How a little-known blogger named Bert met a celebrity named Harry
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The events you are about to read are all TRUE. Yes, they really happened and they happened to me. Sometimes I can’t believe it and sometimes I wish that it would have never come to an end so I could live in anticipation and wonder forever. Alas, all things must come to fruition and so now that my time has come, I can let the proverbial cat of the bag and tell you this:
TUESDAY (September 27th) I WILL BE FEATURED ON HARRY CONNICK JR.’S NEW DAYTIME TV SHOW HARRY.
How a little-known blogger named Bert met a celebrity named Harry
It was an average Monday last spring. My three children and I were stuck at my middle daughter’s ballet class. I was trying to wrangle my two-year-old under control and also checking my email. I received a message from this woman saying that she was a producer on Harry Connick Jr’s new daytime TV show and they were looking to find women in the Twin Cities who were fans of his. If I knew of anyone, I was a fan or wanted to give them a shout out on my Facebook page that would be great. I wrote her back and informed her that, “Hello! I love HCJ!” I mean Hope Floats was one of my all time favorite movies in high school and I absolutely adore his Christmas album (that my kids actually broke in half last Christmas). We had an informal phone interview after she received my response. I tried desperately to pay attention and drive home from the ballet studio. Of course, since I was the phone the kids needed any and everything. You know kids are to phones what moths are to flames…the mere sight of an adult caretaker on the phone and suddenly the world is ending and they need you NOW.
We arrived home and the chaos continued as I let my beagle Chula out of her crate. She was howling, the kids were literally chasing me asking one million questions and I was frantically trying to be cool with Hollywood. Honestly, that’s not my style – being calm and cool that is. I went to the only place I knew I could go: The Bathroom. It’s one of the few rooms in our house that has a lock on it (don’t ask me why). So I ran into the bathroom, locked the door and then mentally panicked that they would hear the bathroom’s echo and I would sound like I was in the bathroom going to the bathroom but I wasn’t going to the bathroom. I threw all cool and collectedness out the window and said, “Okay, if you hear an echo I am in my bathroom. I’m not going to the bathroom but it’s the only place where I can go and hide from the kids to have a conversation.”
The Waiting Game
After chatting with the producers on Skype I immediately began daydreaming about the possibilities and what this all meant. You have to understand that I have wanted to be a writer since I was 8-years-old. Everything I have done with First Time Mom has been in pursuit of following that little 8-year-old version of myself’s dream. I said to my husband, “Oh my gosh, what if this is it?” He’s the yin to my yang and always brings me down a level or two when it comes to reality, “Don’t get too far ahead of yourself, Bert. You don’t know who else they’re talking to.” He was right. I had no idea who else they were talking within the Twin Cities. I mean I didn’t even know what this could possibly be.
I prayed that night and every time after, whenever, I would get excited about the opportunity, the possibility I would say, “Father, please, if this is not going to happen, just take it out of my mind. I don’t want to think about it and I don’t want it to consume me. It’s all for your glory if it happens. Not mine, Yours. Please help me stay humble.” And being all knowing and all consuming, He did that. Every day I would hear at least one thing from the producers and I honestly just took it all with a grain of salt. Then on Thursday, they contacted me to say that they wanted to come over in the morning to film me in my environment and see how we all were on camera. You know, just in case we made it on TV. There were three other families they told me that they would be filming. I went to bed thinking that this was an audition and so I was just going to be me because that’s who I am.
The Big Morning
The producers and film crew told me that they would be coming over at 7:00am. My house isn’t even awake and moving at 7:00am! I set my alarm for 6:00am so I could shower and look absolutely amazing. My alarm went off. I pressed snooze. The second alarm went off and I pressed snooze again. Finally Ben, my husband, started being really annoying.
“Bert?” he nudged me, “Bert, aren’t you going to take a shower?” I looked at my phone “6:45am,” it said.
“OH MY GOSH I OVERSLEPT!!!!!!!!!!!” I yelled back at him. Springing up out of bed I raced into the bathroom and proceeded to make myself look somewhat presentable. I put on a pair of yoga pants, a gray shirt, and this navy blue vest. I live in yoga pants and I was about 40 pounds heavier when all of this happened so I was definitely not going to set foot anywhere in a pair of anything but yoga pants. Ben felt otherwise, however, and gently asked me if perhaps, just maybe, I’d want to wear something else. I didn’t care all that much and maybe it’s because I was trying to desperately to not think that anything was going to happen but I complied. I threw on some makeup and sure enough, the entire film crew was knocking on the door promptly at 7:00am.
First of all, the house looked spectacular. The producers had told me to leave some laundry laying around because that was one of the things I told them when they asked me how I blog regularly and work from home and raise three young children and maintain my house. “I don’t maintain it,” I said, “You will always find at last three laundry baskets filled with laundry waiting to be folded and my son knows to go to the dryer when he can’t find anything to wear.” And so I went to bed with the house looking picked up but not fabulous. You see, little did I know but the producers had been in contact with Ben. God bless the man! He stayed up until 2:30am cleaning the house because he knew precisely what was going to happen.
The crew set everything up, I got mic’d and I just went about my morning. At one point the producers told me that they were going to leave to get some exterior shots of the house. I just continued to go about my business, chatting occasionally with whoever happened to be around. There was a knock on the door and since I was in the middle of a conversation I looked to see where Ben was. He was nowhere to be found and it was getting to be close to the time that my neighbor, Nicole, usually picks up my son to go to school. (It was raining that day.) So I walked over to the front door, which oddly enough, was locked. I unlocked the door and there, standing on my doorstep was none other than Mr. Harry Connick Jr.!!!!!
Okay so now you’ll have to watch the show and find out the rest of the story this Tuesday! Check here to see where HARRY airs in your local area. Follow HARRY on social media for all of the fun:
Hashtag – #HarryTV
2 Comments
Meaghan Flanagan Angle · September 30, 2016 at 9:09 pm
So COOL!!! I have to say, I didn’t even realize he had a show…I work with senior citizens all day. I know all about the Price is Right and their “stories”, but that’s it. I always think it would be such a thrill to be on one of those shows. Thanks for letting us live vicariously through you!
Bert @ First Time Mom MN · October 1, 2016 at 3:36 pm
You’ll have to watch it because it’s so much fun. He’s an awesome entertainer.
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