An Unexpected Red Carpet Entrance...

An Unexpected Red Carpet Entrance...

This was a season in my life where I was consumed with being a mommy. I rarely even bothered to put on makeup, I sat around in my p.j.'s and would snack on chips and watch talk shows. I was living in Washington state for about 10 years at this time in 2002 , having moved from Northern California in 1991. Marysville, WA was a place we moved to from Northern California where we chose to live to raise our sons near good schools, clean and wonderful air, gorgeous parks and away from hustle and bustle life we once knew in our California days. 

My husband was just beginning to really enjoy his work. He worked for a Design studio called "Digital Kitchen" in downtown, trendy Seattle for a couple of years at this time and was just launching into a new phase and interest of his career, Motion Graphics. He worked on an opening sequence title for a show called "Six Feet Under" and was getting some well deserved recognition for his design and direction for it. Although we never had HBO available on our TV, and we never watched this show, it was a piece of talented work he did.

I have to say that getting a call from  my husband  from work one day to ask me this random and unexpected question; "honey, do you want to come to the Emmy Awards, I have earned a nomination!"  My initial thought and response was "Heck yeah!!" , followed by a "scream….followed by a "oh my gosh, I am going to the Emmy's on TV??" I think I must have gone straight to the web and started looking dresses up! "what am I going to wear?"…I thought to my humble self.

The day the HBO company sent a Limo to pick us up from our house for the Emmy's that Saturday  was too surreal for words. I have been poked fun of by family and friends since this day on how I dressed when I entered into this shiny, back limo! I didn't even know how to dress for such an occasion. I had my Emmy dress in my luggage, my sweet and sassy black shoes, my sparkly black purse and I was full of excited nerves!  The next surprise was when we arrived at the SeaTac airport. We were given first class seating! I had never flown first class for any reason under the sun and believe me this was super cool! I ordered a gourmet chicken caesar salad , and I believe we were offered champagne, but if I remember right I declined and ordered a diet coke. It was like playing dress up for an entire weekend. Pretending to be a 'somebody celebrity ' in Hollywood, knowing we were just a  small town married couple with 2 young sons at home, going to Hollywood to be on TV and possibly win an Emmy for my husband!  When we arrived at the LAX airport there was a man standing by the exit gate holding up a sign "DANNY YOUNT, HBO" , he took our bags, loaded  everything in the 'next' limo at the corner of the street and we were whisked away to a fancy hotel called "The St. Regis" in Los Angeles.  This was a 5 star amazing hotel, the first for us of this kind. To top this story off with another wow moment, when we checked in at the front hotel desk we were told HBO was giving us a $200 hotel per diem to use on anything at the hotel!  In the hotel room we found his and her slippers at bedside, his and her bathrobes, the music playing, and the sweet smell of some kind of fragrant aroma throughout the room. We were hooked! 

The day of the Emmy's had arrived, and at our hotel was yet another limo waiting for us to go to the Shrine Auditorium for the Emmy's. Again, I am in a bit of star struck mode at the time and I am overly concerned with my dress and my look and if everything is good to go! We traveled in the limo just talking and drinking soda's in the back of this fun vehicle and I remember so clearly the moment we slowed down, I , in a bit of a dream fog like status I  notice the side door opening for my exit, I vividly recall seeing a bright, RED carpet waiting for us to step on. This is when I realized I am in a crowd not of my own!  We are in Tinsel town!!  Danny and I get out of the car and we are directed to proceed onto this main red carpet at this time. Feeling like a dress up Barbie Doll or a child like dress up character we start our "walk" down this surreal (for lack of a better word) stroll.  I remember life seemed to go into this strange slow motion zone and I started to almost believe that the ever present "Paparazzi" that had lined up on both sides of this carpet and that they were taking photos of me and my famous husband! I was sucked instantly into this dream land, or rather "La La land" hype!  "The Paparazzi are taking photos of us? " I gleefully thought to myself as I looked over at them again after having my sheepish head down and a slight bashful grin. Then I realized they sort of took a double take at who were were or rather, who we were NOT, and as fast as they took our pictures, they just as quickly stopped and put their cameras down. It made us laugh and we felt a little more at ease knowing they realized we were regular folk.

We sat near Tom Hanks, Jennifer Aniston, Cloris Leachman and others. It was such a fun experience but nothing can top when the host , John Cleese said my husband's category and the Company for the win in the Main Title Design category! What an out of body experience that was! I usually don't use that phrase but it's the best way to describe how it felt to see him go on stage and be recognized for a piece of work he labored over for months and to do it in such style! I was very proud and this was just the beginning of his road of success.  LIttle did I know that this was the beginning of some very exciting experiences to come!

In conclusion to my story I want to say that if only we were in the camera phone and social media frenzy that we are in today , then! All I have from this 2002 fun  Hollywood story are the photos I somehow captured for loved ones back home. 

In reflection of this event at the Emmy Awards I have to say that it was fun and interesting but more than that I had my eyes opened to fake and disillusionment that exists in these types of ceremonies especially on TV. When we all watch these awards shows on TV, we all know in our heads that there are some artificial elements to a production such as this but our believing minds wish it was "that" fantastic. We want to be starstruck to a point. The part I did not include in my above description of the experience was that the taping of the Emmy's show my husband was in was in fact about 5 hours long . The TV show shows a gorgeous rendition of an edited version of what we saw live! It was backbreaking, long, hot, not air conditioned ..we were thirsty, tired, bored!  People want to believe what they want to know is true. Not everything you see is what it is…