Let's Tally the Number of Celebrities I've Rubbed Elbows With in the Past Week

Zero. Now let's tally the number of celebrities my sister-in-law and brother have mingled with: a gajillion. Because while I was slogging through the primordial ooze of a wintry D.C. week, they were out in L.A. for the Oscars. Not "coincidentally, when the Oscars were occurring." Actually for the Oscars.

With the requisite vaguery and evasiveness I will say only that it was my sister-in-law's* executive role that found them there. My brother apparently decided that houses in Atlanta could design themselves for the week and while she pressed the flesh, he lounged poolside and cased the celebrity swag tents for possible porous entry points. Their hotel? The old school glam and recently re-opened to massive buzz Roosevelt. The gift basket in their room the first night? It had an iPod in it. The celebs they were lounging around with (separated only by a distance of a few chairs here or a table there)? Clive Owen, Diddy, and some guy from 24 who doesn't count because that's TV and this is the Oscars for God's sake. And at the big event, they snapped a pic or two of the folks gracing the red carpet.

I've posted two versions of one of their pictures. Above, the cropped one. Below, the uncropped one, proving that celebrities are just like you and me. We all get to have unsightly strip malls obscured from our gaze by fake hedges.


*Yes, this is the same sister-in-law who last year scored off of Jon Stewart at the Emmys.