Peep Days

I realize that there are some of you out there that don’t like Martha. So, you’ll probably be surprised when I tell you that, in spite of ALL the NYC has to offer, the main reason we went to NYC was to see Martha. The quilty peeps and I joke that Jewels is THE original Martha fan. Considering that, Jewels, you were amazingly well behaved!

Martha was Amazing! Awesome! Absolutely Fabulous! I wasn’t terribly excited about going when I found out the focus of the show would be about aging. I really don’t need aging reminders these days. But, I needn’t have worried — it wouldn’t matter who the guests were, it was just fascinating to watch Martha and her staff at work. I probably sat with my mouth wide open the whole time. And the set is more beautiful that it appears on tv. More beautiful than people say it is. Jaw droppingly beautiful.

We had incredible seats (thanks Gurney!.) On the floor, second row. Right. In. Front. Of. Martha. During the first segment, they showed a long video about the new center that Martha has opened at Mt. Sinai hospital and it was really fun to watch Martha watch the video. She was just as attentive as if she were seeing it for the first time. Every once in awhile she’d glance up and scan the audience — but never with any acknowledgement — just a brief glance, then back to the video. And I was actually proud of her as she interviewed her guests that day — none of the classic Martha-interrupt-the-guest behavior.

Between segments, of course, we had Joey to entertain us. He’s very funny and kept the audience pumped up. One thing that really annoyed me though, was that between segments, they play music. High energy music to keep everyone motivated, but also, I suspect to keep the audience from hearing any comments that might be made by the staff as they prepared for the next segment. Ob. Nox. Ious.

Martha was so impressive, I can’t possibly describe it to you. After our morning live segment, they asked the audience to remain seated while Martha did a 4-5 minute taping for something. They explained that what she said would all be gibberish to most of us. She was taping a highly technical blurb describing the inner workings of the Martha Stewart website. I was stunned that she could read through all those technical words — only stopping one time to check on the correct pronunciation of an acronym. She practically read it like she was reading a first grade storybook. For all I know, she rehearsed the blurb for hours, but I doubt it. Wow — there’s a reason she’s at the top.

After the show, they announced that they had a few extra tickets for the afternoon taping. We briefly debated what to do — NYC shopping beckoned and it was a tough call. We felt a little gyped at the audience gifts — pomegranate juice and a ticket to a yoga class weren’t far off from our joking predictions that we’d probably get prune juice and a month’s discount at a nursing home. We decided to go for it, and we were lucky that we were the first section to be excused. We rushed to the desk and got the last two tickets and positions 1 and 2 for standby for the afternoon show. Then we went to City Quilter and grabbed some lunch before our return to the studio at 1 p.m.

The first hint that we’d made the right decision was in the warm-up room when Joey told us that we’d be getting a few nice prizes and that the morning guests got nothing. (It warmed my heart to see that they considered pomegranate juice a cop-out gift!)  The second show (to be aired today or tomorrow in the states, depending on your market) was a lot more fun and exciting. Sherry Sheppard (the new host on The View) and Martha made children’s halloween costumes. (Sherry was pretty funny — Junie pointed out that she made a funny joke about jail which I missed, so I’m anxious to see the show this week.) We snagged a nice beginner sewing book from those segments. Then, Martha cooked two different chicken dishes with two Itialian chefs. Those segments bagged us a beautiful Italian cookbook! But more than the prizes, I was really glad we went to the second show because that experience was so different from the morning session. A taped show vs. a live show, we sat on the complete opposite side of the studio, and it was just a lot more fun! And during the taping, a cameraman made a mistake and there was a tense moment — would Martha yell “Off with his head”??? Everything remained calm and after a brief embarrassing moment to identify the culprit, taping resumed.

At the end of the second show, Martha hung around for three or four audience questions. I got to ask one of them. I’ve always loved the big jars that she has on her set (pictured in the middle picture of the top row in the collage above) so I asked her if they’d be available in her Macy’s line. She said all of the products (including those jars) that were in her old Martha Stewart catalog will be available at Macy’s around the fall of ’08. Yipee!

Thanks for a fabulous trip Quilty Peeps! Jewels, thanks for the inspiration to go in the first place; Joni, thanks for making all the arrangements; and Gurney, thanks for getting those awesome Martha tickets. You are all THE VERY BEST EVER Quilty Peeps!!!

XOXO,
Anna

P.S. Vallen is hosting a potluck today! I hope you’ll all join us. I plan to attend, although I have a rather full day, so I’ll probably do an after-potluck report! ;-)

Whew! First of all, thank you for all your lovely comments on my last post. The Quilty Peeps and I made it back from NYC and I’m happy to say, none of us needed a wheelchair to get around! We had a fabulous time — we all get along so well, it’s hard not to have fun with the girls. We spent our first day with Martha Stewart — which deserves a post of its own later.

Before we left, the ever-so-sweet Vallen directed me to her very kind friend Rebecca, who gave us some great food recommendations. Thanks for all your great suggestions Rebecca! We made it to Juniors, but the other places eluded us on this trip and were we ever sorry. I can recommend one place NOT to go — and that’s the revolving restaurant at the top of the Marriot at Times Square. Yucky Buffet. Bad Service. Expensive drinks. That said, they were effective drinks and a certain someone was very friendly with the Times Square policemen. We kept hearing “something about men in uniform”??? Don’t worry, certain someone, what happens in NYC, stays in NYC. LOL.

The rest of our time was spent shopping and double decker bus sight-seeing. We originally thought what a great deal the bus tour would be — a hop-on-hop-off tour, so we could use it to double as transportation around the city. Wrong. It was too slow and inconvenient. Oh well, the tour part was fun, although we ran out of time and missed many of the major sites.

Our best shopping was at all the blogger favorite places in the fashion district and Soho. (The links to all of these places can be found in the wonderful NYC shopping guide by disdressed.) Tinsel Trading was all decked out for the season with their Halloween stuff on display. Lots of glittery goodness.

We all loved MJ Trim, The Store Across the Street, and City Quilter. Junie and I had fun in Grey Line Linen and Gurney went a little nuts over all the ric rac at Daytona. We took pictures of all of our loot:

Junie got the most beautiful brown, orange and aqua linens — it’s hard to tell from the picture, but they are really gorgeous! We also shopped a bit in Soho. Of course, we visited both Purl and Purl Patchwork and loved them both.

Purl has these adorable little sweaters strung across their door:

And of course, being in NYC, we had to partake of the current cupcake obsession. Magnolia came first and by now it had started to rain. We sat in the little park across the street and had a yummy cupcake.

The next day, we checked out Billy’s.

It was a scientific experiement, you understand. It was a tough call, but I think we decided that Magnolia edged out Billy’s by a hair. Not that it matters — we’ll gladly take either kind! Our trip went by way too fast. Next time I’ll tell you all about our visit with Martha!
XOXO,
Anna