What A Week!!!

Monday morning, almost as soon as I woke up, Rhiannon sent me an article on Facebook saying that Mariska Hargitay was going to Broadway. I knew April Fools was coming up so I double checked the date and realized this was not a joke. I was immediately overcome with a lot of emotion. I didn't have time to look into anything because I was going right into my therapy appointment. Usually, those appointments go by so fast, but that day it felt like it took forever. To my therapist's credit, she did offer to let me out of the session when I told her about the news, but I really needed to discuss some things, so I chose to stay.

Anyway, after therapy, Rhiannon and I started looking into how we were going to make this work. We had a trip planned in August to go see Beaches and to do some other things in the city. We didn't want to cancel that one because we were supposed to be going with a friend. We tried to justify maybe driving into the city, seeing the show, and driving home (or getting a hotel on the way home). But it was still way too much money to go to New York back to back like that. So we ended up moving the August trip to June. We booked our hotel on Tuesday and bought the tickets on Thursday. We will be seeing Mariska Freaking Hargitay...from seats on the stage.

I don't know what you know about the show Every Brilliant Thing, to be fair I had not even heard of it until Monday, but it is a one person show that is heavy on audience participation. From what we have learned, she will be walking around the theatre (balcony, dress circle, stage, orchestra) before the show starts asking around 90 people to participate. Most of the participation is reading a saying on a piece of paper when she says the number at the top of the page. There are some people who are asked to be in scenes with her on stage as well. Now, as much as I love theatre, I am not sure what I will say if I am approached to participate. I would like to say that I would jump on the opportunity, but I also know that I have such stage fright. One show that I was on the crew for required me to walk onto the stage in a blackout and place a blanket on the stage. I would shake every single night before I walked out and placed the prop. No one could see and I couldn't see them, but I was not well. But I think Rhiannon would definitely take part if asked. Or at least I hope she does. This was just the start of my week.

So my birthday is coming up on April 13th, but because all of my friends have a show that weekend, we decided to have my 35th birthday party this weekend. This year I decided that I wanted to have a Law & Order: SVU themed party. We asked everyone to dress as someone from the show. The only rule was no one could come as Olivia Benson. We had a lot of fun. We had: Alexandra Cabot, Fin Tutuola, Munch, two Amanda Rollins, Sonny Carisi, Capt. Curry, A hot dog vendor, A NYC Pizza Guy, A Crime Scene Investigator/Medical Examiner, and the opening/closing credits of the show. All of the food was themed to SVU as well. We had: NYC Pizza, Carisi Caprese, ADA Barba-Q Weenies, Captain Olive-ia's Pickles & Olives, Munch-ies, Amanda's Georgia Peach Rings, Sweet Ice-T and unsweet Ice-T, and squad room sweets.

Rhiannon and I made a jeopardy game full of easy questions, or so we thought, for my friends to play even though most of them don't watch the show. We had 2 categories for guest stars, Will They Kiss?, What's the Line, Is It Real, Random Facts. After final jeopardy, I had a surprise for them: every person who has seen My Mom Jayne added 500 points to their team's score...I have been telling them to watch this documentary for WEEKS...one person got the extra points. It was so much fun getting a chance to share some of my favorite moments from my favorite show with my favorite people. It was so funny watching them think they knew the answer to some of the questions and being SO WRONG.

After the game, we did what all theatre kids do, we started singing karaoke. When I lived in Georgia, I used to go the bar every week for karaoke. I haven't done that in YEARS, so any chance I get to do karaoke, I will take it. I am always so blown away by the talent of my friends. It was an incredible night full of laughter and so so much love. I am excited to see what year 35 brings!

#JoyfulJourneyHappyHeart

I just wanted to share some pictures from the party...enjoy.