Oprah!

Let's get right to the heart of the matter in this first post about our Chicago adventure. I was all set to try to tell it all in one post, but I can milk this trip for all it's worth and get several posts out of it, I suspect.

Luckily we went to Harpo Studios and The Oprah Store the day before the actual show tapings. If we hadn't done that, we wouldn't have gotten any photos and, even worse, we wouldn't have done any shopping.

The Oprah Store is full of goodies: clothing with Oprah's logo, African crafts, even baby clothes and some of the clothes Oprah has worn on her show. Each of us found several must-haves and I, personally, can say I got a little carried away with my purchasing. I like the things I bought, though, and know I made good choices.

Now for the taping. As it turned out, we got to sit in on TWO tapings, so we saw Lisa Ling AND Dr. Oz!

We arrived at the studio at 6:00 a.m. sharp, went inside to a waiting area, stood there about one hour, then were moved upstairs to the official audience waiting room. On the way up we walked through a security screening arch, our handbags were checked, and we were handed a breakfast of a muffin, juice, and an apple. We were numbers 22, 23, 24, and 25 as we entered, so I assumed we'd be sitting practically in Oprah's lap during the tapings, but such was not the case. Once we were escorted to the studio, we were assigned seats rather willy-nilly. I think the four of us got good seats, though. We sat in the center section, perhaps 10 rows up, and on the right hand side of that section.
We watched the film crew set up the stage for the first taping, which was about forgiveness. The crew arranged the chairs, checked for sound, etc., then a member of Oprah's staff came out to psych up the audience. We were already pretty well psyched, but when she announced that we'd be seeing both Lisa Ling and Dr. Oz, the audience went wild. I do believe I even heard yours truly, who is usually quite sedate, whoop and holler when Dr. Oz was mentioned. He's one of my favorites on the Oprah show.

Finally it was time for the first taping, so Oprah appeared, dressed in a rather simple gray dress with a wide belt. She stood and graciously accepted our applause and hoots and hollers, then Lisa Ling (who interviewed various people connected to the case to be presented) and the featured guest came out. The guest was a man from Sugarland Texas who has forgiven his older son for being the force behind the murders of his (the son's) own mother and his younger brother, and for attempting to murder his father as well. It was a powerful show which made me realize that if this man can forgive his son (who's on death row) for what he has done, then maybe I can forgive the next jerk who cuts me off while I'm driving.

The show's taping appeared to be divided into eight segments. At the breaks I noticed Oprah would ask "Which one are we doing?" and she'd be told "fifth" or "seventh" or whatever.

Oprah appeared very down-to-earth and personable, I thought. I was expecting her to be quite aloof, given her fame and fortune, but she showed her usual sense of humor and chatted comfortably with audience members near her during the breaks. She confided before the first taping that she was extremely tired (the day before she'd been at Centennial Park for the taping of the Olympic athletes) and she'd fallen asleep in the make-up chair just before coming down to the studio.

It takes about one hour to tape one show; it'll be interesting to see what the shows we watched look like when they appear on t.v., with editing and commercials.

After a longer break for Oprah to go up to her dressing room to change, the taping of the second show began. This time Oprah wore blue pants and a blue sweater with a scarf attachment. Both times she wore Mt. Everest heels, which never ceases to amaze me. Dr. Oz came out in his scrubs, and the audience again went wild, this time for both of them.

The special guest was a lady who'd had a 140 lb. tumor removed from her abdomen. I remember reading about this earlier this year. Dr. Oz explained how it's possible for a tumor of that size to go undetected for many years, and he stressed the importance of getting a second opinion. He said patients sometimes feel they're betraying their regular doctor (This lady had had the same doctor for 20 years, and he'd never suspected the tumor existed. It was discovered only when she went in to emergency surgery for appendicitis. They opened her abdomen to remove the appendix but couldn't close it back up because the tumor immediately began "escaping." Too much information?? Sorry.... but that we're actually doing our doctor a favor by soliciting a second opinion by keeping doctors on their toes and giving them opportunities to learn more about their field of medicine. He mentioned twice that if a doctor can't discover a 140-lb. tumor, then imagine how hard it must be to detect a tiny tumor.

After the special guest left, Dr. Oz answered various medical questions. One that particularly interested me concerned cell phones and their possible hazards. Dr. Oz said he never uses his cell phone exclusively on one ear, but keeps switching back and forth as he's talking so that one ear doesn't get too much exposure to the cell phone frequencies. He said children should not be allowed to use cell phones at all, because their skulls are thinner and cannot block out the frequencies as well as adult skulls can. 

During one of the breaks for this taping, a young couple and their little boy, about five, were brought in and seated in front of the stage. When the next segment was taped, we learned that a You Tube video of a Dr. Oz Wannabee and his assistant, Oprah had been brought to Oprah's attention, so she invited the youngster to the show. We watched the You Tube video, then Dr. Oz took the boy onto his lap to chat with him. I thought this segment showed the kindness and warmth of both Oprah and Dr. Oz, because they were both reacting so sensitively to the boy. 

We left the Oprah tapings around noon, I think. By this time we'd missed our flight home, but that was of no concern to us because we'd been enjoying our Oprah experience to the hilt. And besides, finally getting ourselves back to Maine is fodder for another blog.

One final comment here, although I'll think of many others I wish I'd made after I publish this post: Oprah's staff, from the doorman who let us in to the coat check ladies to all of the many, many other staff members, were all extremely friendly and welcoming. I was impressed by everything about Harpo Studios.