Adventures in Hollywood

What a week it’s been, and it’s only Wednesday! Actually the excitement began last week, when I found out my coworker and friend was short a camera person for a red-carpet interview with Drew Barrymore at the premier of “He’s Just Not That Into You” … and of all the people he could have asked DID ask, I was finally the one who could actually go.

So after working myself up to a nervous frenzy, I jumped on a flight to Santa Ana, then spent the next two hours waiting for Chris and reading a Nicholas Sparks novel I’d picked up in the airport shop. We rented a behemoth SUV from “Avis Preferred.”  Actually, WE would have preferred the regular Avis desk, given the lines and silly customer service we had to endure in the overheated Preferred office. Plus we really didn’t want an SUV. But we got it anyway, and got the hotel roomS squared away.

That hotel bit was embarrassing. The guys at the front desk apparently couldn’t figure out why there were two rooms under one name and were about to let it slide. They asked if one king bed would be fine, and I thought to myself, what would I do with two? So I said “That’d be fabulous.” When he asked how many keys I’d need, I put two and two together and as I said “I only need one key for MY room,” Chris pointed out that the two rooms were intentional. Like I say, we did get that squared away, and before I could so much as touch up my hair, we were headed straight to Hollywood.

Google map’s directions weren’t exactly accurate, but thanks to my amazing navigation skills (which are at least far superior to my driving skills) we made it just in time! That is, just in time to be blown off by the guard standing at the press gate. After our third attempt talking to him he finally pointed us to the press sign in table, where we got our badges, as well as a random teeth bleaching kit along with a bottle of water and a cute package of conversation hearts.

Then we proceeded to the red carpet to try to find our spot. That is, until someone pointed out we weren’t supposed to be there, and directed us to where we WERE supposed to be, which was in some sort of fenced off section just in front of the carpet between some French and German reporters. Chris had warned me in advance to not be too embarrassed of our tiny camcorder. Everyone else had the massive news cameras, and I have to think a few of them wondered just what we thought we were doing. But Drew didn’t double back to talk to THEM 🙂

I don’t think she specifically came back to talk to me either, but at the moment I somehow spaced that fact. She waved the friendliest hello ever straight at me, and I waved right back with a big fat “Hiiiii!” before I realized she was talking to her website audience, not to ME, and it was sort of my job to record it for her :-p Luckily the camera didn’t shake much, and luckily my goofy salutation didn’t pick up on the mic either. It turned out just fine. You can check out my amazing videography at DrewBarrymore.com.

Since there wasn’t room for us in the actual showing, we considered going out for steak afterward, but decided on Johnny Rockets. I’m still working off that apple-pie malt and cheeseburger!

On the way back to the behemoth, we passed a tactless panhandler who’d told Chris, “You need to give that woman a Credit Card so she can go buy herself some Makeup!”  Exactly how is that supposed to make me want to give him money?  “Sorry, I have ten bucks, but I’d better go buy myself some lipstick!”  I didn’t say it, because I’ve got some kind of mental disorder that makes me react to things like that hours after the fact.  But I should have. 🙂

So we’re back in the behemoth trying to find our way back to Santa Ana. I keep calling it that because it WAS huge, but it’s also my way of excusing myself for my horrible driving. I could have gotten us killed for the red light I didn’t notice. I don’t know what was with me, but I could NOT drive it well. And Chris was having contact lens issues, so he couldn’t drive at all. But somehow, no thanks to my driving or more bad directions from google maps, we eventually made it back to the hotel. There we reviewed the video, finished the leftovers from Johnny Rockets, and called it a night. Granted, I couldn’t go to sleep without doing a little yoga and making some progress on my Sparks book, but a dose of the lavender room spray had me sawing logs soon. (Chris caught one whiff of the room the next morning when I opened the door, and exclaimed, “This place smells like a GIRL!”)

The morning flew by even faster than the night before did, and before I knew it, I was hearing all the sounds of home. Like Jared honking at me for curbside pickup. And just like that, my adventure was over. If I hadn’t gotten a few pictures to prove it, I’d surely chalk it up to one of my crazy dreams. So here are a few pics:

You’ll have to pardon me for cramming so many random details into this post, but that’s exactly how it felt… like a bunch of random details crammed into a few hours time. And I’d do it all again in a heartbeat 🙂