Get Me to the Church On Time

Ed and Vicki got married on Saturday. This was the first church wedding I'd ever attended. It was a very nice affair, but no one told me I had lines, or that I had to sing songs. We all got a script (I'm sure it's called something else in church), and we kind of followed along.

Now, I have to tell you that I have this recurring nightmare where I'm backstage at a show and I'm put into a teddy bear costume and shoved out onstage where other actors in teddy bear costumes are doing a musical production number. I have no idea what the show is or what I'm supposed to do, so I just wing it. That experience went through my mind when I saw the script (that I'm sure they call something else), so I studied my lines before the wedding started.

As it turned out, the celebrant (that's what they call the minister doing the ceremony) pretty much walked us through it (motioning for us to rise and even telling us what to say before we had to say it), so if you weren't a practicing Episcopalian, you could still get through it without feeling too stupid. One thing that helped me feel not so bad was one of the maids of honor who fidgeted and rocked back and forth during the entire ceremony. With everyone watching her, who had time to realize I didn't know what I was supposed to do? I wasn't in a teddy bear costume, either, but a suit and tie is almost the same thing for me.

At the end of the service, Steve said when they were talking about love and devotion and the other good stuff, it reminded him of us. I told him that was half the purpose of a wedding; to remind people who are together just how lucky they are, assuming you don't hate each other. But really, Vicki and Ed are so well suited for each other, and I'm not just saying that because they might read this. It's really true for them. Two other people like that are Mary Ellen and Gary, who sat with me and Steve in the church, since we were just about the only people we knew.

The reception was at the Westin, which is just a walk around the block from All Saints Church. When we got there, the hall wasn't ready yet, so everyone stood outside in the large hallway waiting for the doors to open. There was punch and hors d'oeuvres (the crab cakes and mini beef Wellingtons were great) to keep us sated until the room was ready. Mary Ellen was our official hors d'oeuvres scout, but Gary was the one who figured out where we should position ourselves in the hall to obtain maximum appetizer coverage.

Once inside, it was a very opulent layout. In the middle of each table were kiddie toys, like gliders, Slinkies, paddle balls and generic Playdough. At each placesetting was foam clown nose and a funny nose and glasses in a bag. This is so Ed and Vicki. (They were sporting red foam noses when they made their entrance into the reception.) The buffet was very tasty, with chicken and salmon, and there was even a pasta bar, which was the stop for most people going back for seconds.

When it came time to throw the bouquet and garter, they invited everyone come forward and gave away prizes to the people who caught them. (I almost got the bouquet, but a woman in her 50s cut me off and the thing flew apart when she nabbed it.) They were prizes similar to what was on the table, like a badminton set.

They cut the cake and everyone was around them, taking pictures. You can see a camcorder and another amateur photographer in the way, but you do get a fairly good view of the cake and Ed. It was pretty good cake, for a wedding cake. I asked several people why wedding cakes don't every taste so hot, and the only answer is they have to make them ahead of time. Well, they have to make Hostess cupcakes ahead of time, too...well, come to think of it, THEY taste pretty terrible, too.

As the reception devolved into stunt glider shooting and toy paratroopers being hurled into the air, Steve and I left at the same time MaryEllen and Gary did. It was a really good wedding and a cracking good reception. I don't know if Ed and Vicki took a honeymoon afterwards, but if they did, I hope they're having lots of fun.

And the Weiner Is...

Was that boring or what? For those of you who actually tuned in to the "awards," you probably recognize these folks as the "presenters" of this year's Golden Globe awards. Personally, I was at work so I watched it on the E! streaming video page as I collected the winners so I could pull artwork. Even with the jumpy download, it was a tedious affair.

I got to work at 11 a.m. and spent a lot of time building the page templates for our reporting of the event. I took off around 7 p.m. and let the paginators (who did not arrive until 3 or so) take care of putting the dismal copy into the templates to create today's pages.

Actually, the copy wasn't dismal at all; quite clever, in fact. But the story it told was really all about nothing much happening. The whole thing was rather a non-event, and now it has people wondering what's going to happen when Oscar time rolls around. (After all, there's only a week or so before they announce the nominations.)

Whatever.

The one thing last night did point out is how absolutely unimportant the Globes are, awardswise, and how a handful of critics have turned their choices into something that everyone uses to gauge the potential Oscar success of the films in question. It's also important to remember that the vast majority of the human beings on this planet really DON'T CARE, if they're aware of awards shows at all.

Walk Between the Raindrops

It has been wet this week. Starting last Friday: Rain, rain, rain. Amazingly, none of it fell during my commute to the Miracle Mile from Pasadena. I am so lucky. But it has also been cold. Well, not cold like in Wisconsin cold or in New York cold...

All right, it hasn't been cold. It's been chilly, not getting out of the 50s during the day and dropping into the upper 30s during the night. But for people who are used to every day being in the 70s and 80s, this is cold. It doesn't seem to phase the little rock man on the patio: He's still grinning and his empty glass eyes follow you around wherever you go. He is endearing, in a creepy sort of way.

We took the Christmas tree down last Saturday, which is always much quicker than putting it up. The other decorations almost jumped into the storage boxes by themselves. Afterward, we went out to a pre-wedding dinner (not the rehearsal one, since we're not in the wedding party) at Yamishura, which is a great Japanese restaurant up on the hill above the Magic Castle in Hollywood. A very enjoyable evening, if a little on the pricey side.

This upcoming Saturday (the 12th) is our anniversary (2nd), which is the official, the-state-certified-our-domestic-partnership anniversary (no presents, please). Other than going out to dinner, I don't think we have anything planned.

The Saturday after that is Ed and Vicki's wedding, which should be a lot of fun. (They don't want presents, either).

Beyond that, things are going well. The WGA strike, the cancellation of the Golden Globe Awards and all the attendant parties has had a real impact on work at the Reporter, but we persevere. Another entry will inevitably follow here.

So It's Come to This...

The end of the year. I'm sitting at my desk in the editorial department, waiting for stuff that's not going to show up until Tuesday. As with every other workplace, ours is rather disorganized, as everyone has rushed off to have a wonderful holiday and left all the loose ends for others to deal with. I am one of those others today, and I'm trying not to grouse about it, since I'm taking tomorrow and Tuesday off, and people will be in here then, grousing about all the stuff I've left undone (though I'm trying not to let that happen).

Christmas was very quiet and low stress. Steve and I spent it together. He got me a new shaver (my old one was coming up to its 10-year anniversary), a really nice sweater with a T-shirt dickie sewn right in and, of course, socks (which are my most favorite Christmas gift: Thanks to holiday givers, I haven't bought a pair of socks for myself in about two decades, save the wild, artsy pair I bought for myself in Paris this last year). I gave Steve an automated cat litter box, since I don't clean the manual one (is there such a thing as a manual cat litter box?) I also gave him a pair of mocassins so his feet can be toasty when we sit out on the patio this winter, and the two Harry Potter movies he didn't already have. He gave me season 3 of "Lost."

My sister Kittie and her husband David gave me a sign for the patio that says "Bite Me," and gave Steve a bizarre rock person, also for the patio, that kind of looks like the central object in a Stephen King novel. I still feel like I'm being watched when I go out onto the patio, but I'm hoping that sensation will fade once I'm used to the slightly demonic stare of its glass eyes and the akimbo dentition.

Christmas Day I cooked a beef roast in the roasting pan we bought after last Thanksgiving and have not used since. I figured we had to either use it or donate it, and I didn't want to give it away. Baked potatoes and asparagus went with the dinner, which was quite nice (though I cooked it about 10 minutes too long).

Since then, we've watched lots of Harry Potter (because I had only seen the first one and had two to catch up on) and eight episodes of Lost: Season 3. Good Lord, the story just keeps getting weirder and weirder. Like my friend Gerry Hiken said about the show: "It's just wonderful: They can make up anything they want and it doesn't have to make sense" (I paraphrase him here). And I'm starting to look toward this upcoming weekend, when we will be taking down the tree and putting away the decorations and getting back to the real world. Still, the last two weeks have been quite pleasant, with two work days, three days off, one work day, two days off, one work day, two days off. It has been kind of confusing, though.

So, wishing everybody who stumbles across this post a Happy New Year. And, for God's sake, somebody leave a comment!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS

Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy New Year, Jolly Ramadan! Here it is, that time of year again (no one has to tell you what "that time of year" is). Tis the season to be dealt with, as I like to say, and we're doing fairly well, although I don't have any holiday shopping done yet. I'm just proud that the tree is up. Also, I baked two dozen cookies for Steve to take to his holiday potluck at work, so I've done the holiday kitchen thing, as well. Don't even ask what we're having for Christmas dinner. I haven't thought that far ahead.

Mom (see octogenarian entry below) e-mailed saying she missed the blog entries. So have I. I've been struggling to get back onto this blog site in order to update. I think I've finally figured it out, at least from here at home. I will spare you the technical details, but I hope it means more regular entries.

Let's start with the weekend with sister Kittie and her husband Dave. They came down the first week in December, just in time to go out for dinner at Panda Inn, a really nice Chinese restaurant here in Pasadena. Lots of rich food. Really great time.

We came back home and, after a little libation, I chucked up my dinner. Doesn't happen often. This is the second time this millenium. Felt much better afterwards. Once I convinced everyone I was feeling much better, we went to sleep.

Saturday we headed out to the Reyne Cafe up on Lake Avenue, which is our traditional weekend breakfast place. Everyone there was delighted to meet some of my relatives and said awful things about me, which touched my heart. Breakfast was lovely, and it stayed down with no problem. Then, after parting wisecracks, we were off to the Magic Kingdom and California Adventure.

I have access to four free passes a year, being a member of the press, so this was kind of my gift to Kittie and Dave (at least it explains why I didn't get them anything else for Christmas).

After picking up our passes at Guest Relations (no standing in long lines for us...just yet), we headed into Disneyland and decided upon the Pirates of the Carribean ride as our first Disney holiday experience. The park was incredibly crowded, and we cursed the hostile parents who use their children's strollers as battering rams to attack the crowds of brain-dead people standing right in the middle of everything, not quite sure of where they are. The line at Pirates wasn't too long, and after about 30 minutes, we were at the head of the line...and the ride stopped.

They kept us there for about 15 minutes, and then announced that the ride was closed. Not an auspicious beginning, but we were undaunted and headed for the Haunted House. You can see from the picture that the line was infinite. The little sign at the entry said the wait was only 45 minutes. An hour and a half later, we figured out that the sign had lied.

It was interesting that I ran into a former coworker from the Daily Journal while in line. What a flash from the past.

The Haunted House has been totally rebranded with "The Nightmare Before Christmas," and it's much lamer than the original ride. Kind of a letdown after all that waiting.

Here the day becomes a blur for me. I recall getting FastPasses for the Indiana Jones ride and spending time trying to find something worth buying as a souvenir (hopefully with a holiday theme that we could put on the tree). The general memory of the day is crowds, crowds and more crowds. And Disney-style crowd control with underpaid "cast members" waving glowing flashlight wands and preventing anyone from getting where they wanted to go.

We spent time in California Adventure, I recall. We went on Soaring Over California during the parade, so there were no lines and we got right through. Then Steve bought a Disney homey cap (wool cap to the white people out there) to keep his head warm, since the night was getting chilly.

We got there about noon and headed back home about nine o'clock. We could hear the fireworks going off in the park as we loaded ourselves into the car in the parking structure and headed home. We had all walked plenty, eaten the requisite amount of unnecessary food and had a really good time.

Dusty the Snowman

The Thanksgiving weekend was very low-keyed for us. We went out Thanksgiving for dinner at McCormick and Schmicks, a very nice place that had an excellent turkey dinner. Most of the rest of the time was spent cleaning, since my sister Kittie and her husband David are coming down next weekend to go to Disneyland. (I get four free tickets per year to both Disneyland and Disney's California Adventure since I'm in the news biz).

So we dusted and dusted and dusted some more. Things weren't particularly dirty or unkempt, just dusty. With all the little dust bunnies we generated, we could have made a snowman.

So that's about it for now. Next week's entry should be much more interesting, since it will have pictures of Kittie and David and, I'm sure, at least one of Mickey in a Santa's hat.

East Is East and West Is West

The Premier Edition of The Hollywood Reporter (as in East Coast edition) was launched on Nov. 2. Since then, I have been working a Sunday-through-Thursday work week with at least two press deadlines every day. It's not as crazy as it sounds and, again, sometimes it is.

In that same period of time, I've been adjusting to the new schedule: On Fridays it feels absolutely wonderful to have the day off (although I went in this last Friday to cover for David D., whose wife had a baby on the 11th). But when Saturday night rolls around, I have the sinking feeling of having to work on Sunday. It's not too bad, though, since I can drive into work without the rush-hour traffic to contend with, and I don't have to be there until about 11 a.m.

Steve's doing fine, except for a hacking cough that comes and goes. We both have the Friday after Thanksgiving off this year, but decided to stay close to home, since my sister Kittie and her husband Dave are coming down to visit and head to Disneyland the next weekend, so we're taking the holiday weekend to clean house and -- just maybe -- put up the Christmas tree (no promises there).

And, because no blog entry should be without a photo, here's a shot of a coin-operated, accordian-playing mime outside the Pompidou museum in Paris. I dropped a two-euro coin in the hat and got maybe 30 seconds of music. That's the French for you.