more fascinated with the new fact I learned: the Louve is a Medici mansion. It is huge. And from reading The Other Boleyn Girl, I'm beginning to see how they used all of the rooms with all of the members of court having chambers and studies and such.


We missed some key destinations because we were distracted by beautiful window shopping! We did hit the Hermes store, but on the way, saw the Channel store, which was displaying these wedding dresses from 1994. We did build up the courage to go in, but we went in to basically treat the store as a museum to see the dresses closer. Let me tell you - tulle is in. You may see a tulle wedding dress come out of Katie James for the wedding...sketches hopefully to come.



Antique shopping was included in the mix, and we Metro-ed it to one antique district that was very sketchy around the Metro station, and right away, a tall shady man with a large athletic bag was wondering all around me like a lazy fly. I was carelessly playing with my new purse by placing my wallet in a just-so way, and my godmother quickly dragged me by my hood to hurry up and get out of the way. Here are some of my favorite stalls at the Paul Bert antique market.





And of course, a vintage hat of Sarah Gareghan (sp?).


We out-walked ourselves. My godmother wore her pedometer everywhere, and we walked at least 10,000 steps each day. On our second day, we walked 20,000 steps. This picture is of my mom and godmother, feet propped on our hotel room wall. My mom is reading her new "Eloise in Paris" book, in French, that she bought at the original Shakespeare and Company bookstore.

Gone to Paris

July 4th - "We're Country!"

Once upon a time, the Sears Roebuck catalogue sold houses. Not Lincoln Log houses, but big, vacation houses. Lincoln Logs houses for adults. One such house got built by a family on a lake on the border of New York and Connecticut, and was dubbed "The Lake House." The family had three children, one of whom, a son, outgrew the house and was actually taller than the kitchen ceiling. Despite the size difference, this son loved coming up to The Lake House with his lovely girlfriend, where they could be den parents, fish, dig up septic tanks when the toilet backed up, and invite all of their New York City friends to bring fancy New York City foods and lounge all day in the middle of the lake on a raft drinking seltzer and reading Star, Life and Style, Vogue, and Vanity Fair, with a canoe as the main mode of transportation.

Unlike Brittney's version of "cou-ntry," this setting is "the country" civilized New Yorkers speak of when they leave the island of Manhattan or the burrows of Brooklyn and enter the rest of the world to experience how everyone else lives. When that happens, this is what they do:

they spend three days catching one fish...and then they throw it back...(that's the host on the right who may be a guest podcaster on FashionMista, and the devoted catcher of the fish on the left)


they let their dogs "off leash" and let them sleep on the porch (actually, this dog, Digger, is the king of The Lake House and nothing gets passed him...just ask many-a-dead-and-buried groundhog)

they make art...(note the many daddy long legs crawling among the leaves and timber that you cannot see in this picture...shudder...)

they let their dogs (Gerdy!) be "just one of the girls"...(and yes, that is a pregnant woman you see in the photo!)

...until they force her to be a big-girl-dog and go swimming!

...poor Gerdy...but she's a big girl now

they act like real men and float...only the smell of bacon can lure them back...

they watch sunsets while drinking Corona...


When it's all over, and the actual day of the 4th of July falls on a school night, they return to the City and settle for watching stray neighborhood fireworks from their living rooms.


Long live the country! And long live the baby that went into labor just a day after this trip!

Photos courtesy of a Lake House Guest, who may start a useful blog of her own involving letter writing...

Home | Permalink