Clownmommy

MAY CALENDAR REMINDERS

Attention 3rd and 4th Grade Families…
Middle School Workshop next Tuesday, May 11 at 6:00pm. Please RSVP to Blake Amos. Childcare will be provided.

DETAILS:

PS 8 PARENT WORKSHOP:

GETTING ORGANIZED FOR THE MIDDLE SCHOOL SEARCH

WHEN:    TUESDAY, MAY 11; 6PM TO 7:30PM

WHERE:  PS 8 AUDITORIUM

NOTE:     REFRESHMENTS YES; CHILDCARE NO

Come learn how to get on top of the search process and not make yourself crazy.

Agenda includes:

! Walk-through timeline to help you plan ahead

! Demystifying the application process – presentation by a pro, Joyce Szuflita*

! Doing tours, tour info, issues/questions to ask before, during and after tours

! PS 8/The School’s role in the process

! Resources – books, websites, people

For a few moments, as I sip my morning coffee and check e-mail, a wave of paranoia and adolescent insecurity washes over me when I learn, through the listing of conflicts while organizing a Girl Scout event, that two of my daughter’s best friends have been invited to a birthday party and she has not. My child is perfect and so I wonder; Is it me?”   Do I not host enough playdates?  When I talk to the other parents at after school pick up, do I say the wrong things?  Are we a weird family?

Our weekend is already full.  Between soccer and piano and Girl Scouts,  (Not to mention Sakura Matsui at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden that I was hoping to drag my family through in the time between the soccer game and the piano lesson)  it would be a major complication if we had to squeeze a birthday party into the Saturday schedule.  Besides, my daughter is already going to a birthday party on Sunday.  

I don’t even know whose birthday party my child is not invited to.  It might not even be one of her friends.  It might be a younger boy’s birthday party, the friend of a sibling.  Both of the girls with the birthday party conflict have brothers and live on the same block.

My daughter is oblivious and it’s not my problem.

And yet, I can’t help but worry about it, for at least as long as it takes to finish my cup of coffee.

This is an original NYC Moms Blog post.

This evening, after I read the e-mail about the Toronto Festival of Clown call for cabaret acts for June, I spent some time looking at the Brick Theatre website and the application for  the 2010 New York Clown Theatre Festival, due May 15.  I hesitate, because I don’t want do drop the ball regarding My Kid’s education.  The festival is in September and the word on the playground is that I have to be really on top of my game as an involved parent from the first day of school or my daughter will not get to visit and apply to the more interesting public middle schools.

Every grade presented a performance of some sort on the last day of religious education for the year. A few kids were happy to be on stage while others tried to blend in with the wall.  The microphone kept shorting out.  I particularly enjoyed the 4th graders with their cardboard Ark of the Covenant.

We had a clown jam today.  It was great to see the other women and share the hugs and greetings at the beginning of the session.  There were only 6 of us altogether but that’s a good number to have some solo, duo and trio improvisations.  The studio was nicer, a new floor was put in since we were last there and we were given specific instructions to avoid tap dancing and flamenco dancing.  Got it.  Not a problem.

My sister called me because of the shake up at Random House, she thought The Husband worked there, but he is at one of the other major New York publishing houses. My sister’s boss’s editor at Random house lost her job… It’s a shakey world for everyone.

She was going into a 4-hour board meeting. OMG!

I missed most of the fundraiser.  But, I did show up and I talked to some other parents, and the principal, and I had a glass of wine, and I have a lead on overnight camp for the future…

But, I didn’t get to experience much of the party.  I missed the lite dinner food, and I missed the live auction…

But,

I was there…

At least for a little while…

We really can’t expect anything more…

Friends will go see Banana Spheel tonight, the first night of previews. I looked up the cast on line. Patrick de Valette is in it! I met him at the New York Clown Theatre Festival. He’s a French street and cabaret performer and genuinely funny.  I have renewed hope for that show.

So while I was putting together some costume pieces for tomorrow I was singing the song “Anatevka” to myself.  It’s from A Fiddler on the Roof .  I don’t know what that was about.  I have been in two different productions of “Fiddler”…  Nope, still don’t know what it could mean.

We’ve got studio time scheduled tomorrow for the women of Clowns Ex Machina. It’s not a rehearsal.  It’s just some time in the studio to play.  Just a “clown jam” and yet I feel uneasy about going.

What if I’m not feeling “wildly fun!”?

Should I stay home?

Even if I don’t go I still have to contribute $10 towards studio rental, unless I give Kendall 72 hours notice and it’s too late for that .  That’s more notice, by the way, than my dentist or my therapist requires!  So, now I feel like I have to go because I already said yes.

I should be looking forward to it.  But, I dread the command to have energy followed by the command to stop being tense.

It is meant to be fun.  That’s why I do it.  It usually is fun.

But, the last production was so stressful.

I just got an e-mail from a neighborhood mommy who has an organizing business, Urban Clarity.

She sent out a friendly list of tips to keep from becoming overloaded.  The last one on the list; Say “No”.  That’s something I failed to do when I succumbed to perceived group pressure to take on publicity tasks in addition to rehearsal in addition to the rest of my life as a wife and mother

I remember my mother talking about how hard it was to say no to the League of Women Voters after she went back to school full time when my younger sister started first grade.

At the end of the day there are only 24 hours in each day, and it is so hard to say, “No”.

So I’ll be going to the BrooklynNite this evening, the annual spring gala and fundraising auction for my daughter’s school, I bought my ticket from the PTA president.  I wrote a check for her after she cornered me on the playground yesterday afternoon.  As I said, it is hard to say, “No”.

At least there will be cocktails and tasty snacks.