Anyway, a couple of years ago John attended a fundraiser in NYC for the Fiver Children's Foundation. A friend of his from MIT is involved so while John was in the big apple for business he dropped by the fundraiser. Meg and I were the lucky beneficiaries of this decision. One of the silent auction items was a trip to the Emmy Awards. Knowing full well that we are the biggest award show junkies, John bid on the package....and "won."
Flash forward two years later and we were on our way to LA for the 60th Prime Time Emmy Awards.
I arrived in Chicago on Wednesday 17 September. Meg picked me up at O'Hare and I was quite blurry-eyed from watching old episodes of The Office and 30 Rock during the entire flight from London...yes folks, that was 8 hours and 41 minutes of television...I said I was a junkie. Anyway, we called it a night early because we had a big weekend ahead of us. On Thursday morning after my nieces, Kyleigh and Maggie, and nephew Connor got on their bus for school, I drove out to Oak Park and had breakfast with Mom and Dad. It was really quite lovely to sit and enjoy breakfast and a cup of coffee and actually talk to my parents. I love my children but they have this way of interrupting grown-up conversations. I had such a nice morning - being able to complete full sentences is a luxury.
After breakfast I did some shopping at some of my favorite stores in Oak Park - no, Target was not one of them. I went to Ananas and Nora's Shoe Shop. Did some damage - enough that John asked, "what is Nora's?" Moving on.
Thursday evening, Meg had some of our dear friends, the Altons and the Nyes, over for a quick pizza party and just a few bottles of wine. But it was an early bedtime for us as the weekend was upon us and we refused to arrive in LA tired or hungover!
John spoiled Meg and I something awful - he flew us to LA in first class! Needless to say we kicked off the trip with some champagne during our flight. Upon arrival to the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, we dropped our bags and managed a quick freshen-up because we were meeting our cousin, Mary Luby, and heading to the Ivy for lunch.
Lunch at The Ivy was fabulous - 2 bottles of wine later we were fully relaxed, enjoying the California sunshine and ready to stalk celebrities. A couple of celebs were at The Ivy - the paps were surrounding them as they tried to get into their cars. We still have no idea who they were.
Mary was a fabulous tour guide - she drove us all over Hollywood and Beverly Hills pointing out celebrity homes and had very interesting history of the neighborhoods. She also had a full understanding of our modus operendi - stalking celebrities! So next stop was the Beverly Hills Hotel, where we saw Lionel Ritchie and met Aaron Eckhart. I have to mention that we met Aaron because he recognized Mary from her days working at the Chateaux Marmont.
Next stop was dinner at the Chateaux - which was fabulous, mostly because the whole staff was serenading Mary..."Mary Mary Mary Mary Luby!" We followed dinner with a visit to Hyde...a club. We had one drink and danced, but quickly agreed that this was not our scene. Back to the Roosevelt for a night-cap at the Tropicana Bar.
Meg and I were quite surprised how quickly we were up and moving on Saturday morning...adrenaline maybe? Anyway, we took a ride out to Santa Monica and did some shopping at Fred Segal. We wandered around and stopped to look out over Santa Monica Pier and then it was off to lunch at Chaya-Venice. It was such a lovely lunch - just me and Meg with no interruptions. We had more ground to cover so it was off to Rodeo Drive...and of course the "Reg-Bev-Wilsh" (Pretty Woman for those not familiar).
We had a great dinner that evening at Beso, Eva Longoria's restaurant. Meg has friends in South Barrington who have a piece of the restaurant and are friends with the chef, Todd English. We met the chef and thanked him for such a great meal. But it was time to get home and "behave" so we were fresh for the Emmys. We got back to the hotel and decided to have "just one" drink at the Tropicana ... I think we went to bed somewhere in the neighborhood of 2:30 a.m. Not part of our plan.
Sunday we were moving much more slowly, but we got up and found big diet cokes and took a look around the Kodak Theatre...our mecca. Then it was off for hair and make-up before the big night!
John (again) spoiled me and let me have a dress made in London. A lovely couture designer named Nicole Manier designed and made my gown for me. I absolutely felt like a princess in my dress and "Cinderella shoes" (ala Kate). Meg and I had such fun getting ready - we both kept saying how nervous we were and how we had butterflies in out stomachs! My brother-in-law Todd repeatedly told us to relax, we were not going to win.
Our limo was picking us up at 2:30 p.m. The Emmys started at 5:00 p.m. but we had to be in the Nokia Theatre before 4:45 p.m. Traffic was crazy and the line of limousines was a sight to behold.
Meg and I had a bit of champagne and the next thing we knew it was time to get out of our limo...OMG...we were really at the Emmys!!
We got out of our limo just behind Tracy Morgan - we were really there! Unfortunately we were given bad advice about not bringing our cameras into the show...as a result we have no pictures on the red carpet or of the show. Our driver took this quick one outside of the Nokia Theater. We dawdled for as long as we could to watch other limousines arrive but we were quickly ushered towards the metal detectors....and in no time we were ON THE RED CARPET!!!
Again, we took our sweet time...we were taking baby steps and stopping to "fix our shoe straps"...as if the ushers weren't on to us! The whole scene was surreal. We were within arms reach to so many celebrities our heads were spinning. We could only linger for so long before another usher would hurry us along. We made it into the Nokia Theater and found a spot near a window to continue gawking at the celebrities. Then the lights dimmed and the announcement was made, "please take your seats, the show is about to begin on live television."
As most of you have read - the show itself was mediocre. Some of the acceptance speeches were clever and witty, but for the most part it was rather dull and the plan to have 5 hosts was a train wreck. Naturally, our seats were way up in the rafters with the rest of the riff-raff so it was like we were watching it on television...well, except for the part when seat fillers would scramble to seats because the stars hadn't returned from the loo and the loud voice would say, "10 seconds to air, 9...8...7..."
The BEST part of our night was the TV Guide after-party. I still cannot believe we were actually there and I am amazed that we just mingled in the party with the celebrities. It was a star-gazers dream! We arrived at the party and had to take the obligatory picture with the TV Guide backdrop.
Then it was on to meet the celebs...in case you don't pick up on it, my favorite show is "The Office"...
I was also a huge fan of "Melrose Place" for a long time...c'mon, Jake was hot!
And, Joey Fatone...who doesn't love him?
One of the biggest achievements was Meg's determination and perseverance to get Lindsay Lohan's autograph. Meg had been carrying her daughter Kyleigh's Mickey Mouse autograph book all weekend and refused to go home without some signatures. Joey Fatone was our first - but the big prize was ol' Lindsay. She was very protected and not at all approachable, but once Meg explained to her bodyguards what her objective was, she was permitted into the inner circle! Here's the proof (besides the autograph in Kyleigh's book):
A friend of mine in London (thank you Sara Milani!) scoured the gossip rags for pictures of the Red Carpet entrances to see if we could be found...she succeeded! If you look closely over Jenna Fischer's (also from "The Office") left shoulder, you can see me and Meg is to my right.
It was truly the weekend of a lifetime for award show junkies like me and Meg. And Todd...we did win!
Cheers!
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