New York City – Page 2

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.

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.

The Birthday of My Princess

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.

Golden Nose Awards

Yes, the New York clown community has its own awards show. Flying under the radar at the Krane Theatre on the Lower East Side, last night, individuals in street clothes, were publicly acknowledged for their contributions to the art form of clown.

Before and after the show there was socializing at Phoebe’s bar on Bowery and 4th where there was the usual talk about upcoming shows and gigs as well as more discussion of the Swiss clown Dimitri and his family who just finished a run at the New Victory Theatre. There were random smart people digressions on topics as diverse as the Food and Drug Administration and the public education system. I saw Kevin Carr, stand-up-comedian/actor/clown for the first time since…some year waaaaaay back during the last century, when we were both in the same Clown College class in Florida. Adam Gertsacov, another classmate, from back in the day, who books his flea circus and other solo shows at community events and schools, was also there –slightly stunned that this was his first social night out with a bunch of clowns since the birth of his son six months ago.

Barry Lubin, better known as “Grandma” of The Big Apple Circus, presented Dick Monday and his wife Tiffany Riley, who were in town from their home in Dallas, Texas (where they relocated for a more affordable lifestyle after having kids) with the Clowns of the Year award for their work as the ensemble The New York Goofs and for their teaching of clown skills in New York City for over 10 years. They remain a vital part of the New York clown scene returning several times each year to teach and perform.

Hovey Burgess, a master teacher in the NYU graduate acting program received a lifetime achievement award for his work as a circus and clown historian. Everyone knows him because he goes to everything and he is acknowledged somewhere in almost every book about American clowns and circus published in the past 25 years.

Deven Sisler, just back from Haiti, accepted an award on behalf of Clowns Without Boarders, a volunteer organization that sends groups of clowns to areas of crisis all over the world, including refugee camps, conflict zones and territories in situations of emergency.

Very cute, very young Spencer Novich, a student in the experimental theatre wing of the NYU drama school won an audience choice award for his eccentric dancing character and mid-career professional Joel Jeske and Mike Richter, and Christopher Lueck received one for their act “Musique”.

But, mostly the evening was a celebration of people who embrace the art form of clowning.

“There’s no competition here, we’re all fighting to make a living,” said Dick Monday as he picked up his award: “This does weigh a lot and it will keep the credit card debt in one pile.”

The show was fun today with lots of tots in the house!

We had a lively audience of people who were less than 3 feet tall. The Husband and My Kid were there and our friends with their 3-year-old and 6-month old. The performance felt a lot different today with so many little ones participating. Nobody really cares what we do when there are walking babies on the stage. Stakes are low and fun quotient high. It really worked today! Too bad we’re done.

There was talk of an extra show next week at the festival party showcase. But, we’ve got some scheduling issues in the cast and so we’re not going to do it again. I didn’t think it would ever turn anything more than a baby-music-circle-time-class on stage the first time we met to rehearse and got absolutely nothing done with the kids there in the space too. (But I’m a pessimist.) In the end we did develop something that was much more and it has potential to rise out of the diaper bags again.

I had a nice conversation with Amy Salloway who is in NY to perform her solo show, “Circumference”, at the festival. The Husband and I know her from Seattle when we were all in the fringe theatre scene out there. Amy said she was recently in Seattle and a lot of the funky old theatre spaces we use to know are gone. All slick and no charm now I suppose. She said the young people on Capitol Hill are all working a high maintenance goth look. Grunge was so a much easier. I totally used to wear a black skirt over leggings with Doc Marten boots with an oversized t-shirt under a plaid shirt on top. So did everyone else. (It bugged me so much when Bridget Fonda had it wrong in the movie “Singles” because she wore black nylons with her Doc Martens. The Hollywood foreigners co-opting our Northwest style got it wrong! Only opaque leggings or tights were ever worn under a skirt with Doc Martens!!!! (I suppose because I wore Doc Martens with skirts, I have no right to criticize the young ladies of New York in their UGG ugly boots.) Amy is loving New York and wants to live here. But how. How does one come up with the cash, or the job, or the relationship, or the scholarship to project ones self from the West or the Mid-west all the way to New York City to do theatre. It’s hard.

After we left the West End Theatre today, we walked down to 84th and had lunch at Ollies. Then we walked down to 72nd to catch some air before catching the train. That took about three hours because the 3-year-old and the 8-year-old had some shopping to do… My Kid introduced a pre-schooler to the wonder that is Claire’s. All those accessories. My Kid who does not yet have pierced earrings can’t get enough of the clip-ons. That store used to be for the tweens and teens who cruised the malls, but now with all the Hannah Montana, and Princesses and even Dora accessories, they’ve lowered their target market age to include the pre-school set.

Home now and My Kid is watching TV and The Husband is taking a nap.

My goal is to get them to the Brooklyn Lyceum by 8:00 pm tonight to see The Civilians “Brooklyn at Eye Level” at the Lyceum. It’s a theatre piece based on interviews with real people involved with the Atlantic Yards development (which I hate so much I could go on for pages and pages about how awful it is). The mommy friend we saw today is involved with The Civilians theatre company. Her biased opinion was that the show is great and we must see it.

OK blogging time is over now. My Kid is hungry.

Oh My Toe!…Why I Walk So Slow

Yesterday after the matinee, I decided to walk across Central Park and go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art by myself (instead of meeting up with The Husband and My Kid to see the new movie “Bolt” with the voice of Miley Cyrus. My Kid needs to see it opening weekend. Me I can wait…) But, I didn’t enjoy myself, my feet hurt and I was tired and wandered around the museum without purpose. By the end of the day I knew I was coming down with something.

Monday is the traditional day off in the theatre world. I either have the standard “show-is-opened-and-now-I-have-time-to-be-sick” or I have the standard seasons changing cold. This week it got cold, really cold, find the hats and mittens, get the down coats out of the back closet cold. This too seems to trigger illness in the city because of all sudden changes from hot buildings to cold streets to damp steamy trains–YUCK get me out of here. Husband and I have noticed that since we moved to New York City the germs we’re exposed to cause much more spectacular illnesses than anything we ever experienced “Out West”.

So anyway, the show opened yesterday. It was fun. There were tiny personages in the audience who didn’t know what to make of what we were doing.

When My Kid was tiny, we took her to see the Big Apple Circus and she watched Justin Case the trick cyclist and acrobat ride the bike that kept falling apart and she took it in totally straight. She carefully watched a grownup do something, ride a bike, which she could not do but would learn someday. She had no history with bicycles. She did not know it was unusual for a bike to be ridden in a handstand, or turn into a unicycle. Adults laughed. My kid did not.

It’s tough to be the one to introduce a child to the concept of theatre.

This fall we relived the stress and anxiety we had in 2001

From the Wikipedia entry on the topic of “Recession” and where I was at the time:

According to economists,[39] since 1854, the U.S.A. has encountered 32 cycles of expansions and contractions, with an average of 17 months of contraction and 38 months of expansion. However, since 1980 there have been only eight periods of negative economic growth over one fiscal quarter or more[40], and three periods considered recessions:
January-July 1980 and July 1981-November 1982: 2 years total (GRADUATED FROM HIGH SCHOOL AND WENT TO COLLEGE IN MY HOME TOWN)
July 1990-March 1991: 8 months (AFTER GRADUATING FROM CLOWN COLLEGE CLOWN–WORK AVAILABLE WAS IN JAPAN)
November 2001-November 2002: 12 months (HAD JUST MOVED TO NEW YORK CITY)
From 1991 to 2000, the U.S. experienced 37 quarters of economic expansion, the longest period of expansion on record.[40] (“THE BLUEST SKIES THAT YOU’VE EVER SEEN ARE IN SEATTLE”)

Gifted and Talented

I’m not surprised that the New York City Department of Education failed to increase the number of minority students in gifted and talented program; http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/30/nyregion/30gifted.html. The program was obviously created by a man used to working in an office with a staff, not a mommy juggling school and work and family and HOLIDAY obligations.

I am a white college educated woman stay-at-home-(at least some of the time) mom-obsessed with my only child’s education AND I FAILED TO GET THE PROPER FORMS IN ON TIME in order for my child to take the gifted and talented test.

Last year, right before vacation, IN THE MIDDLE OF THE PRE-HOLIDAY CRAZINESS a letter came home about signing up for the special test. The form was to be turned the first or second day back in school after the long Christmahanakwanzikadan New Year break.

The teachers were ambivalent with an “if this is interesting to you, it’s not mandatory…” note.

In MIDDLE OF THE PRE-HOLIDAY CRAZINESS this piece of paper did not get special treatment…

After the holidays, in the school office, a casual question in the school office. The school secretary said the test was only if you wanted to leave this school. My kid’s happy at the school where she is, which also happens to be on my husband’s way to work.

I don’t want to yank my kid out of the school where her friends go, and add a significant commute to her morning for her to attend a gifted and talented program somewhere deeper into Brooklyn that may be nowhere near our go-to subway line.

So…

For whatever reason…

I filled out the form, but I failed to turn it in by the deadline and my kid was not pulled out of class to take the special test.

I felt like a bad parent on that day of the test when the other more organized parents were talking about it.

My kid’s statistically minority friend who took the test well and was accepted into the gifted and talented program, well, she didn’t change schools. Our school has no “gifted and talented” program. They aspire to nurture the gifts of all the children.

Kids are not interchangeable like bricks.

Schools are eco-systems.

Children need more than accelerated programs, they need friends, they need to feel at home in the school building and comfortable in their classroom. They need to be able to like their teachers and know their teachers enjoy them.

At 8, 9 or 10 years old kids are not thinking about their future. They live in the present looking forward to the end of the week at best.

Even Malia Obama, a bright student in a good school, with very prominent parents–when faced with the prospect of her father’s campaign’s unprecedented TV buy on multiple channels–only concern was if his program would pre-empt her favorite Nickelodeon and Disney Channels (which also happen to me my own child’s favorite channels–another reason to vote the Obama Family into the White House).

Are we always our jobs?

Yesterday there was a rather spectacular shooting in a beauty parlor near our “home subway stop”. One of the injured innocent bystanders happened to be an off-duty cop, a female, shot in the leg while sitting in a salon chair having her hair done.

In the blogosphere there is some criticism of this off-duty officer for not having her gun at the ready. Some people believe off-duty cops are required to have their weapons with them at all times. I did a google search and this was the law in New York City until 1981 when some drunken off-duty cop shot someone. (Yes it would be a really good idea for 20-somethings on a St. Patrick’s Day pub-crawl not to carry loaded weapons.)

The concept of requiring someone, a woman, to carry a weapon at all times baffles me. Does this mean women, who happen to be officers of the law, should carry a gun into the delivery room? I’m sorry but I think, if I’d had the option available to me, I might have shot the nurse who put the fetal monitor on my belly after I pushed it off for the umteenth time while in the throes of labor. I’m not saying having your hair done an experience of that magnitude. But, come on. There are some moments when a girl just needs to be a girl. Sitting in a salon chair in a beauty parlor is one of those times!

Without a shop…

Today Lorraine is building the shadow puppet frame.

We just got back from the hardware store where Lorraine had planned to have them cut the wood she selected her, but it was $2 a cut, and she needed about four cuts so it would have cost more than the lumber which was only about $3. It’s New York City and we live in an apartment so we’re being nickel and dimed to death.

Lorraine is down on the front stoop right now with My Kid watching her cut the wood. She has her own tools, but we don’t have space. Thank goodness it’s not raining.

It would be so much easier if we lived in a whole house somewhere like my home town where my father and brother both have houses with full basements and shops with table saws. The Husband is not the only person in this family who would enjoy a shop in the basement.

But, if we lived in a whole house somewhere I wouldn’t be able to get myself safely to a theatre space in Williamsburg to perform in a late night cabaret and then get home in time to sleep a few hours before getting My Kid off to school.