ALICIA'S BLOG: A Night To Remember

The movie? Great. My night? Interesting.

It began at 4:00 when my posse and I arrived at the theater. After chatting with the manager and working out the details of how the evening would play out, my partner in crime (you may know her as Kim, or, "Myers"...of "Leppert/Myers") and I headed back out into the cold to wait with the masses. (Not the masses in lawn chairs wrapped in blankets waiting for the midnight showing, the other masses.) That's right, we stood out in the cold with the rest of our friends, even though we had been extended an invitation to wait inside in the warmth. We didn't want to use our newfound celebrity status to get special treatment, you know. Trying to stay humble and all. At 5:00 on the dot Kim and I did the honors of throwing open the doors ourselves and letting the mob inside. As soon as we were in the theater we saw this:

I can't begin to tell you how cool it was to see my name up there on the reader board. I felt like a freakin rock star. We had no idea they were going to do that. The theater staff kept saying to us, "Oh, you're Leppert/Myers, well, go on ahead" as if we were royalty. And people kept coming up to me and saying, "You're the one who put this whole thing together?" I don't want to brag, but...yeah.

Of course, we had to get pictures beneath our sign.

After our beloved tickets got ripped and we headed into the theater, we saw this:

We had our own theaters! Thank goodness for camera phones, I would have never recovered if I didn't get a picture of that.

Then we waited. The anticipation was killing me. But it was so fun.

Me and company
(from left to right: Amie, me, my SIL Kim, and Myers)
The rest of the posse extended outside of the picture. (And please don't judge me for my colossal bucket of popcorn. I'm actually not really a huge popcorn fan, I just really wanted the New Moon bucket of popcorn. I think I ate one inch down. Best $9 I ever spent. Not.)

FINALLY, the movie started. Young girls screamed, as did old ones. And you know what? I didn't care. A lot of people hate that, but I love it. I think it adds so much to the excitement of watching a movie you are all dying to see with a bunch of people that are as in love with it as you are. And it was awesome. And I loved it. And I've already gone back to see it with my hubby. And now I love it even more because the second time is ALWAYS better.

But what was not awesome? The migraine that started to come on 1/4 of the way into the movie. The pain I could deal with. I've learned to live life with pain in my head. The nausea? I could not. And lately my headaches have been 1 part pain, 3 parts nausea. I don't do well with nausea (newsflash).

So that was bad. And then on top of that, the arctic air blasting through the theater vents was giving my goose bumps goose bumps. I can't remember the last time I was that cold. I was literally rubbing my arms under my paper thin jacket to stay warm. At least that distracted me somewhat from the nausea.

By the time the credits rolled (and everyone bolted for the doors to go home and take cold showers) I was definitely not doing too well. I had reached my point of can't-fake-a-smile-anymore and already stressing out about what to do next. I had brought all these people in my car and we had plans to go to Red Robin afterward. But I knew then and there that Red Robin and I wouldn't be seeing each other that night.

My friends were gracious and understanding, as they are all well aware of my headache situation and more importantly, my shut-down mode when it comes to not feeling well. But I was still fighting back tears as I dropped them off outside the Robin. I couldn't believe it. This couldn't be happening. This was supposed to be my night, a night I had prepared for and waited for and anticipated for months.

The look on Bill's face when I walked through the door at 9:30 was as shocked as I was that the night had ended like this. I crawled into bed and cried. I waited to fall asleep like I always do at that point but I didn't. I guess my mind was too crazy. But my body relaxed and the nausea went away. When almost an hour had passed and I was still wide awake and feeling a lot better, I realized the night was not over. I hopped out of bed and told Bill I was leaving. He all but pushed me out the door. He so wanted me to have the night I had wanted. So I drove back to Red Robin, where the party was pretty much being wrapped up and the kitchen was closed but I didn't care. I sat down and Shayla graciously gave me her extra half of Whiskey River Chicken Wrap and I devoured it along with lukewarm french fries and poppy seed honey mustard. Yum. Friends filtered out but some of us sat and talked until the Red Robin staff made us leave (they had closed.)

And so I say the night was interesting. Equal parts awesome and crappy. I could have done without: