Wow. I cannot believe the weekend we had. I'll start from the beginning:
I would like to point out that this weekend was the best weekend in a while in San Francisco.
We left Friday at 1:15p. I thought we were going to the airport, but we went on 101 north to SFO. So I'm thinking that we are leaving from there, but Brendan goes and parks in the garage. Oooookay. Now I'm thinking we're going to pick someone up. Nope. We go to an elevator in the International Terminal, and up we go. On to another elevator, and up again. We walk into an office and B asks for Dan Blythe. He comes out and I have an idea at this point, but I'm not sure. So up we go, then get out and walk up a few flights of stairs. Yep, we appear at the top of the stairs in the control tower. Of SFO. I am freaking out at this point. I mean, it's the control tower! So they take us around, and we listen to the talk between the planes and the controllers and look at radar and see the national radar and fun stuff. Watch planes take off and land and ask tons of questions. It was soooooo cool. I thought that was the coolest present...but wait, there's more. We're up there for about an hour, then we have to go cause Dan has a ton of work to do, and we head up into the City. We go to the Archbishop's Mansion, a B&B on Alamo Square (where the Victorian houses that are in almost every postcard of San Fran are located) that was beautiful. They had some great antiques: a mirror of Mary Todd Lincoln's, Noel Coward's piano, and a chandelier from "Gone With the Wind". Our room used to be the Archbishop's library (how apropos). There was a Jacuzzi tub, and nice lighting and the sun was streaming in through the lace curtains. Brendan had to go downstairs and work out some stuff, so I laid down and relaxed for a bit. At around 5:30, we went to wait for our cab, after getting very gussied up. There was wine and cheese downstairs that we partook of, right under the chandelier, until the cab showed up. We pull up at the Fleur De Lys, one of the fanciest restaurants in town. It was wonderful...we had delightful wine and the food was incredible. It was a four hour meal (which we both love to eat...nice and slow, enjoying every bite). Our waiter was really nice...he told us about some old wines and ports that they have served (there was a $9800 bottle of wine on the wine list), and there have always been some left over for the wait staff. The dining room was all gold and red, with fabric draping on the ceiling. There was a flower arrangement that was taller than me!
The unbelievable experience that was dinner included:
After a long meal, we went back to the Mansion, and hopped in the tub. Heaven. Only problem was we were getting so relaxed we were about to fall asleep in the Jacuzzi. That wouldn't be good. So off to bed. We wake up in the morning to have breakfast in the room in cozy robes, and the Starr Report all over the papers and TV. A filling continental breakfast (not an oxymoron for the first time!) of buttery croissants, granola, orange juice and tea, and we were ready to take on the world. Or, at least the Exploratorium. Wandering around hands on museums is our thing. We spent five hours there, and didn't get through everything. We hit learning burnout after about 3 hours, but the stuff was so cool that we kept going. Magnetic sand, light experiments, tadpoles and a memory exhibit...joy! We left at 3:15, since we had to go back and get ready for dinner at 4:30. For some reason, I kept feeling car sick in the cabs. Bit annoying. We went to Kuleto's near Union Square, which has stopped serving our favorite appetizer (sun dried tomatoes and basil baked with goat cheese served with sourdough toast...words cannot describe it). I had mussels in wine sauce, Brendan had goat cheese ravioli. Yum! For dessert, we had a tri chocolate terrine and tiramisu. Then off to walk off most of dinner, wandering around Union Square. Cruised around FAO Schwartz for a while, then window shopped (some really ugly looking stuff in the windows!) til we ended up at the Curran Theatre for Phantom Of The Opera. It was excellent. Best use of the theatre I have seen in a while. The man playing the Phantom had over 2000 performances under his belt. It showed. The show was flawless. We joined the crush of people leaving trying to figure out how to flag a cab with all these people doing the same. We walked down to the corner, and there was a cab coming toward us, so I lifted my hand and he stopped. We hopped in and were off! "You are two of the luckiest people in the world" he said. We were still stunned that we had hailed a cab that easily.
When we walked into the room back at the B&B, there was a dozen roses there for me, 10 red ones and two white. The card said You will never stand alone. Sniff, sniff. Brendan called for a half bottle of champagne, and we just sat and drank and watched tv the rest of the night, as we had to get up at 7.
The alarm went off way too quickly. Got up, he showered, I packed, ate breakfast and checked out. Cruised home and I couldn't wait to open my presents! I opened the box and gift certificate from Dad and Ann, then the puzzle from Mom and Terry, then a luscious bathrobe from Brendan. There was one little envelope left. I open it, and a TicketMaster envelope was inside. I was trying to think of any event happening down in San Jose while I opened the little envelope. It wasn't in San Jose...we were going to the Emmys!!! First thought...what am I going to wear?! I hopped in the shower, while B got some stuff out of the bag that we had over the weekend. I decided on a blue velvet and linen dress that I had gotten for my birthday a few years ago, and heels, of course. I threw some makeup in the bag, and Brendan tried to decide what to wear, what shoes, etc. We left for the airport at 10, and got there by 10:30. I called Michaela (who I work with) to tell her and to let her know if I show up late to work, where I am. She was stunned to say the least. We got on the plane, and sat in the party seats (on Southwest, there are three sets of seats that face each other). For the first time in three years, I didn't freak out when the plane took off. I stared out the window, checking out the cool landscape that I never got to see, since we always took night flights. When we got near LA, I started recognizing places I have lived, supermarkets, the community college I went to. It was a bit odd, coming back to this having not been there for two years (as all the LA friends chime in with "Yeah, where have you been?!?!"). We landed and since we had the front seats, were off the plane almost first. The limo driver, Stephanie, was waiting for us with a sign. She took us over to the limo and off we went to Rachel and Frank's and Ilene and Dan's (they all live in the same building). We were both starving, so Stephanie offered to get us some McDonald's so we could get ready. It was 1 pm, and we had to leave by 2:15. Unfortunately, we didn't have much time to talk to Rachel and Frank (we got ready at their apartment), but Rachel lent me a great black dress to wear (she was right, my blue one wasn't formal enough) and helped me with my hair (it looked so good!) and my makeup. It took forever, unfortunately, and we barely left at 2:15. Rach and I talked while getting ready about her wedding next summer, life, and all the things that we needed to catch up on. Frank and Brendan were watching football, being guys. :-) We called Jason Priluck, hoping that he would be getting ready to go to the Emmy's too. His girlfriend's, Audra's, dad gets tickets to all the awards shows, and Jason has been going as long as I can remember. He once told me that when he went to the Oscars one year, Kevin Spacey let him hold the Oscar that he had won that night. :-) They were getting ready, but were running late as well and we didn't have time to run upstairs and see them. So we would try to find them at the ceremony. We dove into the limo and I munched on the McDonalds on the way over. It's fun to ride in a limo in LA...everyone squints at the windows trying to figure out who you are. A woman with a camera near the Shrine Auditorium was going to take a picture of our limo! She had no idea who was in it...she just wanted the picture. How odd. So, we turn onto the street where the limo drops you off. There are limos all around us, and on our right a long line of people against the auditorium. More on that later. We go along in a line of limos, with our driver explaining stuff to us. She gives us a card with the limo number on it so we can find her later, then she stops just before the red carpet and a valet opens the limo door and says "Welcome to the Emmy Awards". I felt like screaming. Thank god Stephanie told me how to get out of the limo properly so my dress didn't end up around my ears :-). We step out, and walk with all these other people to the red carpet. The first person I saw was my friend Ilene, who totally set this up with Brendan. She works for E!, and was at the beginning of the red carpet to spot for stars and then let the people back at the E! camera halfway down the carpet who's coming so they can watch for them. I haven't seen her since she came up here for a weekend with her friend. She looked at me and said "Happy Birthday! Are you having fun?". Stinker. I said "What do we do?" and she says "Honey, you are all dressed up and your hair is done. What do you think you should do? Strut down that red carpet and let the world see you!" We didn't need to be told twice! We start the walk. There were more tv cameras than I have ever seen at one place. To our right is all the cameras and the bleachers of people watching (there were people across the street as well screaming). There was almost two lines of people on the carpet--the stars who the tv people wanted to talk to, and everyone else. The stars walked down the right side of the carpet and posed for everyone, and all the others were shuffling along on the right. In front of us were Kellie Martin ("Be still my heart" said Brendan. She looked beautiful that day) now on "ER", Julianna Margulies also of "ER", Jane Seymour, Gary Sinise, Ving Rhames, Brandy, Jason Alexander, Mary Tyler Moore, Peter Falk, Jane Leeves ("Frasier"), Tracy Ullman, Michael J. Fox and Tracy Pollan, Kristen Johnson ("3rd Rock"), Kelsey Grammer, and Christina Applegate. We work our way to the end of the carpet. A woman on the opposite side from all the camera was yelling at us to get out of the way so she could get Jane Seymour over. She couldn't see that there was no where for us to go?! Anyway, we turn a corner, and there is the entrance of the Shrine Auditorium there in front of us. We walk slowly, but we really want to get inside (it was soooo hot that day). A woman turns around in front of us, and I recognize her as someone that I have worked with up here. Linda was there as a member of the academy and because she directs the local Emmys here in the Bay Area. We start to walk inside together, but Brendan and I have to go around the side of the building and enter there. We walk around the corner and start walking down the long line of people. If you were going to sit in the balcony, this is where you entered. We stood in line for about 1/2 hour, meeting the people around us. Skye and Barry were behind us. They bought Brendan a soda and got me some water because it was my birthday. Turns out that they had helped make the show: they put together the packages that run when they announce someone as a nominee. They had burgundy colored tickets, so at about 20 minutes before we were to be let in, they could go in. Then we just kept darting into the shade of the trees that lined the street to keep cool. We were inside much faster than I thought. We had to go through metal detectors. Up four flights of stairs (skipped the binocular rental...brought our own) and found our seats on stage right balcony. You can see us in the balcony on some shots...Brendan was wearing a white shirt and everyone around us was wearing black. The show started 10 minutes later.