The lost weekend and Babs July 23rd

so how do i begin to describe the weekend that miss g and i had...? on saturday, we got stuck in the rain again and wandered up marylebone high street and ended up in this store owned by a very friendly russian woman. any label you want can be sewn into the attire - you want chloe? no problem. and then she pulls out the fake bags - you come back monday, i have more bags, she says. pretty decent copies but still expensive - copies bug me, what's the point if you can't have the real thing? we had afternoon tea at the parlour at sketch while it rained a bit more - i am sure many of you have heard about the flooding taking place in england, it's been a nightmare. saturday night, we went out late to the artisan bar at the langham hotel and actually got charged for sitting there 7 bp each (?). i asked a group of distinguished gentleman to take our photo and we got to chatting with them. turns out they are in the band for barbra streisand who was in town that weekend. the one that we spoke with the most - neal - was very kind and said he'd get us tickets if he could. we left and went to meet up with some friends of mine in town at a club called the cuckoo nest. good lord we got cuckoo - dancing all night and met some characters. our favorite was jose who wore a t-shirt that said "i'd trade my girlfriend for a coke" with a blazer and wore a red headband. we ended up having a crazy bongo playing session in the wee hours of the morning. on sunday, we woke up and had a nice long leisurely lunch outside in marylebone and enjoyed the sunny day. we then walked through st. james park and over to big ben and westminster abbey. i will post those photos tomorrow as they turned out lovely. at 5 pm we got the call from our new friend that we had tickets for the concert!!!! so, a very expensive cab ride later, we arrived - i'd like to point out at this moment that gina made me wear my gold lame mini-dress in honor of babs and i wore my leopard coat, this will be a good visual for later - in any case, we had wonderful seats just off the stage. we sang, cried, danced and hooted...she was really wonderful and it was a very special moment. i couldn't help but think of my mom. ..and from time to time, different audience members would shout something out to her - our favorite was the woman with the thick scottish accent that said "sing it proud barbra" before she performed "papa can you hear me".... after the show, our musician friends (MF) had a hard time getting us backstage so we left as we were tired anyway. transport home was looking impossible - tubes lines were long as were cabs. we ended going back to the theatre as it's a huge venue with shops and restaurants and were told by MF that we should meet them at the after party. we returned and informed the security guards why we were there - they turned us away. so when our MF arrived with our badges - taken from other band members - the gig was up. they literally tore the badges from our heads - have you seen me and miss g? hardly intimidating, right? i yelled at the guard to watch the earrings, i was really irritated - i guess they don't get a lot of excitement in their jobs... it all got sorted out and we went it - it was just the crew and musicians, babs and her friends weren't there (um...pierce brosnan, donna karan, nic cage were in the audience) - so we didn't really understand why they were so lame at the door. one of our other MF came up to introduce us to the drummer who promptly asked how we all met. apparently, meeting in a hotel bar leads this idiot to joke that at least they didn' thave to call a 900 number to meet us. after miss g informed me of his crassness, we were horrified and escaped - ummm - ladies of the evening? is that what they thought? and that was when i pointed out to miss g what i was wearing...gold lame, in england? we missed the last tube, buses were done, taxi line still long...so the only way to get home is via the boat along the thames - which took a good 45 minutes....once we docked, we had to cross over the bridge to try and find a cab....and finally got home very late, the entire time laughing at what our weekend had turned into. this the the abbreviated version of our weekend but know it was a great time....we had fun on monday night too but i will post up those pictures tomorrow!