Well, here I am sitting on board my Westjet flight home from LA and as we’re getting to be North enough to fly over a snow covered landscape I find myself getting a bit sad about going home to winter; but excited to see the kidlets. Of course, I’m also listening to a few kids screeching at the top of their lungs & more than anything I’d love to beat their parents to death, but that’s a topic for another day.
The woman of the hour
The way this trip started off, it had all the makings of one of those trips that we just shouldn’t have gone on. We had a little kafuffle with our flights, and the problems with the kids I detailed in my last blog post. I was a bit worried about taking my mom, only because she’s not as young as she used to be & I was worried she might not have as much fun as I hoped she would. After all, I know all about the standing & waiting, the loudness of the crowds & the music that a trip to Ellen entails, but no matter how much I tried to prepare her I was worried she might wish she’d stayed home. In the end, all my worry was for not.
Our 1st two days we enjoyed some of our favorite restaurants (our only rule is we can’t eat at any place we can eat at in Alberta – sadly, that doesn’t eliminate much). We did our power shopping, tackled the Block at Orange, Downtown Disney & several other places. We visited some family, and we really enjoyed the sunshine & Vitamin D infusion.
Thursday was our big Ellen day, and I could tell from our check-in time that we were seeing the show that would air Monday. Originally, Ellen’s website said we should be seeing Jeff Bridges and while that would have been exciting I was pretty happy when we saw the last minute change to Minnie Driver.
I’ve driven enough in LA to know that traffic is pretty nearly about as much fun as a root canal, and I was a bit leery about getting from Anaheim all the way up to Burbank in a timely fashion. After all, Ellen doesn’t wait for anyone, especially tardy Canadian fans. I’m not nervous about driving in LA, I just find it frustrating – drivers are all about themselves down there & common courtesy isn’t the norm. Not to mention the inexplicable freeway standstills, which make me crazy.
At any rate, we checked into our new hotel, did some last minute shopping, hit In-N-Out Burger (I’m all about In-N-Out Burger – I consider it the ultimate burger joint & will make trips to the western US simply to have a shake and a burger) and arrived at the Warner Bros studio lot with plenty of time to spare.
Things were a bit different from last year, in that now they’re keeping track of the names of all the guests that are seeing the show & that seemed to cut down all the people hanging out in the parking lot begging for extra tickets. The rule is you can only attend one taping per season, but as people tend to do there were always some insistent on abusing the privilege. We also didn’t have to fill out any audience questionnaires this year, but otherwise it was pretty near the same.
We made it!
Of course, there’s no photography allowed in the studio, so much as I would have loved to document the coolness that is her studio, that isn’t allowed. Suffice it to say that for the number of people they accommodate every show, her staff & the setup are amazing. I was also pretty delighted to score a couple pairs of the boxers she sells at her gift shop – last year they had been sold out & I waited 10 months to get my coveted Ellen boxers.
Once we were all seated, the warm up guy (Tommy) came out & he’s pretty cool. They do some audience dancing & singing. We were pretty lucky, we had some real characters in our audience and I would be very surprised if what happened prior to our show doesn’t make Ellen’s website. She was impressed enough to talk about it when she arrived on the stage.
The 1st segment was hilarious – I’m a sucker for Bad Paid for Photos and on this day there was a crazy Canuck there who made the show with her excitement. I look forward to watching the show Monday just to re-watch her, and Ellen’s reaction to her.
Minnie Driver was fantastic, as was the rest of the show. While we had pretty decent seats last year, this year we were basically right in the middle of the studio, with only two rows of people between us & where Ellen dances through the crowd. If I would have stretched my arm out, I could have touched her when she danced by. The woman is even better in person, if that’s even possible!
The biggest highlight to the taping though, was after she said goodbye to the cameras. Last year, she was gone like a shot off the stage with no real audience interaction (at the time, I thought she appeared tense but she was also juggling Idol & her show so who knows what was going on). This year, however, was completely different. She came right to the edge of the audience, and began telling us about how she use to love the audience interaction & immediate response when she did stand-up that she doesn’t always see with her show. She told us she had really enjoyed our audience, said we were one of her all-time favorite crowds and our energy was amazing. Don’t get me wrong, this was in no way my doing, other then I truly enjoyed myself & held nothing back as did the rest of the crowd.
I can only speak for myself when I say I was beyond excited that Ellen had come over to talk to the audience & I could have died pretty happy right then and there. However, as she was talking it was obvious she was thinking about something & her entire crew was staring expectantly (& smiling) at both her and the audience. I’m fairly sure that my heart stopped beating when she said they’ve never done this before and she wasn’t sure exactly how her staff was going to work it but she wanted to give us all tickets to come back for a 12 Days of Giveaways show next November/December. I’m not sure if I was happier about the news, or the look of pure delight on her face & the twinkle in her eyes when the audience went crazy.
She finally left the stage and her staff told us we were the 1st audience invited back to the Season 9 12 Days of Giveaways. They also said because this had never been done before, they had to figure out how to make it happen. We were a bit worried, as they said we’d be getting a phone call this afternoon to get contact information for all guests who had attended and of course we’re on an airplane, but we spoke to her staff & they are aware.
The final highlight to my night was as we were walking out of the studio. We were on the sidewalk right outside the studio with around 20 other people who had attended the show & were leaving. I was already walking on air & not paying tons of attention to my surroundings when this silver Porsche came out of the gate right in front of us. I thought nothing of it, until that silver Porsche started honking. I looked up to see a drop dead gorgeous blonde (you all can guess who, but sadly Portia wasn’t with her) smiling & waving to those of us on the sidewalk before she was gone for the night.
We spent most of last night trying to absorb the fact that not only are we getting to go to Ellen for a third season (without having to navigate the luck-of-the-draw ticket acquisition) but we also get to go to one of the most coveted shows of the year!
I haven’t even started worrying about the logistics yet, because they’ve already told us we wouldn’t get any details until next fall – possibly November! We want to take our kids to LA this time, & possibly some other family members may accompany us. We all need to book our holidays & pray they’re granted (not that I care, I won’t be at work that day regardless). I can’t even begin to start worrying about what she might give away, how we would get anything home on the plane and what Canada Customs is going to have to say about it because I’ll make my family crazy. I just know that this year will likely drag by as slowly as I’ve ever known time to drag but I don’t think I’ve ever been so excited about any of our other holidays.
Now that our big white Boeing is about to touch down, I have to say this is a holiday I’ll never forget. It was short, but I will always be thankful that my mom & D had fun, and the trip went off without any hitches. I will also always be happy to know that while Ellen will never know my name specifically, I was part of a show that was special enough to her to do what she did for those of us in the audience. The smiles on the faces of D, my mom & Ellen that day made all my planning and worrying well worth it & for that, I’ll always be grateful….
