“Ponyo, Ponyo she’s a little fish. Ponyo, Ponyo, she’s a little girl…”

I hate to criticize another mother’s decision making skills…

I know it’s just a cartoon and plot devices are needed so the kids can have their epic adventure. But my goodness! This is what Sosuke’s mother, Lisa, does: When her husband doesn’t come home from his job as a boat captain on the day she expects, she drinks beer and falls asleep on her kid’s bed. In the middle of a storm so fierce electricity goes out and people are predicting a tsunami, she decides to put her kid in the car and go home through the driving rain, through flooding streets and up a narrow mountain road. Then, in the middle of the night while that same storm continues to rage, she decides that what she really wants to do is leave her five-year-old son, and someone else’s preschool size child (who just appeared in her yard during the storm), alone in her neighborless house on top of a cliff while she drives several miles back to the senior center where she works.

And then a neighbor goes to the hospital in an ambulance putting everything into perspective…

list-serve-dot-org

It is either easier or more important, I don’t know which, for me to create a list–that did not exist before today–in order to send it to the woman in the organization who is putting together all our mailing lists for a full company email blast about the upcoming event.

The Husband doesn’t understand why I have spent a significant part of the past two days combing through two years worth of old e-mails and pulling the addresses of people who might be interested in an upcoming theatrical production that I am in especially given the fact that I have not previously created or maintained such a list.   Why didn’t I just tell them I didn’t have such a list?

Because that would be too embarrassing!

I don’t want people I work with to think I am a slacker or failing to step up to the plate even though I go out of my way avoid this kind of work because the effort has never yet produced for me results that are worth the anxiety.  Last fall agreed to be a class parent as long as I didn’t have to create the class list because I knew that it would take me about ten hours of pure frustration to put the names and addresses of 25 kids into a Microsoft Excel program when someone else could do the job in 20 minutes.  

So, I have been combing through two years of old emails (two years is the record I can access because that’s how long I’ve had this laptop) looking for addresses that I could add to my address book (even though before this week said address book did not even include my parents or brother and sister)  I pretty much just respond to the e-mails as they come in.  

Then, I padded my address book with names from the class lists and team rosters of My Kid’s activities, but when preparing to send the list to the person who is preparing to send the email blasts about our show I pulled most of them off again.  I left on the mommies who I know for certain are either artistic, go into Manhattan frequently or are technically savvy enough to know that the e-mail about my show is something they can ignore.  I  erred on the side of caution when removing from my list acquaintances I was afraid would receive the email with the question “Why did this person send this to me?”  

Unless it is someone with whom I’ve actually conversed about my clown activities, I feel much more comfortable handing out postcards in person.  Then I can explain to the people I only know in the context of our children’s activities will not assume I am a birthday party balloon clown or that this is a show for children.  This is a theatrical event for which reservations may be made and tickets must be purchased.  Oh and if you think it sounds cool, please give us money so we can have a longer run in a larger theater:

http://clownsexmachina.com/

Aghhhhh! I failed to create a link! F&$#@!

second rehearsal

I thought I knew where the rehearsal space was.  I’ve been there before, many times.  I got off the train with 10 minutes to spare, plenty of time to walk to the studio.  Except that I couldn’t remember where it was.  Aghhhh!  How frustrating.  Of course I felt like a complete idiot and wasted half the rehearsal just shaking off that bad feeling and getting centered again.

The original plan was for me to take My Kid up to The Husband’s office in midtown and then go back down to the East Village for rehearsal.  Already that plan is in flux.

back in the clown saddle and sore

I don’t know what kind of clown thing I did in the studio yesterday both of my calves have hurt all day.

A neighbor had a class so I took her kid along with mine to the Scholastic Store in Soho and then the Apple Mac store in Soho and then Kidrobot in Soho.  Then we hooked up with the mommy-friend for lunch and went to a vegetarian dim sum restaurant in Chinatown followed by the wonders of the Aji Ichiban candy store.  They went up to Union Square to go to Petco while I went to Brooklyn Heights to pick up The Husband’s repaired shoes and drycleaning.  Back in our neighborhood I bought Coho salmon, fingerling potatoes, asparagus and heirloom tomatoes for dinner–We saw the movie Julie and Julia this weekend so now I feel compelled to mention the food we prepare in our apartment’s galley kitchen.  That will wear off soon.

Hot Clowning like Hot Yoga only with noses

We were in the studio today OMG it was hot–sweating my clown nose off–yuck!

I wanted a shower when I got home–but I didn’t get one, we went to Trader Joe’s (I’m not sure if that’s because it’s the closest name grocery or if we are jumping on the “I hate Whole Foods because they hate insurance for all” bandwagon.

I have a cheat sheet here; 4 little drawn maps of the walking patterns of my “weird lady with the candle” from the last show.  Not gonna help.  We are in a different venue…

Anyway…

Rehearsal…

Hot…

Sweaty…

Clown noses are not a comfortable thing when ones face is liquid sweat–just sayin…

So I got up alone and left to go to rehearsal and then I came home and they were preparing to go shopping for the ingredients to make homemade pizza–and while we were doing that we remembered that today is the day of the fundraiser for Doug Biviano,  our PS8PTA friend who is running for City Council.   So we HAD to go to his lovely rooftop fundraiser where My Kid could see some of her PS8 BFFs.

And now we are home.  And it’s 8 o’clock.  And we are going to make dinner from scratch!