Oh my God, it's Britney, bitch!!!

I had the most surreal celebrity sighting on Monday.

My friend Ken and I were getting together to try out his latest video game, the PS2 "Ultimate Avengers", when we decided to get some lunch at a nearby restaurant. He suggested The Gaucho Grill in Studio City which I'd never been to before. Turns out it was in the same plaza on Ventura (The City Grill) I'd had lunch with Elizabeth from New York a few years back.

Two blocks out from the restaurant we started seeing three news choppers parked overhead. By the time we got to Ventura, we realized they were looking down on the very plaza we wanted to have lunch at. In the parking lot was a gathering of about a hundred people. A number of them with cameras. I rolled the window down to ask some guy what was going on and he said Britney Spears was in one of the restaurants. Ken and I looked at each other...expecting that there had been some shooting, but instead to find Miss Bipolar herself probably in the very restaurant we wanted to eat at.

Pushing our way through the small crowd, we made our way up the escalader. To our left was The Gaucho Grill where our feet led us while our eyes scanned about for Britney. As we entered the restaurant we noticed right away that there were maybe 10 people total in the place..including us! This is a small eatery with one semi private area directly behind the matrade's desk. As Ken and I followed the waitress to our table we both looked toward this area and quickly acknowledged that the woman in the white lace dress with long black hair and bug eyed sunglasses was in fact Britney Spears!

We were seated and handed our menus. Ken's back was mostly toward her, but I had a pretty full on view of Brit, her new boyfriend, ex-papperazzi photog. Adnan Ghalib, plus what looked like a bodyguard and a personal assistant. No crowds, no photographers, no fans. Just the 10 of us and Ms. Spears small entourage. It was so surreal. Kind of like we were part of the inner circle while all of the craziness was outside and down the escalader.

This is when I called Allen because I just had to pass on this amazingly strange moment with someone. While I was waiting for him to call back, Britney got up by herself to take a trip to the ladies room. She walked out from behind the semi partition, turned the corner and glanced out at us, then headed to the rear of the restaurant where the washrooms were. The boyfriend met her in the back when she was done.

Allen called back and while I was on the phone she and her crew got up to leave. I followed, while giving Allen a blow by blow description, shortly witnessing the insanity as they walked down the escalader to a waiting SUV. The one thing I had not heard was that today was suppose to be her big day in court to meet K-Fed regarding custody of her children. Of course she turned around and left the courthouse without going in, to later end up at a church and then where we had lunch.

As her SUV sped away, fifty papperazzi guys ran to their cars to join the pursuit, all honking their horns as they lined up to exit the parking lot...as if that was going to do any good.

Again, probably THE most surreal celebrity sighting I've had yet. Sitting there in the restaurant with Britney Spears just 25 feet away felt like I was in the presence of The Queen or a President. Not that I look at her that way. Just the insane amount of hype around her life made it seem like that.

I wanted to yell, "LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE!!". But of course that was so five minutes ago and would have been pretty lame.