The Husband took My Kid to school in Brooklyn Heights on his way to his office at Rockefeller Center. After the cleaning lady arrived at the apartment my old clown college roomate and I went out for coffee. She’s New York for a production meeting. We had time for breakfast at Junior’s before she got on the subway. We talked about her work as a puppeteer (she’s been hired for a commercial) and my work as a clown (in rehearsal for Clown Axioms at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club). Is this really my life?
Tag: Brooklyn Heights
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.
Our first full day back in NYC
This morning after an appointment in Brooklyn Heights, My Kid and I ran into some neighbors who had just been to the dentist. They were on their way to Greenwich Village to see Click Clack Moo at the Lucille Lortel theater on Christopher Street. Since it was free with tickets distributed an hour before curtain, we went along too. We saw ate pizza, saw the musical, and played in a couple of playgrounds; the very popular Bleeker Street Playground and the seriously neglected Minetta Playground. Then we returned to Brooklyn and My Kid and her friend had a playdate at our apartment which began with an egg creme and ginger ale from the local diner and ended at “camel park” on DeKalb, the third playground of the day. Now we’re going out for sushi!
I must have been traumatized by an early data entry experience
Our home is not large. Rain is pouring outside. My daughter has a friend over and she has decided she would like to play in the front living-dining-media-play-room part of the apartment. So I am relegated to the back bedroom half of the apartment which is fine with me. I’m listening NPR and writing this blog post in which I hope to unwind all the anxiety I have built up over the past few days.
Last night, we had a production meeting for Clown Axioms which I had been looking forward to because if I do too much stay-at-home-mommy-camp without a break I start to go a little nuts. In addition we’re going to travel West tomorrow to see all of My Kid’s grandparents and cousins and there is the stress involved in that, cleaning the apartment, packing the clothes, which involves multiple trips to the laundromat both to drop off stuff to have washed (towels, socks, jeans…) and to wash clothes myself using my own detergent and pulling half the stuff out of the dryer while it is still damp (black clothes, brightly colored clothes, clothing containing spandex) additionally my husband has his shirts done and of course the wool suits are dry cleaned. I grew up in Montana where maybe dress coats are dry cleaned in the spring but that’s about it. My mother and her peers all had laundry rooms! We washed jackets with tennis balls to fluff up the down. Special t-shirts were routinely tumbled in the dryer to get the wrinkles out and then hung to dry. Other things went on drying wracks or ironed on a board set up in front of the television. When I was growing up during the last great period of economic downturn and environmental awareness my mother eschewed paper towels and used wash clothes that she threw down the basement stairs to end up in the laundry room. I can comfortably handle only 1 or 2 wash clothes in the bathroom and at the kitchen sink and one hand towel in each place. I have no laundry room, mud room, or back porch to hang wet anything. I can’t seem to manage haul laundry down the two flights of stairs two blocks to the laundromat more than once a week. I am always behind.
As a stay-at-home mom who doesn’t stay home I have had a great deal of difficulty getting a handle on the housework over the years. I am experimenting with hiring a cleaning lady which friends of mine do without thinking and which I have a great deal of angst about, possibly because I am descended from Nebraska farm wives and why shouldn’t I be able to get my work done by myself. OK. So yesterday, the cleaning lady cleaned while I went up and down the stairs and down the street with six bags of laundry. At the same time as I was saying good-bye to the cleaning lady I was telling My Kid to put on her shoes and get ready for her tennis class. As soon as her tennis class was over I was telling her how we were going to take the train to Penn Station so I could go to a production meeting and The Husband would take her out to dinner in the city.
And so I found myself sitting around a conference table with the other clown women excited to see them and to get going on our next project. At the same time all the talk about all the things that need to be done to take our company to the next level began to fill me with anxiety. There was much discussion of fundraising and data bases and donor spread sheets and mailing lists. I found myself feeling guilty for hesitating to “step up to the plate” at the same time knowing that I am already counting down the hours and things that need to be done before we check in at the airport tomorrow. (Phone, Nintendo DS, and lap charges have to be collected and packed. Windows have to be closed. Electronics that must be turned off. Suitcases that need to be packed. If the flight is at 7 should I feed My Kid before we leave or pack food to eat on the road or buy something at the airport. If we leave NYC at 7 and get to Seattle at 10 how many hours will we really be on the plane?) I really couldn’t bend my mind around exporting the “vertical response CSV files” by the end of the week people were talking about. I just felt vaguely guilty and incompetent. When the multitude of tasks were being assigned I felt so much anxiety it crossed my mind that maybe it would be so much work that the performances at La Mama that I have been looking forward to for some time might not be worth it. I held back and was careful with my volunteer choices. Press kits. That involves hand carrying original documents to Kinko’s and printing a set number of copies and arranging them colored folders in a particular order. I can do that. It’s immediate, tactile and physical. Other jobs were so technical or so vague I knew they would leave my head as soon as I crossed the threshold of the conference room. Then I would come back from my trip Seattle and Montana, finish up My Kid’s summer activities and get her settled into her new class and grade only to realize I’ve completely forgotten to do some clerical task for the clown troupe the dereliction of which will cause everyone in the company to hate me.
And then there was the doctor appointment I had this morning which was just a check-up but in the context of my anxiety over packing for a cross country trip to see the in-laws and the parents and the publicity and fundraising tasks of the growing theatrical company I was ready to throw in the towel and not even go when the voice mail from the doctor’s receptionist reminded me that the doctor runs on time and a tardiness of more than 10 minutes could cause the appointment to be rescheduled and or cancelled. Since I had a different appointment in Brooklyn Heights at 9 am and then had to take My Kid back to Fort Greene to hook up with her friend for an outing to the Scholastic Store in Manhattan and get back to Brooklyn Heights in time for the appointment. I had to be talked down from my fear of failure by someone who pointed out that it would not be the end of the world if the particular combination of car service and subway rides that I put together failed to get me to the doctor’s office by my check-up had to be rescheduled and the doctor I’ve never met probably would not have time to be upset with me if all the pieces of my life puzzle did not fit together at exactly 11:15 am in a particular office in a particular building in a particular part of New York City.
I don’t know who these people are that they have been talking about on the news who use way to much medical intervention. (They must be hanging out with those “Welfare Moms” who go through pregnancy and childbirth not to mention living with a baby/toddler/preschooler/kid just for a few additional dollars per month.) After I’ve been weighed and measured, had my blood drawn, peed in a cup and wired for an ECG. It was just an office visit, completely anticlimactic given my fear of cancer/heard disease/unknown. I’m done! Significant numbers of calendar pages will turn before I seek additional medical care.
Such a long exhausting week I was afraid I would forget to show up at the theatre for my own perfomance
By Saturday I was so exhausted I was afraid I would forget to show up for my own performance in “Clownical Trials” at Theatrelab. It has been a very long week.
It began to go south a week ago Saturday at 8:00 am when the buzzer rang while we were still asleep. It was the Verizon repairman there to check the phone line that enters our apartment in the bedroom. We hadn’t had phone service for over two weeks and this was the third repairman–the first to arrive before 2 pm.
Early Sunday morning I had to get My Kid up and dressed and to her religious education class as per the Friday e-mail informing us that the regular “first Sunday of each month” class was THIS SUNDAY MARCH 29–big surprise to me and to many others… (because of Palm Sunday festivities on Sunday April Fools Day). We joined My Kid’s friend and her mother to hear the PS 8 choir at an event but it ran long and My Kid had been promised “Monsters vs Aliens” so we left and bought our tickets at the Court Street Theatre an hour early. We went across the street to a deli for sandwiches but by the time we had eaten and The Husband had hooked up with us and we returned to the theatre with our tickets only to discover there were no seats together except in the front row four feet from the screen. My Kid produced tears and we left although her friend was willing to stay so we didn’t get to see it together. We exchanged our tickets for the next show pushing back dinner and homework and started the week tired:
Unaware of the week that was about to unfold I wasted energy walking from My Kid’s school in Brooklyn Heights to the McBurney Y on 14th street in Manhattan where I took two Pilates classes and got some writing done before returning to pick up my child after school. After she played in the playground for a while we caught a train to Grand Central Station meet up with The Husband and go together to our appointment to have our taxes done by someone we’d never met. Our previous tax preparer, the only one we’ve ever used (our lives were simple and we did our own taxes when we lived in Seattle) passed away. The tax man we met does pro bono work for small theaters and he was so nice that I didn’t go through the shame of failure I usually experience when my work as a “performing artist” is examined and graded on the income tax report card. That made me so happy.
Afterwards, there was still the chore of dinner (I just don’t understand why The Husband and My Kid can’t be satisfied with a meal of “Odwalla Super Protein” and a banana–like me.)
As a reward for sitting through the tax meeting My Kid was allowed to choose the restaurant. When she saw the lights of Times Square she thought immediately of the Bubba Gump Shrimp theme restaurant! At least there was no line to get in on a Monday. Happy child with her light up theme beverage glass changing the license plate sign that says, “Run Forrest Run” or “Stop Forrest Stop” to control the attention of the happy jokey servers. I would have preferred to slink into dark booth for a quiet sip of wine and decompress…
Then it was Tuesday. I spent several hours sorting through some old papers at home before running out of time and going to pick up My Kid from school. Two of the mothers on the playground were commiserating over the hair of one of my daughters friends. The experienced mother told the other mother, “That looks like a nit”. The lady in Borough Park was called. An appointment was set for that very day. That evening I got the call from the mother of My Kid’s friend (who had hosted my child for a playdate the previous week). Positive!
Mobilize! I woke up at 3 am and researched lice on the internet until dawn. On Wednesday morning I called the lady. We went after school and paid almost as much as we had paid the tax lawyer for her to comb the vermin out of My Kid’s hair which hangs down to her butt.
On Thursday I changed all the bedding and spent FIVE HOURS at the laundromat washing more than 12 loads of laundry. Coats were sent out to be dry cleaned. All the stuffed animals and couch pillows went into plastic bags for two weeks. Or stuffed animal jail as My Kid calls it. Thursday night there was a 4-hour rehearsal at Theatrelab for Jef’s remount of “Clownical Trials”
Friday morning I was again the Y for Pilates and swimming. I’m trying increase my stamina. I had time for one hour of Jef’s three-hour afternoon workshop between before returning to Brooklyn Heights to catch the Brownie Girl Scout ceremony (at which the experiences lice mother identified nits in the hair of yet another friend of my child!)
Saturday for me was all about spending time with My Kid and The Husband and making sure meals were consumed before I left around 4 to make the 5 o’clock call for the 8:00 pm performance. I can’t say it was our best family day. We were all tired and cranky. None of us had slept well for days. I have my own mixed up life. The Husband has a “real” and therefore stressful job in Manhattan and My Kid is under pressure to “read more” of the books she doesn’t like and should be taken out for a bit of a run–like a dog, ideally twice a day.
After the performance there was a reception with some interesting creative types, but I was done being awake by 11:00 pm. (I took the L to Williamsburg to change to the G because the A and the C weren’t running. I was home just after midnight.) The younger performers went out for more drinks and conversation. Another time I would have joined them. But, this Saturday I was too worn out by the mommy part of my clown life.
Checking the weekend calendar
Let’s see…
Saturday:
8:00 am AYSO soccer game, Prospect Park Parade Grounds
12:00 pm Brownie Girl Scout field trip to Brooklyn Children’s Museum
2:00 pm rehearsal Theatrelab, 14th Street, Chelsea
5:00 pm Fort Greene Monument lighting ceremony
Sunday:
Mass at 9 am or 11 am or 7 pm (…?…)
11:00 am Rehearsal at some studio in Soho
2:00 pm Guggeheim Family Day, PS 8 event
To Do:
Feed kid 6 meals and 4 snacks
Make kid do homework
Make kid read
Prevent kid from watching too much TV
Clean some part of the apartment
Wash some dishes
Put away some laundry
Read something
Write something
Fill out some forms
Shop for some food
No evening plans, sigh, The Husband is out of town
Will me and My Kid make it everywhere by the time we’re supposed to be there on the subway?
I think I’d better call car service for the soccer game tomorrow morning
Friday 9:00 pm; My Kid is very tired and still eating dinner and nowhere near in bed for the night. (There was a very stimulating Brownie Girl Scout ceremony in Brooklyn Heights this evening.) What are the chances of the next two days going smoothly?
Living in New York
My Kid had a field trip to the American Museum of Natural History. Robotics Team checking out the Global Warming special exhibit. Kid back to school with her team, I walk down Central Park West. Grandstands being erected for Thanksgiving Day Parade. Cold grey rainy birthday again–no wonder I went crazy producing outdoor parties for my July baby. Checking out the Billy Rose collection at the library of performing arts in Lincoln Center. Rush to Brooklyn Heights school for kid pickup. A train to F train up to Rockefeller Center where The Husband now works. Wandering around like tourists as is our want. Times Square Marriott 8th floor lobby for a drink. Ruby Foo’s for dinner after the theatre rush has gone. Home to Brooklyn on the subway. A path of least resistance.
housekeeping or clowning/housekeeping and clowning?
I didn’t leave the apartment yesterday until 2:30 when I went to pick up My Kid from school. My day is over before everyone at the office has even returned from lunch.
As is my wont, I told myself I was going to go to the gym, but first I would do a few things in the apartment… clean the bathroom… and the kitchen… (It’s not a real kitchen, it’s a galley kitchen, a row of appliances along one wall of the living room.) I filled 3 bags of dirty laundry, one of towels, one of darks and one of lights. I will take them to the laundromat and pay to have them done. That’s what I do in my city life without a washing machine of my own (which keeps me from multitasking: making dinner, keeping an eye on the kids and having a load of clothes in the washing machine all at the same time the way my mother did. In my city life these three tasks do not take place in the same location. The playground, the laundromat and the kitchen are not even on the same block. I pay to have towels and socks and jeans and playclothes done by the ladies who wash other peoples clothes at the laundromat. I wash anything special and brightly colored or that needs to be taken out of the dryer while still damp, like anything with spandex in it. It takes at least 2 consecutive hours at the laundromat (and that’s only if I can go in the middle of the day at an uncrowded time and fill several machines at once, plus packing and pushing the laundry cart there (down and up two flights of brownstone stairs) and putting the clothes away, or hanging them to finish drying over the shower rod or on the wooden laundry rack. It’s all so Victorian. The dress shirts my husband wears to work are also done professionally, even though I kind of enjoy the repetitive accomplishment of ironing shirts. When we first moved here with our toddling baby, setting up an ironing board in the middle of the traffic pattern of busy room was a terrible idea. But, there was no out-of-the-way place for it. It got put into the back of closet never to be seen again (I’m not the only one, when My Kid started pre-school, there was a wooden ironing board in the “housekeeping” section of the classroom and I heard three different 3-year-olds ask “What’s that”, mine included.) until it was taken out and put on the street. We still have an iron, but it’s so high up in the back of the closet that I only get in down for special projects. I might climb up and get it down this week to iron the Girl Scout patches onto My Kids Brownie sash.
There are so many little things that are complicated for me that were not a big deal at all for my mother. For example, I am thinking of taking a pair of my daughters pants to the tailor just because the waistband needs a little piece of elastic sewn into the back of the waistband that is too loose. I can do that. I should do that. They’re not even nice pants, practically sweats that I got on sale, but she can’t wear them at all if they feel like they are going to fall off. I do not have a sewing machine and even if I did it’s not a big enough job to get out the sewing machine and setting it up and putting it away after. My mothers sewing machine was always set up on it’s own table just outside the laundry room in the basement. Little fixes like that could be taken care of “in a jiffy”.
Before I knew it my day was over and was time to walk to the subway and get on the train to go pick up My Kid at her elementary school and stand and chat with the other mothers and babysitters for an hour while the kids jump and run in the playground. Then we stopped at Target on the way home which often happens when we take the 2/3 train to Fort Greene from Brooklyn Heights instead of the C train to Lafayette. I hadn’t exercised, or written, or anything from my “creative clowning career” to do list.
This morning there were e-mails in my box from friends who have performances in Manhattan next week, and an update from Anna Zastrow who is spending a couple of months clowning in Cambodia.
Sigh…
I do have a sweet husband and a beautiful child.
Falling Behind
I am exhausted and completely frustrated and my head hurts from clenching my jaw because My Kid did not go to school today. The lines were drawn and I lost the battle. She stayed up too late after we got home from the barbecue in New Jersey and I don’t know what happened but she was dressed and we got as far as the front door of our building where we then spent about 45 minutes of me being patient and using all my parenting skills not wring her neck.
When I finally told her through my clenched teeth that I was all out of patience, she sobbed; “You’re only out of patience, but I’ve got nothing!”
It’s not like she’s a toddler. I can’t pick her up and strap her in a stroller and take her anywhere I want. We don’t live in the suburbs or a small town, I can’t lock the door behind her so she can’t get back in the house has to make her way to school by herself. I don’t have a car I can force her into and let her cry it out on the way to school. Life is lived publicly and politically in New York City.
I gave her the choice of going back upstairs going back to bed and having a sick day with NO TV AT ALL or going to school. At this point she was going to be so late, a visit to the office would be required before going into her classroom and all the other little kids would be asking where she was, why was she late. Eventually Lorraine (who used to teach) came down and talked to her and we started towards Brooklyn Heights but first she was going to go with us to the bank. After that she said she didn’t want to go to school and I let her win, because I only have so much time before the performance on Thursday. So we’re on the way to the studio and she is coming with us.
Mommy Camp went off with a bang and I am exhausted
Thank goodness today’s scheduled group Mommy Camp was cancelled because I am exhausted and I have to work the Macy’s Fireworks VIP audience tonight.
We decided on the way home from Coney Island yesterday afternoon that we did not need to get up early today and rush to the Painted Pot to decorate knickknacks in yet another fun-filled activity during our Mommy Camp Summer-Kick-Off Week.
On Monday we met at noon to see the 12:30 showing of Wall*E at Cobble Hill Cinema, afterwards we had pizza in a restaurant and spent the rest of the afternoon with water balloons (some of us until after 6pm) at Peirrepont Playground on the Promenade in Brooklyn Heights. On Tuesday we Met at Melody Lanes Bowling Alley at 10am (I ducked out to meet the cleaning lady at my apartment–she never showed–so I made phone calls about clown stuff and paid bills–she is here now with her mother–how embarrassing for me) and returned to meet the group again at Pierrepont Playground where we stayed until after 6pm. Then I brought My Kid and her friend home for a sleepover. We walked to Ft. Green from Brooklyn Heights through Fulton Mall, stopping at Cookies to buy cheap plastic walkie talkies CUZ WE NEEEEEED THEM FOR OUR SLEEPOVER!. At home we made tacos. The girls had fun cutting up tomatoes and lettuce with plastic knives. Then at 9:30 we went outside and walked to Fort Greene Park looking for fireflies. Two were captured. Many never made it into the jar, then one of the two prisoners escaped. The other was granted clemency and freed. The girls desperately needed a bath and so they had one. They were asleep by 11:30. But we had to get up early because I had a 9am appointment in Brooklyn Heights. I was late. The kids played Ninetendo in the waiting room. Then we met up with the others and took the train and a bus to Chelsea Piers to go ice skating. But, none of us had checked in advanced and the rink was closed to the public. So we went, as scheduled to the water playground next to Chelsea Piers and then (as a quick Plan B) to Dave and Busters in Times Square where everyone ate greasy food and the adults drank overpriced tropical drinks and spent too much on games for the kids. Afterwards we returned My Kid’s friend to her apartment where her mom had been home all day with a sick 4-year-old, a baby, and less than 24 hours to pack camping gear and clothes for a family of 5 before a flight to Colorado the next day. My Kid and I again walked home from Brooklyn Heights through Fulton Mall. (Meanwhile Enthusiastic Mom took her son to a baseball game at Yankee Stadium and they got home at midnight) I think we ate Chinese take-out. I think we watched “So You Think You Can Dance” on TV. I was beginning to wonder if the week of fun would ever end. Nope not yet. Next on the schedule–Thursday morning we met on the Q train for a trip to Coney Island; Astroland unlimited ride bracelets, Nathan’s cheese fries. Sand and Sea. And the inevitable melt-down. My Kid was too short to ride the pirate ship but her friend was tall enough. So My Kid got to play some games and win some MORE stuffed animals to add to the clutter in our apartment.
Enthusiastic Mom had e-mailed us a spread-sheet schedule of the week’s planned activities. The kids were all supposed to wear the same colored shirt each day (so they would look like a group just like real day camp kids) which they took seriously. Monday was white, Tuesday was red, Wednesday was blue, Thursday was yellow. We discussed changing plans, but unfortunately our kids are old enough to read and in fact had been studying the schedule. The children would not allow us to deviate much from what had been printed. (Thank goodness they were also exhausted by Thursday night so we could cancel today–which isn’t really a day of nothing since it is the 4th of July and that involves at the very least schlepping out somewhere to stand with a crowd to watch the fireworks and then schlepping home in the dark and possibly rain.) That’s why we still had to go to Astroland at Coney Island even though we had spent the previous afternoon at Dave and Busters in Times Square. They are effectively the same thing from a spending money for nothing point of view.
All in all it was a good week. But, I will be glad to get back to My Kid’s version of Mommy Camp which is much more like homeschooling with reading and writing, math and science, and art (what can I do that’s what My Kid said she wanted…) But, we’ll be going to Montana for two weeks and accompanying My Husband on a business trip to Toronto in August so I don’t know how many days of this brand of low-key educational mommy camp she will actually get.