Hooray it's my Birthday!!! :)

Today it is official. I am a whole year older and...I'll just leave it @ that. ;)

Prior to out of town friend #1 visiting last week, I had put in requests for tickets at a talk show (The Morning Show with Mike & Juliet) I walk past the entrance of every day. When I put in the request it asked for 3 dates - so I put in dates that I knew I would have off beyond while my friend was here. My birthday ended up being the one they gave me tickets for!

But since my friend was no longer in town I flew solo to the taping. Munched on Au Bon Pain goodies in the waiting room and got to know the ladies standing in front of me - they were from Canada. The audience wrangler told us the topics for the day - saying that JASON LEE would be interviewed! But he quickly squashed any excitement by apologizing because the segment was taped yesterday. Boo!

A comedian came out to warm up the audience and asked if anyone was celebrating birthdays, anniversaries, etc. Another gal in the audience was celebrating a b-day, too! We both got Mike & Juliet tees.

The hosts came out for a quick Q&A (Mike was good at asking people questions and not really waiting/ listening for a response - he seemed a bit distracted) and then the show started. One of the topics they talked about was women who don't eat all day so they can save their calories for drinking at night. Never heard of such a thing but I guess it is becoming a worrying trend. Yikes!

They use a camera on a long crane to film most of the show in the modest sized studio and have names of people on the neck of it where they got smacked in the head by it! The camera swept the audience several times but I'm not sure I was visible.

Soon enough the show was over - but not before they showed the pre-recorded Jason Lee interview and announced that "today's" audience got a free "Alvin & the Chipmunks" Soundtrack CD. Once again the audience groaned as it was yesterday's audience that got it. Not that I needed that CD - but that's kinda stinky, don't ya think?

I scurried home to change into my more trendy look for the day (didn't think it would work for a morning television audience member outfit) and then headed back into the city again to meet a friend visiting from Boston.

We met up @ Union Square and grabbed lunch @ Max Brenner - Chocolate by the Bald Man. Never had a meal there before - it was quite tasty! Then we headed out to find the "Gap Tidings" Mobile I had read about.

We found it and were told we could record a "Gap Tidings" greeting to email to family and friends. My friend and I decided we'd send it to "Omaha" and practiced our movements and what we were going to do - It primarily revolved around our version of "Deck the Halls".

When we got inside the traveling studio they decked us out in various Gap stripe accessories and props and we did our thang. ;) We got free long sleeve tees for our efforts and were told the video would be posted within 24 hours. (Alas, they screwed up our posting and someone else's video was posted under our title (Cornhuskers take Manhattan) and # - but they did post the candid pic they took!)

Next, it was off to see all the holiday displays since my friend hadn't seen them yet. I discovered there were some I hadn't seen yet, either - like one strip of more kid oriented and interactive window displays @ Macy's. (You could line your face up with the astronaut helmet on the window - see lower left corner of pic - and it would project your face on a floating astronaut's helmet - so, you were in fact the astronaut! - Kinda cool!)
Time slip, slided away soon enough and it was time to pick up my "Ooey Gooey" cake (Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Almond Buttercream) from the Sugar Sweet Sunshine Bakery.

We discovered that the Bakery I had found online was in a potentially sketchy neighborhood. Was a bit worried that I had led us in the wrong direction but we finally found it and the block it is on had some other places I'd like to try sometime!

Once we picked up the cake we headed over to BLT Burger where we were meeting another friend for supper. Since we were early we sidled up to the bar and I took the opportunity to try out one of their spiked milkshakes! :)

My local friend showed up, we ate, talked and brought out the cake. I started to cut and serve and our waiter was sweet enough to find a candle to stick into my slice and lit it with his lighter.

Post supper the original plan was to meet up with some other girls that my Boston friend knows so to kill time we headed over to the Heartland Brewery in Union Square for more drinks. It would be longer than we originally thought before the girls would be ready to meet us and being one year older and all, the long day was not making me that excited to have a long night, too. So we texted our apologies and headed home.

We heard that a winter storm was coming so my Boston friend headed out when I did in the morning - sadly, she didn't beat the storm and ended up on an 11 hour ride home! Ugh!