I Ran Into the Mayor, Again

So, um, yesterday, I was at Trader Joe's and the Mayor was there. You know, Antonio Villaraigosa. He was there with his daughter and two off-duty police bodyguards buying (lots of) groceries. When I was leaving with my groceries and putting my shopping cart in the proper stow area, and while the mayor's bodyguards where loading the 20+ bags into his SUV, Mr. Mayor turns to me and says "so how are you doing tonight?" to which I answer "good (teehee)" and he asks "good? why not great?" and then I couldn't help myself , I dorked out and blurted "I've seen you before. do you remember me. we took pictures together with my sister and niece. you're all over the place" to which he looked at me, bewildered, wondering if I was a stalker, or if I was going to flash him, or do something embarrassing in front of his daughter. So I saved him (and me) and said "nice seeing you again. good night." and walk-ran back to my car with 3 heavy grocery bags. I called Cary immediately because I was excited to share the new height of dorkiness that I had achieved.

This is the 3rd time I've seen the mayor in 3 months. That's kind of strange, right? I've never seen any famous person 3 times. Wait! I take that back... there was this strange period where Cary and I would run into Jeff Goldblum at random places: breakfast at The Griddle, the movies at The Grove, the lobby of our hotel in NYC(huh? wah?). That was a few years ago though.

The first time I saw the mayor was on Christmas Eve last year at Banana Republic at The Grove (I know, I spend a lot of time at The Grove. It's across the street. what?). There were 2 dudes that were, very obviously, his bodyguards standing nearby and making sure no sketchy perps where negotiating the perimeter. So I go up to one and ask if they're secret service, to which the white-haired crewcut-bodyguard replies "we're off-duty police and yes we're with the Mayor". So I ask him if he can just let the mayor know that my sister is a big fan of the Mayor's. So the moustachioed-bodyguard says I should just tell him myself, he would like to know this, and that if I have a camera, my sister and I can take a picture with him. Then the crewcut-bodyguard says he would have to frisk me first. Then they look at each other a chuckle. No one frisked me. I was confused.

Um, yeah. So a nervous chuckle and a minute later I'm telling Sherri to go say hi to the Mayor so we can get a picture (this is pre-blog, I just took pictures without purpose). It took some convincing because neither of us wanted to bug him. The Mayor was doing some serious last-minute Xmas shopping and looked like he was in a hurry. But the crewcut-bodyguard had already told the Mayor that Sherri was a fan. So the Mayor came up to US and said hi and took a picture with us.

See, before the Mayor was the Mayor, he was a guest lecturer in a class that Sherri was a student of at USC. She asked him a question at the end of the lecture, to which he said he would find out the answer and get back to her. Later that week, she received a letter in the mail with that answer from Mr. Villaraigosa. She was impressed and liked some of his policies and got our whole family to vote for him.

So 7 years and one Sheila later, here we are (Sheila got shy):

(Picture from Christmas Eve, 2008 at The Grove)

A second after this picture was taken, everyone else in Banana Republic wanted a picture too, and he got mobbed. I felt bad, it was sort of our fault, but the bodyguards insisted we go ahead with the picture. Who am I to say no?

So I've seen the Mayor at The Grove on 2 occasions and once at Trader Joe's. That's 3 times which makes him tied with Jeff Goldblum. If I run into the Mayor again, I will ask him if there is anyway he can fix the potholes on Beverly near Larchmont. And then I'm going to run away giggling in embarrassment.