Last night, my BFF and I went on our yearly trip to Disneyland. Midway through our visit, we sat down on Main Street USA to enjoy our requisite churros. As I sat there looking at Sleeping Beauty’s castle -- a symbol of dreams and what could be (and yes I still buy into that at age 30) -- I couldn’t help but reflect on the previous week.
Did anything drastically life-altering happen? No. But it’s been a while since a week has been so consistently wonderful for me. Aside from one somewhat devastating thing that happened Saturday morning (I’ll get to that in the loss portion), it has just been the type of week that Princess Giselle would refer to as “delightful.” I thought I’d share some of it with you.
It all really kicked off on Monday when Maleficent and I decided to play Tourist-In-Our-Own-Town and hit up the Warner Brothers Studio Tour. I adore the Studio Tour. If it was possible to get a second job as a tour guide, I’d do it, but my hours don’t mesh up. If you’ve never taken the tour and are in Los Angeles, do yourself a favor and give it a shot. It’s well worth the $45. I find the Universal tour to be exceptionally cheesy (dancing cars? really???) and...not as real. I mean, some aspects of it are certainly real, but as someone who worked on sets and studio lots for two years, I just found it too touristy. Warner takes you on real, working sets. (After they show you an awesome video that uses Angels & Airwaves’ “The Adventure” to great effect. So goosebumpily inspirational!) They even try to cater your tour to any favorite Warner show you might have. I’ve now taken it four times in the past year with various visitors.
ANYWAY. Mal and I hit up Poquito Mas and took the Warner Brothers tour, where we got our Friends geekiness on. (We may have even out-geeked our tour guide.) This is quite possibly one of my favorite pictures of the two of us.
One of my favorite quotes from the show is “Work on your mu-sic?” Every time the “music” category comes up at our weekly trivia game, I have to say the quote. It’s just the way it is. So, when we got to go into the Gellar house, I absolutely had to recreate the scene of Ross playing his Casio on the steps. That’s what you see above. "The One With the Prom Video" is still one of my favorite episodes of television ever. Just watching that linked clip made me realize how many things I say in my everyday life are references to that episode. "The button! The button!"
It’s standard on every tour to visit the Central Perk set. Sometimes they’ll let you sit on the couch and sometimes they won’t. We were allowed, so Ms. Mal and I have a pic of ourselves on the Friends couch that will be framed. Also fun? This.
After the tour was over, Mal and I went and parked in the garage and walked on to the lot. Thanks to a very lovely person, we had lot passes, which we cashed in just because we could. We walked around for fifteen minutes and then left. I didn’t want the WB army of golf carts to come and take us down.
The great week continued when Tess invited me to visit the set of Chuck (one of my favorite shows) with her. Now, I love the show, but I think I was just as excited to be walking around on a soundstage again. Some people will laugh at me, but I love the smell of a soundstage and the special way the set floors sound when you walk on them. (In soft-soled shoes, of course.) I just love it. I spent around two hours hanging out with everyone over at Chuck and I think I’m more in love with all of them than ever. I like nice people, you guys, and there are a lot of them there.
Anyway, the coolest thing about it was that it wasn’t a big deal. I was...just there. No one acted like I was in the way. I just blended in and sat on the famous fountain (and one of the foldy chairs) and watched the monitors as they shot. It was like food for the soul. And as someone who enjoys the show, it was really interesting to see what they were shooting. All I’ll say to those involved in the Twitpocalypse (if you don’t know of what I speak, consider yourself lucky), if you’ve quit watching this show, it’s your loss. When I saw what they were shooting, I couldn’t keep the sappy smile off of my face. I was so lucky to be there and I can’t wait to brag to everyone once the episode airs that I saw what I saw LIVE. Neener neener. Don’t even try to ask me about it because, like Brittany Murphy in Don’t Say a Word, I’ll never tell. I’d like to go back sometime and I don’t think that telling would help my cause. On another note, I would also like to point out that I like hugs.
Alright. Enough dorking out, Amanda.
One small downside to the previous week was car drama. My poor, sweet Marcie had been having some difficulties. After spending much of Tuesday morning dealing with pricing repairs and weighing my options, I decided to go ahead and look for a new car. I had planned on getting a new one this year anyway. With Toyota’s image woes of late, I knew they’d be likely to make a decent deal, so I decided to test drive a Prius. About ten seconds after climbing behind the wheel, “weighing my options” became “I need this car.” I made some calls around town to get quotes, figured out what payment I could afford, and Kelly Blue-Booked my old car. On Thursday night, I went in armed with this knowledge and left with Pollyanna the Prius: The Glad Car. I’ve had the car three days and I love it so, so much. The other day, as I was driving through Silver Lake and listening to The Avett Brothers, I realized I was one pair of skinny jeans away from becoming a cliche. Ha!
And then yesterday, of course, was Disneyland. It really is the Happiest Place on Earth. I just turn into a little kid whenever I walk through the entrance gate. We always have to go to Sonic in Anaheim before our visit. Mmmm, tater tots... We figure that we’ll walk a lot of the calories off -- and Sonic is something I associate with home. It’s a win-win situation.
Let’s talk about the loss part, though. I thought my biggest loss this week was going to be my old car, but I was wrong. Yesterday morning, I woke up to the news that one of my family’s cats -- Wilda -- had to be put to sleep. It was a really tough thing to hear, as she was one of the sweetest cats ever. Her given name was Pebbles, but like most of the cats in my family, that name evolved. Eventually she became Wilda-P (because she had a wild streak) and by the end, it was just Wilda. She loved to give people kisses with her rough tongue. Like her mother Smokey, she was a very loud purrer. She loved to snuggle. One of her funnier quirks probably came from the fact that she was part Siamese. She had a very feisty streak. Every now and then, her eyes would turn red like the bad robots on Short Circuit and she’d just start wreaking havoc. Stuff would get knocked off the table (she loved to sleep up there and never let herself be broken of the habit) or she’d work over her scratching post so much that it would be leaning. The funniest thing, though, is that if you were sitting on the couch or the recliner, she sometimes would get up behind you and mess with your hair. In the case of my bald grandfather, she’d lick the top of his head. Wilda was just so, so loving and my heart just hurts from missing her. Apparently, they learned on Saturday morning that she had end-stage cancer and was entering kidney failure. She was so weak that she wasn’t able to stand at her water bowl. I only wish that she'd had two more weeks of feistiness in her so that I’d have been able to love on her one last time. Rest in peace, my sweet Wilda. I hope you’re messing with Jesus’ hair and making him laugh.
Aaaaand, now that I’m a mess, I’m going to save the Forever Marcie lovefest for another post.
