Extreme Makeover Home Edition Diary #6

Well, we all thought today was the day, but for only the third time in EMHE history, the seven day deadline has been missed. They had announced a 5:00 reveal, but the parking was alarmingly good when we arrived around 3:00. My heart sank a little. Had I missed it after all? Not quite.

On the way up the hill, we spotted the stylish former manager of our local Pottery Barn, so my mom gave him a shout out, and he said people had been asking him to sign their shirts all day. Seriously, he looks like he should be on the show, but he now works at the swanky new Thomasville store in Lincoln Square.

When we got up to the site, the bark/soil blowing truck was blocking much of the view of the house, and was exceedingly noisy to boot. I spotted the KOMO news truck, and quickly recognized Casey Norton. I sidled up and asked for an autograph, then got him to pose for a picture with me. He was very sweet about the whole thing, and jokingly asked me to be sure to tell everyone who sees the picture that he was standing in a hole. I hadn’t noticed, but he was in the dip of a driveway and I was up on the sidewalk.

The vibe today was far more harried, and after days of marveling at the graceful maneuvering of machinery in tight quarters, I saw my first mishap. A guy in a bobcat backed into a stack of wooden palettes and boxes. Not a big deal, but you could see that things are getting a little squirrely behind the scenes. The crowd too was thicker and rowdier than it has been, but for good reason - for the first time I actually spied Ty Pennington! He was walking purposefully, and didn’t come out to chat, but he made sure to give us a wave. Somehow the whole affair seems very Hollywood and unreal now that I’ve seen him.

By then it was raining fairly hard, so we ducked out of the weather and sat in our truck for awhile, then headed up again about 15 minutes later. They had started unloading the furniture, and I caught a couple of glimpses of Paul DiMeo going in and out of the house. Conditions ranged from blinding sunlight to pouring rain, or worse, a combination of the two. I heard there had been an amazing double rainbow, but managed to miss it, despite scanning the sky for one several times.

Having established that nothing more was going to happen, we prepared to go, but right about then, Michael Moloney walked by. There were only a few of us on that end of the line, so we waved and got to say “hi, how are you?” like regular people (no TV cameras, and no screaming). He was gracious as always, and we confirmed that the unveiling will be in the morning. I have it from the horse’s mouth - 9:00.

The other big development for today was goodies for the fans! KUBE 93 brought a bucket of fun-size candy bars down the line, someone passed out reusable grocery bags from Top Foods, and the Zipfizz truck drove through, tossing tubes of Zipfizz to the crowd. I’ve caught about three things people have thrown at me in my lifetime, so I had to reach through the fence and pull mine from the gutter, but I’m not proud. “Aw man,” said the kid next to me, “they should have handed out water to go with this!” (it’s some sort of powdered energy drink). Then he popped it open and dropped it into his mouth dry. Also, exciting? I totally found four lucky pennies on the ground, and don’t think I didn’t pick them up.

On the way down the hill, we crossed paths with a little raccoon who had apparently been awakened by all the commotion. I tried to snap a picture when he was looking in my direction, but after standing frozen on the sidewalk for a moment, he slipped into a neighboring yard.

Tomorrow promises chaos from the break of dawn, but I’ll do my best to be there.