Birthday Celebration Beginnings

Heyyy!

So it is two days before my birthday, and my parents and I got home from Disneyland about an hour ago. I just want to type it all down before it leaves my memory - these are the bare bones, I'll fill it in later.

1. Everything was in order for Club 33 and dinner there. (Yay!)

2. We got our locker. $7 is a lot, but it's really convenient to just open whenever you need it.

3. It was really really hot. Like, Arizona type of heat, in the way that it was dry. It wasn't all that humid. So at least we had that going for us.

4. I looked good today. Daytime: gray A&F shirt, brown knee length shorts. Hair in ponytail - scrunchie has a big bow on the back. Cute. Nighttime: Black halter dress. Hair up in clip.

5. We got tickets first thing for the 10:15 World of Color show. My parents stood in line for Soaring over California.

6. Went on ride. Got a little dizzy. Got over it. Went to the Hollywood section and did:

a. Monsters Inc. ride. Adorable.

b. the Animation building.

7. In Animation building:

a. Did the "who are you" quiz in the Beast's Library. I was Belle, Mom was Cinderella, and Gary decided to be funny and was the Wicked Witch from Snow White.

b. Did the karaoke bit in Ursula's Grotto. Sang Hakuna Matata. Mom and I sang for Timon and Simba, Gary did Pumbaa.

c. BEST PART. Saw the "Turtle Talk" show, where someone can see the audience while talking like Crush from Finding Nemo. Mom and I had front row seats in the teeny auditorium and Crush and I talked

i. about swimming

ii. about that it was my birthday. He then sang me the "Turtle birthday song". To the tune of our traditional bday song: "do do do do do do/ do do do do do do/ I'm so glad that you hatched/ do do do do do do."

8. Saw Gary's friends at the Grand Californian for a few minutes.

9. Walked over to Disneyland.

10. Saw the Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln bit. Tuned out again once the robot Lincoln got onstage and started talking. Got too distracted with the details - his fingers move, his hair doesn't, they stayed on target when recreating his clothes etc etc etc.....

11. Did Jungle Cruise. Not one of the better skippers I've ever had, to be quite honest.

12. Did Pirates. It was Pirates... No real big deal there.

13. Mom and Gary got to experience my scream firsthand at Haunted Mansion. I got to point out:

a. Walt Disney's head in the graveyard

b. the spiderweb on the glass overlooking the ballroom.

c. how the raven used to be the point of talking.

14. Went to Fantasyland.

a. Went on teacups with mom. Did not go on the Bono teacup. Instead, went on pretty blue one with flower on the side.

b. Cast member noticed me and a random girl walking by - and we both had birthday pins on. He then directed us to the front of the line at the Alice in Wonderland ride.

i. This is, embarrassingly enough, the ride I went on almost immediately after I got my ears pierced when I was five.. I didn't quite understand the mechanics of earrings and therefore held my earrings in place for the whole ride.

15. Went to Tomorrowland.

16. Went on Buzz Lightyear ride. I kicked ass. Gary had 2 laser guns going - combined score of 40,000 or so. Mom had one gun, and had about 25,000. I had one gun, and got 184,800. Yeah.

17. Went on It's a Small World. It's the same as it's been. That one doll at the end that is not holding its balloons by its hand, but instead on the top of its head? Yeah, that thing still scares the crap out of me.

18. Decided to take the train back to Main Street.

a. Standing in line, I'm looking at the Princess thing when I think I see a familiar face. "Mom, is that...." "Yes it is... do you want to go?" "No, this has gone on long enough."

b. Turns out to be my best friend from K-12, Jo. She and I hadn't spoken til today since she left for college in Oregon 2 years ago. Broke my heart. Especially since through breaks and everything, we live 5 streets away from each other.

c. My mom and her talk.

d. She and I talk.

i. I shed two tears, maybe.

ii. I got answers that I've been needing for at least a year and a half.

A. You know, when she dropped me like a hot potato...?

19. Parade is setting up, so I look at the shops on Main Street to see if I can find any birthday goodies before we change.

a. After all, shorts are not acceptable at Club 33.

20. Change in the bathroom across from the lockers. I can only imagine what the people in the stalls next to me must have been thinking.

21. Watch the parade. It's the Celebration one, so Mom and I cheered when they said to for:

a. birthday

b. volunteer

c. being at Disneyland!

22. We also danced.

23. From then, we found Gary again and wasted time while waiting to get into Club 33.

24. I got to ring the bell and tell the hostess our reservation name.

a. It's true, they really do have to buzz you in. It's exhilarating when it works and you open that door for the first time.

25. Club 33. Where to start?

a. Entranceway.

i. First thing you see is a staircase. Next to staircase is an old looking elevator. (Apparently European style). To the right of elevator and a bit behind is the check room. When we came in, a party was leaving. They had checked backpacks.

A. Club 33 has a fairly formal dress code. The two kids in that party had to borrow polo shirts to put over their "I SURVIVED THE TOWER OF TERROR" tee shirts.

ii. In front of the check room is the desk. The hostess has a 1920s phone (the one where the mouthpiece and earpiece are separate? That.) that she rang up and told the hostess up THERE that we were here.

iii. Apparently, we passed dress and bag inspection because we headed up the elevator with no problems.

b. The elevator.

i. That thing's TINY!

c. The restaurant.

i. As soon as we got up there, 3 different people helped us: One opened the elevator, the second directed a host, and the host led us to our table where he told us who would be helping us.

ii. Club 33 is really very exclusive. We got in the parks easily. To make up for this, you have to spend a park ticket's worth of money on food/drink in the restaurant.

A. Wow.

iii. As soon as we ordered, Mom and I had a look around. We took our phones and took many various pictures.

iv. We also stumbled upon the case full of Club 33 stuff. Overpriced but really really cool.

d. The food

Me: Started with "contemporary" French Onion soup. Basically onion soup with baked cheese on top. Very yummy. I won "best appetizer" at our table. ;) Followed with steak with a carrot and (I think) a piece of broccolini on the side. Also had some kind of dried cherry bread/cake thing that was extremely delicious. They provided my dessert: chocolate mousse in a scoop with a white chocolate Mickey face in front (with raspberry syrup "eyelashes"), two dark chocolate circles stuck halfway through, and half raspberry in between to signify Minnie's bow. Adorable and again extremely yummy.

Mom: Started with shrimp cocktail. Got the same steak, but didn't really enjoy it. Traded steaks with Gary. They shared his dessert at the end.

Gary: Got the fixed menu. It looked pretty good. There was a cheese on the cheese plate - I believe it was St. Andre Triple Creamy (or something very similar to that name) that was like a really good Brie. I'll have to look into it.

26. The shows

a. We could hear Fantasmic (and see a LITTLE bit) from the balcony of the restaurant. There was a tree in the way. (Apparently people have asked them to chop it down. For convenience's sake.)

b. We finished our food and got out of the park just as the fireworks finished. They were beautiful. Dumbo and Tinkerbell flew. Not at the same time.

i. There was a wonderful version of Chim Chim Cher-ee that I'd like to find. Words were a little changed, and it was sung by a girl.

c. Got our stuff from the locker and headed over to California Adventure

i. Glow Fest was in full swing. You could feel the beat in your chest as you walked past.

ii. Speed walked to our "loading zone" for the Red section of World of Color.

A. If you can, get the yellow section. You can see SOOOO much better.

iii. By this time, parental units were fading quickly.

iv. Show started. It was still good, but was better in the yellow section.

v. Show finished. I still cringed at the Mufasa section and "Awww"ed when all the kisses were shown, and clapped energetically when Under the Sea and Friend Like Me played. Love love love this show!

27. Headed home.

a. Drive took approximately 45 minutes. No traffic. Listened to XM 123 - kind of like TMZ or something similar.

Now....

Time for bed!

xoxo,

Samantha

Hello, blog world.

I know it's been a while since I updated. The problem was that I had no clue how to follow up my "seeing-the-world" post of last time. Enough has happened that I could have updated but .... it wouldn't have been a really good followup.

Well, here I am. And don'tcha love me, I'm going to fill you in on the past few weeks.

Pretty much a few days afer I had said revelation, I got another call for a job. I don't get too excited these days - though I have to say, when I see "Booked Talent" on my caller ID, I do get really giddy - but when they called for Glee.......

I'm not even a big Glee fan.
Hell, I've never seen an episode of the show.

But it's like... national TV! I'm not enough of an idiot to think that someone would see the "me" sized and colored blur in the background and think, "My God, I must find that girl and put her in this big project!" But still... it's Glee. There was singing and dancing. Granted, of the two days I worked it, the first day at the studio was far better, but I at least got money for the hell day.

I'm not really allowed to give specifics about this episode (2.02, btw. Airing September.) but I worked 13 hours the first day, where it was mainly hallway crosses and whatnot. The second day was on location at a (somewhat) local high school where they did the numbers. This was the hell day. First, for one of them, I was put in a stairwell with some others. I go up stairs while they do their bit. Anywho, while we weren't filming, I somehow managed to twist my ankle. I was excused from part of the work and met the medic. (Robert. Very nice guy.) Filled out a bunch of paperwork and got some ice and whatnot. Part Two of Hell Day: I cannot climb stairs because of twisted ankle. I tell PA Roger about this. He lets me do crosses in front of said stairwell instead.

Now, this is somewhat hard to explain in words (and without being in person) but I'll do my best. They were focusing on the stairwell at this point. There was a HUGE screen to the left of where I was walking, and one above. Two cameras were in action - one set, facing where I would walk, and one moving, where people could walk out the doors. (I swear to God this will all make so much more sense when the episode airs and I can pause and explain "here's where.....") Now. We're in rehearsal. PA Jim gestures me and two others to cross. We do not know that the moving camera (held by a person, by the way) was basically running backwards into us. The guy gets out fine. The girl and I get trapped between a pole and the huge screen to our left. She slips through. The guy holding a screen for the camera STEPS ON THAT SAME ANKLE.

OWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW....

Then he cusses me out.

*sniff, sniff*

So yes. Not my best day of work, to be sure. But hell, I got paid for that stuff!

Okay. Following Glee.......

Three days later is Ernest's show of Twelfth Night up in Lindsay. I gather Lauren up and take Gary's car and we go see the show on its closing night. Lauren sees the town, I enjoy conversation about Shakespeare (as well as the production, of course) and met a second one of Ernest's friends from Lindsay. (By the by, the first I had met because he also goes to school. So ... kind of the first real hometown only friend.) Next day, I take Lauren and Ernest back with me to home. I tell ya, even though it's only 3 hours up there, I do not enjoy being behind the wheel for that long - cuz the night in between doesn't really COUNT too much as a break from driving. It's more... I know I'm doing another 3 hours down soon, let me just nap.

So we had Ernest here for about a week and a half. And this may sound terrible, but it's meant with the best - he's amazing, but I am really enjoying my "me" time right now. Playing host for that long is draining. Not to mention, I don't have to worry about anyone peeking at my screen or trying to steal my iPhone from under my nose.... ;)

Today Mom and I saw Eat Pray Love. Oh my God I loved it soooooo much! It was better that I had read the book first, to be honest. Because it's a year of transformation and experiences... there is no feasible way that any of that can fit into two and a half hours. Which, by the way, goes by insanely fast. It seeems to me that I had Julie and Julia last year (remember? I started this blog cuz of it?) and Eat Pray Love is the meaningful movie for this summer. Letters to Juliet was the one of the spring, but that was almost "meaningful lite" to me, compared to the others. All of them show beautiful locations and amazing things. I still want to try the boeuf bourguignon from Julia Child's cookbook. I have this blog up and (mostly) going. I'd love to write to Juliet's Secretaries. And because of this movie... No, I don't want to visit Bali or India, especially for four months like Elizabeth Gilbert did. I'd love to see France and Italy. Maybe not England again but definitely some of the others in the area - Ireland and Scotland and everything beautiful.

Unfortunately, European travel plans aren't in my current budget situation, so I'll have to settle myself for gazing at pictures on the Internet, possibly bugging people that ARE going, and (this is the big one!) learning a new language.

I don't know what, yet. I thought of Italian because of how it all sounds and how it's not just a spoken language, but a language in gestures and tones as well. I have a slight background in French, but I know I'd constantly be hearing my ninth- and tenth- grade Madame in the back of my mind "Samantha, passe compose for ...... " <-- insert horrid verb there. Spanish is too common around here. Sure, it'd be useful, but I've lost hearing the beauty in it.

I was thinking maybe Portugese. Something. Tomorrow (or, later today, as the case may be) I'll be heading to Barnes and Noble to look at language books and tapes. We'll see what I can find. You'll be one of the first to know. ;)

Xoxo,
Samantha

I have a week left til move-in. In that week is going to Disneyland/California Adventure with my parents (and getting to dine in CLUB 33!!!!!) and also my birthday. It's going to be a good week! :)