and then my life flashed before my eyes.

Last week, my mom and I were pondering what our lives flashing before our eyes would look like. What scenes would appear, what moments would be plucked from our memories. I immediately began listing the happy stuff. I think I'd see:

• Jeff smiling and weeping profusely at the end of the aisle on our wedding day.
• A group of about eight people crowded around a long table in the camp dining hall at midnight, playing a vicious game of Rat Slap.
• Running around with Tabitha in a parking lot in the pouring rain during a hurricane.

• Slow dancing with Jeff next to a waterfall by Disneyland and sharing our first kiss.
• Reading High Fidelity aloud to Zoe and replacing the f-bombs with the word monkey our sophomore year of college.
• Hanging out at Denny's with my sister and our friends from camp and realizing that my sister and I were becoming - gasp - friends.
• Slamming down one perfect kill in volleyball my junior year of high school.
• Singing and dancing with a group of women in Tanzania.

• Mikkele randomly bringing over a cake, insisting that Jeff serve it, then crying laughing as we realized she'd baked in the clock.
• Gazing into Eiley's eyes the minute she was born, while trying not to look at all her gooey yuckiness.
• My parents surprising my sister and I with a night at the Disneyland Hotel when we were very young.
• Eating chicken nuggets and swimming all day when my Grandma would housesit for her friends each summer.
• Watching Derek Fisher sink a game winning 3 pointer with .4 seconds on the clock. I realize this didn't happen to me, but the amount of joy I felt watching that at Lamppost Pizza amongst a bunch of sports bar dudes was immense.
• Dancing the night away with Jeff at his senior year theatre banquet, aware that we were lanky and silly and not caring a whit.

• Tiffany and I playing with a cheap little toy after kid's church one evening and finding it hilarious to yell at it. 
• Making Eiley belly laugh.
• Hearing the distinctive thunk of an arrow hitting the target on the archery range at camp.
• Reverse trick-or-treating with Chad, Mikkele, and Jenna. Specifically, shouting "HALLOWEEN HAPPINESS!" in a terrible old lady voice. 

• My eighth grade Algebra teacher telling me to pack up my bag and go to the office because my parents were there to take me to Disneyland and the subsequent writhing jealousy that emanated from my classmates.
• And, of course, this:

My mom mentioned that it probably wouldn't all be happy memories flooding into one's brain. I agree, but I hope we're wrong.

What would you see?

Jimmy Fallon kissed me. True story.

When we played two truths and a lie, two of you thought I was lying when I wrote that my husband asked Jimmy Fallon to kiss me and he complied. That means there are two of you who don't know the story yet, which is great because I love to think about it and replay it and stare at the accompanying picture. My apologies to any of you who have heard or read this story a lot. I suppose you could just stop reading, but I know, deep down, you want to relive it with me too.


On Friends, all the characters have a list of their top five celebrity crushes that they're allowed to sleep with if given the chance, even if they're in a relationship with someone else. Jeff and I would so not be cool with that, but we do have a list of the top five celebrities we can kiss. My list follows:


1. Jimmy Fallon
2. Matt Damon
3. Neil Patrick Harris (Yes, I know...)
4. Joel McHale
5. David Boreanaz, Zachary Levi, Matt Dallas (#4 and #5 change pretty often, which is why I've never made a card and laminated it. Also, I'm fairly certain that Liam Hemsworth is going to hit this list on approximately March 23 even though that would really seal my cougar status.)


Anyway, my sister got Jeff and I (and herself) tickets to see Jimmy Fallon's stand-up show in Irvine the weekend after we returned from our honeymoon. Jeff insisted that if we saw Jimmy, he'd ask him to kiss me. Well, after the show ended, we went to a sports bar to catch the end of a big Lakers game, so when we headed to the parking lot it was a super random time to leave. As we were walking, my sister mentioned how awesome it would be if we saw Jimmy, and I jokingly shouted "Jimmy! Jimmy Fallon!" 


We took a few more steps forward to cross a back alley, when my sister screamed and jumped back. There in the alley was one Jimmy Fallon, putting his guitar in the trunk of a car. A few other people were helping him load up, and I totally chickened out. Jeff said "Let's ask him! Let's ask him!" and I said "Noooo, don't bother him, he's trying to leave..." 


Luckily Jeff ignored me. He walked right up to Jimmy and said "Hi, Jimmy! My name is Jeff Fazakerley, and this is my wife Emily. We just got married last week. We both have a top five celebrities we're allowed to kiss if ever given the opportunity, and you are her number one, so I was wondering if you would kiss my wife."


I said "Just on the cheek" a few times and proceeded to stare at him with a painfully huge smile. I'm certain I looked rabid.


Jimmy said "That's hilarious. Let me ask my wife, she's right over there." He asked his wife, and she said yes and offered to take the picture. That's when this happened:

I was smiling and basically hyperventilating. Some people don't care about celebrities, and I kind of wish I could say that about myself. They're just people. They poop too, you know. But come on...that's Jimmy freaking Fallon kissing me. 


True story.

The First Ever Lobster Contest! Day Two.

If you missed yesterday's post, check it out here. We'll wait. Okay, on to ROUND TWO!


Emily:
1. Conan O'Brien held the door open for me at The Crepe Cafe at City Walk.
2. My husband asked Jimmy Fallon to kiss me and he complied.
3. I served Paul Walker ice cream and used that opportunity to touch his hand...twice.


Zoe:

1. While out for a pre-prom dinner, wearing her dress from my mother's prom, I was recruited by the same modeling agency that discovered Alexis Bledel (Rory from Gilmore Girls). 

2. Upon seeing an event ad I created featuring another city's mayor all around San Francisco City Center, Gavin Newsom became so jealous that he recorded a video of himself complaining about the ad (but also endorsing our nonprofit) to be played at the event.

3. When I went to hear Alvin Plantinga (described by Time magazine in 1980 as "America's leading orthodox Protestant philosopher of God"), he declared me to be his philosophical grand-daughter. 

UPDATE: To learn the truth about our lies and learn who won the contest, read the full reveal post here.

Lobsters, meet Emily. Emily, Lobsters.

Howdy Lobsters! I’m Zoe, nice to meet you. Emily, thank you for that amazing introduction, and also, Holy Shnykies! What was I thinking allowing Emily to introduce me first? How am I supposed to follow that act? Fool of a Took, Zoe! Ugh. Ok. I’ll give it my best shot.

Per point 7 re: my curly hair, I would like to write this post as Goldy Locks. Do you find that too many females you meet are overly dramatic or underly interesting (yes I did just make up that word)? Then Lobsters, meet Emily, she is just right!

Emily is active, and yet, not so athletic as to make me feel miserable about my own un-athleticism. She’s great about finding fun ways to exercise, like line dancing to the Cotton Eyed Joe. 

Cotten Eyed Joe at my wedding
From left to right: me, Emily, Erin 

Emily is cool. She’s always in the know about current films/TV/music, she has a mass store of knowledge of pop-culture-gone-by, and for some reason I really want to mention here that she’s completely addicted to Diet Pepsi. She grew up in the OC, in the house of super cool parents, with an amazing talent for retaining knowledge. These three attributes formed a trifecta of cultural relevance. [side note: This post will list five examples about Emily’s just-right-ness as the first of many odes to one of our favorite pop-authors, Nick Hornby, as featured in High Fidelity.] And yet, she has never seen ANY of the Star Wars films, so whenever I start to feel like I am a grandparent by comparison to her teen savvy, I have little things like my familiarity with Ewoks to comfort myself with.

Yeah, that IS Jimmy Fallon kissing Emily on the cheak

Emily is a not-so-girly girl. This is a picture of our floor mates in college, all amazing women, most of whom we’re still in touch with and love dearly. But note the two of us are cowering in the corner, a bit overwhelmed by the overdose of estrogen. And yet, we’ve enjoyed late-night slumber party talks about boys, she was an amazingly supportive bridesmaid, her own wedding was an historic production, she has fantastic decorating skills, we’ve had overlapping pregnancies (boys can’t do that in case you didn’t know) and somehow she is one of the only girls I feel comfortable having a good squeal with (usually followed by laughing at ourselves for our girliness). 

Armington B309 - woot!

Emily is competitive. I’m sure you know this to be a really obnoxious attribute in some people. And yet, while Emily is intense about her competition, she doesn’t let it get in the way of her relationships. For example, she knows better than to play either ping pong or feusball with me. Ping pong because I could not begin to challenge her enough and feusball because she would get too frustrated when I beat her – best to avoid both all together. When we do play games together, she really gets into it, but she never gets mean. Her competitiveness also helps her to set the bar high – see her introduction to me as an example. She’s really good at a whole lot of things: trivia, singing, dancing, reading out loud, mod-podging, event planning, downing diet pepsi’s, catch phrase, spelling/grammar, writing, making people laugh hysterically, just to name a few. She also encourages me to be better at lots of those things by way of inspiration, and that’s a good kind of person to keep around.

Coolest wedding ever, starring Emily as the bride

Last, but not least: Emily is a straight shooter. Some people don’t have the guts to have a friend like this, and I don’t expect Emily is necessarily like this to everyone she meets, but I believe a wise person keeps a friend around who will be honest and direct. You need a person who tells you when your hair is a wreck; who shuts you down when your blog posts start turning into novels; who tells you that you need to work on being a better listener. And yet, Emily embodies her middle name, Grace. When some people give you the hard truth, you never want to encounter them again. When Emily delivers the truth, sometimes it stings, but I know there’s love in it and that I’d be a fool not to hang onto her forever. That’s why, even though we only lived together for one year, she’s my “Roomy for life.”

Zoe and Emily - not letting go

She’s just the right amount of active. She’s just the right amount of cool. She’s just the right amount of girly. She’s just the right amount of excellent. She’s just the right amount of honest. I’m not letting this gal go. Instead, I’m gonna let you share her with me, because you will all be better for it, Lobsters. You’re welcome.