WARNING: This ended up being way longer than I thought. Mah bad.
So last night I had the great fortune of attending the rescue group I volunteer for (Kitten Rescue)'s fundraiser. It was called the Fur Ball at the Skirball. I'm pretty much going to just sum up the awesomeness of the day :)
So me and the boyfriend woke up early and headed out to Van Nuys to pack up all of the auction items and gift bags onto the moving truck so that it could all be taken to the Skirball center. It was there that I first set eyes on my prize... the prize I knew I needed to have... a signed script from The Office. There it was in all its glory I didn't get a chance to see which episode it was for, but I wanted it anyways. It was in a gift basket packaged with a Dunder Mifflin hat. There were other Office goodies to be had... including a signed photo of the entire cast, a signed Dwight bobble head, a signed piece of Dunder Mifflin luggage, a signed season 3 Dvd set, and a signed "World's Best Boss" mug packaged with an Office t-shirt (conveniently in my size). So anyhoo... we loaded up the truck and then went back to Kev's apartment for lunch. Side note... we watched the end of Season 3 of the Office an episode called The Job.
Then a dilemma... my cat Sqeaker had evidently decided this dress was pretty much his favorite to sleep on. Seeing that it was silk and he is rather portly... there was no ironing out these wrinkles. After some internet scouring we found a tip and resulted in a less-wrinkled dress. We finished getting ready and we were off.
We got to the Skirball an hour early just in case they needed any extra help setting things up.
When we got there they had it all under control so we moseyed around. As people started to line up we did too and were some of the first people in. The event started at 6pm with a nice cocktail hour complete with cat themed specialty drinks... I had the Tom Cat. There was a greatpianist named Jason Farnham who played for the first 45 minutes of the night. Also starting at 6pm was the silent auction. It was located on the upper level so we went up stairs to check it all out and put down our bids on the Office stuff. Since I forgot to earlier, I checked to see which script it was in the gift basket and lo and behold it was The Job which we had just watched before leaving. FATE I TELL YA!!!
While I was up there I caught a glimpse of Jenna Fischer doing some interviews along the red carpet. For those of you who don't know... she's pretty much my favorite EVER! But anyways... we continued along our tour of the auction items and eventually made our way back downstairs for a drink. As I was walking to get a drink Jenna happened to get thirsty at the same time... yep. I didn't say anything to her, just got my drink and went and walked around checking out the plans for the Shelter that Kitten Rescue was hoping to renovate with the night's donations. After that we went back up stairs because of my paranoia of losing the auction... from up there I watched Phoenix Projekt perform their fire dancing act.
Boyfriend got tired of hovering around the Office stuff and decided he would go get us seats for the dinner so that we would be at least facing the stage. Shortly there-after, it just so happened that Ms. Fischer was checking our her donations to the auction. She was worried that people didn't know that all of the stuff was signed... and it was true... I didn't know the season 3 Dvds were signed and I didn't know the Bobble Head was signed and I didn't know where the suitcase was signed. Well.. this would not do. So she opened up the bobble head and luggage and wrote on the Dvd's paper that it was in fact signed on the inside by the entire cast.
While Jenna was adjusting everything her friend Ryan stood next to me out of the way. He asked what I was bidding on a such and wished me luck. So I stand up there for a little longer. Finally I realize that the show is going to be starting in the next 15 minutes so I mustered up my courage and walked over to Jenna. She was talking with another office fan... Kristina... who had a whole book of awesomeness that they were looking through. I kinda just waited in the wings and again chatted it up with Ryan. I told him how much of a dork I felt like for asking for a picture... at this point he goes, "Oh no don't worry about it" and grabs the camera and calls Jenna over.
OMG. So this all is sort of a blur my apologies if I forget things.
So she introduces herself and I introduce myself and Ryan takes a couple of pictures (which was so awesome of him). I tell her I love the show etc. She says... well come along with us! (Um are you serious!?!!?) Yes she was serious. So me and Kristina join Jenna and Ryan as they finish walking the auction and head downstairs. I'm not sure how she got on the subject but she talked about the Creative Emmy's and how unfortunately The Office didn't win. She talked about how much fun it was to go and how it was better than the actual Emmy's and that she would definitely be going again. She talked about some of the people she met, one of them being Tom Hanks. She said he was so cool. He sat out in his seat in the audience the whole time, instead of waiting in the green room as some celebs often do. She seemed really stoked to have gotten to meet him. She said he just walked over and said 'Hi I'm Tom'... like no really? haha. She mentioned Kathy Griffin getting in trouble for dropping the F bomb again and mentioned a few other celebs Seth Green, Ashley Tisdale. Jenna made sure that we would tell you all the Ashley is SUPER nice. Like the nicest ever. (I beg to differ... Jenna is in fact the nicest ever... I mean come on... she let two fans tag along with her like it was no big deal).
So at this point its getting close to the time that Jenna has to go on so we're walking back into the auditorium when some ladies stopped her and asked her to ride in a race car. Evidently... its in her contract that they cannot ride in race cars or sky dive or do any other dangerous things. So Jenna chats with us for a little while longer. Kristina asked her what the 'gang sign-ish' thing she was doing in the promos was all about. (I secretly hoped she wouldn't tell us because I like to be surprised) She said she couldn't tell us, but that it did have to do with Pam trying to be 'hip'. About this time we all sort of concurred that she needed to get ready for her hosting gig. Jenna said she'd try to catch a us again towards the end of the night, but said she had to leave the event a little bit early as she had to get up at 5 to go to work. I mentioned that I too had to get up at 5am to get on a flight. She then asked me where I was flying and I told her I had come down from San Francisco. She was so sweet and thanked me so much for coming down for the event. And it was about that time that they said 5 minutes till the auction was closing, so we said our goodbyes and wished Jenna luck. Me and Kristina ventured back upstairs to the auction to... hover. Haha.
I was bidding on the mug/t-shirt and the script/hat and Kristina was bidding on the Dwight bobble head/signed photo. We chatted about how surreal the last 15 mins had been until one of the night's volunteers officially ended the bidding. Me and Kristina both got what we were bidding on! After totally having a geek out moment we composed ourselves and went back to our respective tables. At this time the Kodama Taiko Drummers performed. They were awesome! Okay so now its about 745 and Kim (who organized the event) came up on stage and said a few words and then introduced Jenna.
Jenna came up and shared her story about how she got involved with Kitten Rescue. She joked that it was actually the 11th anniversary, but that rescuers always round down. For instance your 2 year old foster is just a little over a year old at adoptions. She talked about how she had wanted to volunteer with animals so she typed into google 'animal rescue Los Angeles' and Kitten Rescue popped up. She thought that sounded good so she called the number and went through the application process and home check and was approved to be a suitable foster parent. At this point she adds that she thought maybe within the next two weeks she thought maybe she'd get a call... no... 4 hours later she had her first foster kitten. She continued in saying that she had that kitten for 2 weeks before it was adopted and said... "oh this is easy". Then she was convinced to take Honeybear... a 27lb. cat who hid under her couch for 7 months. Eventually Honeybear was adopted by a woman who didn't care if she never saw him. She talked about her efforts to do the Trap Neuter Release program for feral cats... where they said under no circumstances let the cat out... well she saw the kitty in the trap and decided it would be better in a carrier. Which ended with the cat inside her husband's car engine.
She continued to talk about all of the great volunteers for the organization and gave everyone a run down of what would be going on during the evening. Then she introduced the President of Kitten Rescue. He talked about all the volunteers in the organization and had us all stand up and then they presented an award. Jenna then came back on stage and introduced the woman who started Kitten Rescue. She talked about how it all started, thanked the committee, and another award was given out. Jenna came back out and introduced the woman in charge of Kitten Rescue's Shelter. Another award was given out and then Jenna introduced the video.
At this point I get nervous because they had interviewed me for this video and I thought I sounded stupid. The video starts and gives some history. In the video Jenna told a heart breaking story of when she used to answer phone calls for the group. A woman had called and told her that her cat had just been diagnosed with kidney failure and she was going to have to give it sub-q fluids and she wasn't really into that and wanted to give Kitten Rescue her sickly 13 year old cat. Jenna happened to mention this phone call to another rescuer who said, 'oh my God, a woman I know just lost her cat of 22 years and she had been giving him sub-q fluids for years. Let me go talk to her'. And could you believe it that woman took that 13 year old cat. She called up the 'horrible' owner and they got the cat. (Jenna choked up at this part of the video... for those of you who don't know a 13 year old cat is not highly adoptable and when you add on top of that the cat had kidney failure and needed constant care... its incredible that this worked out). At this point I'm blinking away tears because I have adopted 2 hard to place cats... a feral kitten with a severely broken leg and an older black and white kitty (both of which turned out to be the best cats in the whole world). The video continued to touch on how amazing the organization is and cute kitty video ensues... tears... and... thankfully none of my interview! Which I thought was great because I mostly talked about a certain section of Kitten Rescue called the Hope Fund, which is set up for kitties that come in with catastrophic injuries. They did put one clip of me and Squeaker cuddling on the couch towards the end which was cute.
The president came up again after the video and talked about the future of the organization. Then someone read something that they had written about animal rescuers called "Not on my watch" which was followed by a fund drive. After he was finished Wendy McLendon-Covey (from Reno 911) came up and gave out the raffle prizes. And then at about 930 Jenna came up and thanked everyone for coming and introduced the final performer Rossana. At this point I was so tired and knowing that I had to get up at 5 we decided to head out. I didn't get to chat with Jenna again, but I saw she left about the same time I did. We waited in line for my auction winnings and grabbed our gift bags.
To any of you out there who might want to give a donation please go to
www.KittenRescue.org
They are an amazing organization that I am proud to be a part of. In the year I've been with them they have helped me save 5 kitties. Just think... you could help too.
Little Man - Jack
Squeaker
Dunder and Mifflin
The end.
Oh, and for those who care I did make it back to work this morning by 9am to show the director my shots in dailies and I did get my cable installed... which did not go as awesome as planned... they seem to want to cut a hole in the wall... me thinks... not so much.
YES!
