Let's catch up

There is so, so much going on lately. I mean, if you could read all the blog posts I've composed in my head the past couple of weeks, you'd wet your pants from laughing. They were HILARIOUS. Oh, and the photographs! OK, well, those actually do exist. Only they're inside my new BlackBerry, and evidently I'm not smart enough to figure out how to get them out of the BlackBerry and into my computer. And the "instruction manual" that came with it? Please. I got a more informative booklet with the four-button walkman-on-a-neckstrap I got when I was 10. For the first week I despised this thing. But I worked at it, tried to stay patient, and now I have settled into more of a mild disgust. Hoping that when I get it linked up to actual useful things, like Outlook e-mail and schedule at work, we'll live happily ever after.

But the pictures. So first off, I have some shots of Princess Leia hugging my husband. THE Princess Leia, who was at the San Jose Rep doing a one-woman show written by some broad named Carrie Fisher. She showed up at a pre-show reception and went around to all the tables saying hi to everyone. I thought she looked beautiful, though I was a little WTF? on her eye makeup. Royal blue eyeliner, bright and thick, sprinkled with glitter the size of diamonds. Later I realized that she isn't quite as freaky as all that, it was just stage makeup. I also realized this woman has created for herself a job where she sits around on stage in pajamas, telling stories and smoking cigarettes. So if she wanted diamonds in her eyes, she could probably make it happen.

I also have pictures from the Gilroy Garlic Festival, which I attended for the first time despite the fact that I have lived in the Bay Area for six years. To all of you who told me this is a stupid hillbilly event that isn't worth the drive or the effort, well, I would like to introduce you to my new best friend, crab fries. CRAB FRIES, YOU GUYS. Crunchy, golden, beer-battered garlic fries, topped with creamy aioli and a heap of shredded dungeness crab. I began to slobber just typing that sentence.

OK, I must interrupt myself and say that just now I went to Yelp to see if other people liked these greasy little babies, and yikes! People hated this festival?! I really can't understand that. The biggest complaints seem to be the heat (because Gilroy in July is normally so pleasant, right?); the traffic (one einstein whines about "bad traffic planning by the organizers;" mm-hmm, because there's so much with Highway 101 you can get creative with!); and the food (CRABFRIES-CRABFRIES-CRABFRIES.) Someone even complained about a lack of beer! I just don't know what is wrong in people's heads sometimes. The beer was icy cold and plentiful. The food was outstanding. In addition to the crab fries, we really enjoyed the buttery shrimp scampi with garlic bread, and the garlic sausage sandwich. We also tried the garlic ice cream, and Yelpers, I'll give you that one. Eww.

I wasn't the only one who didn't care for garlic ice cream. Emily West, an up-and-coming country music artist and also my very good pal, didn't like them, either. Emily was at the festival primarily to the hell out of a song called "Rocks in Your Shoes," which is her first Top 40 hit and a song I'm crazy about. It was so awesome to hear it live. And I'm telling you, this woman is adorable (if you can manage to be adorable while also being a 6-foot-tall blonde bombshell.)

At the end of her set (after she tried garlic ice cream onstage and declared it to be "awful") she came out to sign autographs. Now, normally I stay far away from celebrities of any kind. I love to gawk at them, but I don't want to talk to them because I know I'd say something stupid. Like "You are cool" or "I love you." But for some reason I had a little burst of courage with Emily, maybe because she toughed it out for our small crowd, in dust and wind and cruel heat. I liked her sense of humor. At one point she casually dropped some remark about her tour bus, and then she chuckled and whispered into the microphone, "Yeah, I don't have a tour bus." She also used her cell phone to take pictures of the crowd and some some self-portraits of her and her guitarist, the only other person on stage. Then she asked us to please become her MySpace friend. Awww-WUH!

So I got in line and when it was my turn to meet her, I told her that I really appreciated her coming all the way out to Gilroy. Then I said her song kicks so much ass. She laughed at that, and as I walked away I looked down at what she wrote on my program. "To Amy: You kick ass. Emily West." Emily, you are cool.

Finally, since we seem to have a bit of a celebrity theme going on in this post, I may as well tell you that someone you all know (hint: IT'S CHICKENBONE JONES!) attended a photo shoot with his dad this week. San Jose Magazine is doing a feature for their October edition about local celebrities and their pets. The photographer said Chickens was the most "energetic" dog they saw that day, which was probably putting it kindly, since Sal said he was sprinting around and around the hotel suite and wouldn't sit still because he was too busy trying to kiss everyone. On the plus side, he did not pee on any people or furnishings. Really, that should be their headline.