one of the best days!

so yesterday had to be one of the best days EVER. me and my sis got to see hikaru utada...in person! AAAGGHHHHHH! she's promoting her second english album, "this is the one", and sephora is hosting album listening parties in california, new york, and florida. considering she's one of our FAVE singers of all time, we jumped at the chance to see her in hollywood. so here's my recap of the day's events...

my sis picked me up from work, and we headed over to the hollywood & highland complex. got there at 4:30, an hour-and-a-half before she's supposed to show. turns out that since this is a sephora promotional event, the suits are handing out wristbands to people who had rsvp-ed the event. RSVP?!? i didn't know there was chance to rsvp for this event! well we weren't the only ones, and so while the "cool" people got wristbands, we were shooed away by security. we were told if there were any wristbands left over at 5:30, they would be distributed on a first-come-first-serve basis. ok, we can deal with that. so we fell in the super long line that wrapped around the complex.

tick tock tick tock, time goes on. it's 5:30, and the word is that all the wristbands have been given out. apparently they weren't expecting this many people to show. HELLO! it's HIKARU UTADA for goodness sakes. she has the top-selling album of all time in japan, 12 #1 hits, she's #24 on the top 100 japanese pop artists of all time, and she's #10 on the top 30 japanese singers of all time. people have to win a raffle to be able to buy a ticket for her concerts! so the suits are telling the people in line that "if you do not have a wristband, you are NOT getting in. you are wasting your time". they kept repeating themselves over and over again, and a few people did get out of line to cry in the corner (figuratively).

we stayed put. unless someone literally picks me up and takes me out of line, i'm not budging until 8pm. even if we don't get in, this is probably the closest we'll ever get to her. after another 20 minutes or so, the "standby" line starts moving. that's promising! the suits are accommodating a few standby people...they are partitioning the looooong line into sections, and as space permits, letting people into the store. a suit then puts a divider in front of me while letting the people in front of me go ahead. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! i start pleading with him: "please. there are only two of us. we've been here for so long. we're from the inland empire..." i think he didn't want to listen anymore because i could have went on and on, but he let me and steph through. HAH!!!

so we got in. we got to see her. it was an album listening party, so she didn't sing, but she did talk about her songs. she also had a little q&a session with the fans. that was cute...especially her story of too much alcohol and weirdly chewing a towel through the night. :-)

when she left the store, there was an announcement that there would be a limited number of signed posters and giveaway bags at the door. it was a stampede. people were rushing out of the store looking for the giveaways. since it was so chaotic, after about 40-50 people left the store, the suits shut the doors. i happened to be one who got out. then i noticed that they hadn't started giving away anything. what! i needed to get back inside. so i went up to one of the security guys, in my most panicked voice, "please. i got separated from my baby sister. i think she's still in there. i can't find her anywhere!" yeah, he let me back in. SCORE! hey, don't judge! she was still inside the store. granted, she is 20 years old, so she's not really a "baby", but she will always be my "baby" sister. hehe. since i couldn't get through the crowd, i ended up being right at the front, where they were giving away the bags (sadly, the posters were already gone). so i scored a bag! i met with my sister outside when all the chaos was over and done.

so yeah, what a rockin' day. i saw hikaru utada!!!

house hunting...

JEEPIS! Looking for a house can be a pain in the behind. Buyer's market? HAH! Not really. There really isn't a lot of selection out there. There are plenty of short sales and foreclosures, and that means you battle with a bank. So regular sales are really hard to come by. But we're definitely jumping in the market. So hopefully we'll find something...

cooking?

Opinion...

So the bridesmaids dresses are in. Yay! They are GORGEOUS! Wine was definitely a good choice...it's not too red, not too purple...plus I like to drink it ;-)

Now the question is...shoes and jewelry. I want my bridesmaids to have the same shoes. Now do I want to spend the money on buying dyeables so we can get the exact same color? Or should I just go with a generic color (which also saves some moolah)? I could have their shoes be champagne-hued (champagne is our accent color)...I think that would be easier to find. But does that look weird? Wine dress, beige shoes?

thumbs up to privacy

omg they're DONE. tomorrow will be the first day that our house will be closed to outsiders. no painters, no interior decorators...no one but the people who actually live here. joyous days! this was a long time coming. sure, we have all our stuff in boxes in the garage, and furniture still needs to be moved around or taken out, but, wow, i'm so excited to have our privacy back. you don't realize how much you value something until it's gone (even it is by choice).

so any wedding updates to report? we've decided on invitations and will be working on them at some point when we figure out what needs to go on them. and we're on the warpath to ask people to be our ninongs and ninangs. we want to tell them face-to-face if possible, and so far, we've told about half. so we're getting there. we're also figuring out wedding favors, and we have a really good idea of what we're going with and will probably order them in the next couple of weeks.

i'm still wrestling with the idea of a wedding coordinator. the cheapest that i've found who had our date still available is $1400. good grief! i could get an awesome handbag and a wallet for that...or a couple more lenses for my camera. GEEZ. maybe i can beg someone i know to be my coordinator for the day. you'll totally get an awesome present from me after the wedding! LOL.

Thank you Miss Manners...

It's funny that I should stumble upon this entry, considering that Francis and I have discussed this as we plan out our event. Come time for the invitations to be sent out, the guest list will be very "trim" so we can accommodate the people we really want to be there.

Dear Miss Manners,
I have noticed lately, that amongst women of the same age group as myself who are engaged and planning large, expensive weddings, that my single friends are invited to said weddings without "and guest" added to their invitations.

It is almost as if the engaged women, in an attempt to keep cost down, have decided that the single women, whether they are dating someone or not, do not get the option to bring someone along to the wedding and reception.

Is this rude? I feel that just because these women are not married or engaged, they still should have the opportunity to bring a date to the wedding and that by assuming their dates just aren't as important if not legally bound by law, the engaged woman is being presumptuous and rude. What are your thoughts?

Gentle Reader,
That the invitation is to a wedding, not to an evening out on the town, and it is not rude not to be married in front of strangers who mean nothing to them and not much to you. If you must scour up a date, Miss Manners suggests looking over the single gentlemen at the wedding, who would not have been asked to bring along "and guest" either.

Happy New Year!

It's 2009...and we got 8 months 19 days to go 'til it's "walking down the aisle" time. It's been a crazy start to the year. My parents started a house renovation project right before the holidays, so the house is a MESS. Stacks of boxes in the garage and in the living room...insanity! So the holidays flew by (no Christmas decorations of course...there's no place for them!), and here we are in 2009 and the renovations have continued. Francis and I took a mini-vacation to Vegas the weekend after New Year's, and thank goodness we did, because when we came back, my room was wrapped in plastic! I didn't have access to any of my stuff...clothes, shoes, hair straightener, anything! So it's good I had my essentials due to our trip, so I've been living out of my suitcase for a good week now. Almost everything in the house is blocked off...the kitchen, the bathrooms (with the exception of the master bathroom), the bedrooms...ARG! So I got frustrated with not being able to get to anything, so I packed up my doggie and hightailed it to the Residence Inn this past weekend. Oh sweet Internet and fitness room...I missed you so. :-) But I'm back home now...my room and the office have been completed, so "woo-hoo" to accessing my stuff again. And the Internet is back up so I give that a double "woo-hoo"! The kitchen should be unwrapped by the time I get home today, and, hopefully, the treadmill can be unwrapped again...but since I have access to gym clothes I can head over to 24.