Keeping Up With The Joneses

*I’ve told this story a lot. If you’re one of the many that’s heard it already please feel free to skip to the pictures.*

I love Martha Stewart. I love how she knows everything about the home, I love how she is talented in so many areas, and I love how she strives for perfection. As a result, I have been trying to attend a taping of her show for quite some time. I would have loved to go over the summer while we were living in NYC, but the show was on hiatus, so that didn’t work out. This fall, when tickets started to be offered again, I decided to send in a request in October. No luck. I tried again in November. No dice. Disappointed, I decided to wait for Spring to try again.

But just because I had decided to wait to try again for tickets didn’t mean that I decided to stop complaining about not getting tickets.

In early December, days after we purchased our tickets to go on the trip to Arizona discussed a few posts ago, I received a phone call from my friend, Anna.

“Hi Hillary, it’s Anna.”

“Hi Anna!”

“I was just wondering… Are you going to be in town on January 13th? Please tell me you’re going to be in town on January 13th.”

“No, actually. We just bought these tickets to go to Arizona from the 5th to the 19th. What’s up?”

“Oh no! I requested tickets to Martha Stewart for us and I got them.”

Stunned silence.

Of course they wouldn’t change the date of the tickets. I checked the website, though, and they did have tickets available for the week of the 17th. I decided to try and get tickets for Anna and I for the end of that week. A few days later I got an email:

“Dear MARTHA Fan,

Recently you requested tickets to see THE MARTHA STEWART SHOW, and your show date has been selected.”

Hooray!!! Wait a second…

“Show Date and Time: Wednesday, January 19^th 2011 – 10 a.m. show”

No. I requested the 20th, or the 21st! I don’t get back from Arizona until the 19th at 4 o’clock! I emailed them back. They’re not filming on the 20th or 21st. Foiled again.

Flash forward to sunny Arizona. My phone rings and I see it’s my friend Christy, who lives in NYC. If I had gotten the original tickets (you remember, like four ticket requests ago) we were planning to go to the show together. She says she just got an email from Martha. Can I go on the 17th?

How does this keep happening to me!?! I go to Arizona one time and that’s when Martha decides she wants me to come see her!

But this story does, of course, have a happy ending. The day we get back from Arizona I get another call from Christy. Martha’s emailed her again. Can I go on January 31st? You bet I can!!

I decided to take a bus from Ithaca to New York so that Jonathan could keep the car and so I didn’t have to drive in the city. Jonathan also kept Lincoln home with him. This was the first time I’ve ever spent a night away from Lincoln, but I felt good about it since he was home with Jonathan.

When I arrived Christy met me at the Port Authority and we went back to their place where we had a very nice dinner, prepared by the consummate chef Jace, with some of their friends from the city.

The next morning we were up bright and early because we had to be to the studio by 8:30. Here we both are with the Martha sign outside. (Me: “Martha Stewart is in this building!!”)

After getting inside and waiting around for a while we were led into the studio. It was much bigger then I thought it would be. We asked several people around us to take pictures of us. Too bad I was messing with my hair in the first one.

This is Martha’s warm up guy, Joey. I’ve seen him on TV a bunch of times and always thought he was a little nerdy, but he was actually really funny.

After the show Martha stayed and answered a few questions from the audience. Since I found out that I was finally going to Martha I tried to think of a question just in case such a situation arose, but I didn’t come up with anything, unfortunately. Someone did ask her where her favorite vacation spot was, though, and I really liked her answer. She said, “Anywhere I haven’t been.” She said, as much as she's loved some of the places she’s visited she has no plans to go back. There are just too many cool places in the world to see. Touché, Martha.

They told us, even though Martha was answering questions, she couldn’t sign any autographs or take pictures with anyone. We found a little loophole, though… so what if she’s tiny in the background and we’re a little blurry?

Martha filmed a few promos for the show and then it was time to leave. It was so, so fun to see her in person. I would go back in a heartbeat.

Afterward Christy and I went to a French restaurant in Tribeca, called DBGB, for lunch. The decor was lovely. There were open shelves all around the room where they store some of the restaurants supplies (there was a bunch of sea salt near us, for example) and so many beautiful copper pots. I had the paté and roasted lamb sausage on couscous. The food was good, but not so good that I’d rush back there next time I’m in the city.

We did a little shopping after lunch, but then I had to catch my bus back to Ithaca. I wish I could have stayed a little bit longer to hang out with Christy more, but I needed to get back to Jonathan and Lincoln. Thanks Christy for such a fun day! You made my Martha dreams come true!

We decided we needed a brief respite from the seemingly endless Ithaca winter, so we spent a couple of weeks in the warm Arizona sun. It was delightful.

We played outside a ton...

…enjoyed the desert scenery….

…and we drank fresh lemonade (made by Jonathan) almost every day.

We, also, visited Old Town Scottsdale…

…and Lincoln’s Great-Grandparents.

Jonathan and I struck out on our own and took a day-trip to the Grand Canyon. We missed Lincoln (who stayed home with his Mamie), but otherwise we really enjoyed our little side trip.