Rick Springfield Rocks!
Okay, I'm a child of the 80's. At least 80's rock and roll. I'm working on the Daytime Emmy's and Rick Springfield is opening the show. So he's rehearsing yesterday at Babylon Court and the Kodak and as soon as I heard the sound check happening, I knew I had to go out there. So Tina and I went out there, camera in hand and watched Rick Springfield's sound check and rehearsal. The band sounded really good and Rick still looks great, which is really impressive for a 50-something year old rocker. He's singing a medley of his hits which are "Love Somebody", "I've Done Everything for You", "Don't Talk To Strangers" and of course, "Jesse's Girl" (after he runs from Babylon Court to the stage). Listening to these songs brought me right back to my college freshman days when Rick's albums were the bomb and I skipped classes to watch "General Hospital".
Oh and another cool thing. My Stage Manager friend Josh obviously saw me and Tina out there watching. So he gave both of us an official Rick Springfield guitar pick! That's totally going on the scrapbook page. Anyway, here are a few shots from yesterday's rehearsal.
Future Ansel Adams
Or maybe Annie Liebowitz since she does more portrait photographs. Here are a few photos that Carly has taken with her new camera. Not too shabby. (notice how I'm not posting all the oddly framed shots or pix of the ceiling or kitchen cabinets)
Uncle Gary, even with some fingerprints on the lens. We've rectified that situation.
Shot of Mom in her glamorous PJ's
Picture of Keely. Carly walked into the office and just snapped this one. How perfect!
Shannon (our babysitter who's been keeping Carly entertained in Baltimore) at the Inner Harbor.
Shannon at the Baltimore Zoo.
Priceless
Well, I'm obviously bored sitting in editing watching the video paint dry. Actually, we're calling this show the hamster wheel because we feel like we're going in circles and can't seem to get ahead on anything. Anyway, here's a digital LO I did yesterday afternoon. I used Citrus Blossom's new Garden Glow kit. Amber, I just LOVE everything you've created. These are Alli's little kitties. I actually haven't seen them in person since I'm allergic to cats but I just love this photo so I had to do something with it.
Long time, no blog
Well, here we are in Baltimore for another Miss USA Pageant. It was a year ago, here in Baltimore, sitting in editing (clearly bored) that I started this blog. It took a few months to get into the swing of this blog-thing but I'm doing my best to keep things updated.
Well, last Sunday was a big day for Miss Carly. She had her ballet recital in the morning. How cute is it to see a bunch of 3 year old dancing? Okay, so she won't be following in the footsteps of my NY professional dancer family members but it was still entertaining for all who were gathered. When one of the other classes was performing, they asked if anyone wanted to come up and perform with them. Guess who was the first one to run up there? Never would've expected that. Here's a few shots of our Prima Ballerina.
Nice belly with the skirt hanging below.
Last Sunday was also her birthday party at My Gym. Wow, what a great time. 16 3-4 year olds running around for 2+ hours. It doesn't get better than that. Everyone who said they were going to come showed up which was great. They all seemed to have a great time which is most important. Carly had a fantastic time. She totally responded to Coach Ian and Coach Diane every time they asked her something special about her birthday. She definitely liked the attention.
Carly also got a ton of presents which she seemed to like all of them. Presents are always good. She got her first camera. Carly loves to take pictures so Aunt Alli bought her a camera.
On another note which I haven't been able to document yet, I also got a new camera. A Nikon D70 digital SLR. It's really cool even if I haven't a clue how to use it properly yet. That'll take awhile for me to get the hang of it. But after seeing countless photos that my friend Araxi has taken and each one has made me go "WOW", I went for the same one that she has. Plus, I have a Nikon film SLR so at least the lenses will be interchangeable. Anyway, here's one great shot I took of Carly on the swing that I never would've gotten with my little point and shoot Sony. I love this picture.
And me and Carly taking pictures of each other with my new camera.
She's getting to be quite the photographer. Stay tuned for postings from our future Ansel Adams.
I've seen God
Gregg and I went to see Billy Joel in concert last night at Staples Center. Needless to say, he FUCKING ROCKED! I’ve been to every Billy Joel concert in LA (okay, I missed one because of work which I don’t even talk about) in the last 25 years. Anyone who knows me, knows that I refer to him as God.
He was SO awesome. Started off with “Angry Young Man” and ended with, of course, “Piano Man”. There’s nothing more awesome than hearing 20,000 people singing “Sing us a song, you’re the Piano Man/Sing us a song tonight/’Cause we’re all in the mood for a melody/And you’ve got us singing alright.” He was really on, every song sounded great, he was definitely full of energy, sang all the classics old and new. He sang all my immediate favorites including “Angry Young Man”, “I Go To Extremes”, “We Didn’t Start the Fire” “Only The Good Die Young” and “Scenes from Italian Restaurant” , just to name a few.
I will admit I had my cry during “Goodnight Saigon”. If you know the lyrics, you know that it was written about the Vietnam War. And if you’ve seen Billy Joel in concert before, you know that he has vets standing on the stage during the chorus. It’s always moving. Well, last night he had 6 soldiers (1 was a woman) who clearly are troops who have been Iraq. The entire crowd stood on their feet giving them a huge ovation in the middle of the song and at the end as well. It was so emotional. I don’t consider myself overly patriotic and I certainly don’t support why the country is in this war, but I definitely support the troops and all the sacrifices they’re making for our country. I had tears in my eyes and it was a very special moment.
Welcome to concerts in the 21st century. For those of you old enough to go to concerts when smoking was still legal in California, you remember when everyone would use their lighters to encourage the performer. Now, it’s cell phones. Before the encore, the crowd was a sea of glowing window screens. People were snapping photos from their cameras, I’m sure calling people to hear the song and I saw lots of digital cameras snapping away, including me. Here are two shots of “God” from the stage and on the screen.
Busy busy week
Oh, it's been insane. I've barely seen Gregg or Carly in days. Sad. I guess I'm glad I'm working. I need to get out and have people see me in a working position and goodness knows I need the paycheck so that's all good. Of course, I could say that Carly is asleep when I leave the house and when I get home, but LMAO, we all know that's the furthest thing from the truth. Okay, so once again, we've let her bed time creep up but still, I got home at 10:40P last night and guess who gave me a HUGE smile and said "Mommy!!". I cuddled with her for awhile, she told me all the things that she did yesterday with Daddy. She told me that she missed me (oh, melt my heart) and then lots and lots of kisses. Then still didn't go to sleep for another hour. Geez, what will it take for this kid to go to sleep????
Caz was in town last week. We had a great time. Caz, Carly and I went to Disneyland last Monday. The park was busy because it's spring break and when we got there, the lines to get into Disneyland and California Adventure met in the middle. That was ominous but actually once inside the lines moved really well. We went on the Haunted Mansion, It's A Small World, Jungle Cruise (twice) and Dumbo. Caz rode the Matterhorn which she missed the first time. Carly was absolutely PERFECT!! You don't often say perfect and 3 year old in the same sentence but she was perfect. Happy, never cranky, glad to be in the stroller for the first time in months, patient in the lines. Just awesome.
We came home that night and went to dinner at Ruths Chris for Gregg's birthday. YUMMY!
On Tuesday, we went to the dress rehearsal of "American idol". The last thing in the world I want to do is go see a TV show taping but this was fun. And of course, because I know the entire crew, everyone was coming up to say hello. I was quite popular and the audience had no idea who the hell I was. LOL. Caz and I then drove out to Palm Springs in the rain and it took a brutal 3.5 hours. Luckily, we were in no rush because that just sucked. We went for a nice Mexican dinner with two Margaritas. Walked around on Palm Canyon Blvd and it was SO warm. Had a good 9 hours of sleep (wow!) and then we went up to the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway. With the rain the day before, they had 1-2" of fresh snow! It's almost 70 degrees at the bottom, in the desert, and 30 degrees and snow at the top! Awesome. it was so beautiful and so nice to walk through the snow. Took a milion photos. Here are a few.
We did some shopping at the outlets and then came home.
I've been working since on "Celebrity Cooking Showdown". Be sure to watch NBC the week of April 17th. Believe me, I hardly expect any of you loyal readers to actually watch this reality drek. The check clears for me regardless. We're about to tape 2 more shows. They're still creating as they go along. It took over 1 hour to shoot the winner reveal last night for the first show. Isn't show biz grand?? Believe me, no photos of that. Just thank goodness I have tomorrow off to catch up on EVERYTHING.
