Aug 28 Check-In: Transcript
In which we check in for the actual reason of checking in.
Magda Pecsenye (00:03):
Okay, what do you want to talk about today? Do you want to talk about the fact that I thought I was moving 600 miles, but I really moved 800 miles?
Doug French (00:11):
<Laugh>. We could lead off with that. Sure. Okay.
Magda (00:13):
This whole time I've been dating Mike, I thought we were 600 miles apart. And then, you know, he flew out on Thursday and I had most of my stuff packed, but I didn't have everything packed. We went and rented the truck on Friday and he drove the truck back to my house and we loaded all this stuff into the truck and then we went down to the German American Festival and drank beer and polka’d with the kids. And then we came back up and on Saturday morning we packed some more stuff and then we set off and we stopped at the gas station and I hit Google Maps and I looked and it said “798 miles to go.” And I was like, oh crap, this really is going to take longer than I thought it was going to take.
Doug (00:56):
Well you knew it was 12 hours, right?
Magda (00:58):
I knew it was 12 hours, but in my head I had that it was 600 miles, and it was 800 miles.
Doug (01:03):
But you're a lead foot though. You don't drive 50 miles an hour on the highway.
Magda (01:07):
I do not drive 50 miles an hour on the highway. But I mean, you can't go fast the whole time, you know. There was some traffic, there were jams, stuff like that. But for me, the real thing <laugh> was that I had gone to the vet, I had taken Stash my cat to the vet and had made sure that he had his vaccines and all that kind of stuff. And also told them I needed some kind of sedation for the ride. And initially my vet, who is impossibly handsome, was going to tranquilize Stash and I was like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I feel weird about this.” And then he was like, “Ooh, he's so chill anyway, let's just sedate him.” So he gave me some Gabapentin <laugh>. Turns out that Gabapentin does nothing to this cat. So it was 12 and a half hours with this adorable little cat just crying the whole time. Like looking at me like, why are you doing this? Why am I here?
Doug (02:06):
What have I done? Am I going to Guantanamo Bay <laugh>?
Magda (02:09):
I bought on Marketplace a dog kennel cage so that he wasn't trapped inside his little carrier. So I put a bed and I put a litter box and I put some water and I put some food in there. So he had a little more space.
Doug (02:20):
A couch and a TV …
Magda (02:22):
Exactly. It was a studio. Bigger than my first studio apartment in New York City. So he had a little more space back there, but he was still pretty miserable. At one point, he did fall asleep for about an hour, but he looked so forlorn as he was falling asleep. The New York Thruway used to be a delight to drive through. There's some weird construction going on that made it not as much fun as it used to be. And many of the rest stops are kinda mostly closed. So I stopped at one to get gas and they had the little gas station store open, but they had porta-potties. No real potties.
Doug (02:59):
They’re rebuilding them all. Did you see they're rebuilding all the rest stops along the thruway and the ones that are done, they’re beautiful.
Magda (03:04):
I hope they're very nice. 'Cause right now, they’re not beautiful. Now they're very horrible. And then there is some crazy weird construction project across two of the three lanes of I-90, like 30 miles before the exit to Mike's house. So that added, you know, I was stopped <laugh> like at a dead stop for a while with a yowling cat. And when I stopped to gas up again, I did not use the lack of facilities again. So I <laugh> it was really something.
Doug (03:37):
Use “a lack of facilities” …?
Magda (03:39):
I got to Mike's house before he did, came inside, Stash was weirded out, all of that stuff. But then yesterday, Mike's 10th grader came back from her mom's house for her week with us and Stash discovered her bed, which is a lofted bed. And so he just chilled out in her bed high up in the corner for like the whole day. And so now everything's fine.
Doug (04:04):
Well I saw the size of the truck, you posted that on Facebook, you parked it on your lawn, did you fill that truck up?
Magda (04:10):
Yeah. With boxes of stuff. I didn't bring a lot of furniture. I brought the desk that had always been in my bedroom when I was a kid. It's this huge enormous ancient desk that is just completely beat up that I love. And I brought a couple chairs and some other stuff, but that was it. The rest was boxes. I found some stuff. Stuff I thought was lost.
Doug (04:31):
Oh yeah. Well we'll talk about that. Finding stuff that we thought was lost. So what did you find?
Magda (04:36):
My Helen Blanket, which was my baby blanket that my Aunt Helen made for me. So it was called my Helen Blanket. I found my childhood teddy bear. And in the process we seem to have lost the remote control to my fire stick, which is going to be a problem for my staying caught up on Days. I caught up the beginning of last week all the way up on Days of Our Lives, which as we all know has been a project.
Doug (05:04):
Holy cow. How many episodes were you behind? Like a couple weeks ago?
Magda (05:09):
I was behind like 50 episodes a couple weeks ago.
Doug (05:13):
So you've watched 50 hours of streaming television to catch up where you are.
Magda (05:17):
I mean, I wasn't sitting there glued to them. I was sorting things and putting papers and putting stuff in boxes while I was watching them. I don't know if all soap operas run this way, but Days Of Our Lives does: They have probably, I think they have like nine different storylines, intersecting storylines going at the same time. So one episode will have three storylines. The next episode will have three different storylines. The next episode will have three different storylines.
Doug (05:42):
Yeah, every episode moves the plot ahead like one inch.
Magda (05:46):
Well, I mean it used to be that they would have like two or three storylines going on and the plot would be expanded. So like one 10 minute conversation would take three weeks. Now it goes in real time, except you don't see every storyline every day. So there are some storylines that I just don't care about. Like I'm never, I find Kristen DiMera to be the most boring character ever in the history of the earth. So I literally just fast forward through every scene with Kristen DiMera in it. So yeah.
Doug (06:16):
Well I'll tell you, this is our first check-in where it's actually a check-in where there's actually stuff to impart. There's actually news to share. Because we don't live in the same vicinity anymore and we're actually interested in what happened in each other's lives over the past week. <laugh>
Magda (06:33):
I know.
Doug (06:34):
And unfortunately I wish I could count Days Of Our Lives among those things. But we've got so much more interesting stuff to talk about. And I'll let you know when Robert is cleared to drive his truck to Colorado, which should happen today. We went through and cleaned out Robert's room and found all kinds of stuff that he thought was missing. 'cause you know how it works out. Once you find things that you're sorting through, you're like, oh wait, I'm going to sit down and read this for a while. So all these old books, you know, the history of England that he read when he was nine, there's six boxes of books waiting to leave. And the kids have been playing old Wii games that they used to play 10 years ago.
But this is good. This actually lets us check in with each other 'cause there's actual stuff happening now. Stash has a sister and you know, that's good too. 'cause I was thinking about him, you know, thank you for posting that picture of him on Hannah's bed because you knew he'd find his way there eventually. But God, that cage picture was the worst.
Magda (07:35):
You know, the picture of him in the cage in the car. He was so miserable. He was just so miserable. And then 12 hours of him in that. When we got in it was after dark and I couldn't let him out at all. And he was just roaming around. Mike's house is like probably twice the size of my house. And so he was just sort of roaming around looking at everything. And then the next day we let him come outside when we were unloading the truck. And so he was just sort of poking around and looking around the yard. And then after finding his spot, he seemed a lot happier.
Doug (08:04):
And you're acclimated now, right? You are already spending your mornings walking and yammering with the neighbors.
Magda (08:10):
<Laugh>. Oh boy. Yeah. The whole walking in the morning again, I don't know, in some other episode of this, I'll tell you about the literal wake up call that happens every day.
Doug (08:21):
God. Now that is an interesting point though. And I'm already, you know, I'm, we have, you know, we have Brittlestar coming up this week and he made some important points about succeeding in media. You know, you've got to make it as much about what you say as who you are. You have to have people want to hear from you in particular. So that's a big ask, I think.
Robert has, it's funny, he is acclimated already to the point where he is like, wait, now I have to wake up. I've woken up with a roof over my head for like six days,
Magda (08:57):
<Laugh>,
Doug (08:59):
And I have a functioning stove. <Laugh>.
Magda (09:03):
Yeah.
Doug (09:03):
And a fridge I can store my food in. Weird. He's been making his “pile everything in a fry pan” mixed grill every night.
Magda (09:14):
<Laugh>
Doug (09:16):
Which is really good. I mean he makes it with you know, ginger and sesame oil and garlic and everything. And then he has a functioning dishwasher to wash things in and he's like, “I'm getting soft already, dude. I gotta get back out there.”
Magda (09:33):
Right.
Doug (09:34):
So listeners, hopefully by the time you listen to this, our son will have all the documentation he needs to put a license plate in his new truck and take off to Colorado first thing tomorrow morning.
Magda (09:47):
Yeah, yeah,
Doug (09:49):
Think of us and our struggles against the retrograde of Mercury.
Magda (09:54):
<Laugh>.
Doug (09:58):
I've been mentioning that to everyone just to see if they've heard of it and they're like, “I ain't heard of that.”
Magda (10:02):
<Laugh> What? Mercury retrograde?
Doug (10:05):
I've mentioned Mercury retrograde to everybody who works at that bank, which is like seven people. I mentioned it to the FedEx guy just to see if they'd heard about it. It was just informal market research. “Have you heard of this?” And at the FedEx office there's actually a huge debate because the manager of the store looked at me like, huh, and then the woman he works with is like, “yes, of course.” Apparently it's an ongoing debate between the two of them because she is a total hippie in the best way. Just a really sweet person who talks about how Mercury in retrograde is a real thing. And the manager who's been there 10 years is like, I don't know where you get this. And so I'm, you know, I'm not presenting it in belief either. I'm just saying, look, this is what people are saying and your mileage may vary, but wow. If it is a real thing, considering all the stuff that got disrupted with us this week, you know, you make a fine case.
Magda (11:00):
Yeah, I agree.
Doug (11:02):
And we have two more weeks of this, you know, that's going to be in retrograde until the 15th.
Magda (11:06):
I know. Well, and also, so I mean if you want to go there …
Doug (11:12):
We're here, man, <laugh>.
Magda (11:13):
Right. People who study this say that the shadow phase, like the two days before and after when it changes, when it reverts back can be the weirdest.
Doug (11:28):
Well that's true. 'cause It started last Wednesday and that's when it all hit the fan.
Magda (11:33):
Yep.
Doug (11:33):
But you made it to Massachusetts under retrograde. So that's something.
Magda (11:37):
I did make it to Massachusetts under retrograde, but there wasn't really anything about communication for that, you know what I mean?
Doug (11:42):
But transportation …
Magda (11:44):
Mercury retrograde doesn't screw up everything. It just screws up mixed messaging and information and stuff like that. So there was weirdness renting the truck, right. Like with the paperwork, that kind of stuff.
Doug (12:00):
How weird can paperwork be? What was weird about it?
Magda (12:04):
Oh, they just didn't have enough people working and they just didn't have enough communication. They didn't know where the truck was in the parking lot, that kind of thing.
Doug (12:13):
<Laugh>, I would say among the 10 people or so I've talked to about this, maybe two of them put any credence in it.
Magda (12:19):
Okay.
Doug (12:20):
And maybe four have heard of it.
Magda (12:23):
Okay.
Doug (12:24):
Given all the disruptions, given all the mess that's happening, as we all recover from the pandemic and people go back to work and figure out what the new normal is, a lot of hitting the fan and okay, people are going to blame that on retrograde.
Magda (12:38):
I find it interesting that this system of making sense of happenings and feelings and stuff like that has been around for thousands of years and that so many people find meaning in it. Also, I noticed when we had that last eclipse that I physically felt strange for a couple days before and a couple days afterwards in a way that just felt really, really, really weird. And that's what made me start thinking, I wonder if there is something to it. I'm not going to base my entire life around it. Like I didn't change my moving day to avoid Mercury retrograde, but on the other hand, I also think there's something nice about saying “sometimes things are difficult and there's a reason for it, that it has nothing to do with me.”
Doug (13:30):
Or maybe there's no reason. Maybe things just are chaotic.
Magda (13:33):
Right. Well, but I mean, I think saying it's chaos. Hey, Mercury retrograde, it's kind of comforting, right? It's like, hey, things will work out later. I'm not stuck in this miserable situation where nothing works.
Doug (13:44):
When Patton Oswalt released his comedy special that was in large part a tribute to his late wife, he said, she always used to say, “It's chaos. Be kind.”
Magda (13:56):
Right?
Doug (13:57):
So I know we're all looking for order in the chaos, but sometimes it's just chaos.
Magda (14:00):
Yeah. It's true. Okay, let's sign off
Doug (14:04):
<Laugh>. Well thank you for listening to our first ever trans-regional check-in
Magda (14:11):
Trans-regional check-in <laugh>.
Doug (14:14):
Enjoy this week with Brittlestar, and I'm glad you made it. I'm glad the cat made it. I'm glad you're up yammering among the leaf blowers first thing in the morning and that's what your novel's going to be called. Love Among The Leaf Blowers.
Magda (14:28):
Oh boy. Yeah.