The true FACINATION begins

I was driving home from work and heard a familiar name on the radio...Peter Facinelli.  I had been a fan of his since the Fastlane days.  He was going to be appearing at my local mall to raise awareness and funds  for Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation.  My daughter was out of town and I really didn't want to go by myself as I was sure it'd be a mad house.  I decided that I only live once and I'd go solo with firm instructions from my daughter to get her an autograph.

I went to the mall, the line was ridiculously long but hey...I wasn't doing anything else that day.  I stood in line and watched Peter as he interacted with the crowd.  He seemed like a really cool guy (I knew this already but seeing it first hand was pretty awesome).  My time came to go up on stage.  We introduced ourselves to each other.  He looked at me intently while I spoke and I of course made him laugh.  I asked him to make the autograph out to my daughter but and I quote "Mama waited in this line so I get you".  I have a knack for saying things before thinking them out completely.  He smiled really big and laughed.  We chatted briefly about Fastlane and the "Candystore", both agreeing that we would love to have a "Candystore" of our own.  I thanked him for being so gracious with his time and he thanked me for coming out and supporting the cause.  We took our picture and that was that...or so I thought.

While I was waiting for my picture to be printed I was watching Peter and listening to him and reflected on our brief conversation.  I was completely dazzled by this man.  Not because he was a celebrity..but because he was genuine.  I have a pretty keen radar for people.  He was so caring and took time to listen to me ramble..he seemed to truly care.  I've met other celebrities who seemed nice on the surface but also seemed like they were just doing their job.  Peter was just a normal guy who was having fun and truly appreciated every single person he spoke to.  I even forgot my daughter's autograph after our picture was taken and he went and grabbed it and came after me saying "OH! Don't forget Samantha!!" and brought it to me.  I was so incredibly impressed with him and his personality and his sincere nature.  This was in August of 2010 and it was the beginning of my FACINATION (the s is left out intentionally to coincide with Facinelli...just wanted to clarify).  I immediately created a twitter account and started following him (that's another blog entry all together)...and I can honestly say a day hasn't gone by that I haven't thought about Peter since that day in August.  I've had the privilege of running into him a couple more times since then, which I will write about later.  I've met some amazing people and have made life long friends because of him and have some amazing memories (some embarassing ones...the man has the ability to make me go wonky).