Whew!

Another jam-packed weekend! I guess I had it coming since the previous weekend I hardly left my apartment. The new and, sadly, last Harry Potter book was released on July 21 and I didn’t want to have the ending spoiled for me, so I laid low. Plus, I ordered my copy from Amazon’s UK site (I have the British version of the first six as well), and had it sent to me from our London office. So I knew that the soonest I would get it was Tuesday. It didn’t arrive until Wednesday, and I stayed up until 2am to finish it. Now I’m in the process of re-reading them all from the beginning. Well, re-reading isn’t entirely accurate. As I have all the audio books except #7, I’m doing a combination of reading and listening. I’m about half way through Sorcerer’s Stone, and I’m amazed at the way that JK Rowling was able to bring characters and plot points all way to the end.

Anyway, back to the weekend. Friday night was another trip to the Hollywood Bowl. For the first time in all the times I’ve been there, I had tickets to sit in one of the box seats. Not only are box seats expensive, they’re also very hard to come by. Many are leased year after year by the same family or entity and passed down in wills and trusts. Plus, I wanted to make the cost worthwhile in terms of what I was seeing at the bowl. I mean, if it’s just the Philharmonic, one might as well be in the back row as the first.

A few years ago, I learned that my company has pairs of box seats that they make available to employees for purchase at face value. They provide a list of the shows and employees can join a drawing for the opportunity to purchase the tickets. Well, after several tries, I was finally successful. So last Friday night, my friend Susan and I made saw Wayne Brady and Gladys Knight at the bowl! And the show was fabulous. Wayne sang a few Sammy Davis, Jr. songs to open the show, and after intermission Gladys came out. I’ve never seen her perform live before, but after this can’t wait to see her again.

Friday afternoon a friend of mine asked me to join her and some of her co-workers on Saturday afternoon in the company suite at Anaheim Stadium. I’m not much of a baseball fan, but this was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up. The suite was located about 2/3 of the way up the third-base line and would comfortably hold 15-20 people. It was really cool to see how the other half lives.

Then on Sunday, I finished off the weekend with a brief trip to Disney’s California Adventure with a couple of friends. While they both had been there before, neither had been to the Animation attraction where Lumiere from Beauty and the Beast helps you find out which Disney character you most resemble. Carrie was Ariel and Carolyn was Nala. Then we went to Ursula’s Grotto where you can insert your speaking or singing voice into a brief scene from various Disney movies. We sang Heigh Ho from Snow White, and then Carrie and Carolyn did a brief scene from Lion King playing young Simba and his Uncle Scar. We finished our visit with a nice lunch at the Storyteller Café restaurant at the Grand Californian Hotel.

Sorry that I don’t have any pictures. I lost my camera sometime this weekend. I think I left it in the suite, but I’m not sure. Someone at the park is looking to see if it gets turned in, but I’m not counting on it. Despite that, it was a great weekend.