Donna in Hollywoodland

Award Meeting

Tonight after work, a friend picked me up and we drove to The Beverly Hilton Hotel .
It was the Orientation Meeting for the American Cinematheque Annual Award .
This years award is going to Al Pacino .

It is the sixth year I have volunteer for this event. I have been there for the awards given to Bruce Willis, Nicolas Cage, Denzel Washington, Nicole Kidman and Steve Martin.

Each year is different, depending on the celebrities who participate.
In the past years, I have been on the Gift Bag committee. That means, I helped prepare and distribute the gift bags with all the goodies in them.
But this year, because I was in the hospital and had surgery - I was switched to Guest Check-In. That means, I will have the guest list and will be helping to check people in. I am so excited about this, because I will be right by the Red Carpet as
the Celebrities arrive.

Tonight we had to attend an orientation meeting. This is my sixth time at the orientation meeting. There are Rules we have to go by, like we can't ask for autographs or take pictures of the celebrities.
And every year, the hotel rooms we use changed. This year they are remodeling the hotel, is all completely different.

We arrived and had a few minutes to chat with some other volunteers.
It seemed like some people expected me to be really sickly. They were shocked when they saw me "Oh, you look really good."

As we sat down my friend said "Oh, theres munchies over there. Do you want some chips?"
"No, I don't eat chips."
"Do you want a soda?"
"No, I don't drink sodas."
So I sipped on my bottled water.

Later someone walked passed with a little bunch of grapes on their plate.
"Oh, grapes - you didn't tell me they had grapes."
So my friend went a got grapes.

My orientation for the Check-In crew was finished before my friends was. I sat in the lobby and waited for them to finish.
I looked at my left hand, and it was swelling up alittle bit. I don't know why it did that.
So as I saw there, I did my finger exercises. One of the hotel employees gave me a funny look. I ignored him.

Two friends stopped and chatted with me. They wanted the detail on what was going on with me.
The hardest thing was I ran into someone I know who has had chemotherapy three times. Almost every ten years, his cancer comes back.
He looked at me perplexed, his eyebrows crinkled. "Have you started your treatment?"
"Oh, no", I said "One of my incisions was infected, they have to wait till it heals before they can do anything to me."
He continued to look at me with his eyebrows bunched together.
I walked away as quickly as I could.
I am afraid to tell him that I declined the chemotherapy. I am worried he won't take it well. Even though we both had two different kinds of cancer, with two completely different sets of circumstances.
I think when I tell him, I will have to do it privately and put it gently.

I waited around in the lobby chatting with people for alittle bit.
Then my friend and I tried to go out a back door, so we could make it to his free parking spot.
We ended up walking completely around the hotel before we realized it was taking us longer to get out of there.