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Fans Meet for Lunch in Southern California

Excerpts and Photos taken from Fiennes Forum

Marie Begins
Good Morning! It's 8:38 am here in overcast Southern Ca.
Where I'm at a few miles inland, we get a marine layer that hangs around sometimes all morning. Hopefully for Shammy and her girls, the sun will soon appear. I have to do a few errands this morning before I arrive at the restaurant, so if anyone who's going is reading this, please don't wait on me
before ordering, I should be there around, or a little after noon. Very excited to meet everyone!

Marie

Just got back tonight. More details on the lunch with the girls tomorrow. They were all so sweet...it was a very comfortable feeling spending 3 hours just chatting and laughing. More later...

xoxoxo
Shammy

Michelle - I hope you're ok and everything is fine. I haven't heard from you since. Check your email.

As for what we talked about, pretty much the same stuff that's discussed here on the forum with the exception that we're all talking about it in person. The stories that they shared sounded familiar b/c you read about them in the interactive page and on other threads. But they sounded more personal when you actually hear Shammy, Bridget, and Marie sharing their stories themselves. It's amazing that even though this was my very first time meeting all of them in person, it felt like I had known them a long time. Especially, when I brought up different topics and threads from the forum. We were on the same wavelength and nothing sounded foreign as long as we had plenty of RF topics to talk about. I shared my experience last year at Brand and how I wished I had known about this forum prior to seeing that play. My regret was not waiting at the stage door after the play. Hopefully, next year there will be more opportunities.
Aireen

Shammy's Account

It was so great to finally meet you in person, Aireen. I hope Michelle is okay too...maybe she just got caught up in real life stuff. And we never heard back from Cindyjay either...hope she's doing alright. It would have been really nice to be able to meet both ladies.

In any case, our lunch was a great success. The Chinese food was some of the best I've ever enjoyed. And yes there were plenty of leftovers which were sent home in doggie bags. It's just as Aireen said above, when you finally meet in person after just conversing for months, years even, on the forum...it's all so easy to have a conversation where you are completely understood. With any other person you may meet on the street you'd have to do all this explaining of what you mean but when you meet a fellow Ralphite you just throw out words like BAM or Alex or The National Theatre or Coriolanus or Francesca and EVERYBODY at the table knows exactly what you're talking about. They can anticipate your every word. I have felt this way with every forumer I've ever met including Linda (we met in Vegas), Marie and Aireen whom I had the pleasure to meet on my trip out west. All lovely ladies. When Marie entered the room I had my back turned to her and she came up from behind, put an arm around my shoulder and said, "I know who THIS is, it's Shammy!" We had the best talks, a lot of laughs...it's like having a bunch of sisters...and that means a lot to someone like me who has no real life sisters. We stayed for 3 hours...the waitress must have wondered what was going on. And what was with that autographed photo of Ralph that was in the center of the table that we all coveted with our eyes? What a mysterious group we must have been to the other diners.

Let me say something about my California trip. I have discovered that I love guacamole and avocados. I have never bought an avocado in my life, wouldn't even have known what to do with one but by golly I am going to search the internet for a guacamole recipe come hell or high water. I love the Pacific Ocean, it relaxes me and I need relaxing desperately. I love all the little seaside restaurants, especially Las Brisas in Laguna Beach which has tables on an outside patio with the cliffs just a stone's throw away from your table where you sit with your husband as you enjoy a margarita as the sun sets on the most beautiful Southern California day. I love the easy going pace of California life, so different from the fast East Coast pace I'm used to. Can't say I love the traffic on the 101...how can people who are so relaxed and easy-going drive like they're in the Indy 500 when they get on a highway? It's pretty frightening. I think I lost a few years of my life out there. But nonetheless I love the highway lanes just for carpoolers like myself...I love Hollywood because I'm near so many of the movie stars I've loved since I was a little girl. Every time I go to LA I see someone famous and this time was no exception...I saw Sharon Osborne walking her two little dogs. I love the greatest Mexican food I've ever tasted in my life, I love the Hollywood Bowl where I picnicked with Bridget and my family before seeing a lively show the other night (The Beatles once appeared here too), I love the palm trees, and I love the beaches where people actually cook food around a fire ring (East Coast beaches don't permit such a thing). And I love driving along the Pacific Coast Highway with the wind in my hair listening to the Beach Boys at high volume. I hope I've given you a sample of what my California vacation was like. Just heavenly!

Love all you lucky Californians and Linda from Las Vegas too!

xoxoxo
Shammy

Aireen:

Wow, Shammy. I'm so glad you enjoyed California that much. Of course, no visit to Hollywood would be complete without a celebrity spotting and I'm happy that you saw Sharon Osbourne. I guess being a native Californian, I don't realize what this state has to offer until I come across people from other states and countries. For a commuter like me, it's the traffic that bothers me but thank God for carpool lanes. I always envy people in places like New York and London where public transportation such as buses and trains get you to almost every major attraction in that city and are highly utilized by everyone. Here, everyone needs a car. You can't survive without one. Anyways, it was nice hearing how lovely the rest of your vacation was.
Aireen

Bridget's Story

hello al.....so nice to meet marie and arleen(hope i spelled that right)...it really is a "sisterhood" of sorts,we feinnes fans....we do really feel at home with each other from the get go.....i think the type of person that would pick ralph as a fave would be a fairly interesting person to begin with.we were talking about this at lunch......ralph "fans' aren't your typical fan...they're a little more literate and often artistic as far as folks go.....
it was great to see my ol' travlin' buddy shammy too...she and i both agreed that we'd get in trouble together if we lived close to one another........
we all agreed that we would do this lunch again for sure,but hoped it will be in london or paris pre HAMLET!!!!

so thanks again forum buds for making the world a little smaller!!

xxoo b

Marie :
I'm so glad I had the opportunity to meet Shammy, Aireen,
and Bridget prior to my leaving for holiday in the Western Caribbean. I'm sharing the photo above, as at lunch Bridget
asked if we had family photos to share, and I did not think to bring any. She shared a few of her family, which added so much to her already brilliant smile and warmth. Bridget is a great conversationalist. I told her it's a shame she doesn't write more here as her personality and phraseology are so
wonderful. She has great style in what she finds interesting and how she expresses it. It was a pleasure to meet you Bridget. As you already know from the photo she posted here earlier, Aireen is gorgeous. Her beauty is matched by her warmth and intellect. In the three hours spent, one get's a true sense that her admiration for Ralph has so much substance to it. If a stranger sitting with us were not a fan to begin with, they would be a Ralph fan after meeting her,
because she draws you in with what she values. It seems to make perfect sense that she was the one who brought Ralph to the lunch, framed in personalized perfection. Aireen, my rare contacts with you here are highlights to my fandom. I'm so pleased I got to meet you in person. And, LOL, as Shammy wrote, I walked in the room and knew instantly who she was, even though her back was to me. Shammy has the kind of beautiful red hair Julianne Moore wishes she could have had in TEOTA. Shammy brought to the atmosphere an influence I dearly wanted to experience. One is instantly at ease and in the most comfortable place with Shammy by your side. I think I leaned in a little too close, asked a zillion more questions than she may have expected, but I was hooked from her first laughter and her ability to share her Ralph experiences as if I was there with her. Shammy's heart is so available and her fandom so generous, that I know she deserves every good Ralph treat and experience she has ever had, and is yet to have. To have an admirer in Shammy is to be honored. Shammy has a way about her that is very appealing. One can tell she loves the company of women friends, and I am so glad that for three hours I got to be near
her, feeling such respect and affection.

The July 2 lunch was my fourth experience meeting Fiennes fans in person. The quality and fun of such experience has always exceeded my expectations. I can only say and wish that for others here who have yet to have the opportunity,
should one present itself, it is worth having the pleasure of
it, so if it can be, make it happen sometime in your lives. I
hope I have many more. To Bridget, Aireen and Shammy,
and the spirit in which your friendliness has enriched my
enjoyment here! We missed a few gals who could not make it, but you all here were in our thoughts.

Marie

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