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#christmaswithginger!

O hai Ginger!

Ever since the day I moved to the Coachella Valley (and even before, actually) I’ve been getting my First Alert Forecasts from KESQ’s Ginger Jeffries. In fact, a certain reporter who happens to live in another market and I consider ourselves members of the KESQ Fan Club, and not the one that donates box fans to the elderly. (Although that’s not a bad club to join either.)

Since the summer, we’ve occasionally raised our glasses to Ginger at Friday night gatherings that we called #cocktailswithginger, and for Halloween this year, I couldn’t think of a more worthy celeb to dress up as than our favorite First Alert Forecaster. (Srsly. Lady Gaga was so five minutes ago, and MJ? Ha. So four months ago.)

So when I heard that Ginger would joining the mayor of Palm Springs to light the city’s Christmas tree, I knew I had to be there to see the magic live and in person:

doing a weather VO

Well, in between live shots and weather segments, people were chatting with Ginger and getting photos with her, so I worked up the courage to go and ask, “Hey Ginger, could I get a picture with you?”

“Sure,” she said as she looked up from the papers she had been paying attention to… and totally recognized me, adding, “You’re the guy who dressed up as me for Halloween, aren’t you?”

“Oh, so you’ve seen it,” I replied. (I figured she had watched my YouTube “forecast” since it’s kind of The Video Seen ‘Round The Newsroom where I work.)

She then told me about how KESQ subscribes to a clipping service that delivers reports whenever someone’s name appears in other media or online. She later mentioned that my name appeared often because of all my tweeting.

Anyway, back to the photo. So Ginger begins to asks her cameraman to snap a photo of the two of us: “Can you get a photo of me and — It’s Brian, right?”

Bingo.

But then she at least pretends to have second thoughts: “I was watching that and I was thinking, ‘Is he just trying to be funny, or is he taking a jab at me?'”

I assured Ginger that I was only trying to be funny with my Halloween outfit and agreed to her request that I “be nice.” To be fair, I also told her she’s more than welcome to make fun of me on YouTube or wherever else.

And Ginger, when BurrellesLuce sends you a copy of this post (as I am almost certain they will), make sure to do some extra browsing around Brian.Indrelunas.com. There’s all sorts of ammo here that can be used against me if you’re ever in need of material for a good YouTube video.

But I digress again. Anyway, we pose for a picture, the flash goes off, and then Ginger says, “OK. We can do a nice one now.”

“A nice one?” I ask. “What was the one we just did?”

Turns out Ginger needed to let out some of her frustration in this first picture:

Ginger snaps

Well, then we did take a nice one, which turned out like this:

Ginger: 'OK. We can do a nice one now.'

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how the fake Ginger Jeffries met the real Ginger Jeffries. It was an epic meeting, kind of like when Perez met Posh on “Victoria Beckham: Coming to America.”

However, I’d like to point out that the comparison only goes so far. For instance, I’ve never called Ginger “a robot with really big boobs.” That Perez is so crass.

Ginger, on the other hand, is a class act, and I’m glad that she a) didn’t really punch me and b) gave the KESQ Fan Club a very special something to tweet about… #christmaswithginger.