Best Thing Ever

This morning I drove Brian to his internship at NBC so that I could have the car to pick Jin up at the kennel after our family reunion weekend. Miles and I returned later that evening to pick Brian up just as the studio audience for the Tonight Show was exiting through the gate. Brian hadn't come out yet, so I pushed Miles around the park across the street, and when we returned to the gate there were dozens of audience members lingering in a cluster around a black car.

I quickly realized what was happening: Miles and I were having a Celebrity Sighting.

Non-Californians often assume that Celebrity Sightings happen all the time if you live in L.A. Not so. I grew up here, and the best celebrity sighting I have is Sinbad, from a distance. My young women group drove around Kevin Costner's house. I saw Matt LeBlanc in a theater, and it was not in California, and I didn't know who he was anyway. That's about it. 

So even though I didn't recognize the guy everyone was clustered around (do you?), I was thrilled to think I might be having a real Celebrity Sighting, for the first time ever.

I asked someone what was going on. "It's Zac Levi," she told me. "He was just on the Tonight Show." I didn't recognize the name, so I took a picture and made a mental note to look him up later. I walked away from the crowd, and since Brian still hadn't arrived, I pulled out my iPhone. The very first thing to pop up on my Google search was an IMDb entry for Chuck. Suddenly it clicked - Zac Levi was Chuck Bartowski! Miles and I were having a real Celebrity Sighting!

I made my way back to the crowd. Zac was being totally cool, giving out autographs to everyone, making small talk, and showing no sign of impatience. I hung around at the edge of the crowd wondering if I should try to press in. I looked through my purse to see if I had anything for an autograph. I've never gotten an autograph before. But all I had was a couple old receipts and a Jimmy Johns punch card.

And then I had an idea.

I unbuckled Miles and began to press my way in. The people around me were just eating Miles up, because of course he's totally cute and little, and babies get way more attention in L.A. than they do in Provo. I explained what I was doing to some of Miles' admirers, and asked that nice lady in the blue flowered shirt you see above if she could take a picture, and when I finally got up at the front, I held up Miles and asked Zac if he could autograph my baby's onesie.

"Oh wow!" he said, "He's a little salamander!"

He said, "At first I thought you were going to ask me to autograph the baby!" (The thought had (very briefly) crossed my mind.) Then he complimented Miles' onesie.* Then he autographed Miles' onesie with a blue sharpie. Other people took pictures with their cell phones of Zac autographing the baby. I felt totally nerdy. It was totally awesome. We will never wash this onesie again.**

* Brian dressed him in a guitar onesie, and we later learned that Zac has been a part of a celebrity guest band called Band from TV, although I think he doesn't play the guitar

** I'm not even kidding. We really won't. But Miles has tons of 0-3 month onesies and it totally won't make a dent for us to retire this one.

When Brian finally came out, I was stoked to tell him what had just happened. By that time Zac had moved from autographs to pictures, and Brian and I jumped into the back of the line to get a family portrait. "It's the salamander!" said Zac when we reached the front of the line.

I have the nerdiest grin on my face, and Miles is wailing, but I love it anyway.

We've done lots of awesome California-y things during our stay in California, but now Miles is official.