Some ups, some downs, a shuttle and a comedian...

So I've had some interesting couple of days this week. I've had some tests. Some challenges. Some moments where I have been able to attempt some breathing and mindfulness to calm the F down. And I have to say...I did pretty well. Let's put aside the breaking down into tears because I couldn’t find a parking place in the Orange Circle to pick up my grandparents lunch on my lunch break. Then breaking into tears again when I left their house because my Papa is getting so much worse. Breathe. I tried my best to hold it together this morning when I attended one of my best friends mothers funeral. I wanted to be the strong stalwart friend and not cry. Impossible. I accepted it. I let them flow. As she was walking out she caught my red tear streaked face and welled up. Real good Jami. I arrived early running around this giant church/school place with melting cake pops and sweat dripping into my eyes trying to find the kitchen. My friend did find this visual hilarious this evening when we chatted. I wanted to attend the graveside service and could have before I had to go to work but I couldn’t bring myself to. I'm still so over emotional and sensitive and yes watching my friend hurt kills me and yes I kept thinking of my own mom and how I can’t imagine my life without her and yes of course this is a time for tears, but I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to keep it together. She was overwhelmed with family and friends so I knew it was ok. So I headed to work. I've been working through these emotions lately and I think I'm doing alright. I have moments of weakness, but it's ok. It's natural. So, onto the ups: Last Thursday I went for a walk with a good friend of mine and met her new little addition. She wants to start taking walks now that she's feeling better so off we went. She started telling me how excited she was to go to Disneyland tomorrow to watch The Endeavor fly over. "Ok, what is this Endeavor business? I have seen other posts on Facebook about it." She tells me it's the space shuttle and it's going to be attached to the top of a plane and it's doing its "Last Mission" on a tour of California. It was going to drop lower in the sky around Disneyland before it loops back around and parks it permantley somewhere in LA. Ok. Whatever. The next day a lovely gal I work with whom I'm becoming friends with wanders into my office hemming and hawing about should we go watch the shuttle. I laugh at her because Riley is the girl who does not like or agree with space travel. She (as well as my father) believes monies should be spent on more important matters rather than space travel. I honestly don’t have an opinion one way or another. It seems to me our money should be helping the starving children and abused pets and such but I don’t necessarily hate space travel, just really don’t care. So she mentions this will be a piece of history and maybe we should witness it. She wants to go to the top of the Law School parking structure. Personally I've never been up there and was planning on taking lunch and wandering over to see if they needed help at the Big Orange Book Festival on campus anyway so why not? More hemming and hawing. Finally we decide to go for it. We trek up to the top of the structure and mind you it's about 1000 degrees outside. And the top of a parking structure is anything but cool. There's a growing group of folks gathered around and I'm taken aback by the view. It's gorgeous! And you can see the top of the Matterhorn and the Angel Stadium. I'm making mental notes to come back here if cool fireworks or something happens in these areas. And so we wait. And we wait. And we fucking wait. Mind you it's getting hotter. Riley and I are bitching to each other about how hot we are, I'm worried a puddle is growing beneath me from the sweat dripping down my legs and I'm cursing myself for not grabbing my parasol from my truck. Duh. Or sunblock. Ugh. Riley is much younger than me but we have very similar personalities. We get along great and we are laughing through our bitching but getting to the point of saying screw it. Riley starts following it on Twitter and it the damn thing should be coming around any second now! Waiting. Waiting. Riley says let's forget it and go. But now I'm determined. We've been up here half an hour, we can’t go now. We wait. We complain. We are MELTING. All of sudden the group gets excited. "There it is!" I can’t see that far of course. But I hear it. Then I do see a little spec. Everyone starts to cheer. Riley and I can’t help but get caught up in the excitement. It comes closer, and closer and closer! We thought it was just going to fly over Disneyland but it actually did its U-Turn RIGHT IN FRONT OF US!!! I was thrilled to see this giant plane carrying a shuttle with little military jets accompany it fly right in front of us. It was so fucking cool!!!!! Riley and I were shrieking and taking pictures with our phones and cheering along with everyone. It turned around and headed out towards the ocean and back towards LA. My heart was pounding and Riley turned to me with a huge grin and said "Totally worth it!" "Totally!" Again, I'm not a huge space program person but we shared something special with a bunch of strangers. Riley and I discussed later on how truly awesome the human spirit really is when everyone can come together in tragedy or celebration. We were on the top of a parking structure with about 50 or so other people sharing something really cool that made everyone excited and happy and thrilled. Later on I saw some people posting on FB about how annoyed they were and how stupid the shuttle sightings were. This made me want to repost saying "Oh just shut the hell up for one damn second and relish in the fact that something really neat just happened and it made a lot of people happy." I didn’t of course, because it's just not worth it. It was really special for a lot of people and for me it was just really awesome to witness something happy. Something special. And damn was that thing huge!!!!! Something not political or angry or negative for a few minutes and share that experience with so many others. I've posted the photos in order of my excited lameass jumping up and down and snapping away with my iPhone. I actually got some nice shots! Is that it?

Squeee! It is!

It's coming right at us!!

It's coming so close!!!

HOLY HELL!!!!!!

And there it goes...

Bye bye shuttle!

Back to LA it goes.

Someday I get to say "I watched a little piece of history today!"

My shuttle watching buddy

So my other fun tidbit is I got to meet Lizz Winstead today. Lizz Winstead is the co-creater of The Daily Show. She's a comedian a liberal and an advocate for Planned Parenthood. Chapman hosted the Big Orange Book Festival Friday and today. I'm trying to get more involved so I had volunteered awhile back to help out today. They were going to have such keynote speakers as Lizz, Alice Seybold (author of The Lovely Bones), Mary Bedlam (The actress who played Scout in To Kill A Mockingbird) and Sapphire (The gal who wrote Push which was later made into Precious) as well as many others. There were exhibitors, a kid’s area and forums to allow whomever to read a piece of their very own. It was a festival I thought was a very cool idea and was happy to help out. I was assigned to Lizz. I was told I was going to introduce her and help with her book signing. This made me quite nervous. So many people think "You’re an actor! This should be easy!" Well we actors don’t actually like to be ourselves up in front of people!!! This woman is smart, funny and pretty freaking awesome and I didn’t want to look like an ass in front of her. So I arrived early and was hanging in the green room with fellow volunteers waiting for Lizz to show up. My friend Amber volunteered for the morning shift and I was thrilled to hear she listened to Leslie Klinger (one of the world’s most foremost authorities on Sherlock Holmes and Dracula) and got her book signed. When Lizz showed up my stomach flip flopped. I played it as cool as I possibly could trying not to act like a nerd in front of her. I was thrilled when Amber stayed with us and the three of us chatted and got along very well. Lizz already had Amber and me falling for her as we walked her over to where she was going to be speaking. As we approached the George Bush Conference Center I about fell out realizing that is where they scheduled her! Hello irony. She laughed and took a picture of herself in front of the sign and promptly tweeted it. My hands shaking and palms sweating I read and re-read my intro for her. After about 15 agonizing minutes she said we could get started and I approached the podium and blurted out who knows what. I was told I did fine. (Thank GAWD) and my shaking self-plopped down next to Amber. Lizz was HILARIOUS! She spoke then read from her book (Lizz Free or Die) for about half an hour then took questions which went over her time but I don’t think anyone noticed. Everyone was having such a great time. I teared up a bit when she spoke of her father and it made me think of my dad. He and I are luckily pretty much on the same page politically but what she spoke of some memories they touched me. The audience had some good questions and there were even a good amount of blue hairs that are fellow lefties. The book signing went very smoothly. Since Lizz had accidently parked way off campus I had told her I would drive her in my air conditioned truck back to her car. So I hung back until all the books were signed and the last person headed out. She was so sweet and chatted with everyone and happily signed their books. When she signed mine she wrote "You make a great bodyguard” She’s someone I can look up to being a woman, a comedian, a liberal and have the mouth of a sailor. We joked and talked about Orange when I drove her to her car. As she left she gave me a hug and thanked me. It was pretty awesome! I can’t wait to read her book! The hilarious Lizz Winstead

A bit star struck