The Tonight Show with Amber Marten

He's baaaaaack! Let the craziness come out! Kevin made it! He arrived safely last night. We enjoyed a wonderful supper of Chipotle, hit up Banana Republic to get Kevin some clearance clothes, and came home and crashed.

Today was a beautiful day in southern California. It got into the upper 70's today. Not too shabby. A nice change for Mr. Minnesota. We took a trip up to Palos Verdes and went to Abalone Cove. The tide was much higher, so we had a hard time getting out to the shady (picture perfect) spot. But, we hiked along and made it ok. There were about 12 Coast Guard men training for scuba in the water near where we were, so we figured we were safe if we got swept away by the waves. No naked men to report today...just Kevin, me, and my camera. I'd been dying to wear my new teal dress, so this was the perfect excuse to put it on and take some pictures with my love. We left the cove after hiking a new secret trail back up and ran to Rascals for a quick lunch.

We had to get to Burbank by 3:00 for a taping of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. We got in line with about 200 other eager show-goers. Producers from the show were walking around pulling people out of the crowd and asking them questions. Kevin and I said we were by far the most interesting people there: why weren't they picking us?? :) We figured out later that they were doing a Superbowl special, and needed men to do some goofy games on the show.

We got escorted inside and were sat in some awesome seats not too far from the band and definitely close to Jay. He came out and welcomed everyone and then went backstage to get dressed and ready. Meanwhile, his announcer came out to get the crowd fired up and to give us instructions on our participation. Toward the end of his announcements he said, "So now, we're looking for people with talents. Can any of you sing, tell a joke, or make a strange noise?" (This part gets a little foggy as I have no idea what I was thinking)...I literally JUMPED out of my seat and threw my arms in the air. The guy pointed to me and told me to come down to the stage. As I was walking down I was thinking to myself what's my talent? what am I going to do? what should I sing? Here's the dialogue that followed:

Announcer: What's your name and where are you from?

Me: Amber, I'm from Minnesota (a few people in the audience cheer)

Announcer: So, you must be Norwegian then.

Me: You know, I'm not really sure what I am. But probably.

Announcer: Ok...so what do you do in Minnesota?

Me: Well, I'm actually living here in Torrance for 10 months doing an internship. I'm in school to be a pastor.

Announcer: Oh, interesting. I used to be a Christian once. ZZZZ (making snoring noises)

Me: not impressed, but fake laughing anyway

Announcer: So what are you going to do?

Me: I'll be a pastor.

Announcer: But what are you going to do?

Me: Preach.

Announcer: No, what are you going to do for your talent?

Me: Preach. (joking, obviously)

Announcer: We're looking for people to fire the crowd up, not put them to sleep.

Me: Ok, I'm going to sing. The announcer gives me the go ahead...I have no idea what I'm going to sing, so I say: What would you like to hear?

Announcer: I was hoping you'd have that figured out by now.

I started singing "I only want to be with you" by Dusty Springfield. This is the song I sang when I tried out for American Idol two years ago, and honestly it was the only song that I could think of under such pressure. About two bars into it, I got the audience to clap along with me. I could see Kevin smiling and clapping from his seat. I made it about half way through the song...forgot the words, and sang my way out of it. Everyone cheered, I was given a Late Show hat, and I went back to my seat. What was I thinking? It was awesome and also really scary at the same time. There was no monitor facing me on the stage, so I had no idea what it sounded like. That made it even more freaky. Two people told me I did a good job, and of course Kevin was thrilled that I got up there and did it. Once that was over, the rest of the show was great fun. Jenna Fischer from 'The Office' and Justin Long of 'He's just not that into you.' were the guests. The musical guest was Franz Ferdinand. It took longer to get us all in the studio than the taping itself did. Great fun. I hope to go do that again when I care more about the guests on the show. I see Jennifer Aniston is going to be there this week! I better pace myself.

We got out of the show around 5:30 and didn't want to drive home in the traffic so we hopped a trolley and went up to Universal City near Universal Studios. It was a cool outdoor promenade with a theater, restaurants, and shopping. We just walked around and killed time. The carpool lane proved to be our friend once again on our way home. Tomato soup and grilled cheese late supper and another early crash. What a day!