GLEE-ful

How does a mom make her 14 year old daughter really happy?

1. Have a friend who works on the set of her VERY FAVORITE TV show.
2. Say "yes" when aforementioned friend asks if she's interested in getting tickets to a Cast Show.
3. Arrange entire weekend around getting daughter to show, which is in LA, and which requires fighting awful LA traffic.

How come the photo of really bad LA traffic never looks as bad as the reality? I think we were going about 3mph at this point, which is why I felt safe taking a picture and driving at the same time.

In other words, it was a VERY good weekend for DramaGirl...mostly thanks to Penny who is a complete rock-star-goddess in both my and DramaGirl's books right now.

Before the show, we met up with Penny and her friend Naomi at a restaurant called Henry's Hat, which was right across the street from Universal Studios. Penny even had me download an iPhone Ap called Junowallet, so I could get a promotional gift card that saved me seven bucks off dinner...Can you say Rock. Star!

The tix

Pre-show - we had great seats!

The show--OK, it may look like we are far away. We weren't, but we were dead-on center. Penny said she was a little disappointed in the seats, but I thought they were excellent. We could see the whole stage. They had multiple screens if you really needed to see a closeup. 

So...It was a completely fabulous show...EXTREMELY LOUD with lots of screaming pre-teens, teens, and OK...I'll admit it, some moms as well. I wouldn't do justice to a complete review...there are plenty of them out there. If you can get tickets (the show was on it's way to Chicago and then New York), you should. Although my understanding is that they sold out within' minutes of going on sale in LA. 

But the best part for DramaGirl (and OK...me too) was that Penny managed to get us back stage...and then even in the back-stage, back-stage area, where DramaGirl got to meet, get autographs, and her picture taken (by her very own personal photographer...me) with almost all of the cast members.  

I didn't post all of the photos I took here, but here are some of DramaGirl's faves (I know this because the photos were posted on her FB page within hours of getting home so that she could make all of her friends insanely jealous).

DramaGirl with her favorite "Finn" (Cory Monteith).

with "Mike Chang" - who is a completely incredible dancer (Harry Shum)

With "Kurt" (Chris Colfer) and Penny. Chris has the most beautiful voice. He sang "Defying Gravity" during the show and it gave me the shivers...

With Mercedes (Amber Riley)

With Brittany (Heather Morris).

I can't say enough how wonderful Penny was. She works on this show and she certainly didn't have to stay late to see people who she works with every day. In fact, I think that at about 11:00, we'd seen two of the cast members and I told Penny that DramaGirl was happy and we REALLY didn't need to stay any longer. She just looked at me like I was nuts and said something like "Oh no. We are doing this." That was when she ran into another colleague of hers who got us into the super-VIP-back-back-stage area (I'm sure that's what they call it).

All of the cast were adorable, and young, and you can tell that they are all just a little overwhelmed by the fact that they are all going to be famous. When they met DramaGirl, they were sweet and talked to her, asked questions, asked how she liked the show, thanked her for coming and for being a fan. They all allowed me to take photos and were not at all pretentious or what you might think celebrities might be. They were just kids who put on a show.

Afterward, we drove to my sister's house in Manhattan Beach. I think we got in about 1am. I was EXHAUSTED*, but it was well worth the day. How can you not just LOVE to see that smile.

I do wonder how many days of "good attitude" I'll get out of this?
_________________________
* Part of the reason for my complete physical exhaustion, aside from being up past midnight, was that I'd been up since 5:30 to get in that 11 mile run...and since this is, sorta, a running blog, I'll take a moment to recap that. It wasn't quite 11 miles (10.65) and it was SLOW (11:26 pace), but I completed it.