First night in San Francisco - Say WHAT??

OK. So, by now you get the idea that my life in anything but 'normal'. Indeed when things ARE normal - then likely something is wrong.   Here's the story for this week....

I had a business trip to San Francisco and for the very first time in nearly 30 years of marriage - Phil actually came with me!  THRILLED HE DID for many reasons.....But I'll just talk about the FIRST night....

We checked into a nice hotel = Embassy Suites in San Rafael, just north of San Francisco. Beautiful quiet neighborhood and upscale area. Loved the lobby area (it has a waterfall, several pools with koi in them, flowers and plants, etc.) so I immediately start taking photos from our room on the 3rd floor....

Room is nice.....so far so good....but during the night there was some commotion in the lobby which woke me up around 4 AM, but I didn't think much about it and went back to sleep.  Well, what transpired next was ANYTHING BUT 'normal' !!!  When we woke up....this is the scene we saw right outside our door blocking off access to the elevator:

What on earth is going on?  Well, we start noticing "Police Line - Do Not Cross" tape blocking off half of the lobby.

Naturally I have to get to the bottom of this and so start asking around.  What I find out is SHOCKING!!!  Turns out during the night there was some commotion going down the hall from us AND the next thing you know, there is a DEAD GUY AT THE BASE OF THE ELEVATOR!!!

SAY WHAT????

Then we found out that the police came SWAT style, guns in hand and rush into the room where the commotion originated. Can this really be happening? AND I SLEPT THROUGH IT!??!  OH MY!

At the time, they didn't have the cause of death but the papers said that 'no foul play was expected' - REALLY?  A commotion on the 3rd floor and a dead body 'found' at the base of the elevator?  I'm no crime detective, but I'm banking on FOUL PLAY!

This only happens to me - Part 2: The Arthur's Debacle

So, a good friend named Michelle gets this crazy idea to throw a 'Girls Night Out' party at a local thrift shop. It's such a strange idea that of course I just couldn't pass it up. So two Friday's ago Michelle and her 20 closest friends descend upon at Taylor's consignment shop in Morris Plains.

Well I was one of the last to arrive so I thought for sure all the 'good stuff' would be snatched up already.  I really only had one thing in mind to try to find  - and that was a designer handbag. As I  milled around on the first floor - THERE IT WAS!!  An absolutely beautiful shinny purple Dolce & Gabbana hobo bag. My first thought was - I probably can't afford it even if it IS second-hand. So I slowly pick up the price tag. I couldn't believe my eyes......it said $14 - yes that's right - FOURTEEN DOLLARS!  WHAT??!! Needless to say I snapped that baby up quicker than you can say "SCOOORE!"

I proudly carried that bag around showing everyone my supreme find.  They all started drooling and complaining that it's only me who finds these amazing bargains.  I just smiled, drank my wine and ate the free tasty hors d'oeuvres.

After about 2 hours of shopping we decide we all want to go to Arthur's. What's the chances of getting a table for 20 at 7:00 on a Friday night at Arthur's?  Well, after about an hour wait at the shop I decided to go over there ahead of the rest of the group and see how they were coming along with setting up for our intimate group.

Now here is where the interesting part comes in....They lead me upstairs and show me the table for 20. For those who know me well, you know I have 'seat issues'....Well needless to say, there aren't any corner seats with a table for 20.....Now what?  Well, obviously I've got to take one for the team and just deal with it.  So I labor over which of the 20 seats seems the least 'open'....I pick one and sit down. The other 19 didn't show up for a while. AWKWARD......Imagine me sitting at a table for 20 BY MYSELF!  Well eventually the rest of the party shows up and fills in......

OK so far so good. But now I need to mention that it was cold that night so I wore my black leather jacket and I also decided to bring my lovely new acquisition as well.  The purse is so special that I didn't even know where to put it.  Well, I eventually put it on the back of my chair between me and Debbie T. As you can imagine with a group that size, we laughed loudly and quite obnoxiously. We laughed so much it made other people laugh too!

And then it happened.....As we were taking our last bites of food......a waiter carrying a tray full of pickle juice and left-overs suddenly trips and DUMPS THE ENTIRE TRAY DOWN MY BACK! MY BACK!  NO ONE ELSE'S BACK - just MY BACK! Not Debbie on one side, barely Tara on the other (her favorite scarf did not escape unharmed). None of the other 19 people. Just ME.......Why ME?  Everyone knows I have ISSUES with waiters coming up from behind me........What are the chances?!?!!! But wait - it get's worse......As I get over the shock of cold pickle juice down my back - we discover that not only did the pickle juice land inside the hood of my leather-bought-it-myself-in-Florence-Italy jacket, BUT - you guessed it.....my one-hour-old Dolce & Gabbana bag now had partially chewed steak fat draped on both sides of it.....Does anyone understand just HOW BIZZARE this is? Partially chewed steak fat!.....  I INTENTIONALLY picked that EXACT seat because I thought it was the LEAST vulnerable spot!  I just bought the most expensive designer bag I've ever owned, and I'm wearing my bought-in-Italy leather jacket - and THIS is what happens to me!

Now do you know what the waiter says to me?  He says "Do you want me to call the manager?"  YA THINK?  Well the manager comes over and was extremely apologetic. When I showed him my bag he nearly fainted because he said his girlfriend is in fashion and he knows that this bag costs $1200!!!!  Well, I didn't argue with him about that!  He comped my meal, and Debbie's too cause she got ONE DROP of food splashed on her and offered to pay for WHATEVER the dry cleaning and leather repair bill would be.  Yet another 'it only happens to me' story..... Well, at least my meal was free..........(sigh)

This only happens to me - Part 1: America's Got Talent

So a few weeks ago I got free tickets to go see live auditions for America's Got Talent.....

I had 4 tickets, but I really wanted to try to sneak David in, so that makes 5. But I'll get to that later...

First the parking: Parking around NJPAC was non-existent. We went to about 4 parking lots and they were all FULL. So Tara said to try parking in lot "A", which is directly adjacent to the main entrance of NJPAC, as in RIGHT ON the property itself....What are the chances that there would be a parking space there????  Tara says that everyone thinks the same thing, so I should try it. Well, there wasn't any other options available besides drive back home and take the train, so I went ahead to parking lot "A".  Yep you guessed it - spot number ONE was wide open just ready for me to park in it!  this plays into the story again later...

Now, back to the ticket situation. As I said there were 5 of us with 4 tickets.  Chris was worried that we would be 'caught'....I just laughed at the thought.  We walked in. The guy collecting the vouchers said to me "How many in your group?" I said "5". He handed me 5 tickets, took my voucher without even looking at it - and that was that!

Next, where will our seats be? Well NOT IN THE FIRST 5 ROWS!!!!  Nope. Found out that THOSE seats are reserved for the "young and pretty people"!!!! WHAT???!!!!  Ain't I pretty enough?  How about Margot or Tara or Chris or David? You mean NONE of us are "pretty"? !  Well Margot said we are 'pretty', but we're just too OLD!!!  Why? because those people will be 'on camera' nearly all the time behind the judges and the producers want to show TV audiences how hip the show is. Whatever!

We were seated in row 7. Just as I was getting discouraged about NOT getting on TV, this camera guy comes up the aisle and zooms right in on Margot's and my face. Once I saw this, the 'ham it up' part of personality went into overdrive.  Every single thing that we COULD express emotion over, I did!  At one point one contestant was telling a very sad story. I saw the camera guy heading our way. I mustered up some tears and got ready for my closeup!  HA HA.

Toward the end of the show I was dying of thirst so I randomly picked a point to get up and buy a soda. As I left the theater and went into the lobby I was immediately approached by a camera man who abruptly said "That's Anna. Go talk to her".  I'm like, who? what? why?  A few seconds later I realized that "Anna" was one of the contestants - and the BEST ONE OF THE NIGHT at that!  She was just standing there and they wanted to do one of those stories with extra footage for special contestants. So who walks in right at that exact moment? Me.  So I walked up to her, microphone boom hanging overhead and camera trained on both of us. I said something about her being the best contestant of the night. Her story was the one that made me cry.   She has severe Bipolar disorder and I think I said something about her being an inspiration to people who have mental problems....oh my.....could that POSSIBLY be on TV?  Guess we'll all have to wait to find out!

Then there was this CRAZY GUY. His name is Juan Carlos. He was the funniest guy of the night. You'll just have to see the show cause there's no way to describe him!

I'll let you all know when the show will air in June.

Then we were off to dinner in Hoboken, although we were heading for Carmine's in the city.  Went to the "Madison Hotel" and LOVED IT.  Only one problem....Where could we possibly park?  Parking in Hoboken is already difficult - with tons of snow parking becomes more like musical chairs.  Well, as we mentioned before.....what are the chances that I would actually get a spot RIGHT IN FRONT of the place? Slim to none.....But, I did.   :-)