Extreme Makeover Home Edition Diary #1

As I washed my hair yesterday morning, I reflected upon my celebrity encounters of 2007, and realized with some horror that nothing interesting had happened in September. At all. With only 4 days to go, what were the odds that something fabulous would come along and redeem the entire month? Apparently they were quite good, because within half an hour, my friend was on the phone saying, "I thought of you this morning. I woke up to Ty Pennington's bullhorn."

"YOU DID NOT!"

"Um, yeah I did. They're right by my house."

Bursting with excitement, I took down directions, and suddenly the next 7 days were cut out for me. With the whole crew set up just across town, how can I not go at, like, every possible opportunity? Was this not my dream when the show came to Washington three years ago?!

Back in 2004, my good friend was doing an internship at KOMO TV (our local ABC affiliate), and I demanded that she get the lowdown. It was my heart's wish to meet the exceedingly-hot-but-not-afraid-to-cry Preston Sharp, and I hoped against hope that he'd be two doors down ripping up a house that had suddenly been surrounded with CAUTION tape. Within a few days, my friend delivered on my request. The bad news was that show would be filming in Kingston, which is many miles and a ferry ride away. The amazing news was that she had landed herself a job as a P.A. on the set. She was immediately recruited to meet Preston Sharp on my behalf, and I spent one glorious week getting phone calls from the work site with news like, "Your guy just walked by!"

"Did you get to talk to him yet?"

"No, but I will."

And indeed she did. After the hardwood floors went in, everyone had to wear blue hospital booties to protect them from grit and grime. She saved one, and when the timing was right, she approached Mr. Sharp with a playful, "Will you sign my bootie?" I believe he responded with a good-natured roll of the eyes and an, "Oh honey," then played along and wrote "BOOTY?" on the bootie right above his signature. She presented this to me when the week was over, and I've got it in a little blue shadowbox frame right next to my bed. Needless to say, the thought of crossing paths with Preston still sets my heart aflutter.

With high hopes at a second chance, I wrangled my parents into the car and we headed to the current site. It's a rather intimidating affair with plenty of police and security, but everyone was friendly and told us to go on in. The crowd was relatively small and the crew was still in the demolition process, slowly chiseling away at the house and removing plants so they could be used again later. There was no sign of the design team, but the place was swarming with workers in those unmistakable blue Extreme Makeover Home Edition shirts. A nice man from the gas company (I think) asked me to look at the tag on the back of his fluorescent green vest and tell him what it was made of. 100% Modacrylic. I have no idea what that means, but he was friendly, and told us a little bit about what had been going on i.e. asbestos removal and Ty sightings.

From there we drove into Bellevue, and spied a shiny SUV pulling a cool little trailer sitting at the stoplight opposite us. "That's totally someone from the show," said my mom, then elbowed me as we passed.

"It's just a blonde woma-," I said dismissively, then realized, "OH MY GOD IT'S PAIGE HEMMIS!" She looked gorgeous as usual, and I'm convinced she was on her way back from The Home Depot. One sighting down...more to come.

In the meantime, you can check out Season 1 of the show on DVD. I dare you not to cry.