kotaraindustries.com, the seattle branch

Election Day 2008: Live Blog

2008-11-05T03:16:23Z

6:00am
Woken up by my phone ringing and shaking off the table. I couldn't answer it in time, but excitedly checked the message thinking my long overdue pregnant friend finally went into labor. No. It was my credit card's fraud department calling to check if I had purchased thousands of dollars of Liz Claiborne and QVC Cosmetics merchandise this morning at 4am. For the record, I hadn't. Interesting way to start Election Day...with fraud. I guess that's better than ENDING the day with fraud, like in 2000!

8:00am
Finally got out of bed, checked my email, and was greeted with this amazing and uplifting (and hopefully prescient) video clip:

8:30am
Working from home today so I can go to the polls at an off-peak time, and so I can be here in front of the TV at 3 when they start announcing east coast results. Did some real-American work, like a real hard-working American. Did not go so far as to put on any Bruce Springsteen music, but did play Hulk Hogan's theme "I am a Real American."

9:30am
Time to set the voting mood! I have very little patriotic music, so I opted for my mom's old baton twirling record that has lots of brass heavy marching band music on it:

10:00am
Time to suit up. From top to bottom:

Star sparkle dangly earrings
Red bandana kerchief
Blue tshirt
Blue ski jacket
Red skirt
Blue tights
Gray cowboy boots

I also opted to do one more dry run of my 80s glamour makeup. I look ready to make an important political decision.

10:10am
Time to go do this!

Driver's license? Check.
Voter registration card? Check.
Ballot research crib sheet? Check!

10:15am
Started a load of laundry on my way out to the polls, because real Americans are multi-taskers!!! (I think that is a verse in the Hulk Hogan song?)

10:17am
On the way to the VFW, listened to one of the few political songs I have, a personal favorite called "Jimmy Carter Says Yes":

"Can our government? Be competent?
Jimmy Carter says yes, Jimmy Carter says yes.
Can our government? Be honest?
Jimmy Carter says yes, Jimmy Carter says yes.
Can our government be decent and open?
As the 39th president...he has spoken, yes...
Jimmy Carter says yes."

(download here...)

10:25am
Had to step over some drunk hobos to get to the door of the VFW, where I was promptly greeted with a large American flag and a smiling woman. She directed me to the proper line, and I was checked in.

10:30am
Surprised to see that all the voting booths were paper-based, except for one lone electronic booth. I chose the lone electronic booth.

10:38am
Ballot cast!! Slightly disappointed no one offered me a congratulatory "I VOTED TODAY!" sticker. I loitered around for a minute thinking someone would offer me a sticker, or at least some candy. Nothing. I returned home, listening to the Violent Femme's "America Is..."

3:00pm
Decided to consult my new Tandy Executive Decision Maker (which is essentially a 70s corporate version of a magic 8 ball) on whether or not Obama will win. It wishiwashily predicted victory:

5:00pm
Leslie and I went on a run to Cupcake Royale to collect our complimentary babycake cupcake in honor of Election Day. I picked up this sticker to make up for the lack of stickers at the polls:

There was another that said "I support frostitution," but this one seemed more historically appropriate for today.

7:00pm
Refreshing nytimes.com every 12 seconds to see the latest scores.

7:45pm
Starting to feel the swing of the pendulum, excitement building...it is a wonderful feeling to know that your vote actually counted. I have never felt this emotion before, as Texas has gone Republican every presidential election since I was born. It's fun living in a blue state! Whoo blue!

7:50pm
Can't decide which network to watch, I've settled on ABC for the moment because I like Gibson, Sawyer, and Stephanopoulos. I just flipped over to CBS to check on Katie Couric, and all I saw was a chicken walking down the street at night, so I immediately changed back to ABC.

8:00pm
The Peruvian shamans hex on McCain worked!!! Barack took him! Holy shit, America!!!!! I haven't felt this proud of America since the Supreme Court upheld Larry Flynt's first amendment rights!!!!!

8:02pm
Good job, America. And good night.

The Snooze Time "eye" is Invalid

2008-11-02T18:36:20Z

Friday was Halloween, and it was a mighty slow day at work. Lots of people worked from home that day, my costume was crap, I didn't have much to work on, and so I started drinking beers out of the office fridge around 3pm. I got a little tipsy and was happy to find some of my Texas friends on IM, so I was typing along and giggling and not 100% paying attention when I got this error message from Microsoft Outlook:

Apparently I tried to snooze a meeting for "eye" minutes. And Microsoft did not like.

Instant Makeover Magic Brought to You from 1983

2008-11-02T05:11:14Z

This entry is dedicated to Staci and Shashana...may the wisdom of Michael Maron help transform you into your best and most glamourous 80s self next Saturday night at the Ewing Barbeque!

In mentally preparing for my makeup, hair, and wardrobe next week for the Oil Baron's Ball / Ewing Barbeque / Dallas 30th Anniversary and Cast Reunion, I kept finding myself longing for a book my mom used to have that contained makeovers of lots of 80s celebrities. The main reason I remember the book is the pages and pages of before/after celebrity makeover photos. The most memorable was the one of Phyllis Diller. Mainly because her "before" shot terrified me:

Anyway, Mom mailed the book to me last week, and now I will attempt to summarize its most essential contents. Originally I was just going to put this in an email to Staci and Shashana, but I thought the rest of you might benefit from 1983 celebrity makeover advice. Here are the 10 easy steps!

STEP 1: Blemish Cover

"With your middle finger¹, gently dot a small amount of neutralizer cream on the areas you wish to conceal."
"Most cosmetic companies offer an off-white cover-up cream or stick that only causes red spots to turn a lighter pink. I recommend yellowish cream neutralizer, which covers the red."

STEP 2: Concealer

"With your middle finger², apply a few dots of concealer to the dark areas of your face. Use a flesh-tint eye shadow crayon to lighten any expression lines you want to diminish."
"If you need it, apply the concealer to the bluish gray area directly under the eyes, around the outside of the nostrils, below the corners of the mouth, and on the crease of the chin."
"Apply to dark areas only, and blend carefully with your middle finger³."

STEP 3: Foundation

"Using a latex sponge and liquid foundation, dot your forehead, cheeks, nose, and chin with foundation. Again using your sponge, smooth the dots of makeup out towards your hairline, and down towards your neck, covering your entire face ever so lightly with foundation."
"Don't forget to apply foundation to your eyelids, nostrils, and lips. The coverage should end just below the jawline."

STEP 4: Highlighter

"With your fingertips, apply three dots of highlighter cream above each cheekbone. To blend, pat -- don't rub -- with your middle finger⁴, extending the highlighter toward the temple."
"Since highlighter reflects light, it will make your cheekbones appear more prominent."
"For dramatic evenings, you might like the effect of an iridescent powder or gel used on your cheekbones, on the brow bone, or just above your brows."

STEP 5: Contour Shadow

"Suck in your cheeks and apply a thin band of contour shadow cream in the hollow under your cheekbones and place a small dot on each temple. With your middle finger⁵, blend the contour shadow cream diagonally outward toward the ears. Keep blending until you see a subtle shadow."
"Always remember that any light area appears to come forward, while dark areas seem to recede."
"A contour shadow should be a very neutral color, a cross between brown and gray, with no red or yellow undertones."
"It should be about two shades darker than your foundation, any darker and you'll look as if you have a dirty face rather than one that's nicely contoured."
"Be careful not to blend the shadow up into the highlight cream."

STEP 6: Face Powder

"Using just the tips of the sable bristles of your wide brush, dust translucent face powder all over your face. Stroke across your forehead, around the eyes, nose, mouth, and chin. Don't forget the eye sockets and neck."
"Use a minimal amount of powder, as too much can accentuate lines."

STEP 7: Blusher

"Smile. Find the fullest part -- or the "apple" -- of your cheek. With your large sable brush, apply powder blusher on the "apple", just between the highlighter and above the contour shadow. Avoid blending blusher directly under the eye."
"With the brush, blend upward and outward towards the ears, but do not blend higher than the top of the ear or lower than the ear lobes. Blend until color fades into the hairline. Use a cotton ball to continue blending the blusher until you have achieved a delicate, natural-looking glow. Blusher should always be used subtly."
"When wearing a low neckline, you might like a bit of blusher on the sides of the neck and in the cleavage."

STEP 8: Eye Makeup

	"Using a small sable brush and pressed powder eye shadow, draw a thick line of shadow across the crease of your eyelid, starting at the inside corner and extending to the outer corner, and form small triangle of shadow that points toward your temple." "Blend with your brush. Then, with a sharpened eye liner pencil, first line your lower lids, starting at the outside corner, along and just below the lash line, stopping the line in the center of your lower lid." "Smudge the line with your little finger or with a cotton swab. With the same pencil, line the entire upper lid, beginning at the inner corner of the eye and working toward the outer corner. Darken the triangle at the outer corner of the eye with additional eye liner pencil, then smudge."
	"With a black eye liner pencil, line the upper inner lid." "If your eyes are very small, you can make them appear larger by lining the lower inner lids with a white pencil." "Using a small sable brush, apply color to the center of the lid."
	"Using a sable brush, apply a small amount of shadow to the brow bone. Blend downward toward the crease shadow." "Curl the eyelashes. Apply two coats of brown or black mascara to both upper and lower lashes."

STEP 9: Eyebrows

"Brush brows upward with an eyebrow brush or with a child's toothbrush. Apply eyebrow pencil with short strokes in the same direction in which the hair grows. Blend with a finger or cotton swab."

STEP 10: Lip Color

"Before applying lip liner, define the crest of the upper lip with a light beige lip liner pencil."
"Before applying color, make sure your mouth is covered with foundation and powder."
"The shade of lip liner you buy should be as close to your natural lip color as possible. Draw the line right on your own lip line."
"Fill in your outlined lips with the lip color, extending just to the outline but not over it."

So I think important things to remember here to make you look as glam and as 80s as possible are:

contour shadow
thick eyeliner on the lower lid that begins in the center and goes out to the edge
dark eye shadow on the outside/light eyeshadow on the inside
thick/dark eyebrows
and most importantly...
APPLY EVERYTHING WITH YOUR MIDDLE FINGER!

A Sister, a Foreign Country, and Two Ringside Wrestling Tickets

2008-10-30T14:38:38Z

I tried to figure out how to go home to Texas for the week of Christmas, really I did. But it was just excessively expensive, and I thought a nice quiet Christmas in Seattle actually sounded really nice. (Note: my family's big holiday gathering is at Thanksgiving, and we do presents and everything at the end of November so we don't have to fuck with it in December. It hasn't been required to go home for Christmas Proper in about 10-15 years.)

I planted the seed in my sister's mind that she should consider coming up to visit me, seeing as she has the whole week off, too. She is smarter than me, and was able to find a decently priced plane ticket. And I suggested that maybe, just maybe...she and I could spend a couple of days in Vancouver while she was here. Vancouver holds a special place in both our hearts. For no apparent reason. Once we played one of our dumb list-making games during a long trip in the car. One particular round's list was our top 3 vacation spots, and we both chose...Vancouver?

Staci and I have been on vacation to Canada together once before. It was 2002, aka Wrestlemania XXIII. We bought a WWF Travel Club package to go see Wrestlemania at the SkyDome in Toronto, and spent 3 days immersed in total WWF-itude. It seemed appropriate to try to incorporate something wrestling-related into this trip to Vancouver, too, so that Staci could have the privilege and honor of saying that she attended wrestling matches every single time she ever set foot in Canada. I set to work finding a regional wrestling alliance in the Vancouver area.

And lo and behold, I found Extreme Canadian Championship Wrestling! And fortuitously, there are wrestling matches on December 26 when Staci will be here! Tickets were only about $12, but of course I sprang for the $15 "FRONT ROW" seats. No crappy Canadian wrestling match seats are too good for my sister!

Epilogue:

When I was buying the tickets, there was a typo in the PayPal checkout and "Extreme Canadian Championship Wrestling" was transformed into "Extremely Canadian Championship Wrestling." I think I prefer that name.

And For My Next Extracurricular Activity...

2008-10-29T23:18:15Z

I tend to have extracurricular activities that would probably be more appropriate for an 8 year old girl. The tap dancing, the hula hooping, the roller skating...

And now I can add piano lessons to that list! There is a fancy Sherman Clay piano shop right across the street from my office, and they have secret lessons up on the upper floors where students get to play on Steinways! I met the instructor yesterday to talk about my goals and desires (basically to play "Linus and Lucy" and the theme to "Entertainment Tonight" flawlessly, from memory).

The next round of classes start in the next few weeks, so I have been on a mission to find an affordably priced, yet still radical digital piano with weighted hammer action. I found something amazing. The price is definitely right at $54.99...

Although I suspect I probably need about 80 more keys to be able to play anything properly.

"You Can Call Me. We'll Have a BRIEF Chat."

2008-10-10T04:55:35Z

Back in August, I bought 2 tickets to the big Dallas/Ewing/Southfork celebration that's coming up in November. (One for me, one for my sister.) A few weeks ago, I ended up getting a third ticket for my friend Shashana...and spent two days on the phone trying to get a hold of someone who could answer some questions about seating so that I could be sure that the 3 of us could sit together even if our tickets weren't purchased in the same bundle. No one could give me a straight answer, so I just took a chance and trusted we could work it all out when we arrived at Southfork Ranch on night of the event.

Today, almost 3 full weeks later, I finally get my call returned. (!?) And it was the strangest voicemail message I think I have ever received. The voice had creepily perfect diction, and the message started like this:

"Hi Halee, my name is Brad Stevens and I'm the co-producer of an event. Called the Dallas 30th Anniversary Cast Reunion. And Ewing Barbeque. At Southfork."

Brad Stevens talks weird. He puts full stops. Where there should just be pauses. Maybe Brad Stevens. Is a recording?

"I'm noticing that you have a question about seat-ing. For three of you. And whether your third friend who may be joining you will be available to sit. Together. Or will be allowed to."

I'm pretty sure my friend is available to sit, Brad.

"The general answer, Halee, is: I think so...but I would like to visit with you a little bit. BRIEFLY. If you get a chance. You can call me. We'll have a BRIEF chat."

What are you trying to tell me, Brad? You don't want to have a nice long whispery talk with me for hours and hours, where we both fall asleep on the phone together? Okay. I think I can keep our conversation BRIEF. Unlike your voicemail.

P.S. Listen for yourself...

For One Day, I Exclusively Ate Food from Trailers

2008-10-08T04:06:40Z

My mom used to be in club that had progressive dinners. This didn't mean that the food options were extremely forward-thinking, it meant that it was a multi-course meal spread across multiple locations. They would have appetizers at Neysa's, entrees at Maggie's, dessert at Janice's, and coffee at Ruby's. Last week when I was in Austin, I accidentally had a progressive dinner. A white trash progressive dinner.

Entrees were at Torchy's Tacos, a trailer selling tacos:

Then dessert at Hey Cupcake, a trailer selling cupcakes:

Adventures in LA: Part 2: The Scientology Center Stakeout

2008-10-07T04:13:02Z

We didn't really have concrete plans for my second night in LA, so we did what seemed most logical: to head down to the neighborhood of THE Church of Scientology International Celebrity Centre and snoop around.

We walked up to the center, fully knowing every move we made would be videotaped, and every word we uttered would be recorded. I took that opportunity to loudly reiterate my confusion between "dianetics" and "diuretics."
As we walked around to a dimly lit side street alongside the complex, a bicycle cop / security guard / Scientology Overlord stopped in his tracks, turned around, and started slowly trailing us. I still managed to snap off this shot of both the parking dungeon and the castle where they keep the snails or Xenu's ashes or whatever.
There was a set of apartments directly next to (maybe even physically connected to) the compound. We wondered if that was just an unfortunate location for some tenants...or if this was some sort of safehouse for wayward thetans. Then we came across the most exciting find of the evening. What appeared to be an actual E-meter machine sitting on a cart just inside the apartment gate!!
Then suddenly, a real, live Scientologist shuffled past us! I'm not sure if I'm remembering correctly, but I think he had on a tuxedo. (For some reason, in my mind all Scientologists always wear tuxedos.) He hurried by, and did not offer to audit us although he was clearly making a beeline for that E-meter.

The next day we watched this documentary on a disillusioned (and highly vocal) ex-Scientologist, but...it put us to sleep. No one could stay awake through this thing. I looked over at Kris when we both woke up and realized we had both nodded off and she said, "Shit. I think I'm a Scientologist now."

Adventures in LA: Part I: The 9 to 5 Musical

2008-09-29T00:24:29Z

Remember this dumb idea? Where my friend Kris and I were going to attempt the impossible and get me from LAX to the theatre downtown in about an hour, with the goal of making it in time to see the beginning of the "9 to 5" musical at 8pm? Well....welcome to the exciting conclusion!

I flew on my first Virgin America flight ever, and I must say I'm pretty impressed with the airline. The seats were roomy and comfortable, the aesthetic was really space-agey and clean-looking, the in-flight entertainment system (particularly the game Anagramarama) was truly entertaining, and the cherry on top was the fact that I was surrounded by about 25 twenty-something boys from Italy. But I was not impressed with their airspeed. We were supposed to touch down at 6:20, and when Kris called me at 6:25 asking if I was on the shuttle yet, I had to sadly report that I was still on the tarmac. My confidence level on a scale from 1 to 10 slipped to about a 6.5 that we would make it to 9 to 5 on time.

I finally got off the plane and speedwalked to the shuttle stop, hoping I would just catch the one going by since they start at Terminal 1 every half hour on the hour. I figured since I was outside at about 6:35, there was no way they could make it from Terminal 1 to Terminal 6 in five minutes, and I'd be gold. I was not gold. I must have just missed the last one, because I ended up waiting/pacing there for 25 minutes. Confidence level dropped to 5.0.

Once on the shuttle and on the freeway, I saw nothing but a sea of brake lights, and my confidence temporarily dropped to a 3.0, until I realized we were allowed in the HOV lane and were blowing past everyone and it returned to a 5.0. I was on the phone with Kris, giving her a play-by-play of which exits I was passing so she could coordinate train timing.

I pulled up to Union Station at 7:50 or so, watching Kris sprint past the bus to the ticket counter to buy my tickets. Once I was allowed to disembark, she and I took off running to the underground subway tunnels. We breathlessly arrived on the platform, only to see that the next train didn't arrive until 7:57. Confidence level 2.0.

But at 7:54, our train was inexplicably early! We got on it and stood at the doorway as if we were in sprinter's blocks, ready to explode out of the train at our next stop and haul ass to the theatre. It stopped. We ran.

We didn't exactly know which way the theatre was, so we took a few gambles and ran up several flights of stairs. After running so far with my heavy bag and Kris in heels, we started to slow down. Confidence level and lung capacity sank to a 1.0, when we finally made it to the doors of the theatre, only to find it was a whole theatre COMPLEX and we were at the wrong one! We still had about a block to go...fuck! I was just ready to lay down and die and forget the whole caper.

We limped and stumbled to the right theatre, and surprisingly the front doors were still open and attended by ushers. No music. 7.5. We realized we had to walk up three flights of stairs to get to the balcony. 7.0. We made it to the top and were greeted by a smiling usher who uttered these magic words...

"You just made it."

We were all wheezing and sweaty, and sank breathlessly into our seats at 8:10. Literally one minute later, the lights dimmed and the curtains opened...

...Just Like Summer

2008-08-20T04:01:43Z

So I'm currently working on a (probably) overly-ambitious project to organize every photo that has ever passed into my possession, ever. This involves editing all the image files' metadata to ensure the correct date/time is embedded, as well as doing all sorts of extra content tagging for location, people, events, etc. And in going through every photo you've ever had, ever, you can get pretty nostalgic.

On another note, the weather had finally gotten consistently nice and sunny for the past two weeks. But yesterday and today have been cloudy/rainy/pissy, and have immediately filled me with dread at the thought of 9-10 months of rain to come. So since it's an icky day, I'm here at the house tagging photos and I just so happened to be on the folder from my trip to Scandinavia in 2006. Cue music to reminisce by....

I was at the Kiasma Art Museum in Helsinki, and wandered into a viewing room for a video installation. The featured video was called "Helsinki Complaints Choir," and the concept was that a composer conducted a survey asking a bunch of Finns what their biggest complaints about life were. She then consolidated all the complaints, set them to music, and got a large choir to sing the song about all these random (and very Finnish) frustrations of daily life. It was completely charming and wonderful...and I loved it so much that I sat in that video installation room and watched the video from start to finish three or four times.

Just like I did a few minutes ago as I was tagging it. And sadly, these two lines caught my attention as far too relevant:

The rest of it isn't quite so depressing: Helsinki Complaints Choir on YouTube.

Movie Review: The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes

2008-08-17T23:57:28Z

When I was a kid, I loved all those old Disney movies. I'm not talking about the animated ones with princesses and dwarves, I'm talking about the ones about Medfield College and Dexter Riley. These movies starred a very young (and very smoking hot) Kurt Russell as the precocious Dexter. He drove a dune buggy. He wore mod 60s clothes. He and his friends always dabbled in science due to their great admiration for Professor Quigley, and Dexter always managed to screw up the science to accidentally give himself some sort of super power. And this super power would inevitably screw things up for the Dean Wiggins, the Dean of Medfield College, and/or A.J. Arno, the local sorta-seedy wealthy businessman played by Cesar Romero.

In "Now You See Him, Now You Don't," Dexter accidentally invented an invisibility spray potion. In "The Strongest Man in the World," Dexter accidentally discovers a new chemical, that when mixed with cereal, gives you superhuman strength. And, in "The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes" which is the point of today's post and the movie I just finished watching, Dexter tries to replace a burnt-out actuator in the ENIAC-sized computer that A.J. Arno donated to Medfield, and in doing so, managed to electrocute himself which somehow transferred all the computer's computational abilities into Dexter's brain.

I am going to skip all other details of the plot, and focus solely on the scene where Dean Wiggins and Professor Quigley take Dexter to the doctor after they start to realize that his intelligence skyrocketed overnight.

First, they check Dexter's eyes:

And when they look in Dexter's eyes with the scope, they see this:

Then they take an x-ray of Dexter's brain:

And the x-ray of Dexter's brain shows this:

And my favorite part of this other than how completely ludicrous this is....is the fact that my little 8 year old mind must have thought this seemed totally plausible.

A Conversation with the Elderly Man Running the Skate Rental Counter

2008-08-15T06:12:35Z

As I walked past the counter while holding a cup of water...

Him: "Excuse me, miss?"
Me: "...."
Him: "Miss!?!"
Me: "Huh? Me?"
Him: "There is a hole in your soda cup there."
Me: "Huh? Me?"
Him: "Your cup."
Me: "Yeah?"
Him: "There's a hole in it."
Me: "There is? Oh goodness, am I dripping water everywhere??" *frantically checking bottom of paper cup*
Him: "Don't you see the hole?"
Me: *continuing to frantically investigate cup's structural integrity*
Him: "The hole is in the top of the cup! Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahhahaha!!"

I Am Invited to the Ewing Barbeque at Southfork!

2008-08-14T04:20:06Z

My sister Staci sent me the most amazing news this morning, which is that there will be a really-real, true life barbeque at Southfork Ranch in Dallas in November. JR will be there. Sue Ellen will be there. Bobby will be there. And by god...I will be there!!

They are having a big 30th anniversary cast reunion and barbeque. And even though I made a promise to myself a while ago that I should quit being so impulsive and running off to do retarded things without thinking about them...fuck that, I'm half-tempted to buy one of the $500 seats so I can be that much closer to Larry! (And admittedly, to get the extra drink ticket.)

I'm gonna go and I'm gonna wear way too much blush and then I'm gonna drink whiskey and punch somebody out and then push them into the pool off the balcony and then go have sex in one of the barns and then get married and then get put in a sanitarium and then get pregnant with JR's baby and then blackmail him into buying me a condo and then get Bobby to finance a boutique for me to operate and then fake my own death in a plane crash. Basically, I'm going to experience every single plotline from the 13 year series in that one night. I have a lot to plan.

Concert Review: Dolly Parton

2008-08-12T03:37:28Z

Back in May, I bought myself a birthday present in the form of a ticket to see Dolly Parton. I have been staring at that ticket hanging on my clipboard for months...and her big show finally happened last Friday!

For maximum thematic and historical effect, I wore the exact same outfit I wore when I went to Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede in Pigeon Forge, TN. Which was also the same outfit I wore to see Loretta Lynn play at her very own ranch in Hurricane Mills, TN. This outfit consists of a homespun plaid button down shirt with a white butterfly collar (which is actually a Loretta Lynn® brand shirt purchased at her gift shop) and high-heeled cowgirl boots. I had to field a lot of questions at work on Friday on this matter. It got to where I just shouted "I'm going to see DOLLY tonight!!!!" when anyone so much as looked at me. Here is the outfit when I wore it in Tennessee. Or I guess I should say when both Joy and I wore it:

The show was amazing, and complete with a drag Dolly Parton who mimed along with Dolly during the whole show, and was sorta like having my own personal live action Titantron just a few rows away. Dolly could not have been more adorable or charming. She told lots of little stories, cracked lots of little jokes, and positively GLOWED:

Earlier that day a guy at work asked me to complete the following sentence: "My night will be incomplete if Dolly does not sing ________." My blank was "Why'd You Come In Here Looking Like That?" And she sang that one as one of the first songs right out of the gate! She sang all the hits, including her very first recording ever from when she was an 11 year old kid. In an 11 year old's voice. And an amazing acapella gospel-y song with all the backup band. Even the cover of "She Drives Me Crazy" was totally enjoyable! She finished it up with some "9 to 5" and then serenaded us about how she would always, always love us.

I should have taken notes of all the cute little things she said. The only one that's really sticking in my head all these days later was when she had a stray hair bugging her that she was trying to get off of her, and she made a big dramatic show of it and once she flicked it away, she told us not to worry because "pulling that hair out did not hurt her one little ol' bit."

Unfortunately, some of the evening was tainted by a couple of super obnoxious and inconsiderate gay guys who would NOT SIT THE FUCK DOWN THROUGH THE ENTIRE SHOW. This was very much a sit-down and politely listen kind of show. Early on, there was a guy a few rows up that stood up the whole time going into tremors he was so excited, and security made him go sit somewhere else. Why no one dealt with those other two dickweeds, I'll never know. All I do know is right after Dolly finished "I Will Always Love You," I shouted at them, "AND I WILL ALWAYS HATE YOU!!!!"

In a World Where You are Magnum PI and I am MacGyver...

2008-08-07T04:20:45Z

On Wed, Aug 6, 2008 at 12:10 PM, Halee wrote:

Kris! I'm sorry my email messages to you are always frantic and loaded with exclamation marks!!! I am easily excitable!

I just found out that the stage version of 9 to 5 will be previewing in September in LA. And there are shows when I am there! Would you be interested in such a dumb thing?

I'm kinda skeptical this will logistically work out, though. My flight arrives 6:20 on Thursday evening. The show starts at 8. We can't go Friday, because that's my only chance for Point Break Live. The Saturday matinée isn't until 2, and my flight out is at 5. If we (or just I) go, it would have to be Thursday. So my question to you: is it even within the realm of possibility that I could make it from LAX to the theatre in time?

halee ann

On Wed, Aug 6, 2008 at 12:38 PM, Kris wrote:

Dear Crazy Person,

I would definitely be interested in such a thing. I actually think it could work, in the world where you are Magnum PI and I am MacGyver. Here's how I would do it if I were you. Don't pack luggage and have cash in your pocket. Be sure to have a 5 and 4 1's. Run from the plane to outside the baggage claim and catch the next possible "fly away shuttle" to Union Station. They come every 30 minutes, so hopefully you will catch the 6:30 one. I would estimate this could take 60 minutes at most? I will be waiting for you at Union Station, at which point we will hop on the Red Line from Union Station one stop to Civic Center Station. This will take maximum of 10 minutes (including wait times for the train). We will walk 0.3 mile to the theater. (7 minutes).

Arrival if all goes as planned: 7:47

Also, there is the option of taking the subway directly from the airport to the airport. I've never done that but I could investigate that further. It may be a lot faster because there is no traffic to deal with (which the bus will be subject to). My dad gets in today so I can see what his times are for comparison.

Synchronizing watches,

MacGyver

On Wed, Aug 6, 2008 at 12:56 PM, Kris wrote:

Magnum,

Addendum:

I just looked online and it says 45 minutes or less for the shuttle. So, let's say you miss the 6:30 Fly Away and catch the 7:00 pm one. Your arrival at Union station is 7:45 and we take the RED or PURPLE train to Civic Center Station (arrival at 7:55) and then RUN to Ahmanson Theatre (3 minutes). Arrive at 7:58. Wear running shoes. Start training now for a .3 mile run. Get your time down to 3 minutes. Don't pack any clothes at all.

I love a challenge. Let's do this!!!!

MacGyver

On Wed, Aug 6, 2008 at 1:01 PM, Halee wrote:

Haha!!! This is so very awesome that we HAVE to do it. I will procure show tickets, baseball cap, and Hawaiian shirt immediately.

halee p.i.