February 16 -- March 25, 2007

Weekend in NYC, February 16-19, 2007

Over the long President's Birthday weekend we did a long-planned trip to New York City. We drove up to Princeton on Friday evening through bad holiday weekend traffic, taking nearly 5 hours, but being graciously received by our dear friends, Jane Murphy and Charles Karney and their son William.

Saturday we parked at Princeton Junction and took the train up to the City. It was bitterly cold but sunny. We dragged our suitcases up Fashion Avenue from Penn Station to our hotel off Duffy Square in the theater district, shopping at H&M and Macy's and elsewhere along the way. Marilyn split up at the Rockefeller skating rink and went to Lincoln Center and its library to look at music, while the girls and I did "retro" stuff and went to the American Girl Place for a hoot, and then down into the Fashion district again trying to find design schools. Most fashion businesses are closed on Saturday's, however. We did stumble across the Drama Book Shop that Marilyn and I used to go to to buy monologues for her acting class, and I bought some music for her there.

That evening we had dinner at a Brazilian restaurant, and then (finally!) we all got to see "Wicked"! That's the girls in a bad photo op in front of the Dragon Clock in the theater. After the show, we were decadent and went to Carnegie Deli at midnight and had cheese cake and blintzes. What a city.

The next morning we met up with Jane and Charles and William and had Thai lunch. Then we all went to the revival of "Company." Amazing: the actors acted, sang, AND they played all the instruments to provide all the music. Seeing the three girlfriends singing "You Could Drive a Person Crazy" and doing a saxaphone trio instead of the doo-wop fillers was wild. After the show we got our bags and went all together back to Princeton, where we continued our retro theme and ate Hoagie Haven and then went to Thomas Sweets.

The next morning we met up with Pete and Betsy Peterson and their two kids at the Princetonian Diner. Pete was an old friend from Alaska who we connected up with in New Jersey in the 80's and have kept in touch. We've all aged gracefully. Then a nicer drive home (only about three hours).

March 10-14, 2007

The next big event was Paula and Selina coming to visit over a long weekend, March 10 through the 14th (Selina's first week of spring break). Marilyn promptly got them off the non-stop Southwest into BWI and they were home in under an hour (you can do that on a Saturday...). We had a dinner of my Asia Nora scallops and butternut squash, and then we did a night time tour of downtown DC including walking the Tidal Basin over to the Jefferson Memorial. (We hadn't seen that one yet.).

I had spent all day (in addition to cooking) renting a mini-DV video camera, ripping the master tape of the Cinderella show, and creating an iMovie and burning DVDs of Elizebeth's show. I did it because the "professional" supposed to do it had generated DVDs with some random file with an .mpg extension but that no software recognized. The drama teacher kept sending us DVD's that wouldn't play. Finally we asked that she send the actual tape out of the machine. Paula really wanted to see the show, so we made the effort. Thus the evening ended with everyone enjoying Cinderella one more time. Mar thought it was a terrible video. "Cris could have done a much better job. Sigh!" There are a couple of places where you can actually see Elizebeth's face and her voice is so pretty.

We had a great day on Sunday. The musical "Carnival" we saw at the Kennedy Center was very well done and we enjoyed the spetacular job they did mounting the production. The lead looked like Audry Hepburn and sang like Julie Andrews. Then we went to the Portrait gallery until our dinner at Cafe Atlantico.

Monday, we went to the Arlington Cemetery. We really enjoyed that and felt the reverence at the changing of the guard at the tomb of the unknown soldier. I asked the kids if it made them feel patriotic. Selina said it best: "I think it would be better not to get killed in the first place." It's hard in such an unpopular war to argue with that.

Then we went to the zoo. I made lunches all three days. There is so much to see and we didn't want to eat fast food because of our diet, and if you don't mind carrying the weight it makes sightseeing life so easy. The pandas were awesome and some of the small mammals were fun, but overall the zoo is quite small. Then we went to the mall and Paula helped me buy a recital formal. It is quite gorgeous. They are mailing it to me. It is a Jesica McClintock--and it fits me perfectly. That was fun. Cris made us a delicious salmon dinner to come home to.

Tuesday Cris played hooky in the morning and joined them all for a tour of the Capitol by the staff of Representative Tom Udall. That's a picture of us in front of one of two statues from New Mexico, the one in the actual Rotunda, of the leader of the Pueblo Indian Revolt, Po'pay. Dillon, our guide, didn't have all of the stories but it was fun to have the personal touch. He is from UNM and majoring in political science. He is a Democrat and so idealistic and YOUNG! It took us so long to get into the House that they had gone to lunch so we didn't get to see anything. I was wondering if I could be in there when Gore testifies but probably not. I signed his petition. Then Cris boogied back to work.

The rest of us went through the Botanical gardens and the flowers were gorgeous. I'll definitely have to take you, Dad. You too Mary! Then we saw the IMAX lion movie at the Natural History museum and then E died on us again. She can't get hot and walk across the mall, because she gets exhausted. So I ended up taking my 2 home and Susie got most of her homework done (I let them skip school Monday and Tuesday to be with their best friend). Paula and Selina did a detour to shop in Georgetown. I made pecan encrusted chicken and we had a nice final evening. Paula couldn't decide on a restaurant so we ate at home. Better for our diets anyway although I did a lot of cooking.

March 22, 2007

On Wednesday Paula, Selina and I went to Fitness First in the morning and then I took them to the airport. On the way back, I stopped at the U of Maryland in College Park. I was looking for a couple pieces of music. The campus is huge and the kids kept getting out of class and you could go nowhere in your car, but I finally got to the music library and they didn't have either piece.

Thursday, I spent most of the day in the Library of Congress. I had to cancel my lunch date with Cris but did manage to get most of my needed items. I found Showboat on microfiche and 3 librarians and a technician had to help me before we could print the 3 pages of pre-music for "Can't help loving that Man". Of course, it's illegal to copy but maybe that was okay because it is so old. Illegal, but they were all really helpful for me to do it!

Friday Cris stayed home because he hurt his heel the night before trying to catch something that came flying off the couch as he ran up the stairs in the dark. It was his day off anyway. He worked at home for much of the day at his little corner of computer monitors. But he also did a lot of honey-dos like making a CD for the kids who will sing on the Mother's Day concert with me and putting the Ragtime piece up a key and printing that out for me. Yea! It's starting to come together.

We had weather again. It started to sleet Friday afternoon after tons of heavy rain all day. We kept hoping and Teresa went out to the airport but at the last minute they cancelled any flights coming into Dulles. Hence, we had a very laid back weekend. I caught a cold while Paula and Selina were here and so it was good not to be out in the wind on Saturday. We went over to Fitness First and it was cold. Susie and I worked on scrapbooks while we watched TV and saw a movie Big Night (2 Italian chefs trying to get Americans to eat real Italian food in the 50's). Then a real problem happened. The pictures started getting in wierd orders. One would have a tiny little Susie and the next pic would be a much older Susie. Cris couldn't believe I hadn't ordered them before we started pasting a month ago. I just wanted to get started and so now I am not sure what to do. I am really enjoying my Xmas present, Rhonda. There are tons of cute things to put on the pages and while I am not doing a lot, it is nice to decorate as you go along.

Susie and I went out shopping in the afternoon. She is down a bust size so needed new bras and she got a new swimming suit. We also went to get more plastic pages for our scrap book and of course, we stopped at the grocery store because that is my hobby.

One night we had a great evening with my old roomie Karen and her hubby, daughter and Dad. Her mother is still alive. She is ailing from when I knew Karen 25 years ago. It is a trial for all of them, most of all the Mother, I suppose. It was so good to talk to her and she has since sent Thank you notes and several pieces of Mom music from "Ma you're making eyes at me" to "My Soul doth magnify the Lord". Very fun!

Sorry, I have been so remiss in writing. Cris flies back to Los Alamos on April 8th to interview for 3 different jobs so hope you will send good wishes and pray for us. He wants to go back and we miss Sean and Dad so it will be a good thing to get back home. In the meantime, we will try to keep having fun. We are trying to rent Paul and Cheryl's condo on the beach for a "Yea we are done with school" celebration, but the kid's dancing may interfere. Sean and Dad said the Irish dance performance and teacher that took over for Mary was fantastic so the kids will have that to go back to. Susie requested that she still get to take hip hop somewhere else, so I will try to honor that.

Love Marilyn

March 24, 2007

We all went to Bender Arena at Amerian University with 3,000-4,000 kids and watched OK Go open for Snow Patrol last night. We all loved it! I also now know what "Chain Bridge" refers to.

Now off to Fitness First and some steam for Marilyn's congestion. Tomorrow she and I have a date for a matinee of "Bach in Leipzig" up in Maryland. Lots of Elite Eight basketball, and then another week. But next weekend starts Spring Break with Adrienne and Baumgartner South visiting! Time for a new page!

---Cris

March 25, 2007 --

Well, we had a good week. After a family meeting to decide, Cris officially told people in DC that he is going to be going back to Los Alamos. He will go on his audition trip after the Baumgartner south clan is here. Hope you will send him good luck in finding a challenging position.

We laugh: the day after the family decided we would return to Santa Fe, Elizebeth admitted she was having a great time back East, and she bought a "I Heart DC" sweatshirt. She didn't want to admit it before we had committed to return.

I spent a good amount of time getting the music all ready for the Swanson Middle school Mother's Day concert, and we had our auditions on Wednesday for the various kid roles in the concert. It has morphed into something a little different than I envisioned but that's okay. E is going to sing My Favorite Things" with me so that will be fun. I am still very congested and ended up canceling my coaching with Vicki [Gau]. I would like to learn the Grandmother Song from Little Red Riding Hood, so I have to jump on that.

We went to a rock and roll concert on Friday night at Bender Arena at American University. [For the record, Silversun Pickup opened for OK Go which opened for Snow Patrol, the headliners.] It was such a blast that we booked another one for June [OK Go opening for The Fray at the Merriwether Post Pavilion]. There were quite a few oldies in the audience and it wasn't too loud. American University is a very clean cut campus -- Cris said he had never seen so many women in dresses at a rock and roll concert. OK Go is the band that has a video with them singing their song while doing a routine on treadmills, so I would have to like them!!!

Yesterday, E and I took our sewing class on the new sewing machine that Pooh-bah gave her for her birthday. It has a self threader!!!!! It also does a lot of things like automatically locking seams, a blind stitch for hemming etc. Then there are many fancy buttons which allow you to make words or flowers that is amazing.

Cris helped me sort pictures last night and it was anguishing. There are still so many!!!!! And so many pieces of paper that we want to keep! Sigh! Oh well, one page at a time.

Today Cris and I are driving up into Maryland to see "Bach at Leipzig". Theaterwork did that play in October and we were sorry to miss it. It is suppose to be to funny. [It was, and was great!] Theaterwork sent out a note saying that they had lost their lease and so come see the last show in the black box. That seems really frightening but we'll see what comes of that.

Hope you all have a great week.

Love Marilyn

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