Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Foiled By The Hungarians and Why Michelle Pfeiffer is An Alien

Hello My Wonderful LilyOnTheLam.Com Readers!

I am back!  I have been in Austria, Hungary and Slovakia - working, eating EVERY pastry in sight and carrying on conversations in part German, part Italian, part French, part Hungarian, part Russian and for some reason really broken English!

Between working and eating, I hopped a train and spent a day in Bratislava.  Being in Central Florida, it takes me a good five hours to leave the state - so watching 2 episodes of Scandal and 1 episode of Real Housewives of Atlanta on my iPad and I go from Budapest to Bratislava?  Sounds pretty good to me!  

By the way, my fellow passengers were intrigued as I watched Nene Leakes preparing for her Cirque Du Soleil Zumanity emcee role in Las Vegas.  I was like "People, Apollo Nida is being sentenced to jail!  I have to watch!  And why are you watching over my shoulder?"  (I could throw in a piece about why did Apollo get 8 years and Joe Giudice of Real Housewives of New Jersey get like half of that ... but I don't want to start a war with any Bravo TV reality fans!)

Anyway, reality TV watching aside ...  I am happy to be back on U.S. soil - and my 900 cats are happy I am home as well.  The first night I slept 10 hours straight without stirring.  I woke up to find myself completely surrounded by cats.  If I had slowly stood up there would have been a perfect body outline of me done in cats.  OH MY GOD:  "CSI: Cats" has been born!  Forensic kittens solving crimes!  Mid-season TV replacement Spring 2015.  Watch for it!

I actually tried to post on my blog from Hungary but my computer kept picking up Google: Magyarorszag (a.k.a. Google Hungary - Hungarians are actually known as Magyars, which I prefer name-wise.  There's something very Genghis Khan about it.)  Anyway Google kept turning my Blogger links into Hungarian and with a belly full of Palinka (Hungarian fruit brandy) and pastry, I just had no patience to be blogging in Hungarian!

So with an almost three week lag, I am BACK to blogging American-style.  No more foreign Googles, googling up my links!  

I have so much to write about - and let's be honest here, I still haven't written much about my LAST trip to Hungary.  Nor my trip to Minnesota before that.  I have been busy, people!  But I needed to "break the ice" and make sure I had some posts for November 2014.  Can't miss an entire month!

So I dedicate this first post back from Europe #2 to the blog Pfeiffer Pfilms and Meg Movies.  I do this because as I received 2 weeks worth of held mail, I had Entertainment Weekly's Reunion issue and this picture was inside ...


From Entertainment Weekly

A reunion photo for the cast of the movie The Fabulous Baker Boys - Beau and Jeff Bridges and of course Michelle Pfeiffer.  I dropped the magazine and said out loud to my 900 cats: "Good lord, how does Michelle Pfeiffer still look so good?  She has to be like 80 now.  What the hell?"  (OK she's 56 years old, but jeez she doesn't look it at all.  Is she killing young virgins and bathing in their blood?  Impressive!)

Which looking at the picture reminds me of the one and only time I have ever met Michelle Pfeiffer.  And by "meet" I mean sat 3 rows ahead of her at Baz Luhrmann's "La Boheme" on Broadway.  I was discreetly posting Facebook status updates before the show began when I kept noticing patrons popping up like Prairie Dogs with excited looks on their faces.  (Don't ask me why I capitalized prairie dog - it just seemed appropriate.)

Finally after the 800th Prairie Dog popped up, I turned around to see what everyone was staring at.  Three rows behind me (6th row) were Steven Spielberg and his wife Kate Capshaw, Bruce Springsteen and his wife Patty and David E. Kelley and his wife ... Michelle Pfeiffer - who had slunked down in her seat and was hiding behind her program.  (My spell check says slunked is not a word - well it is now.)

Now I loves me some Michelle Pfeiffer, but I wanted to say "Honey, you're sitting next to Bruce Springsteen and Steven Spielberg - there's no need to hide behind your program!  Not all of the eyes are on you!"  (Which by the way, Bruce Springsteen was standing up without a care in the world.  He might as well have held a sign that said "Hey, I'm Bruce.")  

But I have to say in Entertainment Weekly's reunion photo for The Fabulous Baker Boys - definitely all eyes are on Michelle ... just like they were for the movie (in my opinion!)  So maybe hiding behind her Playbill program keeps wrinkles from forming on her face.  Whatever you're doing Michelle, just keep doing it!  (Young virgins, beware!)

With winter approaching, it has actually become quite chilly in Tampa.  I am nursing two blisters on my right foot that I received from wearing super cute tall boots for 12 miles as I tromped around Slovakia.  (Yes, I sacrifice my feet for fashion.  I'm female!)  

And it rained yesterday in Tampa, so instead of going for a long walk to burn off all the European pastry calories-- I headed to the Casino and won $144 on The Walking Dead slots.  (I gave part to the Salvation Army, part to Publix's Thanksgiving feeding people in need campaign and I kept some of the winnings for myself because hey, I'm not a saint!)  

As I inhaled cartons' worth of second hand smoke in the casino, I felt like the klassiest dame in the joint!  Oh gambling and people in stretched out polyester, so glamourous!




Before I went on my latest European odyssey - I ran into a friend of a friend who was with some other people.  I was talking about my European and Asian work trips and one of the people I did not know looked at me and said, without sarcasm or bitchiness: "You are amazing and have a fascinating life!"  

As I try not to pop my blisters and am surrounded by snoozing, content cats; I laugh and say - "Yes, I am amazing and have a fascinating life!"

Thank you for stopping by, my amazing readers!