Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Birthday Week in Review

Thanks to all of my wonderful friends and family I have had a helluva birthday week. So good, in fact, Weight Watchers sent me a postcard that says "we miss you" (oh yes they did!). Points schmoints... it's birthday week!!

On Monday, I took half the day off from work to hang out with Kate and Angela Apple over at Disneyland, because it's Disneyland and I need no excuse which was way too much fun. The kids are all back at school, so the parks are empty except for the stay-at-home moms who bring their kids there instead of to a playground or the library. (see that awful lady behind Kate in the picture? She was awful. Diddling on her iPhone while her toddler ran through the line inconveniencing everyone else, but I digress...) Non-existant crowds make for short lines, so we were finally able to get on the Toy Story Midway Mania ride, which is really super cute. I highly recommend it, but refuse to wait in a line longer than 20 minutes and you should too. It's a combo of ride and video game, which blurs the line of entertainment and straight-up pandering but it's FUN, so there.



We had an awesome time and great food and lots of fun, so it was all-around a fantastico kind of day in my book. Also, I found out that Angela is married to a Newsie! Remember that movie? "Gotta beat the press, gotta beat the press!!" Which I thought was sweet and cute until she said that girls were so crazy about him after the movie came out that they would find out where he lived just to catch a glimpse. So I guess it's not ALL glamour, but still, super cute!

On Wednesday night (my actual birthday - have you ever known anyone else born on Sept. 10th? Didn't think so!) we went to dinner with my family and I burned my WW postcard in effigy before powering through too much food and regretting it soundly. Eff the points, my stomach couldn't take it and I almost exploded.

Friday night I took the 'night off' which means that I did absolutely nothing. Nada. Zip. I'm supposed to be working on stuff for the upcoming craft fair but instead I watched a movie and then read a book and went to sleep early (for me, not by anyone else's standards). So that was actually kind of cool.

Saturday, I accompanied Kate as her hoity-toity Ovation voter guest (I wasn't hoity or toity - just the guest) to see Souvenir which is a touching play based on the true story of Florence Foster-Jenkins who was essentially a socialite who fancied herself an opera singer, only was completely (and unknown to herself) tone deaf and she became famous for her concerts which were so horrible that they were the hottest ticket in town. She recorded a few records at the insistence of others that she made as a souvenir to herself (listen here). The play itself is very sweet (and I didn't do any reading beforehand so I had no idea what it was about) and it's a simple-set 2 man show - just Madame Florence and her piano player, Cosme. The man playing Cosme did a great job as did Madame F., although it felt like Mdm. F. was overplayed. But I'll leave the criticism to the critics - calling Madame Kate! I had a lot of fun and after the show, we disbanded so that Kate could go to film a commercial in an abandoned, haunted hospital at midnight. No joke.

On Sunday, Ryan and I met up with Miss Bliss and Kate in Chinatown for some fun. We did a little shopping (Ryan got himself some sweet ass Roy Bans sunglasses) and then had a little lunch. We ate at one of the best spots that Chinatown has to offer - hands down. Kate had just come from filming a commercial for R.R.R.E.D. and was in her official President of the Burbank Chapter of R.R.R.E.D. outfit which is how Allison Janey spotted us so easily. She thought she'd just sneak in and sit right next to us and eavesdrop on our conversation. After her play refuses to acknowledge redheads at all even though there was one in the movie. Puh-lease. So we changed the conversation to grosser and more bizzare topics, so that all she'll have left to report to Ms. Parton is that redheads and their allies have an uncrackable code. Or maybe she'll decide that she's going to do mushrooms and dye her hair. Who knows?!

After all that food and shopping, we needed a little (more) laughter to banish the Sunday blues. So we headed over to the GTC theater to see R.R.R.E.D. which was so much fun - as always. Kate and Bliss hadn't seen the 'new' musical number and Ryan and I have been tripping over our tongues all week trying not to talk about it - easier said than done!! They both almost keeled over from the funny, which is to say that the new musical number landed and hard! I took some video and lots of pictures of the show. The videos will be on YouTube shortly. 'Til then you can glance through the stills and be confused as ever. There are only 2 weekends remaining for the show - so tell everyone you know to ACT NOW!! $20 tickets available online or $15 through Goldstar.com! I promise you won't regret it.

After the show, Katie and Patrick (the stars of the show) were supposed to be heading straight home to bed, because Katie was catching a plane to NY where someone was paying to fly her out for the day to sing for them (that is how amazing she is) early the next morning and Patrick had to work early. But instead we talked them into a side trip to BJ's Brewery with us and Adam (also in the show but no early morning obligations) where we had pizza and harrassed our waiter (but sang for our supper) and gorged on Pizzookie, which is a giant (20 inch!) cookie baked in a pizza pan then topped with a mound of ice cream. It's enough to kill a horse or entertain 7 people for an hour. Either way - a good call!! We had way too much fun. It was like one of those high school giggle sessions where you drink way too much Mountain Dew and can't stop talking and gossiping and it's just too much fun. MY KIND OF NIGHT.

I sincerely hope that everyone will tell you their stories, because they're SO much better at telling them, but suffice it to say my face aches with laughter. Even days after. Patrick told us about the time he got lost driving in LA and what should have taken 30 minutes took 12 hours and he ended up on the border to Mexico until a knight in a shining white Cadillac helped him out. We joked about who should be dating whom (how old is too old?) and got the giggles over Adam's magazine photo spread featuring... his neck. After he sacrificed blood, sweat, tears, and blood to get that noose picture just right, all that they ended up using was his NECK. Very cute, and flattering -- a good looking neck for sure. [You may or may not remember Adam's injuries during Comic Con resulting from this photoshoot. Don't ever think that being a noose-laden stand-in for Seth Rogen is easy. But look at the gorgeous photos!!]

A lot of dear people gave me some very lovely gifts. I think they have to be a separate post because 1) I need GOOD pictures of each one so that you can fall in love with them and 2) this new version of Internet Explorer is making me fidget and it's taken 2 hours to compose this so far and I need to go to bed. BUT THANK YOU LOVELY PEOPLE OF THE WORLD for giving me such a wonderful reason to be grateful to be here: you.

2 comments:

Sizzle said...

HAPPY (belated) BIRTHDAY! Sounds like you did it up in style. :-)

Anonymous said...

It was A GREATEST BIRTHDAY WEEK EVAH!!! Thanks for being born!

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