Tuesday, January 20, 2015

if you can make it there!!!


The goal is to do some work today, but honestly… for real doe… it’s not looking to good.  First off I am tired as HECK!!  And then second I don’t think I have all of my access that I need to fully do my job.  But I can take a slow day.  I really can! 

I have had an amazing birthday month!! It was supposed to start off with a kick ass NYE party that got cancelled.  Then I had the 1st week off of January.  This was both good and bad.  GOOD because who doesn’t like to be off a little extra time?  BAD because a chick didn’t get paid.  All in all though it was a good week.  I had an amazing massage at a place I always forget is there.  Farashe Day spa is a place I went to years and years ago, probably when I was still living in my apartment.  It is in the same business center as the now defunct and closed Silver Shadow club and I honestly don’t remember how I found it initially.  But when I called and they still had my info on file that was really nice.  I was intending to go to Massage Envy but that place stays booked up.  I paid a little more but it was so worth it.  At one point during my massage/reflexology I totally went to sleep and woke up and was wondering why some random woman was in my bedroom!!  LOL It took me a second to realize that I was still getting my massage.  And she didn’t talk a lot.  She just manipulated my body to the point of great relaxation.

This was also the week of the great Bob Evans debacle LOL : /

The next week I went to Philly to see The Read Live event!  And it was really nice to see people that I normally just listen to via podcast.  I bought the ticket for the meet and greet and I meeted and greeted!!  This was also VERY COOL!!  I have a thought that people who have even a small amount of celebrity are basically going to be assholes.  But Kid Fury and Crissle so weren’t.  They also had their friend Assante who helped to wrangle the group in line.  He kept saying let’s be Christian about this.  Also a very cool dude. They did the show pretty much in the same order they usually do the podcast.  It worked out for me because the tickets went on sale right near Christmas and I know folks didn’t have money because I always seem to find out about the show when they are already sold out.  I don’t do too well with keeping up with things on Instagram or Twitter, so this really just worked out for me. 

Then I went to the Lisa Fischer concert at The Howard Theatre.  I pretty much had goose bumps the entire concert.  I don’t even know if I can put into words what I experienced.  First off if you don’t know her and her body of work with all of the people she has worked with, then you have already done yourself a disservice.  She won a Grammy back in the 90’s for her one and only cd that she put out.  Also, she was featured in the Oscar winning documentary ’20 feet from Stardom’ with several other background singers who just never really made it.  It is such a random occurrence, not random in that people don’t work hard on their craft, but what makes one person more successful than another?  Lisa understands her voice in a way I don’t think the average singer does.  It was just an amazing (ok looking for a new word…) BRILLIANT!!  As the Brits say LOL It was a brilliant show!!

The next day I hopped on the Megabus with my girl E to go to NYC.  Now the entire trip was built around going to see Wendy William Show and… well what had happened is I never got confirmation, the show was fully booked and we didn’t get on because there was no standby.  I am still feeling some kinda way about it because I signed up in plenty of time and I don’t know what algorithm the audience people use to pick who gets on the show.  The little audience dude was like well yeah there were people from Florida that didn’t get on the show either.  And as much as I want to be mad directly at Wendy, I can’t because she has no idea what is going on with the various departments that are in place to make sure the show runs smoothly.  The other dude with the beard was like it was really a bad day to be on standby because it was a holiday and EVERYBODY showed up.  It sucked but I will try again on a random day in the warm weather! SO after that didn’t work out we decided to go check out the View.  The info online said that you had to be there by 9:30 to be on standby.  We hopped in a cab and the cabbie from hell got us to ABC studios in about 5 minutes!! We get out of the cab see NO LINE and were like hmmmm… maybe The View is already done for the day?  So we knock on the door and the lady security guard with the gold braids was like no The View is not taping today but go on up the street to Kelly an Michael.  So that’s what we did.  People were already in line inside and there were maybe 5 people standing outside.  These were the standby folks.  They all had a piece of paper with a number so I go to ask the security guard to get a paper with a number.  So when I open the door it lets in all of the cold that is New York in January, he basically waves me off like CLOSE THE DOOR AND GET OUT!!! We will get to you when we get to you!! They call all the people with numbered paper and we are standing there like UUUhhhhh… ok so what about us?!?  The other guard was like don’t worry there is plenty of space we will get you in.  They do!  And we are standing in line waiting to go in.  I’m saying something to the lady security guard and because she does this every day, it is old hat to her and she is unfazed by my sense of urgency.  It is 8:50 and the show is live at 9:00.  The audience lady comes and gets us and sits us in the last row on the floor level!  WE ARE CLOSE!!!  And then literally 2 minutes to spare she comes and gets us to sit on the front row! : O OH ok so I need to throw on my cute shoes then because the fabulousness that is my outfit is not complete without my sparkly (open toe shoes in winter) shoes.  As I am putting on my shoes, Gelman is giving instructions and then also they are getting ready to select the go go dancer for the show that they have for segment where they call a random person and ask them a question from the previous show.  The show starts and they do the opening segment.  What we see are camera people and security but not really Kelly and Michael. When that segment was done Michael is walking around and everyone has hope of him coming to speak to them.  But security is kinda everywhere and I get it.  There is no vetting of the audience so someone could be the crazy person and just jump out and do something... well crazy.  Then the lady comes around and says Jennifer Lopez is coming from this directions so when she comes out you guys need to get up and high five her! REALLY??!?!  OK I can handle that!! So we all stand up and then Gelman (who was in a stinky mood OR maybe that is just who he is?!?) says SIT DOWN!!!  SO we all sit down! The segment starts J.Lo comes out we all stand and her hand is both small and clammy. You’ll have to YouTube (I’ll put the link here) (22:03 ish) it but you can totally see my orange pants and E’s braids and that’s it!!  OH WAIT you can see my brown hand AND  if you keep looking REAL hard you'll see E!!  LOL There was a white dude who was totally doing some camera blocking.  He was looking directly into the camera.  During the camera breaks Michael finally made it down to our area.  He is a nice guy and a big personality so it’s understandable why he has 50eleven jobs on the teevee.  Plus, he is sexy, a little skinnier than he looks on TV, but the gap is there and he totally could get it!!  I photobombed Christine (random chick in the 2nd row) but she wouldn’t tell me her last name so I have to stalk ALL of the Christines on Facebook until I find ‘my’ pic!! It was a fun day! Things didn’t work out like I planned but thankfully a willingness to be flexible was important.  We went back to the room after a long debate about taking the train vs a cab and then getting a one way ticket vs a metro card with multiple trips. Single trip won out.  I got a little nap in and then we went to lunch.  I love going to non-chain restaurants.  It sometimes can be hit or miss, but in this case it was a total HIT!  We went to Smithfield Hall.  The prior day we ended up at Johnny’s Luncheonette because I like diner/breakfast food and the luncheonette part had me intrigued.  It was a little (no rather tiny) spot with maybe 10 counter chairs and 2 little 2 top tables squooze in the back.  But it was good!  I didn’t even notice the Smithfield restaurant but E did.  The sign outside say Happy Hour ALL DAY!!  My kinda place!!  Everything on the menu sounded better than the thing before it.  We both got the chicken pesto panini, and order of Jameson wings and I had some wine because, vacation! Then I got the dark chocolate tart which had this graham cracker crusty loveliness.  It wasn’t bitter like most dark chocolate tends to be but it was sooo good.   SO then after we smashed ALL of the food and dessert we needed to hop yet another cab to get back to the Megabus.  This was really a quick trip but I had an absolute blast!!  My travel chick was great and that’s important because even if you are friends with someone, that doesn’t always translate into the both of yous traveling well together. 

So I didn’t even talk about the play.  We went to see If/Then with Idina Menzel (OR if you are John Travolta Adele Nazeem).  The premise of the play was what would happen if you made this decision over another and it followed Liz/Beth as she faced her life making each of the decisions.  So like Liz missed the call and met the man whereas Beth answered the call and got the job. I got a little confused but it was a really good play. I have more thoughts but that’s for another blog another day!

Coming up is the ski trip superbowl weekend and I already know I will have a fantastic time!!

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