HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GORGEOUS!
On Thursday January 20, 2011 Jess and I made our way to our first visit, (first of many we hope!) on location filming of our favorite show, Law & Order: SVU. Jess runs the website www.mariska-online.com. I know I have mentioned it before. It is a great website for Mariska Hargitay news and I started following her website a while back. We have been tweeting, blogging, texting, all this time about everything Mariska & SVU. We found that no one that we know shares the same obsessive behavior that we do for this show or our shared adoration and love of one of the stars, Mariska Hargitay! Every Wednesday night when our show is on, we are furiously tweeting and texing away about how much we miss our little Calvin and how much that look that Elliot just gave Olivia SO means that he digs her. Oh yes...E/O for sure! HA! I know...It's an unhealthy fixation. I need to get a life. But it is such a damn good show!
Through Jess's site, she rallied together a collection of fans and pulled together this project that all of Mariska's little devotees have been working on for a while. The Mariska Hargitay Birthay project 2011 was started well in advance back in 2010 and in the end she collected 171 submissions of scrapbook pages, including mine. A video was also made by some fans through this project.
(My scrapbook page submissions. I love scrapbooking.)
The first time I met Jess was the morning of the 20th of January after my bus from Philadelphia dropped me off in Manhattan of New York City. We met up offically at Penn Station and started to walk to the subway since the filming was in Brooklyn. And so started our adventure.
We make our way to the subway and bought our metro cards which are not bad in price when you consider taking a cab to Brooklyn. $2.50 for a single ride. I passed my card through the card swipe and the gates unlocked. Then Jess did. The gates were locked. So here we were, still in Manhattan, me on one side of the gate and her on the other. She called the service box to which he was giving her several varying instructions that were so hard to hear with each passing train. He had told her about a red or black door to which we were both so confused to what he was talking about but we figured it out later. (You'll see what I mean) She finally jumped the gate and we found our way to the E train. Haha. I cannot tell you how many times to and from we got lost, going the wrong way uptown or downtown, and on the wrong line, both to and from Brooklyn. I had a handy iPhone app all about New York and the transit feature in that app saved us so much! I love technology. Except by midday with a fully charged camera after leaving the set, the battery decided to die, and my phone finally died by the time I was on my way home back to PA. Ugh Electronicals!
We finally made it off the train and started walking down the streets to where we saw from a distance, set lights and some traffic cones. We rounded the corner with such excitement not only realizing that we had found the right place, but that all that walking was actually for something and we did not get lost. It was like the ultimate achivement. The promise land. Haha.
Two very sweet and friendly girls with charming Australian accents walked up to us and introduced themselves and began excitedly chatting about how they had just met and took a picture with Christopher Meloni aka. Detective Elliot Stabler. (swoon) We talked and girlishly giggled for a long while. They told us Mariska was filming in studio. Damn! And not minutes before did I mention to Jess I had a feeling, after all of this, she would not be there. Chris was not in his trailer at the time that we all were semi-stalkishly standing outside of it and around the entire street. The girls showed us around and where exactly they were filming. It was inside one of the buildings. They loved the book that had been put together by the fans. After talking a bit we were about to split off as I noticed a public bathroom right in the park on the corner of that street that I desperately needed to use. haha! Just then I look over at Holly, one of the girls, who is waving incredibly emphatically in our direction. I see three men far off walking towards us. I think to myself. "I recognize that man's head shape...OH MY GOD THAT'S CHRIS MELONI!"
He is nearing closer and closer and we quickly wonder who is going to say what and then he is almost right in front of us. I nudge Jess!
“Chris, can you take a picture with us?” She asks sweetly
“Sure.” Chris quicly agrees, probably more than used to it by now. He seemed extramly focused. He wraps his arm around Jess’s shoulder to which I’m sure her heart stopped or missed a beat, Ha. You’ll have to ask her.
(Quick quick! Someone get some handcuffs!)
The picture was snapped and he started to walk away. One of the girls asked me, “Didn’t you want a picture with him?”
But as he was walking away, that was not my number one concern. I look over at the heavy bag that is now weighing down my starstruck new friend and I start briskly walking after him.
I gulped hard. I had spoken to celebrities before, and I’m sure if I were talking to Mariska no words would have found there way out, but I managed to calmly and cooly ask, “Excuse Chris, I don’t mean to bother you, but we were wondering if you would be able to give our birthday present to Mariska?”
Half of his body now vivislbe outside of his trailer door. “What do you want me to do?” He asks shortly
One of the girls quickly responds that we have a birthday gift project from a collection of fans for Mariska.
Just as I thought I may have made a mistake by breaking his concentration or pissing him off as another SVU geekazoid, a woman walks next to me and Chris says, "She will be able to help you out more."
“Oh!” I said as I turned to the petite young woman who was talking into the walkie talkie device. I quickly turn back to Chris and say "thanks!" Haha! Thanks. THANKS! Like he had just given me directions to the next subway back to reailly. With my Thanks, he flashes me the biggest, brightest, smile that I swear stunned and dazzled me and lit my face up in an instant refleaxtion. I smiled my dorky and cheesy huge grin back as he ducks back into his trailer and I turn to our destined messenger. Jess explains the details and we finally make the hand-off and our mission comes to an end.
I finally get to use the bathroom. haha. (Very scary) We didn’t hang around too long afterwards. Chris was snug in his trailer, and it just kinda felt a bit awkward waiting for them outside their trailers for hours. Haha. I had a bus to catch just a few short hours later and we figured we had our fill and we were surly on some kind of adrenaline high that would last. We thought that with all the trouble finally getting to Brooklyn, we would need that margin of error because we were bound to get lost on the way back to Manhatten.
And we were right. Not only did we get lost on the subways but not even getting to the subways, we nearly got lost in Brooklyn. We made a big circle, square really haha, and when we saw the trailers from the SVU set and the park again we were like, “No, NO, NO!!!!” and started breaking out into hysterical laughter. We turned around and realized already That our margin of error time was obviously needed. But once we did get to the subway, not only could we not figure out which line to take, let alone transfer to the right one back, but our credit cards woulnd’t process our transactions at the kiosks, and the metropasses wouldn’t register. I love New York and most of the time the people are really nice. I am a person that loves to be nice and smiley and avoid confrontation if I can. But something about the subaways in Brooklyn that day brought out the bitch in me.(Not to Jess, of course. haha) I’m sure that the Metro tellers get about 100 annoying rings from the call boxes all over the city and we were just annoying call #101, but nothing was working and I seriously wanted to cry my feet were hurting so bad. Unlike myslf, I argued with the guy over the box about just opening up the black gate for my friend. I told him when we were in Manhattan, they opened the gate for us and I have a bus to catch. I don't have time for this! He told me to walk down two blocks to where he was to figure this out. When we finally made it down there, we showed him the metrocards we purchased, he just ended up opening the black gate anyway. What a waste of time and yelling. Something for Jess and I to laugh about though when we let out a big sigh when we knew we were finally on the right line to get to Manhatten. Realizing that it was almost 4:30pm and we had not eaten anything all day, we starting making eating plans. Probably running on a diet of sheer adrenaline, we probably didn’t even notice that we were hungry. I dind’t even eat the muffin that I stashed in my backpack for the day and wasted a dollar on a cup of coffee this morning I held on the train to Philadelphia that my stomach was too excited/nervous to handle. We made our way back to Penn Station and ate in one of the restaurant food courts. Cramming a personal cheese pizza down my gob, I had to remind myself to slow down as my stomach was just remembering how to digest for the day. We sat there and talked some more about our families and such. We mentioned how it was funny how this is the first time that we have met but for some reason, it feels like we have known eachother for a lot longer. After we ate I looked at my phone. It was about to die. We wandered around the station a bit trying to look for an open electrical socket to plug in our devices. Unfortunately we were running out of time. I wanted to give myself enough time to get to my bus, which turned out to be late anyway, (p.s. muffin finally came in handy) so Jess and I parted and said that we definatley needed to do this more often. Oh, and right after we parted I actually did find a ecetrical socket to plug my phone in for about 5 measly minutes. It still died on the bus and I had to borrow someones phone at the 30th Street Station to call home to let my parents know the bus was really late and I was catching a later train back. That was actually a funny story. Most of the people I asked to borrow a cell phone either didnt have one or didn't want to let me borrow it. I saw a man use his girlfriend/wife use it and then nicely asked and explained I needed to call home. He coldly said no and flew around and was off. Whatever, if you are in a hurry, I get it. People can be so rude though. A short few mintues later I'm at the pay phone and I'm digging through my wallet looking for some change to make a call. A nicley dressed young man, probably around my age, sweetly asks me for just two dollars for a bus ride. Before he is even finished telling me his desparate story, as I know it is not the first time he has had to recite it, I am already fishing in my wallet. Just getting rudely rejected by that guy, I didn't want to pass that on. The adorable kid thanked me and grined wildly.
"No worries." I said "I've been there."
As he walked away he turned to me, looked me in the eye and said. "Just gorgeous!"
"Thank you!" I bashfully giggled as I watched him walk away with a little bit off his shoulders.
Now it was only two dollars and I couldn't imagine him using it for anything other than for what he really needed it for. For some reason, in all the chaos that was that day, getting lost, running around the city, meeting Jess, meeting Chris, there was that one moment in the day that God told me to slow down. Call me crazy, but I could feel the truth through the goodness of his soul. I encourage everyone to make tiny connections like that everyday with people. Not particularly by panhandling per say, but embrace the things in life that encourage us to make connections to each other as compassionate human beings. Pass on a smile, ask someone how they are doing today and really listen to their response, or give two dollars to someone who may really need it. Hey, or even let some (Ahem!) borrow a cell phone to make a call home! haha. All I am saying is that I am so blessed when I look around at the people that pass through my life even in one day whether it is making a new friend like I did with Jess, or the boy at the 30th Street Station. Sorry if that got a little sappy but I love moments in life like that really catch you out of the blue. Plus if I could pay someone two dollars to call me gorgeous all the time, I'd be doing that a lot more often...and be broke. haha!
It was the first set trip for both Jess and I and we cannot wait until we visit again. I had so much fun making a new friend and thank her so much for allowing me to come along. Hopefully next time we will have the chance to spot Mariska? So being that the 23rd of January was her birthday, I hope she had a good one. We all hope that she recieved the book and video that was part of our mission. Haha. I watched a lot of YouYube videos of all different submissions that were made that way too. She is such an inspirational woman and is loved by so many. Happy Birthday MH!
Jess's website trip day details.
A birthday tribute video Jess put together that can be found on www.mariska-online.com
As Always...
Katie
OXOX
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