Maggie's Journal

Recently I made the observation to Patrick that tv shows don’t have good theme songs anymore. Well, they may have good ones, but not like in the 80’s when the song was written specifically for the show. Now they either use a new popular song, think the WB, or just have music like Lost.

On the drive from NJ to TX the 80’s station on XM was playing the theme song to Greatest American Hero and Patrick decided he agreed with me.

Who doesn’t remember the words to The Dukes of Hazard, Growing Pains or Who’s the Boss? Even if you don’t want to admit it. Ah, the good ol’ days!

I bought a James Blunt CD off iTunes yesterday and have been listening to it a lot. I really like it. I don’t know if FM radio is playing him at all, but XM plays two of his songs every once in a while. iTunes says he’s like Bob Dylan but I don’t agree. I think he’s like Cat Stevens meets David Gray. I like High and You’re Beautiful the best so far.

I’m getting a little loopey packing. I could have sworn after the move to Jersey followed by a two day move from upstairs to downstairs I wasn’t supposed to pack again. Patrick is busy working from home and helps me when he can, but man we really have a lot of stuff. We are having a “garage” sale tomorrow to sell some things we bought specifically for the apartment. Meanwhile we have no space to put packed boxes and set up for the sale so things just keep shifting around and I can’t really lift much. So I pack a box, tape it and leave it for Patrick to move!

The dogs are completely freaked out and are staying close to us. When I packed in TX they didn’t see me do it, they’d just come in and find more boxes at the end of the day. But here they just look at me everytime I put something in a box. I think they don’t think they are coming with us, or possibly worse, that I’m going to put them in a box soon!

We are really ready to get home. There are a lot of things we like about this area but whenever it comes to driving and customer service we just have to look at each other and say, ahh Jersey. Not that we’ve romanticized TX any, we know there are bad drivers and bad service there too, but it seems those are the exceptions rather than the rule. I think we’ve had our fill of bad driving. Of course that isn’t to say everyone is a bad driver, so if people from my old work are reading this, I don’t mean you!

Ok, back to packing.

We had a busy weekend trying to work in all our last minute sight seeing.

Friday night we went to dinner with friends, and realized we should have spent more time with them. Saturday we went to D.C. to see most of what we missed the last time. We met with one of Patrick friends who I’d not had the chance to meet yet and set off exporing. We saw the Capitol and the Supreme Court and the Smithsonian National Air & Space Musuem.

Today I woke up earlish to greet my first day of unemployment with a smile. Then headed to the doctor for a checkup. Further facing the news of the seemingly inevitable switch to insulin. Boo! No more needles. But I did get to see the baby again and watch its heart beat!

Patrick is already signed up for two trips when we head home. The first week in December he’s scheduled for a conference in Chandler, Arizona and the second or third week “training” in San Jose, CA. I may get to go with him to at least one of them though and I’m more than happy to relax around a pool and shop!

For now, we are headed to Atlantic City one last time!

Now that we’ve spread the news I can finally blog about this! For those keeping track, I will be at 13 weeks on Thursday. My last week of my first trimester!

I’ve already had one sonogram but Patrick was out of town at his first day of work in Dallas and didn’t get to go with me. The doctor was talking to me while she did it and I didn’t realize until I got home that she’d never really explained what I was looking at. I think I see a head and shoulders, but I could be making that up.

So today I had a sonogram that has to be done before you go past 13 weeks. It was much better than the last one. For one thing, Patrick got to go with me. For another, we got to watch much longer and had a clearer picture. We also got to hear the heartbeat for the first time and it was loud and fast! The baby is lying on its back with its neck bent a little and it kept popping its whole body straight up, that’s why I’m now calling it a mexican jumping bean! The jumping was a little unsettling at first, but they assurred us that it was fine and normal. Hopefully you can make out the pictures after they’ve been copied for me and then scanned in. The head is on the left, feet on the right and it’s almost in a v shape.

We had a good but quiet weekend. We finally got to try Peter Lueger’s, a fancy cash only steakhouse that is supposed to be top of the line around here. They have reservations 3 months out, but somehow Patrick got us one for a late lunch on Saturday. It was good and I’m really glad we went, but I think it’s a bit overrated. The steak was charred on the outside and both Patrick and I agreed we could have done without that. Once we got past the charred part thought it was yum! But still, Ruth’s Chris is better. I know, I’m such a steak connosuir!

We packed a little here and there throughout the weekend. ( No, I didn’t lift anything heavy.) We only got 9 boxes packed, but it seems like we worked forever. We got all our book, pictures and cds done as well as a lot of knicknacks. But what I found interesting is that we had an entire box worth of candles. Is that normal? We paired down so much stuff to come here through garage sales and storing things at my parents house, but somehow everytime I look somewhere I’m amazed at how much we will have to pack in the next two weeks! Ugh.

About a month ago Patrick and I were out in the city walking and I made the comment that before we moved I wanted to go in and look at Tiffany’s. He said ok and continued to lead the way to Central Park where we were headed. Not paying a lot of attention to where we were going, I missed him turn off until I saw the Tiffany’s sign!

We went in and looked through all the floors. First floor is diamonds and other fine jewels that sparkle so brilliantly that you might go blind. We saved the sterling silver/watch floor for last and took our time looking there. Patrick and I have both been working on side projects here and there and have an agreement that whatever we make off those is ours to keep. So I was looking at rings seeing if there were any I liked enough to ask the price. I found one and Patrick asked for me. I was doing the math to see if I had enough in my account when Patrick said he’d buy it for me if I wanted it. He said he’d gone in with the idea that if there was anything he could afford to get me that I liked, he was going to. So I got my beautiful sterling silver Tiffany’s ring in the little blue bag and was perfectly excited about that.

And then completely unexpectedly, I got the matching necklace as my birthday suprise! I wasn’t even expecting a present since I thought the show tickets were it. What a great Husband. And no, not ’cause he spends money on me, but because he’s so thoughtful. Though the Tiffany’s helps!

I was very spoiled by everyone this birthday and I really enjoyed and appreciated it!

If you are a Barenaked Ladies fan you should check out the Vanity Project. It’s a side project band that Steve Page is in and I really have enjoyed what I’ve heard so far. Though I can’t find the cd anywhere but itunes.

This weekend was a Stephen King filled one. He’s Patrick’s favorite author and he was in town for the New Yorker Festival where many artists of all varieties come for panels, talks, readings and the like.

Friday night we went to see Stephan King and Michael Chabon both read excepts from their writing and then afterwards sat down to take questions. I really enjoyed both of their stories and it was interesting to hear their thoughts on the writing process.

Saturday morning we went to the main branch of the NY Public Library to hear a discussion by a panel of writers moderated by the New Yorker fiction editor. Four other diverse authors were there to discuss the topic of “When Reality Fails”. All five of the writers wrote about worlds that didn’t exsist or events that seemingly couldn’t really happen. It was a very interesting discussion.

Patrick was excited because he got to ask a question at both events and he got a picture of the discussion panel. He was a little upset that poor planning on the festivals part kept him from being able to attend the book signing. Only 150 armbands were given out for the Stephen King book signing and they were handed out while we were at the discussion panel. So we weren’t able to go.

Saturday night we had a nice evening at a friend’s house were we were treated to yummy fajitas and good company. I was incredibly lazy on Sunday. I barely even cleaned the house and we didn’t grocery shop until today. It felt good!

One of the publications we are working on at work right now has a little “factoid” at the bottom of each page. When I was proofing some of them today I found an interesting fact. Apparently, the average person takes 7 minutes to fall alseep. So if I take longer than that, I must be above average right?

We spent Saturday sitting on the dirty NYC side walk waiting in line for ticket to see Shakespere in the Park in Central Park. We had been advised to get there no later than 11, but when we got there a† 10 til, it was already a pretty full line. We found ou† right away that we were safe to get tickets though, so we really didn’t mind waiting until they started handing the tickets out at 1:00.

We had a good time talking to people and reading while we waited and the time seemed to go pretty fast. We got the tickets and then headed off in search of lunch. We decided to try this place we’d heard of that only serves pb & j sandwiches called The Peanut Butter Company. They had all sorts of crazy varieties of sandwhiches, shakes and desserts made with their own special (read extremely thick) peanut butter, including a blt with peanut but†er. There is something wierd about lettuce, tomato and bacon, with pb. We were boring and had plain sandwhiches.

We took them to eat in Washington Square Park. I have to say that park was interesting!

It was a nice New Yorkie day.

We just watched a really great movie in the city. We went in to see “The March of the Penguins,” which I guess you could have figured out from my title!

I really loved it. It’s one of those things that sounds boring until you actually watch it. I seriously want to own it to fall asleep to because it was like one big relaxation tape with pictures.

Morgan Freeman narrarates and his voice is relaxing. Then there is relaxing music playing while they show the story of the penguins’ life. They do close up shots of the colors of the penguins, who I would have sworn were just black and white, but they actually also have gray and yellow. Then they focus in on the different textures of the snow, their fur and their feet.

So basically it’s a really arty movie about penguins which seems weird, but it’s actually beautiful. And a bit heartbreaking as they remind you every five minutes that most of them will die do to the weather and their food situation.

I know only like two people I know even know who she is, but I’m excited —so I’m sharing. Since the cds only available in Europe right now, at least as far as I know, you can listen to full-length versions of all the songs by clicking here.

Patrick and I have been sort of slacking on our netflix since moving here. We have our queue set up where we get one movie that he picked, one that I picked and one that we both picked. We have about 70 movies in each queue but haven’t been going through them very fast until about two weeks ago.

In the past few days we finally saw Million Dollar Baby and Sideways. I liked both of them, but because of all the things I’d heard about both, I was a smidge dissappointed. I’d heard so much about the suprise twist at the end of Million Dollar Baby and how it was like two different movies, but when I watched it, I really wasn’t that suprised. Now I can see where when it was in the theater and most people hadn’t seen it yet, it would have been shocking, but I had just built it up into something so huge that I just kept thinking, “that’s it?”

So then we watched sideways where I was hoping for a happier ending (because before Million Dollar Baby we had watched Cold Mountain). I hate when movies don’t end happy. I know that’s real life, but I don’t watch movies or read books for real, I do it to escape real. So after two major downers, I was hoping for something happier.

No such luck on Sideways. The end does hint at a happy ending, but it leaves it up to your imagination. I have to say there was a lot about the movie I just didn’t get, but there were also some really funny parts.

My favorite line, ” Who am I kidding? I’m not a writer, I’m an 8th grade english teacher. I’m so insignificant I can’t even kill myself yet.” Paul Giamatti.

Next up for my queue is Girl with a Pearl Earring. Oh man, I hope that has a happy ending, but I have no idea. Well, at least I can enjoy Colin Firth. And in our joint queue is American Splendor.

Well, we got another thing crossed off our master to-do list this weekend. It was Patrick’s turn to pick and he wanted to go to the NY Aquarium on Coney Island so after sleeping in late we headed out to Brooklyn. It’s a bit of a long trip, but we finally got there. It’s a rather small place and some parts of it weren’t kept up very well, but we still enjoyed it. We saw walrus, penguins, sea lions/otters, and sharks. We also watched a little show on the sea lions where they performed with their trainers.

Afterwards we went and ate at our favorite restaraunt in Chinatown followed by desert at the best little bakery in little Italy. Yum! We may have cheated a little diet-wise, but hey, it was only half an eclair. I did take the other half home and ate it the next day!

Yes, Tae Bo is the cheesiest workout ever, but when you are tired and stressed kicking and punching the air feels really good. I know I should do yoga and be all zen like, but yoga just makes me laugh. I can’t do it.

We just watched a video of people camped out in front of the new IKEA that opens in Frisco tomorrow. I have to say, I’m a little scared by that!

NYC recently started a screening process in light of the events in London. They will post police people at random subway stops and have them check random bags. Anyone with a bag is subject to search. You do have the right to refuse, but then you can’t ride the train. And NJ has followed their lead.

So far neither of us have even been at a stop where they are checking, but we are both a little annoyed with the idea. I understand wanting to ensure people’s safety and I don’t claim to have a better answer, but I really feel this is a huge loss of freedom. And I also don’t understand how it can solve any problems. Unless they check every person at every stop, how do they know the will find whatever there may be to find? While I think it would be impossible to do this, that would be the only way to actually accomplish anything. And even if they do want to check someone, all that person has to do is refuse and then go to the next stop and get on. It just seems like another band aid to make people feel safe while actually accomplishing nothing.

And then when I came home today I read another article that annoyed me. I always skim the headlines on the Yahoo news section and in the health area anything on diabetes always catches my eye. I think I’m hoping they publish an article that says it actually is ok to eat as much chocolate as you want! So anyway, this article I read was saying that NYC wants to start tracking and monitoring diabetics, a practice so far reserved for diseases such as HIV. They say that because the number of diabetes related deaths has increased so much in the last 20 years which is costing the city money, they should monitor who has their illness under control and who doesn’t and gently intervene with those that don’t. They could then do things like send you reminder notes to make a doctors appointment if you have gone recently enough.

This really bothers me. I’m responsible enough to take care of my own health without getting notes from the government. I realize some people won’t take care of themselves, but isn’t that one of the freedom’s we as American’s have? And unless I’m missing something the only way that this is costing the city money is if people die with absolutely no one in their life to handle their deaths. In which case that person probably has a few bigger issues.

Ok, there is my controversial 2 cents. Discuss amongst yourselves.

I heard on XM that David Gray has a new album coming out in September! I’m very excited about that. I just missed him in concert too 🙁

Also, I read on her website that Heather Nova will release a CD in the UK in August. Wonder when it will be out here.

I can’t wait because I need some new music. The last thing I bought was Ryan Adams and the Cardinals which I’m enjoying, but I’m still ready for something new.

Update:

I may have missed David Gray in concert the first time he was here, but I just got an announcement that he will be back October 5th and 6th at Radio City! Woohoo!

Andy and Sara came and spent their 1 year anniversary in NYC over the 4th. We had a good visit, though I had to work and didn’t get to spend the whole time with them.

While they were here we went to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. It was actually the first time we’d been, and I loved it. We went on the 4th and it was a nice way to celebrate the day. Most people know that I’m not one for great patriotic displays normally, not because I don’t love our country or anything, but that’s just me. I was the same way with school spirit. But I actually felt really American being at Ellis Island. The Statue was neat,but there were lines to get in. And it was a slow day, so they were much better lines than they could have been!

What I enjoyed so much about the day was putting myself in someone else’s shoes. Imagining spending all that time on a boat to get here. You’ve left everything behind, you’ve had very little food. And then you get here, and you see that great symbol of America. Of freedom. But when you get here there is still so much hardship to over come. Health inspections, mental inspections, intelligence tests. They wanted to make sure they didn’t admitt anyone who would wind up being a burden to society. Families got separated. People got sent home. Others died in the hospital wing waiting to get healthy enough to leave. I had a vague sense of all this before going, but looking at the pictures and reading the stories was really an eye opener.

Finally got the pictures done. I had a little too much fun with my mac and made them into a movie!: Click Here