Cute Overload Hits New York!

On Tuesday morning I got an e-mail from Meg saying: "I am going to be in New York for 24 hours on Tuesday to give Cute Overload Calendars away on Martha Stewart--are you free for dinner?" To which, I said: COME ON OVER!

This is one of those times when you realize that you could do worse than New York if you choose to live far away from those nearest and dearest--because they all end up here at some point anyway! If you're Meg, you might blow into town to give away your incredibly hilarious and yes, CUTE calendars on a National Television show. If you're my brother Josh, you'll kick off the academic year this weekend by flying to New York from Oregon for a conference in forensic anthropology! It really is ALL HERE folks! Good news is so are Graham and me, so we get to see people.

I have to tell you that this was pure serendipitous delivery. I'd spoken to Meg only a week ago admitting that I'd been having pangs of missing her and wishing so much we had some time to HANG OUT and just relax. Well, as improbable as it seems, the heavens conspired in both our favors. Meg got to hang out with Martha Stewart and I got some wonderful one on one time over sushi and drinks.

We toasted the excitement that was Meg appearing with Martha Stewart the next morning. Meg brought up what my family now calls the Great Cake Disaster of Mother's Day 1992, asking if I had moved on to like Martha again. She was referring to an incident where, heavily inspired by Martha, I decided I was going to make a cake for my step mom for mother's day from an issue of Martha Stewart Living. Little did I know, I was embarking on a TWO DAY odyssey. 27 eggs, a pound of butter and 6 layers later the cake weeped and separated and looked more like Richard Dreyfus' sculpture of mashed potatoes from Close Encounters of the Third Kind than anything in the magazine. This was dismaying enough, but not a month later an article appeared in the San Jose Chronicle exposing the magazine for not TESTING many of the recipes. I felt better about my cake, but it took SIXTEEN years for me to say SCREW IT and start reading MS Living again. I told Meg the healing had taken place and Graham and I had both benefited from many of MS's recipes this summer.

There's not many people I would venture into the heart of Times Square after work for, and LIKE IT. Meg is deffenitely worth it. Actually, once seeing her puffy hotel bed and turning on a Reality TV show I almost didn't go home that night. It was SO FUN to see her and celebrate her latest move in taking over the world with adorable humor. You can see some pictures from her experience here. I am very proud of her! GO MEG!