Tag: Seattle Center

working mommyclown nightmare

I dreamed I was at a clown conference at Seattle Center.  There were high profile stage and circus clowns teaching workshops including the man who had been director of clown college when I was there. There were inspirational clowns who worked with sick orphans in Africa.  I was excited to be talking to former CC classmates who had been working in the business for 20 years since I’d last seen them. 

We were walking to a workshop about hospital clowning in Uganda.  I was talking to old friends I hadn’t seen in years.

I had on a full Ringling style agent suit with wig and makeup and big shoes. 

My cell phone rang.

It was from my daughter’s school.

“Your daughter was not picked up fifteen minutes ago at 3 o’clock.  She’s still waiting to be picked up.  This is the third day in a row no-one has been here to pick her up.  Don’t you care about your child?”

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.