Planet Panic

by Pam Pastor

  But our day in the woods wasn’t hell—it was far from it.

  Bear stressed the importance of knowing your priorities in a survival situation. “Protection, Rescue, Water, Food. If nothing else from all of this experience, if you ever get in trouble, just remember Please Remember What First—Protection, Rescue, Water, Food. First priority: make myself safe. Second priority: make self visible. Third priority: find water. Fourth priority: find food. And think calmly when you’re in that situation.”

  We were divided into groups—my teammates were Kiern and Ching Yee from Singapore, Jessica from Hong Kong and Nick from Australia—and we had to do three things: build a shelter, light a fire, and make pine needle and nettle tea, Bear’s favorite drink in the wild.

  I’d take that over pee any day.

  We were asked to use paracords and tarpaulin to create shelter. My teammates worked quickly and, with some help from Bear, managed to create a protective cover for the fire we were about to build.

  Again, my teammates moved fast. Nick grabbed the fire steel and started making it spark like a pro. I rushed to gather dry twigs but because of the rain, it was difficult. Everything was wet.

  Bear hollered, “A fire needs three things, the fire triangle—oxygen, fuel, heat.”

  Nick, Jessica and Kiern gathered around the pile of twigs and cotton wool, and soon we had a little fire going. I ran off to gather more kindling, checking to see if the twigs would snap. Twigs that bend instead of break wouldn’t work, said Bear. Some twigs were covered with thorns and one of them pierced my thumb. I just pulled it out and carried on. I was becoming Bear Grylls.

  Except I wasn’t, really. My teammates had built the shelter and started the fire and all I had done was pick up some dry twigs. I was officially the most useless member of our group. I needed to change that fast.

  The third challenge was the pine needle and nettle tea. It sounded the easiest but it’s not. On that rainy day in the Cotswolds woods, I realized two things: I love Bear Grylls and I hate nettles.

  Bear said, “Those of you who aren’t from the UK probably don’t know what nettles are. Nettles hurt, they sting.”

  Yes, they do. The clumps of leaves stung my leg as soon as I stepped into the woods, making me think that an insect had bitten me. My leg continued to throb painfully. And now I had to harvest the damn things.

  Bear said, “The bits that sting are on the edge of the leaves. To collect nettles, put your finger at the bottom of the stem and run your hand along it.”

  Google later told me that the edges of the leaves act like hypodermic needles, injecting your skin with histamine and other irritating chemicals.

  And because I am not Bear Grylls, I struggled to collect the nettles, trying to use my sleeve to protect my fingers and failing. I got stung again. But at least I had enough leaves for our tea.

  I added the leaves, pine needles and water to our mug, letting our fire heat it. Yes, Bear Grylls taught me how to make tea.

  As a treat, after our crash course, we all sat around the fire and Bear roasted marshmallows for us.

  Before we left the woods, I asked Bear to sign my copy of his book Mud, Sweat and Tears.

  “Well done!” he wrote.

  We walked back to Ellenborough Park and I kept hearing a strange thwacking sound with every step. I looked down to see that my shoes—the old Nike ACGs that I had used to climb mountains—were starting to fall apart.

  By the time we reached the hotel, I realized that one of my shoes had lost its sole. I left the sad and muddy pair in my hotel room, a Cotswolds casualty.

  My shoes didn’t survive Bear Grylls. But that didn’t matter. Because I did.

  October 1, 2013

  Ruth Reichl and the Random House open house

  I really thought I wasn’t going to see Ruth Reichl.

  She had an event scheduled at Barnes & Noble but I only found out about it after we booked our plane tickets. The signing was going to happen on the day we were leaving New York. I wanted to cry.

  “That’s okay, Pam, you met Gillian Flynn. You met John Green,” my logical self said.

  “But Ruth Reichl!” my crazy self wailed. Her voice is much louder.

  One night, while brushing my teeth in Philly, I decided to check Ruth’s Twitter.

  She was announcing the winners of her Twitter contest. Ten lucky people were going on a walking food tour with her and all they had to do was retweet one of her posts. Motherfucker. That sounded amazing. Why didn’t I know about that?

  I sighed and kept scrolling. Then I saw it.

  @ruthreichl: I’ll be at #RHOpenHouse next Friday, May 2nd and I hope to see you there too! Get your tickets at: http://t.co/EVbMrk7DaG

  Oh my god.

  I ran out of the bathroom, waved my phone at Jill excitedly, grabbed my debit card and quickly bought a ticket for Random House’s open house. They had a lot of stuff planned, there were swag bags and signings and meals and cocktails but I didn’t care. I was going for only one reason: Ruth Reichl.

  For you to understand how important this is to me, we need to rewind.

  I had spotted Ruth’s book Garlic and Sapphires some years back at National Book Store. I picked it up, thought it was interesting and put it down, thinking it would still be there when I went back for it.

  It wasn’t.

  It took me a long time to hunt down Garlic and Sapphires and when I read it, I fell in love.

  The book chronicled Ruth’s years as the New York Times’ restaurant critic. And between the chapters were recipes. Her carbonara is delicious and easy (as it should be)—so easy that even a self-proclaimed non-cook like Jason (another Ruth Reichl fan) has mastered it.

  I wanted more.

  Then I realized I already had one of her other books—Not Becoming My Mother. It was hidden in a huge pile of books I picked up at National Book Store’s warehouse sale. It was very different from Garlic and Sapphires but I loved it, too; I read the whole thing during a flight.

  It took me a while to find her other titles, I had to make numerous phone calls and several trips to different bookstores. But they were worth the effort. Tender at the Bone and Comfort Me with Apples cemented my love for Ruth.

  And because I had read her books in the wrong order, I read them all again.

  Ruth Reichl, who has led an incredibly interesting life, is a masterful storyteller. She is honest— refreshingly so—and always a delight, even when handling delicate subjects.

  Her books are a celebration of many things I am passionate about—writing, eating, cooking and living, really living.

  I couldn’t believe I was going to get the chance to meet her and tell her how much her work has touched and inspired me. I kept checking the Eventbrite app on my phone, just to make sure my ticket was still there.

  Random House also had a special event app which allowed you to interact with other participants, plan your day, and get more info on the sessions and the speakers. It fueled my excitement.

  The first hour of the open house was supposed to be for networking but I missed it on purpose. People never believe me when I say I can be very shy and antisocial but it’s true.

  I gawked at the books in the lobby, checked in, got my badge and my schedule, and went to the second floor where I was handed my swag bag and then led to the main auditorium. The place was packed. I grabbed a seat at the very last row.

  Jenny McCarthy was already onstage, answering questions about her life and about her book Stirring the Pot.

  She was very open, talking about her past relationships but, being a New Kids On The Block fan (I say this with no shame—the fifth-grader in me lives on), I was more interested in her stories about Donnie Wahlberg.

  She talked about how they met, how he proposed, how he wrote a sweet letter to her ex-husband and how mature everyone was being. And then came my favorite quote from her: “I look at 20-year-olds and think, ‘Bitches, I feel sorry for you.’ Age is awesome.”

  There was a signing after her tal
k. I’m not really a fan of Jenny but since her book came with the swag bag, I thought, “Okay, I might as well line up.”

  When it was my turn, she said, cheerfully, “Hi, Pam!”

  I told her I liked her nail polish, she said she should bottle it and sell it, she signed my book, I told her I was a New Kids fan, and she grabbed my arm and said, “You are?! That’s awesome!”

  Then one of the Random House girls took a very blurry picture of us. I took one look at it and thought, “Snapseed can’t fix this shit.” It was like someone had taken a photo of us underwater.

  They had set up a little bookstore in the signing room. I picked up three copies of Delicious!, Ruth’s first foray into fiction—one for me, one for Jason and one for Tatin. I already had copies of Tender at the Bone and Comfort Me with Apples in Manila but I still got one of each because I wanted her to sign them, too.

  “Credit cards only, please,” the girl told me after I tried to give her a hundred.

  I fished out my debit card and handed it to her. It wouldn’t work. “No way,” I said. “I just used that yesterday.

  “Technology,” she said, shrugging, holding up the card swiper that was connected to an iPad.

  “Can you please let me pay with cash?”

  “Hang on.”

  She made a quick phone call and then said, “If you have the exact amount, I can accept it.”

  I rifled through my wallet. I had mostly hundreds and my loose bills were only going to be able to cover the copies of Delicious!.

  I weighed my options. Should I run outside in search of an ATM? Should I bribe the man shopping beside me into letting me use his card for my purchases?

  Should I beg people to change one of my hundreds into smaller bills? Should I run to the nearest store, buy something so I could get change? Should I just give up some of the books?

  Then I remembered the envelope of dollars my grandparents had given me before they left for the West Coast with my brother.

  There was a twenty in that envelope and that twenty saved my ass. Lolo and Lola to the rescue.

  “Great,” the girl said. “So sorry it was so difficult.”

  “It’s fine,” I said. And it was fine because I had my books.

  The next session was called “Storytelling in 140 Characters” with Twitter’s Andrew Fitzgerald and authors Gary Shteyngart (Little Failure) and Emma Straub (The Vacationers).

  Emma Straub was hilarious and, apparently, a New Kids fan too. “I’m jealous. I heard you got the engagement story but I wasn’t here yet. I tweet the New Kids On The Block all the time and they never respond.”

  They discussed Twitter and how authors use social media to connect with their fans and other authors. At one point, Emma said, “For example, Donnie Wahlberg. Actually, no, Donnie is not a good example because he actually replies to fans, just never to me.”

  Andrew decided to do something about it. “Who here has Twitter?”

  We raised our hands.

  “Everyone with Twitter, open it on your phones. Please tweet ‘@DonnieWahlberg please tell @EmmaStraub hi #thevacationers.’ We will, by the sheer force of our numbers, get Donnie to say hi to Emma.”

  But I guess we weren’t particularly forceful because it’s been a week and Donnie still hasn’t tweeted Emma.

  Before lunch, I hatched my game plan. I couldn’t be stuck at the back with no view of Ruth Reichl. I would go up to the fourteenth floor, eat super fast, return to the auditorium and grab a front row seat.

  We had the option of hanging out with the other participants and eating or joining either of the two breakout sessions—one with Random House editors and one with Random House art directors.

  I went to the Dr. Seuss conference room for the session with the editors.

  I grabbed a seat beside publishing students from Columbia and started eating my ’Wichcraft lunch as the editors introduced themselves and the genres they specialized in (historical novels, nonfiction, fantasy and sci-fi, and romance).

  I was eager to know more about the work and the lives of the editors. I wanted to know if they still enjoy reading outside of work or if they find themselves constantly editing other people’s books even when they don’t have to. But most of the participants asked questions that can be condensed into one of these four sentences: “Can you give me a job?” or “How do I get a job like yours?” or “Can I work at Random House?” or “How do I get published?”

  The editors had a lot of interesting things to say. Too many dystopian novels are landing on their desks, they’re sick of vampires (“It’s a weird day if I don’t get a vampire submission,” one of them said) and writers with more modern influences are easier to sell than people who are trying to embody authors from centuries past.

  The session felt short but I guess it wasn’t because when I went down to the auditorium, there were no more front row seats available. The best one I spotted—and grabbed—was on the fifth row.

  Most of the participants were women of all ages but there were a few men, too. In front of me, an old man—Santa Claus out of costume—was digging through his swag bag.

  “Lunch this year was better,” he said. “No fancy shmancy stuff with too many things you don’t know what to do with.”

  He pulled out a rectangular box. “What is this? A toothbrush?”

  “It’s skin cream,” the girl beside me said.

  “Skin cream?! I thought it was a crack pipe!” he said. “Skin cream, maybe I should put some on. I’m beginning to get wrinkles.”

  We laughed.

  Soon, Panache Desai was in front, asking people to meditate. “Meditation is the divine act of chilling out,” he said, asking us to close our eyes.

  I know Oprah loves him but his session was the one I was looking forward to the least. I’m not a self-help fan. He kept saying things like “Do you judge yourself?” and “Find your soul signature” and “Don’t repress your emotions, they will kill you from the inside” and “Who do you want to be?”

  I started to tune out but I did like a couple of things he said.

  One: “Be proud of your insanity while you still have it.”

  And two: “If you can be peaceful in New York City, you can be peaceful anywhere.”

  Panache was really getting to some people, though. A girl spoke up tearfully. “I have had a really bad six months. How do I find me?”

  His answer? “Buy my book.” I cringed.

  When it was time for his signing, people rushed out of the auditorium to line up. I grabbed the chance to run to the restroom and, while waiting, I heard women discussing Panache.

  “He really is special. A conduit. He’s something else,” one of them said.

  I returned to my seat. Ruth and her mass of dark hair walked into the room and she and her editor, Random House Publisher and Editor-in-Chief Susan Kamil, talked about Delicious!, Ruth’s career, the challenges of writing fiction for the first time and food, of course.

  I spent forty-five minutes just gaping at her. I couldn’t believe she was in front of me. I could listen to her speak all day.

  After Ruth’s session, I headed to the signing room, juggling five books in my arms. As I stood in line, a woman stopped in front of me and said, “Wow!”

  “They’re for me and my friends,” I said.

  “I’m pleased,” she said warmly.

  Later on, I found out that she was Ruth’s literary agent.

  I watched Ruth sign other people’s books. She always added the date to her signature.

  “It’s easy for me to remember this day. It’s my father’s birthday. He would have been 114,” she said to the person in front of me, smiling.

  And because I had read a lot about her father in her books, I smiled, too.

  Then it was my turn.

  Learning my lesson after the blurry Jenny pic, I handed over my phone and told the Random House girl (a different one), “Please please take lots of pictures.”

  “Sure,” she said. “I’m really good
at that.”

  I was face-to-face with Ruth. “I’ve read all your books and I love them all,” I said. She smiled, thanked me, and began signing.

  I was so overwhelmed I thought I was going to cry. Instead, I kept talking. I told her that I was bringing the books home with me to the Philippines. “Oh wow,” she said.

  We talked about her food tour which had been scheduled the next day. “I hope it doesn’t rain,” she said.

  When she reached for Jason’s copy of Delicious!, I said, “My friend Jason doesn’t cook but he tried your carbonara recipe and he has mastered it.”

  “That’s a good one to start with,” she said. Then she wrote in his book, “Keep cooking!” and I thought I would explode from happiness.

  She asked, as she began signing Tender at the Bone and Comfort Me with Apples, “Are these yours, too?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I already have copies in Manila but I wanted you to sign them.”

  She wrote “To Pamela,” and I loved it because she does seem like the kind of person who would call me Pamela.

  We posed for a picture. Ruth put her arm on my shoulder and I wanted to bawl.

  “Thank you so much,” I said to Ruth.

  “I’m honored that you’re going to carry all these books with you,” she said, smiling.

  I took my iPhone from the girl, who seemed apologetic. “I went crazy,” she said. She wasn’t kidding—she took over seventy photos of me and Ruth. There were photos of us talking, of us smiling, of me smiling while she’s talking, of her talking while I’m smiling, of us laughing, of her signing. There’s a big stupid grin on my face in almost all the pictures. I want to frame them all.

  I stood in a quiet corner and rearranged my Random House tote bag so I could squeeze in Ruth’s books.

  How do you know you’re a complete bookworm? When you happily carry eleven heavy books all over Manhattan for the rest of the day. Totally worth the shoulder pain.

  Ruth was still signing, and the participants were getting ready for the next session. There was a panel on summer reading and an afternoon mixer with cocktails, but I was done.

  I hit the elevator button and got ready for a quick exit. My dream had come true. It was time to go.