Montana – Page 2 – Clownmommy

I’m glad I came back to Bigfork

Sunday 8/16/09

We got lost on the way to the softball game because it wasn’t where I thought it would be. It wasn’t where we played against the town when I was a company member.

The game was fun to watch. There was beer and clowning and the old guys who were in the playhouse company years ago (including JK Simmons) were serious about winning. And they did; 25-5. Of course the stakes were a lot higher for the guys who paid a lot of money and planed for a long time to travel to Montana to revisit their youth. The townies just rolled out of bed and decided to show up at the softball field.

I spent the afternoon talking to an old friend I first met when we were both in the very first Missoula Community Theatre production, Oliver. It was a big deal. (The afore mentioned Mr. Simmons was the musical director.) I remember Jim Caron telling us if it didn’t work the Missoula Children’s Theatre might cease to exist. Just renting the score probably cost more than the Missoula Children’s Theatre Association had ever spent to produce a show. I was in 8th grade at the time. The friend I spent the afternoon with was in high school and a cheerleader. We did not travel in the same social circles back then.

This weekend at Bigfork we had much common as mom’s out and about without our families, so we became each others date for the Gala. We had lunch together and talked about our years at Sentinel High School and the University of Montana.

We each did only one season at Bigfork. As we talked about it we realized that was because we were not the right age or at the right time in our lives to come back season after season like some of the others did. She was too young when she came, right out of high school, and I felt too old, just a couple of years out of college and eager to move away from Montana to Seattle.

I found myself singing and humming this weekend and I do regret not having taken the opportunity to put the music from at least 4 more shows into my body. I miss singing. And by singing I mean show tunes.

Bigfork Summer Playhouse Alumni Questionaire

name

address Brooklyn, NEW YORK

yada yada yada

Married/partnered/children/pets YES

Years you participated in the Bigfork Summer Playhouse: 1990

Names of productions and roles performed (if you remember). Shy in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Anytime Annie in 42nd Street, the youngest daughter, in the red and white dress while everyone else wore pastels, getting carried all over the place by everyone in The Pirates of Penzance

Were you part of the crew? no

Are you still involved in the performing arts? yes

What is your current career? stage clown, Clowns Ex Machina

What hobbies do you pursue now? What are you passionate about? drinking coffee and raising my daughter

How did your experience with BSP affect your career choices? helped define me as a comedienne

What is the biggest lesson you learned from your tenure with BSP? don’t date outside the company

What was the funniest/hardest/most dramatic moment from your tenure with BSP? The man-boy actors were in the middle a pie fight using the leftovers from the gala just as the local volunteer ladies showed up to visit the dorm and collect the empty potluck dishes.

What was the biggest challenge faced doing Repertory Theatre with BSP. getting enough sleep Do you think this is still a challenge? yes

Any tales of romance or intrigue you’d care to share with us? that’s like asking if there are any undiscovered lakes you can see from the highway

What advice would you give an aspiring actor just getting involved with BSP. It’s not abut being talented it’s about putting in the hours. What do you wish someone had told you before your accepted your spot with cast/crew? start young, stay long, appreciate Montana

What makes BSP unique compared to other summer stock or repertory theater groups? It’s in Bigfork, MONTANA!!!!!!!! In the SUMMER!

Why do you think theater and performing arts are important to our society? THIS is the question that caused me to set aside this form without filling it out…just saying. What benefits are there to participating in live theatre as a crew or cast member? Is this an essay question? How about as an audience member? As a kid growing up in Missoula in the 1970’s it was the closest I could get to professional theatre watching Kim and David Simmons, Laurie Bialik, Emily Clubb, Dick Nagle, Jim Caron, Kathy Danzer and the rest…

What’s your one dearest wish for the future of the Bigfork Summer Playhouse? That it will continue long enough for me to be a “blue-hair” watching my niece on stage while my daughter runs the light board.

The Missoula Public Library and The Book Exchange

I was literally plugging in my laptop so I can check my e-mail from a public wi-fi site (because my parents only have dial-up) when my cell phone rang. It was Kendall asking if I’ve sent out the e-mail blast asking for donations for the troupe. Yikes I haven’t. GUILT. I’m a bad friend. I am a bad company member. I dropped the ball. Twice that I’m aware of–maybe three times if end up not making it to the Bigfork Summer Playhouse Reunion this weekend. I’m here in Montana without a car and just today getting passwords and such so I can walk over to my brothers house in order to use my laptop outside of a coffee shop with wifi.

Last night I really missed being able to check e-mail and facebook as part of my bedtime routine. At the hotel in Seattle I’d go to the lobby for wifi or use The Husband’s bluetooth connection because I don’t have a crackberry of my own.

In Brooklyn before we left we made it to the good-bye party for the friends moving to Uganda but I didn’t get back to the friend running for office in Brooklyn who needed me to fax him our info because his campaign lost our donor card. The Husband was too busy at work trying to get ready to leave town for a week. I was cleaning and packing and trying to say good-bye to the friends who will have moved away by the time we get back to Brooklyn. Things were dropped. Things were missed.

Now I’m at the public library where I have come with My Kid, Girl Cousin and The Grandparents. The girls are signing up for the summer reading program (grand prizes provided by Dairy Queen) and searching the shelves for matching books to read to their dolls.

And now we’re at The Book Exchange where my father has a lot of credit and his grandaughters are sure to acquire some new books in the next few minutes. While I try once again to go on facebook and see who I know from long ago who is in Missoula, Montana at this point in time. Yesterday I got a call on my cell phone from an old friend and we were so excited to speak to each other that it took a while to figure out that I who live in Brooklyn am in Missoula and she who lives in Montana is in New York.

Now that I’m sitting here looking across the street at the fairgrounds where the rides and animal pens are being set up for the Western Montana Fair and My Kid is otherwise occupied I can’t remember what I wanted to say. It’s just so weird being back in my home town, a not-young (this is a college town) mom, just visiting from my Brooklyn, New York.

And the girls are ready to go.

Next on the Agenda…

I was just checking my e-mail before I went back to the room from the lovely hotel lobby with beverages and wi-fi and there is an e-mail that informs me that the Bigfork Summer Playhouse reunion is only days away. I haven’t really thought about that yet. I bought a ticket. But, I haven’t thought about getting there from Missoula. We’re not even in Montana yet. My head is not there yet.

The Last Day of Vacation in Seattle

Saturday 8/8/09

Last Day

Up and awake and watching Discovery Network Shark Week. The clock is ticking. Today is our last day together in Seattle. Tomorrow The Husband returns to work in New York City and My Kid and I continue on to two weeks with My Parents in Montana. Last year the husband was able to take enough time to come to Montana with us (but the Seattle leg was cut short). It’s so frustrating trying to combine parental obligations with a family vacation and also trying to see old friends in the city where we used to live. We never get to succeed in doing it all. I think we’re starting to feel that “sandwich generation” squeeze.

more Saturday 8/8/09

The pressure mounts on the last day of vacation, the last day of summer vacation for The Husband. We left the Westin Hotel (the one that looks like 2 round nuclear plant cooling towers) for a walk to Pike Place Market. I guess I was fantasizing when I thought we could eat them for breakfast every day of the vacation– on that first day when we took our walk from the other hotel through Pioneer Square to Pike Place Market the Nordstrom Rack and the rest of downtown in our relaxed “here we are again in old familiar–and also different since we lived here–traveling home to Seattle city day.

Today, we walked again to Pike Place market where we ate crumpets covered with yummy sweet and savory foods and unlimited mugs of tea (and we bought a dozen crumpets for his mother and my mother). We passed Goldmine Jewlery where our wedding bands were made. I would have stopped but there was a “back in a minute” post-it on the door and as I said the clock was ticking. The thought crossed my mind, wouldn’t it be lovely to have her design a tiny gold ring for our little princess–maybe when she is older… Then we walked on to Pioneer Square to take My Kid to Magic Mouse Toys. She enjoyed her time there very much but didn’t find anything she needed to buy today. Amazing. My Kid can show amazing restraint. (I mean come on, we were vulnerable parents feeling the pressure of a vacation ending, we probably would have bought anything if it brought a smile…)

We didn’t get to the pool today. We never made it to the Pacific Science Center. We never went for a boat ride. There are friends we’d hoped to see who we never got to see. Now our time is up. When The Husband talked to his mom on the cell phone about all she thought still needed to be done there was so much tension that I ended up with significant shoulder pain from carrying the same purse I’ve been carrying around all week long.

We went up to The Mother-In-Law’s apartment to work on THE LIST. We took some old chairs to Good Will and waited in line to drop them off. We took some stuff to the UPS package express store and paid $100 to ship it to Brooklyn even though we don’t want most of it that is still the easiest way to deal because we are out of time. (that list had 14 items on it when I looked–just sayin’)

Finally…

For dinner we had reservations at Etta’s, the Tom Douglas restaurant. Our kid didn’t like the not-so-great-tasting-of-hamburger-grill crab cakes we got from the hotel room service last night and The Husband wanted to change her mind. She wasn’t impressed with the Tom Douglas crabcakes either but that’s OK because we inhaled what she didn’t eat. AND My Kid ordered half a Dungeness crab for her dinner and ate it all by herself!!! It was so good that when My Kid and The Mother-In-Law ordered desert The Husband and I split another half Dungeness crab. It’s so much better than lobster or any other kind of crab even King crab. Dungeness crab is the best shellfish either of us have ever had and it is not available on the East Coast. Our meal was over $200. But it was that time versus money thing and The Husband’s vacation time is so short and so not relaxing, we have to enjoy what we can. We enjoyed the seafood at Etta’s restaurant in Pike Place Market very much.

After The Husband dropped My Kid and I off at the hotel and drove his mom and her car home and returned in a taxi (more cash up front that seems extravagant to my people of origin who drive their own cars and carry their own food) he said his mom said something that acknowledged that he may not have had as nice a time as he might have had because of the numerous errands he succeeded in accomplishing for his mother.

Running Out of Time

I thought we would spend some time at the Pacific Science Center with My Kid. But, that didn’t happen. We enjoyed hanging out in the hotel room as a family until it was time for The Husband to go have lunch with a former work colleague. My Kid and I went swimming in the hotel pool. Then when The Husband met us at the pool so I could go meet an old friend, My Kid decided to get out of the pool. Then she decided she wanted to ride out to the sewing machine repair shop at the far North end city limit with a drive-throu McDonald’s thrown in for fun. The errand took so long that they didn’t get back downtown in time to visit Seattle Center and the Pacific Science Center. Instead they met me at the wine bar where I was with my friend who hadn’t seen Ken since our wedding. I think I stopped by her office with my new baby once. My new baby is going into 4th grade. We had some catching up to do. We talked about the summer she played my older sister in both Gypsy and Fiddler on the Roof and the same actress played our mother in both musicals performed under a circus tent in an asphalt parking lot in Missoula, Montana

When The Husband and My Kid showed up at the wine bar where we were sitting with our happy hour flights of Italian red and truffle flavored popcorn (eyes rolling yeah I know) we talked a little more and then we went up to The Mother-In-Law’s apartment to deliver the repaired surger and for The Husband to program the new phone and hang pictures and some other small chores. We were at her apartment long enough for My Kid to watch the entire movie Mousehunt. At 10 p m we had to leave even though there were still more things on The Mother-In-Law’s to do list because my kid hadn’t had dinner yet. We parked downtown and thought we could find a restaurant downtown but the kitchens were closed so we went back to the hotel and ordered room service. The Husband walked two blocks to buy beverages at Ralph’s grocery on 4th Ave. where we used to buy food so often on the way to rehearsals or shows when we worked at Annex. I remember shopping for snacks at Ralph’s once to eat while hanging out with one of my many housemates from that big white house on Queen Anne Hill. He was an engineer at Bad Animals music studio at the time. I think he moved to Austin, Texas to be a musician. I wonder if he found success.

I had a nice visit with an old friend from the same Montana hometown as the theatre friend we had lunch with the day before. They weren’t friends growing up but they had siblings who were in the same class. Remember when 2 or 3 years difference in age meant you wouldn’t even have cause to meet or talk to a person. Some of the parents of my daughter’s classmates are probably younger than anyone I ever babysat. Thoughts of who were we as children growing up in 1970’s Montana, then making the decisions to become actors and life for all of us beyond that which now includes aging parents.

Today will go quickly, we have to make a promised stop at Magic Mouse Toys in Pioneer Square. We’ll start with breakfast (or brunch or lunch depending on how long it takes us to get up and out of here) in Pike Place Market and check out the stuffed animal store My Kid saw last night when we were looking for a restaurant. She’s looking for a toy lemur but the ones we’ve found so far are apparently the wrong breed. (She’s looking for one that looks like “Mort” from The Penguins of Madagascar. It’s a search that began on Sunday at the Woodland Park Zoo on a day spent with The Husband’s father. (Yes in addition to juggling work and family and friends and sightseeing The Husband must carefully coordinate the time he spends with each of his divorced parents.)

There are more errands to run and things to fix and check off the list of things for The Husband to do for The Mother-In-Law. At least it is Saturday and The Husband won’t be dialing into his office.

Room Service

Friday 8/7/09

We’re moving slowly today. I was awake at 7:30 am but those people I travel with weren’t. I ended up reading for a while (The Husband’s copy of The Fall of the House of Bush.) My book is Suzanna Clarke’s A House in Fez about restoring a house in Morocco but I wasn’t in the mood to read about houses after visiting our friends sweet home last night, stepping into the life we might have been living if we had stayed in Seattle and continued the life we started when we bought our little house near Seattle U.

After we got back to the hotel, My Kid was hungry (as she seems to be every 2 hours these days) so we took a short walk to Palace Kitchen, the Tom Douglas restaurant with the late-night kitchen we used to frequent when The Husband was started making decent money while we were still doing theatre at Annex. So there were memories.

Now it’s after ten and we have ordered some room service because My Kid is hungry and The Husband and I are both on our laptops and not moving quickly at all.

In preparation for the end of this leg of the vacation…The Husband is giving My Kid all her chargers (Nintendo DS et all) to put into her luggage because we’re going on to Montana for two weeks with the other grandparents and The Husband is going back to work. Sigh.

Yeah! A phone call from an old friend. I’m going to have coffee today with someone I know from both Montana and Seattle!

The day is shaping up with plans for swimming and lunch and Seattle Center and more time with The Mother-In-Law. But for now we are still in the hotel room content with cartoons on the TV and real live window washers on the office building across the street.

Alternate Realities

Thursday 8/6/09

We had breakfast at Voula’s on Northlake Way–yum–with an old theatre friend who is planning her big move to NYC this fall–Yeah! I’m looking forward to having this friend in New York. We’re the same age. We’re both from Montana. We’re both actresses. We both have one daughter (but her’s is finishing college) We’re doing the same things with our lives just in different order

After a stop at University Village (where My Kid continued her search for a purse–what is that about?) We returned to our hotel for a swim before going to dinner at our friends’ house. Their bathroom has an old clawfoot tub like the one we installed after having a new clawfoot made to order at a foundry and possibly the same pedestal sink we’d put in our house. Grass and plants, a worm bin and a garden hose.– A front door AND a kitchen door!– These things become amazing to an apartment dweller. They have a 3-year-old we haven’t seen since she was a baby. I can’t believe we thought (everybody thought) we needed to send our little girl to preschool when she was that big. We thought she was so mature in comparison to a baby, but 3-year-olds are still so little. The little face twisted into tears instantly distracted by the next thing–so funny. Our 9-year-old gazelle-like tween-in-training is a different species entirely.

old friends and new creative work

8/4/09

The highlight of the day fro My Kid and The Mother-In-Law was lunch at the Rainforest Cafe in Southcenter Mall which has been inexplicably renamed “Westfield”. As an aspiring downtown Seattle creative person I never went to that mall. Then when we got pregnant and had a baby we started to go there frequently because of the nearby Babies R Us.

The Rainforest Cafe, impressed my kid to the point that it is now her second favorite restaurant after Dave and Busters (beating out Bubba Gump Shrimp). The drinks were too sweet and the food too heavy. But hey there were anamatronic monkeys, elephants and snakes, with live sharks in the saltwater fish tanks. And the dessert brownie volcano was topped with a lit sparkler! Other than that the mall was a bad mall according to My Kid did not get anything. She couldn’t even any clip-on earrings at Claires, her favorite mall store. I looked at handbags, but I did not buy one. She was upset that they were all over $100 and therefore not anything she could expect to get so she stopped enjoying the mall. The only person who got anything at all was The Husband who purchased a much needed pair of casual sneakers to wear during the rest of the vacation. And it must be remembered, My Kid did get the giant special frog-head glass with a toy in the bottom compartment at the Rainforest Cafe so it wasn’t like she was leaving completely empty handed. But, her emotional state may have been entirely unrelated to the mall experience. In the car her child’s piped up from the back seat asking if this was Tuesday:

“Today is Eliza’s birthday and today is the day I’ll never see Mutessi ever again.”

She was thinking about neighborhood friends back in Brooklyn, one lives on our block, the other is moving to Uganda.

Because My Kid’s dark mood plans were changed and I hoped out of the car alone at the Northwest Film Forum while The Husband took My Kid and The Mother-In-Law to Uwagimaya to look for novelty erasers and snacks. Then back to her apartment to make small repairs while I watched the evening of short films about water commissioned by the Seattle Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs with Seattle Public Utilities;

“The projects reflect SPU’s management of the complete cycle of hydrology for Seattle’s water resources from drinking water through drainage, and Restore Our Waters, the city’s initiative to protect and restore Seattle’s urban waterways.”

Everything in the Northwest is green. Even one of our old theatre friends now works promoting sustainable agriculture.

There were 5 films. SJ Chiro (our Annex Friend) created a fairy tale based on a story by Brett Fetzer (another Annex Friend) narrated by Susanna Burney (another Annex Friend) Cynthia Whalen (another Annex Friend) was in it. Other people we knew from our time at Annex worked on the film and some were at the screening and it was good to see them and go to Eleseyan afterwards for some yummy Seattle microbrew.

But, I was filled with mommy guilt throughout entire film event. My Kid would have enjoyed the short films, especially the stop action animation piece in which the role of water was played by clear glass marbles and the two live-action stories featuring children near her own age. I wish she had been there to see some kids on screen from outside the Disney Studio stable and I was blaming myself for not monitoring everyones protein, rest and happiness levels in the hours ahead of 7:00pm in order to alter the balance of my child so that we could have gone as a family to see the films and friends. Besides, there were some friends’ kids in the audience she might have played with.

Two of the films featured novelty photography and modern dancers in the rain which reminded me why I was hesitant to major the arts while at the University of Montana.

SJ Chiro’s films and Kendall Cornell’s latest work Clown Axioms both rely on fairy tale imagery and that is exciting to me.

travel day

something for my blog because I can’t get online at the airport Thursday July 30, 6:05pm JetBlue

6:05 We’re in the JetBlue terminal, sitting “outside” in the middle of the concourse in front of 5IVESTEAK. I am alone at the table at the moment. Ken and Miya have gone to MUJI to buy pens. Here they come. My Kid is very excited about her penpencil.

It has been a long day for all of us and we aren’t even on the plane for our cross country flight yet.

We’re eating very expensive food because we need to eat NOW.

I think

I don’t know what I think

7:22 We are on our delayed flight which is still boarding. A completely full flight. “Please people sit in your assigned seat. We have a completely full plane.” This is going to be loads of fun.

The way we travel; the three of us each with a carry-on rolling bag and shoulder bags. My parents pack a car with a cooler and thermos and lots of reading material, blankets and extra jackets.

I’m wondering what I am going to do in Montana if it’s chilly with only one pair of mid-calf pants, not socks and no jacket.

Traveling like this we have to buy everything we need to eat and drink.

If you drive in the summer in Montana you have to have (or at least you did when I was a kid) a bucket, an axe and a shovel in your car at all times in case you need to help put out a fire.

Baggage.