My weekend in Philly
Let's see how I can cram a 4 day adventure into a short LJ entry.
Friday I flew into Philly with Ben, Robert and Adrienne. The flight was decent enough; very little turbulence and it was a red eye so I slept through most of it. The short time that I was awake, Ben and I played a game we made up that was somewhat like charades, but more challenging because there was no talking at all, not even when guessing. It was amusing to us.
We got into Philly at 6am and got to the hotel at 8ish. Ben, Robert and I dropped off our stuff and went to breakfast, Adrienne went to sleep. We were quickly joined by relatives who were just waking up and coming down. Within in an hour we were a large group having breakfast instead of 3 of us. It was really good to see the East Coasters that I hadn't seen for a while. Ken, Alicia and the girls, Dan, Lisa and Jessica and Allan, Linda and Alex. There were also some West Coasters I'd been seeing more of, like BJ, Kat, Mom-Mom and Pop-Pop.
After breakfast, the cousins with kids went to the zoo, the older cousins went to a musem, while some older relatives went on a road trip to a friend's house. I stayed at the hotel to take a shower, take a nap and wait for polly_the_bard to come to the hotel. She did come by at 3ish and it was so nice to see her and hang out with her. I'd actually misunderstood that she was taking a train ride a couple hours into the city to see me. I thought she was already in the city, but I was mistaken. Anyway I got to hang out with her for a couple hours, and I saw Jake as well, which was pleasant enough. He seems a bit more relaxed now. It was great seeing Nelly, and I'm sorry it was only for a couple hours, but I'm glad I got to see her at all, so I can't really complain.
Later on was the first dinner of the foundation, and I stopped by Mom and Dad's room before hand. They were one of the last ones to arrive, and they were excited to see me. Mom answered the door all squealy like, and there was much hugging and such. I gave them late Mother's Day and early Father's Day presents, and they enjoyed them both. We went to dinner and it was very nice. The San Fran bunch arrived a bit late, but they made it and we were glad to have them.
After dinner I started playing Go Fish with Jessica and Vicky, and that led to hide 'n' seek with the playing cards, to hide 'n' seek with ourselves. It was really fun, and the girls were so cute. Jessica and I actually played a lot this weekend. She is so adorable. She's only 3, but she's very articulate and smart for 3 years old. And did I mention cute? I'll have to post picture later.
Saturday was the meat of the Foundation stuff. We actually got through most of the agenda on Saturday, even though some of it was supposed to be for Sunday. Our committees met and discussed charities, we talked as a general body, and eventually we voted and decided who to give what to. This year we gave away $40,000 to 8 charities all together. We also discussed a lot of long-term goals for the future. I think this is the year for fundraising!
After the meeting, I hung out with mom a bit, then a bunch of us went to the gym to work out. I hadn't been in a typical gym for a while, and all the weight machines made me miss Curves and the air compressed machines. But there was an elepitical and that was good. Dinner was also good, and we got to watch home videos from Dan's bar mitzvah. It was so funny because it was home video from 20 years ago, so I got to see a 3 year old me running around and beating on my older cousins. No joke. I was a fiesty little kid. I don't remember any of it, but I sure was cute. Hehe.
Sunday the meeting wrapped up, and there really wasn't much to do with that. We concluded for 2005, decided on San Francisco for 2006 and had the rest of the day off.
Me, Adrienne, Jerry, Jon, Jen, BJ, Kat, Ethan and Robert decided to walk around Philly, because the whole weekend had gone by so far and we hadn't been out of the hotel. So we went for a good walk around Philly. We walked by Independence Hall, the liberty bell, Betsy Ross' house, and walked down to Penn's Landing. We didn't stop and linger at these places, we weren't in a touristy mood. But we were in a close proximity to them, and that was good enough. We got water ice and tried to get cheesesteaks, but Lee's was closed!! We wer not happy about that. (though I did pick up Dunkin' Donuts coffee for Vic)
We went back to the hotel just in time for the lunch the hotel had prepared for us, and they had cheesesteaks there. Not as good as a classic Philly cheesesteak, but it was better than nothing. We all went to Jon and Jen's room to eat and watch Dane Cook on Jen's laptop. After that I took a shower, and then went down to the lobby to meet my parents, Ben and my cousin from my mom's side, Sherree, her husband Vince and her kids, Wil and Gia. I hadn't seen any of them in 6 years, and Sherree literally cried when she saw me. It was kind of surreal, because I didn't know what to do with that. But it was really good seeing them and I had fun chatting with Sherree and Wil.
They left to go back home, and we went back to my Dad's side to have dinner at a nice restaurant in Philly. We had like, the Penthouse room of a hotel and had a rooftop to enjoy the view on, and a nice bar where I was introduced to the deliciousness of Amaretto Sour. We took lots of pictures, ate some very good food, roasted Jon for getting married in a month and a half, and said goodbye to the family I wouldn't see the next morning since I had an early flight.
Me and my older cousins went back to the hotel to change, then headed out for some bar hopping. It was really fun, even though we ended up only going to one bar. I don't really know what decision was made when, but we ended up going back to the hotel and drinking more there. I didn't really care, it was really loud in the bars anyway. I ordered a bunch of brain damage shots for my cousins and I, but they came out kind of weird because the bartender didn't know how to make them. They didn't look as cool as they were supposed to, but they still tasted okay. Eventually it was time to go to bed, and I said goodbye to the rest of my cousins and Philly.
Ahhhh...waking up at the asscrack of dawn after 3 hours of sleep to catch an early flight. Fun fun fun. We took a cab to the airport, took a horribly turbulent and not fun flight back to LA, took a van to our parking garage and finally drove back to the valley. Adrienne dropped me off at home and I was very happy to be back. I can't remember a lot of what I did yesterday, I was so jetlagged and exhausted. I unpacked, watched some TV, took a nap, ordered chinese food, watched more TV, went to bed.
There was a Memorial Day BBQ at Kat & Jen's, and I was almost going to go. But then I realized I was getting the invitation at 2pm and it started at 4pm. And I was way to tired to go and be social. And I reminded myself I wasn't obligated to attend every social occasion. So I stayed home and I'm glad I did. I needed to chill a bit and have some quiet time.
Today I went back to work, which was weird after the long weekend. We got a new PA, Seph and he's training this week to replace Ray. I like his name, because it's Seph pronounced Sef as in the last half of Joseph. I think it's neat. He seems nice and that is all good. Work was good and busy. And it was a good busy. It was a busy that keeps you rolling and makes the day go fast, but not so crazy that you want to kill yourself. And I did something pretty ballsy today, if I do say so myself.
I asked the Line Producer if I could talk with her a few minutes, and so I went to her office this afternoon. I basically said that since Ray was moving upstairs to be an AE, and Heather might be going to grad school, and since we lost an AP when Alex left and now Brooke is moving over to help out Casting, could they maybe use another AP?
The long and short of it, is that they weren't looking to replace Brooke immediately because they're not sure what they need right now. But KP thinks it isn't too early for me to be asking about this, and it's always good to show ambition and eagerness and it makes her glad to know I'm thinking about this and want to move up. She said I should try to shadow the Producers a bit and sit in on some phone calls and offer to help where I can to show I want to learn more, and she's going to talk to Bryn about it.
So she didn't rush to make me an AP, but she didn't say I was out of my league either. She gave me a realistic, but encouraging answer, and while I don't think I'll become an AP anytime soon, my talk with KP makes me think I could move up maybe sometime later in second season. I'll definitely keep you posted with that one.
Friday I flew into Philly with Ben, Robert and Adrienne. The flight was decent enough; very little turbulence and it was a red eye so I slept through most of it. The short time that I was awake, Ben and I played a game we made up that was somewhat like charades, but more challenging because there was no talking at all, not even when guessing. It was amusing to us.
We got into Philly at 6am and got to the hotel at 8ish. Ben, Robert and I dropped off our stuff and went to breakfast, Adrienne went to sleep. We were quickly joined by relatives who were just waking up and coming down. Within in an hour we were a large group having breakfast instead of 3 of us. It was really good to see the East Coasters that I hadn't seen for a while. Ken, Alicia and the girls, Dan, Lisa and Jessica and Allan, Linda and Alex. There were also some West Coasters I'd been seeing more of, like BJ, Kat, Mom-Mom and Pop-Pop.
After breakfast, the cousins with kids went to the zoo, the older cousins went to a musem, while some older relatives went on a road trip to a friend's house. I stayed at the hotel to take a shower, take a nap and wait for polly_the_bard to come to the hotel. She did come by at 3ish and it was so nice to see her and hang out with her. I'd actually misunderstood that she was taking a train ride a couple hours into the city to see me. I thought she was already in the city, but I was mistaken. Anyway I got to hang out with her for a couple hours, and I saw Jake as well, which was pleasant enough. He seems a bit more relaxed now. It was great seeing Nelly, and I'm sorry it was only for a couple hours, but I'm glad I got to see her at all, so I can't really complain.
Later on was the first dinner of the foundation, and I stopped by Mom and Dad's room before hand. They were one of the last ones to arrive, and they were excited to see me. Mom answered the door all squealy like, and there was much hugging and such. I gave them late Mother's Day and early Father's Day presents, and they enjoyed them both. We went to dinner and it was very nice. The San Fran bunch arrived a bit late, but they made it and we were glad to have them.
After dinner I started playing Go Fish with Jessica and Vicky, and that led to hide 'n' seek with the playing cards, to hide 'n' seek with ourselves. It was really fun, and the girls were so cute. Jessica and I actually played a lot this weekend. She is so adorable. She's only 3, but she's very articulate and smart for 3 years old. And did I mention cute? I'll have to post picture later.
Saturday was the meat of the Foundation stuff. We actually got through most of the agenda on Saturday, even though some of it was supposed to be for Sunday. Our committees met and discussed charities, we talked as a general body, and eventually we voted and decided who to give what to. This year we gave away $40,000 to 8 charities all together. We also discussed a lot of long-term goals for the future. I think this is the year for fundraising!
After the meeting, I hung out with mom a bit, then a bunch of us went to the gym to work out. I hadn't been in a typical gym for a while, and all the weight machines made me miss Curves and the air compressed machines. But there was an elepitical and that was good. Dinner was also good, and we got to watch home videos from Dan's bar mitzvah. It was so funny because it was home video from 20 years ago, so I got to see a 3 year old me running around and beating on my older cousins. No joke. I was a fiesty little kid. I don't remember any of it, but I sure was cute. Hehe.
Sunday the meeting wrapped up, and there really wasn't much to do with that. We concluded for 2005, decided on San Francisco for 2006 and had the rest of the day off.
Me, Adrienne, Jerry, Jon, Jen, BJ, Kat, Ethan and Robert decided to walk around Philly, because the whole weekend had gone by so far and we hadn't been out of the hotel. So we went for a good walk around Philly. We walked by Independence Hall, the liberty bell, Betsy Ross' house, and walked down to Penn's Landing. We didn't stop and linger at these places, we weren't in a touristy mood. But we were in a close proximity to them, and that was good enough. We got water ice and tried to get cheesesteaks, but Lee's was closed!! We wer not happy about that. (though I did pick up Dunkin' Donuts coffee for Vic)
We went back to the hotel just in time for the lunch the hotel had prepared for us, and they had cheesesteaks there. Not as good as a classic Philly cheesesteak, but it was better than nothing. We all went to Jon and Jen's room to eat and watch Dane Cook on Jen's laptop. After that I took a shower, and then went down to the lobby to meet my parents, Ben and my cousin from my mom's side, Sherree, her husband Vince and her kids, Wil and Gia. I hadn't seen any of them in 6 years, and Sherree literally cried when she saw me. It was kind of surreal, because I didn't know what to do with that. But it was really good seeing them and I had fun chatting with Sherree and Wil.
They left to go back home, and we went back to my Dad's side to have dinner at a nice restaurant in Philly. We had like, the Penthouse room of a hotel and had a rooftop to enjoy the view on, and a nice bar where I was introduced to the deliciousness of Amaretto Sour. We took lots of pictures, ate some very good food, roasted Jon for getting married in a month and a half, and said goodbye to the family I wouldn't see the next morning since I had an early flight.
Me and my older cousins went back to the hotel to change, then headed out for some bar hopping. It was really fun, even though we ended up only going to one bar. I don't really know what decision was made when, but we ended up going back to the hotel and drinking more there. I didn't really care, it was really loud in the bars anyway. I ordered a bunch of brain damage shots for my cousins and I, but they came out kind of weird because the bartender didn't know how to make them. They didn't look as cool as they were supposed to, but they still tasted okay. Eventually it was time to go to bed, and I said goodbye to the rest of my cousins and Philly.
Ahhhh...waking up at the asscrack of dawn after 3 hours of sleep to catch an early flight. Fun fun fun. We took a cab to the airport, took a horribly turbulent and not fun flight back to LA, took a van to our parking garage and finally drove back to the valley. Adrienne dropped me off at home and I was very happy to be back. I can't remember a lot of what I did yesterday, I was so jetlagged and exhausted. I unpacked, watched some TV, took a nap, ordered chinese food, watched more TV, went to bed.
There was a Memorial Day BBQ at Kat & Jen's, and I was almost going to go. But then I realized I was getting the invitation at 2pm and it started at 4pm. And I was way to tired to go and be social. And I reminded myself I wasn't obligated to attend every social occasion. So I stayed home and I'm glad I did. I needed to chill a bit and have some quiet time.
Today I went back to work, which was weird after the long weekend. We got a new PA, Seph and he's training this week to replace Ray. I like his name, because it's Seph pronounced Sef as in the last half of Joseph. I think it's neat. He seems nice and that is all good. Work was good and busy. And it was a good busy. It was a busy that keeps you rolling and makes the day go fast, but not so crazy that you want to kill yourself. And I did something pretty ballsy today, if I do say so myself.
I asked the Line Producer if I could talk with her a few minutes, and so I went to her office this afternoon. I basically said that since Ray was moving upstairs to be an AE, and Heather might be going to grad school, and since we lost an AP when Alex left and now Brooke is moving over to help out Casting, could they maybe use another AP?
The long and short of it, is that they weren't looking to replace Brooke immediately because they're not sure what they need right now. But KP thinks it isn't too early for me to be asking about this, and it's always good to show ambition and eagerness and it makes her glad to know I'm thinking about this and want to move up. She said I should try to shadow the Producers a bit and sit in on some phone calls and offer to help where I can to show I want to learn more, and she's going to talk to Bryn about it.
So she didn't rush to make me an AP, but she didn't say I was out of my league either. She gave me a realistic, but encouraging answer, and while I don't think I'll become an AP anytime soon, my talk with KP makes me think I could move up maybe sometime later in second season. I'll definitely keep you posted with that one.