Clownmommy

You know I have nothing to do with what is happening in New Jersey right now right?????

So I saw Lauren Weedman’s show tonight–cool

apparently she is pregnant so the shows will

well 

the show’s will continue 

unless

something as major

as 9/11

which threw a monkey wrench into my plans

OK

So

He’re’s hoping nothing happens as monumental as 9/11 happens so  nothing happens

so 

everything 

will

happen

as

predicted

so My family is going to sleep so I will go to sleepl

I’m glad I’ve got a production meeting next week for Kendall’s fall show and a new gig in November to put in my calendar.

I was beginning to think I was nothing but a housewife and that I have nothing to think about but cooking and cleaning and chaperoning My Kid.

It was Greg DeSanto’s video master class that did it.  Look at all these clowns and what am I doing…

Something.

Once upon a time, the fact that I watched the lunar landing (You know, “One small step for man one giant leap for Mankind.”) marked me as a modern child growing up in an amazing time.  For the adults in my world, especially my grandparents who had grown up on farms with horse drawn farm equipment, this landing on the moon was an incredible thing.

 It didn’t seem like such a big deal to me when we watched the live broadcast on our black and white TV during the basement sale we held the summer after kindergarten.  It seemed even more ordinary to me when the televisions on carts were rolled into our classrooms so we could watch a lunar landing when I was in first grade and again when I was in second grade and then again when I was in third grade.  It was something I was used that some of the grown-ups couldn’t seem to get over the way my daughter and her friends are used to hand held video games and phones that take pictures and of course googling anything that pops into our head on the laptop computers we carry in our bags and use every day.

But just as suddenly as the reality of a man on the moon came into our lives it disappeared, like some  beloved relative , once the star of family gatherings who is no longer in attendance and nobody tells the children why.

The moon landings stopped.  Then there was an oil embargo.  Everyone worried about gas prices.  (According to Wikipedia the stock market crashed in 1973.)

 Mattel replaced their astronaut action figures with The Sunshine Family, dolls that camped, gardened and made pottery and leather goods to sell at craft fairs.

Lots of parents got divorced.

Mothers got crockpots to make easy one dish meals and went back to work.

The Waltons and Little House on the Prarie were on TV and The Adventures of the Wilderness Family was in movie theaters.

 The same parents who had fed their children orange powdered Tang and Space Food Sticks were making homemade granola and sprouting alfalfa seeds in jars.

 It was as though the culture had over-reached and then retracted. Children were bewildered.

It’s lovely to have choices.  There were two different Downtown Clown options in Manhattan this evening.  The New York Downtown Clown Revue had the Bongar Challenge: enter, be really funny, exit in 3 minutes.  And over at the Flea Theatre Greg DeSanto was showing clips from his vast collection of comedy videos.  I chose the latter because Greg DeSanto was one of the clowns who came off the road to teach us slaps and falls when I went to Clown College.  The films I enjoyed most were a short film from the 70′s of clowns in Clown Alley putting on their makeup.  It featured a young Frosty Little who had retired from the road by the time he taught us at Clown College.  The other really cool thing to see was home movies of a young George Carl doing gymnastics and parts of his act out on the lawn for his family in Ohio.  I am glad people like Greg DeSanto have taken it upon themselves to collect this cool stuff.

I suppose the grandparents want to know how the little princess spent her birthday.  And incidentally she loves what you sent!

It is so easy to produce an extravagant birthday in New York City. 

There was one scheduled event requiring the watching of clocks and hoping the trains ran on time.  We attended a matinee of the Broadway production of Disney’s The Little Mermaid.  My Kid has wanted to see this show ever since it opened a short time after her first Broadway birthday excursion to see Disney’s Beauty and the Beast when she was six going on seven– The Disneyfication of Broadway is shallow and disgusting and hateful except on a day that you have the honor of accompanying several six-year-old girls dressed in glittery yellow princess dresses into a grand theatre to sit in velvet plush seats and hear the live music that brings tears to your eyes because once you had a baby and now you have a princess in your life.  

The theatre is part of my life so it is not out of character to be willing to pay for tickets.  But, I really didn’t want to see The Little Mermaid (There are lots of Broadway shows I’d rather spend my money on like August Osage County, which is supposed to be amazing –but probably not a good choice to for the celebration of a 9-year-old’s birthday.) especially after I saw a promo for The Little Mermaid and learned that the fish moved about the stage on heelies and roller skates.  (We may as well go to Disney on Ice!)  But, it’s the show my kid wanted to see.   I have been dropping hints for years; “You know, my kid wants to see The Little Mermaid and I don’t, so if anyone is going I’d gladly pay for a ticket and send my kid with you,”  to no avail.   So when she said she wanted to go for her birthday.  Well, it was just that easy.  We let her invite one friend to go with us.  We didn’t find out until we went to buy the tickets that this show is going to close August 30, so I’m glad I didn’t put it off until we can go to the half-price ticket booth during the off-season, which is what I have been saying ever since it opened.  An added bonus that thrilled me when we got to the theatre–Faith Prince was playing the role of Ursula the evil octopus and THAT was fun to see!  (I guess she didn’t have anything better to do.  Lucky Me!)

After the play we ate an early dinner at Bubba Gump Shrimp, the Forest Gump movie themed restaurant in Times Square (again the birthday girl’s choice not mine.)  Then we walked to Dylans Candy Bar to purchase some trademarked and themed sugar products. There was much discussion of Dylan’s Candy Bar within the 3rd grade ranks at my daughters school this spring, ever since two of the boys in her class made the excursion and returned with tales of this place.  We were in mid-town Manhattan but we may as well have been at Disney World.

Fortunately, my child is a healthy and sane and the things that were most important to her about her birthday were the cake, her friend and one new toy, a Ripstick, (a skateboard like piece of outdoor sports equipment that makes her use up a lot of energy perfecting her balance).

She made her own birthday cake from a mix.  Pillsbury Funfetti, the kind with colored dots throughout.  We cut it into the shape of a 9.  Then she frosted it  a lurid blue-green teal and decorated it with gummy sharks and Swedish fish and the piece de resisdance, a barnacle covered rock made out of an ice cream scoop of cake covered with flowerets of pink frosting.  ”It’s just like I imagined!”  She was so proud of that cake.  It was the highlight of the day.

My Kid and her longtime friend (from playgroup from when they were still in diapers)–they went to preschool–but different preschools–and then when they were 3-years-old we planned their terribly photogenic joint pink-and-yellow themed turning 4 party at the park where all the little kids threw water balloons at her older brother (because it was a hot July day and he didn’t care and the just-left-off-being-three-year-olds weren’t quite emotionally ready to take on being-hit-with-a-water-balloon-and-being-laughed-at-all-in-fun) ran back and forth and back and forth as the pre-schoolers threw buckets of pre-prepared water balloons at them–and he barely got wet—big suprise!!!!!!!

Well, now that they are old/older…  The friend received the gift of a “Ripstick G” for her birthday.    My child recieved a RipStick (apparently “classic” in the color of pink) for her birthday which was YESTERDAY.  

Said friend received her RipStick (registered trademark) for her birthday some 12-18 days ago (and  is therefore and by default and also experience BETTER at it than my kid who just got the @#$%^& toy YESTERDAY!

So anyway…

For the parents…

The nice parents who arranged the playdate in the park…

When the girls didn’t quite get along because of their vastly different (TWO WEEKS!!!!!!!!!) levels of experience on this registered trademarked variation of a skateboard…

COME ON!!!!!!!!

Could we please all just get along???

I, the mommy am tired and don’t really care that you are slowed down by the less than perfect surface and the acorns that climb uninvited into your wheels.  (May I also remind you that the acorns also fall out of your wheels in a single spin!)

Out of the corner of my eye I see a couple with their little pink doll-baby.  Vaguely I remember the time with my beautiful miracle child when I would wake from a nap to find her there in the room with me and wonder when the people she really belonged to would come and take her back.  Wasn’t I just the baby sitter after all???

No!

OK so Fresh Direct sent me yet another friendly reminder–reminding me to place my next Fresh Direct order–except that I haven’t thought through the upcoming week and have no idea what I would like to eat/cook/serve my family during the upcoming week…

I got an e-mail recently “When do you want to perform”?  So I am wondering what do I want to perform?  Something old?  Something new?  Something borrowed?  Something blue?  I don’t know.  How much time to I have to think about it before I must claim a performance slot before the offer is rescinded?

I woke up this morning to the sound of a young female grew-up-in-Montana writer being interviewed about her collection of short stories on NPR.  Hey I’m a young female grew up in Montana writer.  I checked her blog.  In an interview she said something about making time to write everyday.  I thought to myself, “Hey I’m awake and the rest are still asleep on this Sunday morning.  I think I will get myself up and have some writing time. 

So I got up and went into the front room where I immediately faced the pink and blue princess and new technology sugar frosted detritis of my daughter’s birthday yesterday.  I started some water boiling for a quick cup of instant coffee in order to face it and to give me courage to write.

For some reason thoughts turned  (I suppose because of the radio conversations’ references to Montana and college) to an awkward dinner I once while in college, lonely, and apparently socially inept.  As a writer who doesn’t produce much and wonder why–I was aware with Zen-like clarity– of my movement as I jumped up to deal with the boiling water and coffee just as an image so clear and so full of potential as a short story popped into my head.  And as I was trying to figure out what was wrong with my life 20 years ago–when I was young and cute and didn’t know it–in a literary fiction sort of way,  my kid arouses herself and wanders through the room to the TV, which she turns on to a very loud episode of Spongebob Squarepants, lounges back against some pillows and declares that she is hungry.

I haven’t really written anything except that I remember an incident from when I was in college.

I find myself agreeing to–offering even– to make pancakes which I begin, still thinking I can satisfy my child with food and then go back to my writing –yeah right–that train has left the station;

I fill a bowl with pancake mix, oil and milk only then to discover that we are out of eggs.  I pull on some clothes, inform my husband that I am going out and head to a corner market for milk, and also the Sunday Paper which I see as I am paying for the eggs.

Back home again, I make pancakes and also coffee, out of beans this time for sharing with the spouse, instead of the instant that I had made for myself.  I hand deliver a cup of java to the spouse who is working now but on a laptop and still in bed so physically it feels like he is doing nothing and I am doing everything as I begin to burn the fake sausages and spill coffee beans in the soapy dish pan and try not to burn the pancakes by clinging steadfastly to my post in front of the stove while verbally mapping the location of the milk carton so my daughter can find it herself as though this were a game and she wore a blindfold.

The strong coffee and New York Times Real Estate Section make me tense and anxious as I broach the possibility of heading up to Lincoln Center to try to catch an ensemble-improvised-three-and-a-half-hour-long-French-language-theatrical-piece that was recommended by one of my clown friends who is single and lives in Manhattan.

My mind is full of the dishes in the sink and unwritten stories in my head as I apply sunscreen to myself and my offspring and follow her downstairs to act as her spotter as she practices using her new pink and black RIPSTICK on the sidewalk in front of our building.  I go down quickly without keys or cellphone so when we become hot and tired and The Husband still has not come down yet we cannot stop and go up for a drink of water.

And as I write this I am backtracking because I have just lost the edits I have just made which causes me to look at the clock and think of The Husband who is now in the park with My Kid and her RIPSTICK and how I still haven’t started the breakfast dishes which is the reason I ditched them and came back up to the apartment for a few minutes instead of going to the park with them for some family time and how really it is time now to be thinking about lunch…

And the phone rings and it’s My Kid calling from the park; “Mommy where are you?”