The Celebrity Couple Otherwise Known As McFreed

A Very McFreed Hawaii Part 1

nobody@vox.com(Sean & Stefan) — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 17:18:41 -0700

The McFreeds return in triumph from their adventure in the South Pacific...

As you may recall McFreed fans, your favorite celebrity couple travelled to Hawaii much like The Brady Bunch before them.

Did they survive? Did they get sunburned? Did Vincent Price try and give them a magic Tiki? Did anyone drown?

Here is the exciting tale of what happened, who and what was seen, and where the "bodies are buried" so to speak! There are many tales and many pictures to share with all of you! Probably too much! So we are going to break out our post about our trips into several rather than one long scroll. So here is Part 1...

How Finding Nemo Saved Our Lives

We found a good deal on Delta which only had two legs to fly: Baltimore to Atlanta and Atlanta to Honolulu. Our friend Josh (one of Sean's best friends in the world) was going to meet us. We bought a portable DVD player and picked many things to watch on the way... making sure the battery was fully charged! Set up our iPods with all our favorite tunes (which Stefan later forgot his at home... oh no!). We even packed a number of snacks for the trip knowing full well that we'd get hungry over the long flight which was going to clock in at about 12 hours total if you count the layover in Atlanta. You' d think we would be prepared for anything! Wrong!

Finding Nemo

We would soon be put face to face with what being a parent is on our flight from Atlanta to Honolulu. A couple stationed on the islands for the Army was returning from visiting family in Virginia with their 2 and 4-year-old along. This was fine the first few hours despite the fact that the 2 year old kicked Sean's chair most of the flight. We enjoyed our flight, snacked, and watched 27 Dresses (and sadly we thought it was cute in parts; Stefan-the-sap did in fact cry at the end) and watched half a season of our favorite British sit-com Coupling (proobably cackling so much we were a distraction ourselves). Hour 7 came though and the 2 year old lost it... full tantrum! Quickly, Sean remembered he had smuggled Finding Nemo on with the intention of finally getting Stefan to watch it (that is a story in itself!). The "gay dads-to-be instinct" kicked in and we immediately suggested to the mother that she could use our dvd player and our copy of Finding Nemo. Unfortunately for her and her husband their dvd player had lost battery power...hence the "explosion!"

The lovely child almost immediately stopped crying and his brother was telling his mom what parts were his favorite. Suffice it to say, at the end of the flight the mom declared that we had "saved the plane" and the father thanked us for his much needed nap as the movie went on. Therefore McFreed fans, we recommend you bring a portable dvd player and a Disney DVD with you on future trips on flights over 5 hours as to eliminate any chance of "carnage" in the air .

Paula Dean

Celebrity Look-a-likes Oh My!

A side story to our big flight was we had two celebrity impersonators on our flight that tickled our funny bone whenever we saw them. Paula Dean and Joanna Lumley (in Patsy Stone hair mode and red flight attendent outfit although not drunk) were our flight attendents! It was such a chuckle when they both came by to help us with a meal or drink or trash. The hair ("Paula's" was huge!) and accents were uncanny! Just imagine if it was the real Paula with fried chicken and Patsy brought the booze?

Joanna Lumley as Patsy

Arrival

Josh (his partner John was working) met us at the airport with flower leis in hand and we continued on our journey... this was Sean's first trip to Hawaii and Stefan's 2nd (he had been when he was 14 for 4 days with his family).

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What's a Matter With Helen?

nobody@vox.com(Sean & Stefan) — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 10:44:01 -0800

Sean says...

You meet some pretty interesting people on your travels through life. Last Saturday night Stefan and I met one of those people at the Baltimore institution that is the restaurant Chiapparelli's in Little Italy. Our waitress Helen should be declared an institution unto herself.

Stefan has decided that my birthday should be a month long celebration (which I have no quarrel ), so as part of this celebration he wanted to take me to Chiapparelli's for dinner since I am new to the Baltimore scene (I have been more DC based most of my life) and need to explore. We were running late so I popped into the restaurant to make our reservation time while Stefan parked the car. I sat at our table and waited patiently.

"Hi hon," Helen said in her Baltimore accent as she came to the table.

"Are you going to be our mistress for the evening," I said with a little smug smile on my face

She brightened up, "Oh yes I will be your mistress for the evening!" with a Edith Bunker kind of laugh.

She had a large poofy tangle of rinsed black hair, a bright red smear of lipstick carefully drawn on her lips, and a lightly caked application of foundation that more accentuated her late 50ish look more than hid it. Dressed in a black restaurant logoed polo shirt peppered with brown breading from various dinners she had already delivered, and well proportioned in size although not obese, she definitely made an impression.

Stefan arrived and we ordered appetizers, dinner, and dessert with a few jibs and jabs of conversation with our evening's "mistress of ceremonies." Helen told us about her years hanging out on the corner with the neighborhood boys and all the trouble she got into. "Why do the Italian boys get no hassle and us girls had to be locked up all the time," she bemused. Stefan ordered the tiramasu (as always) and I ordered the cannoli. Helen surprised me with a cannoli afixed with a candle in honor of my birthday.

"Now let's all sing happy birthday now," she said bemused with herself.

I sheepishly asked, "Can we do it quietly?" l I am such a yutz!

So Stefan and Helen proceeded to sing Happy Birthday to me in Marilyn Monroe whispery tones to my amusement. She clapped afterward like a Buddhist prayer postion, exposing the smeared lipstick on her teeth as she smiled with great joy.

Helen spoke up after I blew out the small blue ribbon candle, "You want to here the story about this lighter?" She pointed to the foldable gas lighter in her hand. "Some friends of mine who come in here all the time gave me this as a gift. When they first gave it to me I thought it was a vibrator," she said giggling as we roared in laughter! "I was like 'why are you giving me a vibrator!'" she pondered as we looked around to see if anyone else heard her frankness. "Can you see how I could have thought this was a vibrator," she laughed more showing her full row of upper teeth as she laughed in a snarky giggle. We agreed with her and just kept talking.

We talked for what seemed about another hour with Helen after dessert. She invited herself to sit with us after the place started to empty and just learned about her and her knowledge of the Baltimore Dorsey family. We talked about the simple life, her jobs, and her past experiences with everything from customers to her grandmother to her juvenile deliquency growing up. She was politically incorrrect in how she talked about how the "Jews were so nice on Christmas Eve" but we knew somehow she wasn't being malicious. But she always kept to a semblance of a lady telling tall tales but with a blue collar tinger. The whole scene was like meeting a real life member of John Waters repetory. She was great! She had a dignity about her that was course but genuine in every way.

We had to run, since the restaurant by this time was empty and we were exhausted more from the holiday let down and work than her company. So we both gave her a hearty hug. "You made my birthday so much fun! I don't want anyone else to sing my birthday song any other way!" I told her. And she told us to just ask for her when we come back and visit. She made it sound like we would be in tomorrow. "There's a reason why we met, y'know," she said as we said our goodbyes. And we agreed with her, although the reason is more to enjoy her than anything else.

Stefan called the next day and told the manager how happy we were with Helen's service.

So those of you near by don't be surprised if we take you to Chiapparelli's to meet our new friend. We know you will love her too.

Helen we luv ya!

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