another trip around the sun

are you ever really too old to be excited for your birthday?  because let me tell you...today is mine and i still love to celebrate it as much as i did when i was little.  the number gets a little scarier every year, but hey - it's just a number, right?

although with the actual day falling right in the middle of a typically busy work/school week, i'll get to spend a lot of it solo this time around.  that's totally cool though, and we'll have a family dinner tonight somewhere local.  and i have my whole day all mapped out already!  check it out:

• sleep in
• take the bean to school
• stop at starbucks for my free birthday coffee
• take a shower
• get my lashes done
• enjoy a mani/pedi
• pick up some sort of terrible-for-me-but-oh-so-delicious lunch
• a little sewing time to make myself something fun
• pick up the bean from school and take her to her math tutor
• hang out with the hub at home
• go to dinner
• put on comfy pajamas
• fall asleep to friends

i'd squeeze in a massage in there somewhere, but the hub already treated me to one of those this weekend.  it'd be pretty overindulgent if i got another one just a few days later, right?

in the meantime...hello, 48.  let's do this.

it's all about the presentation

with my birthday falling smack dab in the middle of the week, we decided to go out to a fun dinner at barton g to celebrate last weekend.  i don't even remember where i first heard of barton g, but the old lady swears that the real housewives of orange county went there in an episode.  she's probably right.  she always is.

the only times available for our party were either 6:15 or 9:30 and later, and since i'm old and crotchety anyway we opted for the earlybird slot.  heading out to the westside on a saturday evening is always a challenge, and even leaving more than an hour early we still managed to pull up to the valet about 7 minutes late.  oh well.

no worries though.  we checked in at the hostess' desk and were seated right away - although the hub was a little less than pleased to find himself in a chair at the end of the table that was halfway in the hallway that led to the restrooms.  it was a pretty small restaurant, and they'd crammed as many tables as they possibly could in there. 

at each place setting there was an intricate rectangle-shaped charger with the menu placed on it and a napkin folded into what looked like a bathrobe on top of that.

we got our first taste of barton g's famously over-the-top presentation with our cocktails.  the old lady's margarita came with a quick flash of fire that i was too late to capture.

the hub ordered a moonshine drink, and we were all super amused when this contraption was placed in front of him:

the server returned with a decorative bottle, which he poured into the top and then turned a screw or something at the bottom which dispensed the drink into the glass waiting at the bottom with a huge sphere of ice in it.

my drink, the "sabrina-tini" (and i'm still not sure who sabrina is, but her drink was super tasty) came with a champagne popsicle and a chocolate monkey hanging from the rim.

and the special friend's "highway to heaven" cocktail came like this:

and yes, that was a dancing girl on the miniature screen.  it caught the attention of the table full of giggling pre-teen girls behind him, and we all hoped that dancing girl ≠ stripper.

the bean perused the mocktail menu and ended up ordering a virgin sabrina-tini that looked just like mine, only her popsicle wasn't made with champagne and there was no chocolate monkey on the rim.  and when she took a sip she swore it had soda in it (you know how much she hates fizzy drinks) and promptly handed it to her sister, who loved it.

we'd ordered the "strike out sliders," which came like this:

and the lobster pop tarts, served in a cute retro toaster.

as we munched on our appetizers (which were actually really delicious, so it was nice to see that it wasn't all just for looks), we noticed someone being served the "lawn moo-er," a giant porterhouse steak for two plus a bunch of side dishes...served atop an actual lawn mower.  hopefully you can see it:

and at another table, someone was being served their popcorn shrimp appetizer - in an actual popcorn machine.

i was on my second sabrina-tini by then and i was feeling pretty good.

this caught everyone's attention - the "marie antoinette's head."  ol' marie had a huge tower of pink cotton candy on her head with cupcakes on the tray next to her.  we swore we wanted it until we read the description and realized that no one really wanted blackberry jam-filled cupcakes, so we settled for ooh-ing and aah-ing over everyone else's.

our main entrees began to arrive.  first up:  our "platinum ranch tomahawk," which said it was for 2 but we split it with the bean since there was a lot of it.  check out this giant steak:

which also came with a platter of grilled lobster and shrimp:

after we'd taken in the presentation and snapped a few pictures, the server whisked the steak away to have the chef slice it up into easier-to-eat portions.

the old lady's braised short rib entree came inexplicably in a brightly-lit UFO.

and her special friend's filet arrived next to a gigantic fork with herbed bone marrow butter.

the bean and i thought the food was super delicious and grubbed down happily, although everyone else seemed to think that everything was too salty.  the hub was still bemused at being seated in the pathway to the restrooms, and the old lady just shook her head at the crazy shenanigans.  when we'd all eaten as much as we could, they whisked away our leftovers to pack up (including that giant tomahawk bone to take home to stevie) and brought us this little basket of dessert menus.

there were lots of great options to choose from, but we ended up going with the carnival fun cakes - funnel cakes served with dipping sauces to share.  it was delivered with a fun carnival game to play, plus a sparkler and a little chocolate "happy birthday" plaque to commemorate the occasion:

we were all pretty stuffed by then, but we managed to power through at least half of that dessert before we threw in the towel.  and along with being next to the restroom, we also happened to be right next to an exit that led right to the valet's kiosk.  i was amused as i held the door open for everyone and turned around to find the hub sneaking a few last bites of funnel cake:

it was a silly, crazy fun dinner and a pretty awesome way to kick off my birthday celebrations.

i say "celebrations" because you KNOW i'm gonna milk it as much as i possibly can.  you'd be disappointed if i didn't.

standing by for the ellen show

the old lady and i got to check off a bucket list item this week, courtesy of one of her oldest and dearest friends in the world.  she'd secured some standby tickets for a taping of the ellen show during premiere week, and invited both of us to join her and her mom.  um, yes please!

we picked them up at their house (which i hadn't seen in years, so it was a total walk down memory lane just driving through the neighborhood) and headed out to the warner bros. studios in burbank bright and early on tuesday morning.  we pulled into the parking structure and placed this on the dashboard:

since standby seating is done on a first-come, first-served basis we dropped off BFF before heading off to find a parking spot.  good thing too, because there were only a couple of people in line at that point and it ended up taking us damn near forever to park the car.  ellen was doing two show tapings that day, which meant a ton of folks were arriving around the same time - along with others like employees, people arriving for job interviews, extras, etc.  by the time we finally joined BFF in line the line had gotten pretty long.

our tickets were for the first show of the day, with the check-in time listed on the ticket as 12:30.  we lucked out though, because perhaps because of the double taping day they started checking us in somewhere around 10:30.  they handed us numbered cards and told us we were free to leave as long as we returned by noon.  sweet!  we headed on out of there and pulled up yelp to find somewhere to find some breakfast and a spot to relax.

it took us less than 10 minutes to find the perfect place - olive & thyme, which was super cute and where we spied a bunch of other folks we'd seen in line as well.  we ordered coffee and cookies and settled in for a good long chat to catch up on each others' lives.

as we walked back to the studio, the old lady pointed out something she'd seen along the way - the water tower that normally sports the WB logo had been repainted and looked like it might had been used in the new "it" movie.

we headed back into the parking structure to sit in the holding area for the audience.

this part seemed like it took forever.  we sat around on the benches while the production assistants had the guaranteed ticketholders start to line up according to the numbers they'd received at check-in.  to help pass the time, there was a commissary truck in one corner and several tv screens that played musical performances from past ellen shows.  when they'd gotten through all of the guaranteed ticketholders and escorted them across the street to the studio, they finally started having the standby folks line up.  we hopped right up when they called our numbers and in no time we were out of there, across the street and seated on another bench in another holding area.

there were lots of pictures of past guests lining the walls, but this is the one that caught our eye.  it's super blurry, and super old based on their hair in the picture, but this was from one of the jonas brothers' appearances:

as we got up we were all led into the "riff raff room," which is where standby ticketholders get to watch the show if the studio ends up filling up before they're able to enter.  this is also where the ellen shop is, and you can buy all sorts of themed merchandise from t-shirts to water bottles to underwear.

except that due to the double taping...WOMP WOMP.

oh well.  we were just excited to get this far.

because of how early we'd arrived, we got lucky and got seated in the studio audience after all.  had we not made the cut, we'd have been allowed to watch the show from the riff raff room and then been able to choose another date for a taping where we'd be given guaranteed tickets.  our group of four was split in half and filled seats way at the outer end of two aisles.  i knew we weren't going to be in camera range, but we did get a great view of twitch as he came in to check out the audience quietly right next to us.  our seats were also almost directly in front of where ellen and her guests are seated for their segments, just a few rows from the stage.

her guests that day were chrissy teigen and chance the rapper, along with a father/daughter duo whose video of them singing "señorita" had gone viral.  the taping itself was smooth and organized, and by the time ellen came out to thank the audience and wave goodbye we'd been sitting in the studio for just about an hour and a half. 

photography was, of course, prohibited inside the studio.  i did snap this on our way out of the riff raff room, though, because i'm a dork like that.

we were directed towards the exit and waited to take our turn to exit the property and cross the street back to the parking structure.

we knew that the second show of the day was going to have a massive tv giveaway, but we didn't leave completely emptyhanded.  chance the rapper had provided an ellen show-exclusive version of his latest CD, which we were handed on our way out.

everyone was starving since we hadn't had lunch, so the old lady drove us to one of our favorite places.  we ordered plates of ropa vieja and grilled chicken, and it was all delicious as always.

i thought of one more thing as we got back into the car after our late lunch, and pulled up directions to the brady bunch house.  we've always talked about driving by just to see it, and since we were just a few miles away we finally made it happen.  they've been filming here for the past year since HGTV bought the house and took on a huge renovation project, turning it into the exact house that we all recognize from the old brady bunch show.  they'd just done a red carpet premiere last week and it was all fenced up again, and we all wondered what they were going to do with the house now that it was done.  i would have loved to get out and take a picture in front of it, but we saw a security guard nearby and figured that maybe it wasn't allowed.  so i settled for this:

and he waved at us as we drove away, so maybe it would have been okay to get out after all.  bummer.  maybe next time.

i read somewhere that they're considering making the house available for private events...guys.  i have two years till i turn 50.  how amazing would it be to throw myself a party at the freaking BRADY BUNCH HOUSE??  come on, HGTV.  help me make my dream come true.