Author: kathie

Tiana the White Princess

While watching the new Disney animated movie, The Princess and the Frog at the Ziegfeld Theatre, and then photographing my daughter next to various Disney Princesses, all of whom were at the Roseland Ballroom afterwards, as part of The Princess and the Frog Ultimate Disney Experience, it occurred to me that the “finally a Black Disney Princess” princess might become known to the preschool set as “The White Princess”.  I hope it happens in our “finally a Black President” Obama in the White House America.

Princess Tiana does spend much of the movie as a frog, which might entice some more little boys into theaters.  However, she has 3 -count them three- iconic ball gowns in addition to a pretty great 1920’s fantasy sequence beaded number.  I know one dress is kind of blue and the finale dress has some green layers, but the dresses are white. White like a wedding dress, white like a debutante dress, white like she is the white princess because her dress is white.

Maybe she’ll become known as the green princess or the frog princess, or the cooking princess, or the princess with the strapless dress with a blue sash, but the dress she wore at the Ultimate Disney Experience was white.  A Southern Belle Princess, she’s a gift to the city of New Orleans.  Also the music and story seem structured for an easy transition to the stage and I expect that soon I’ll see banner on a bus announcing the stars of Disney’s The Princess and the Frog on Broadway.

My daughter became intimate with the Disney Princesses in preschool.  It was a social phenomenon.  All the girls in her pre-K class loved princesses and each had her favorite.  My kid chose Belle from Beauty and the Beast, because her favorite color was yellow. It was a simple transition from her favorite Wiggle, Greg, who was also yellow. Aurora, Sleeping Beauty, was her next favorite princess and Cinderella came in third. They are available often as a trio, the pink princess, the yellow princess and the blue princess.  If one member of the trio on the pencil case, or whatever licensed item was in question, was Snow White, my child was not interested.

Pink. Yellow. Blue. White. Green.

Say Yes to the dress.

Being a princess is about the ball gown and Princess Tiana has plenty to choose from.  She will not become one of the wallflowers like Pocahontas or Mulan.  Worthy role models both, but what girl can have fun in the constricting folk costumes they wear. Jasmine wears pants, so she can turn cartwheels if she feels like it and Ariel, The Little Mermaid, can swim.  I fail to see the appeal of Sleeping Beauty.  She seems boring.  When my daughter’s friends pretended to be her, they lay down and closed their eyes. But, she does have long blonde hair and a dress that is the favorite color of a large percentage of the little girl demographic.

Princess Tiana, the only Disney animated princess to debut during my daughter’s childhood, is destined to become a dress-up favorite.  Her ball gown is big, the kind you can run in, the kind you can spin around in until you fall on the floor in and then get up without assistance.  That’s something to be desired in formal attire.  It’s practical and beautiful, like the American princess who wears it.

Kathie lives with her Handsome Prince and her Little Princess in Brooklyn.  

This is an original NYC Moms Blog.

Production Postmortem

The meeting started with a viewing on a laptop of some really great still photographs of women clowns on stage by a photographer who was there at the theater.

What was clear in the photographs is that we’re fascinating people every one of us and as a group we are amazing.

Creative process, generating material, and camaraderie were barely mentioned during the table discussion.  That’s what I like to talk about because that’s what I find fascinating.  But, no matter, those kinds of conversations too easily become wide-ranging and unruly.  We had a limited amount of time to cover the topics at hand so we talked about production tasks and rehearsal schedules.   I have new insight into how I will approach my work with this group next time.

Tasty savory crackers and yummy chocolate holiday treats gave the Clown Axioms postmortem discussion a holiday party feel.

President Obama made an important speech accepting the Nobel Prize for Peace today.

In my  own small life I wrote a blog post and went to a meeting with the clown troupe.

Two friends’ shows today

Well, first of all there was the 9 am soccer game with the trophy distribution picnic afterward…

The Husband, My Kid and I went up town to see  the matinee of Spacestation 1985 at the Tank Theater on 45th street because one of my friends was one of the puppeteers.

In the evening I went with my friend from Seattle to see Heidi Schreck’s play Creature at the Ohio Theater in Soho.  There was a party afterwards because it was closing night.  We stayed.  There were people to talk to and I had just enough to say to make small talk (about that show I was in at La MaMa last month) so I didn’t feel like I was just a mom…

I feel comfortable in theaters.

Award Statuette

My child–who will get another participation trophy for playing AYSO soccer tomorrow morning, was dancing around the room with a plastic Oscar–from when we visited my sister who lives in LaLa Land right before the Academy Award Ceremony, and we saw the mall with the plastic covered Red Carpet ready for the pre-show and we touched the real red carpet through the holes in the plastic and we took our pictures next to the giant Oscar statues, and we went to the temporary Academy Awards Museum and got to hold and get photographed holding a real Oscar, and did you know the Kodak theatre is in a mall and the Red Carpet runs right past a California Pizza Kitchen?

Soldier Mama

Did you ever have a weird new mom dream working out the fears and disbelief that there was actually a baby in your life? Maybe you dreamed you went to your old job and were going out with friends after work completely forgetting that you had a baby…  In mine, I thought I was babysitting, and waited in vain for the baby’s parents to come back so I could leave.

Just dreams, strange dreams, not particularly bad, not even nightmares.  

What if you thought that if you showed up at your job with your baby, he would be pulled out of your arms and placed in foster care?

What if you were a soldier scheduled to deploy?

What if your mom, who has always there for you, is one of those women who do too much?  She’s always been there for everyone, she takes care of her own mom and her sister and your special-needs sister and she runs an in-home daycare.

What if your mom said she could take care of your baby for a whole year–but after a week she realized she had forgotten that yummy grandbabies who are learning to walk are in constant motion.  They eat or drink every couple of hours and they wake up 2, 3 or more times a night (especially in a strange room without mommy).  That just might be too much to deal with on top of the business and taking care of three other relatives with health issues.

What if your mom has a habit of agreeing to take on more than she can handle, but you don’t recognize that as a problem, because you’re only 21 years old? 

What if your mom told you that if you just talked to your supervisors they would help you?

What if you asked the army for extra time to find a new year-long 24/7 childcare situation for your baby and were given a 30-day extension? 
 
What if you didn’t have any other relatives willing to watch your baby for free?  Can you trust someone you hardly know to take good care of your baby?  Will they do it if you give them all your pay? What if they don’t love your baby?   

What if you were told you that you had to deploy with your unit after all, because your commander doesn’t think it can be as hard as you say to find someone willing to babysit your infant 24/7 for an entire year?  What if he thinks you are just trying get out of going to Afghanistan?  What if he told you to put your child in foster care?

Would you bring your baby to the deployment location at the appointed hour? 

Or would you stay home, scared and hugging your baby, until after your commander had left the country?

What if when you went to the base, the next day, to talk to someone about it they arrested you and called the county child protective services to come and take away your baby?

Would you think you did right by your child by going AWOL?

This is an original NYC Moms Blog post.

They’re filming on our street again

They’re filming on our street again.  It happens all the time.  
We live in a part of Brooklyn that looks and feels like Sesame Street, or the opening shot of The Cosby Show. My Kid won’t even bother to cross the street to check out a film shoot.  In our part of the world, signs taped to lamp posts with arrows that point to “EXTRAS HOLDING” or  “TO SET” are as ordinary as fliers about lost cats and dogs. 


I remember when she was still in a stroller she was attracted to the tent over the craft services table set up a couple blocks from our apartment.  She wanted to go towards it because she thought it was a party.  It was a music video shoot. 

Another time, Dan Zanes was filming in the park next to our regular playground while my daughter and her friends watched and at least one parent had to sign a release contract because his 3-year-old wouldn’t get out of the shot and the producers let him stay there listening on camera with the children who had been brought in by a casting agency. 

At the Bleecker Street Playground in Greenwich Village, I watched with amusement as some photographers were setting up a shot of a Bugaboo.  Toddlers kept coming over to play with the ball and sand bucket the stylists were artfully arranging around the wheels of the stroller. 
When my daughter was a toddler and we were still new to New York, my husband and I got excited when we saw, on an episode of Blues Clues “our” vegetable store in Chelsea Market, the one where we shopped every week because it was in the same building as my husband’s office.  Though it was her favorite show at the time, My Kid was unimpressed.  In her experience, familiar places were on TV all the time.  Now she goes to school with a girl whose baby coos were used as a character voice on Blues Clues. Yeah, so.  Another PTA parent was the host of one of my daughter’s favorite cooking shows.  Last year at a school event I overheard the son of this celebrity chef tell another kid his dad was embarrassing. 

A couple of years ago, I took my daughter to Fort Greene Park one sunny day, so she could practice riding her bike without training wheels.  We looked across the street and there was Lavar Burton repeatedly coming down the stairs of a brownstone with a wrench in his hand taking the training wheels off a bike.  They were filming a segment for Reading Rainbow.

We live in New York City.  The places my daughter goes and the things that she does are on TV and in movies all the time.  She sees film crews about as often as her cousins in Montana see wild deer.  When George Clooney and Brad Pitt were filming in Brooklyn Heights not that long ago, some of the moms hung around the school after drop-off, hoping for a star sighting, others grumbled about parking.   But the kids didn’t take notice until the last day of shooting at that location when the guys from craft services delivered enough pink bakery boxes of cookies for all the teachers, staff and students in the entire elementary school.

Original post to NYC Moms Blog.

After my Downtown Clown Revue solo performance

It’s not a performance I’m particularly proud of.  I did it and that’s something to be glad about.  But I didn’t quite nail it and that’s cringeworthy especially since another clown I know said frequent passing thoughts at the Downtown Clown Revue include: “What are they trying to do???” and “I think I know what they are trying to do.”  But, it is after all supposed to be a place to try out new material and new ideas.

I was disappointed with my performance because in the moment I let go of my vision and allowed myself to be too influenced by my most recent contacts, Jef Johnson and Jango Edwards.

Another mommy clown who saw the performance asked me afterwards if I had nursed for a long time.

Is it that obvious?

I know I didn’t feel much like auditioning after my daughter was born.  I kind of lost the need to put myself in front of an audience with my child following my every move, even in the bathroom.  Motherhood does take a toll.

Another good friend said I looked pretty!