Closet

It is time to let go of those clothes in the closet that I will never wear. Yep. It's time. I will never be 119 pounds again. I just have to deal with it.

Focus

I thought that writing this blog for a month would help focus my writing. But I feel just as scattered as ever.

Drat.

Politeness

I alwas thought it was not polite to read a book or watch television when visiting relatives. When I visit my mom- I use to do that... But it was my MOM - and it's like being at home. Now when I see her, I have the kid - so I am wrangling.

For 15 years I have gone with the spouse to see his folks. For the last 5 years I have "retired" for the evening when I put the kid to bed. But I never brought out my laptop or a book in daylight hours.

The last two times - I broke this politeness. And no one seemed to mind. I read a book and fiddled around on my computer. The in laws read too.

I had a lovely time.

But I still think I was being rude.

In-kaws

I am at the in-laws. This is the first time in YEARS we did not have ham for dinner.
I have been with the spouse for 15 years - and I can now count on two hands the number of times we did not have ham.

Vocation

We are friends with many "trust fund" babies. They never admit that they are. But it doesn't take long to figure it out. The business we are in is not lucrative. So when they take exotic vacations or buy flats outside a normal persons price range - ya just know.

Most of these friends are also childless (by choice). They seem to understand how hard it is to get a babysitter - but they see the baby sitter a the "help.". Keeping a good sitter is really hard - so you don't want to screw it up by staying out later than you estimated. It is hard to get these friends to understand that.

I have to admit that I am jealous of those folk with disposable income. I would love to travel. I would love to have the luxury of time to just ponder what I am going to work on next without the pressure to have something going on right this second.

When I get jealous I just look at the amazing creature that we made. I wouldn't trade being a mom for t he world.

Bus stalking

Today my five year old rode the school bus. I went to the campus to make sure she got on the bus. I'm glad I did. I watched as she walked up to her teacher to show her the bus pass. I watched the teacher and the bus driver compare lists and shake thee heads. So I walked over and said "yes he is getting on the bus." It was then that I realized I verbally told the teacher the day before, but did not personally write it on her check out chart. My bad.

But she got on the bus! Holding hands with a friend. Pretty darn cute.

I then followed the bus - curious about the number of stops but also making sure my child did not get off on the wrong stop.

At one point I lost the bus. So I went to the after school facility and waited. The totally ride time was 40 minutes. That a long time for kids - but she didn't seem to mind.

She had a blast and now I am lopkig forward to 6 hours to myself on weds!

Bravery

My daughter is trying so hard to sleep in her own bed. It is so hard. When she was born, the nurse said to me "you've got a cuddler... She is going to love being held'"
She wasn't kidding. My daughter has always been happiest in our arms "hold me" is her favorite phrase.
At 5 she can really use her words to express her feelings. She wants to fall asleep with me next to her - not across the room in a chair. I tell her - it will get easier. I tell her that she is brave.
And I think she is.
It hard to be alone in a dark room. She has a turtle tank in her room. Turtles are not quiet - the swimming and banging on the floating rocks plus the sound of the running water from the filter would drive me nut all night. But my kid can sleep through just about anything - its just getting to sleep that is the pain in the ass.

I know this is good for her. But it breaks my heart when she cries and just wants to be held.

receipts

My daughter got the same preset from two friends. It happens all the time. So I took the duplicate gift to K-Mart. I knew they carried it because I had seen it there. They would not take it even for store credit. It was ridiculous. I needed to produce a receipt. I would not have been too upset, but my daughter was with me so she could pick out the "replacement."

So we went to Toys R US. Same thing. They refused to take it. I just wanted to exchange it for something else! So now my daughter is in tears becuase she had her heart set on a new toy. I bought her something she wanted - a Pillow Pet - and she was thrilled.

When did all this "receipt" business start? The Toys R Us manager told me that I needed to ask my friends for the receipt. I told him that was completely uncouth. He said, "You always get a gift receipt when you buys something here. They should have given it to you." He also suggested I get their Rewards (whatever they call it) Card number and they can look it up and see if indeed they had bought it there.

I don't know if they got it there. IT WAS A GIFT. Like I'm gonna call my friends and see... really..

So I will now be re-gifting this fantastic thing. And I will make sure to always give a gift receipt.

Technology

Oh my - I was covetting the iPad today. Do I really need it? No. Do I really want one? I think yes.

But I do have a worry. I let my daughter use my iPhone occasionally to play a game (I have a few for her). Usually I hand it to her in the car if we have or horrible traffic or the ride I more than 30 minutes. Lately, she asks to play on my phone all the time.
We created this problem. My husband and I are on our phones all the time. Checking email, facebook and yes playing games. I am currently addicted to "words with friends" a scrabble type game.

We were so bad that we had out phones at the dinner table. So rule #2 on our house rules list is - no phones at the table.

I admit to my technology addiction.
I worry what I am modeling to my child.

What would happen if got the bigger toy?

Could I possibly set some healthy user boundaries?

I'm just not sure.

And I am typing this on my iPhone while my daughter falls asleep...

Sleep

We subscribed the the family bed idea. Well I did - I think the husband just went along with it because I wanted to. For the last several years the kid has gone to bed in her own bed but crawls into ours between midnight and 3am.

She is 5 now and we decided that she needs to stay in her bed all night. The other sleep problem is that one of us would lay down with her until she fell asleep. If it was me, I would often fall asleep too and there goes those precious few hours alone with the spouse or a good book.

We have had some success the last two nights. The husband and I played tag team in getting her to sleep on her own (one of us is sitting in the rocking chair in her room). But tonight I was on my own. She started to have a tantrum and began to weep. She begged me to lay down with her and said that this whole process was "not fair to kids.". I asked her if Bernard would help and she said maybe.

Bernard is a stuffed animal. A Saint Bernard dog. It is the only toy I still have from my childhood. I got the ragged filthy dog off te shelf in my room - he is missing his nose and his leg is taped up. I handed him to my daughter. She took him in her arms and stopped crying. Within 5 minutes she was asleep. Bernard got me through a lot as a kid. He protected me from all the bad things in the world and all the things that go bump in the night.

I think my daughter felt his mojo.

Social networking

Yep I am going to write about Facebook. But not a full rant - I'll save that for later.

Yes - I use it.

I post adorable pictures of my darling child and fur children

I brag about shows opening.

I post, what I consider to be, interesting news articles. I never shove them down peoples throats.

I hit the "like" button a lot. I make comments on friends status and enjoy their photos.

I wish people happy birthday.

I do not tell people what a "great time I had" at any given party. Why? Well, usually not everyone is invited to functions and I don't want other "friends" feeling bad.

I don't use it to make numerous dates and let people know where I am "physically"

I find it a little like high school to do those things. Really, do I need to let everyone know how popular I am bragging about how many places I have been invited to?

Toes

I have never broken a bone in all my 3+ decades on this planet. Today - I think I broke my toe.

My sister broker her arms (not at the same time). In both instances she was on the "monkey bars" on the school play structure. I remember this structure well. It was made of wood - had multiple levels. The monkey bars were metal. I clearly remember running down the wooden stairs in hot pursuit of a friend. I held on the the wood railing as I ran and felt excruciating pain as over 20 slivers of wood went into my palm. I was sent to the school nurse who told me she was not "allowed" to remove them - she just bandaged my hand and sent me back to class. My mom had to pull them out when she got home from work. She was so livid at the school. I think it was the first time I ever heard her muttering angry words under her breath.

So today at my daughter's school - I watched them put in a new structure for the kindergartners. It has monkey bars. But the whole thing is mental and plastic. At my elementary school - tanbark was the filler of choice. Here - a nice plastic-like foamy ground so you don't get hurt onto concrete.

beautiful architecture

We went to the USS Arizona Memorial. Thought it was a beautiful and tasteful tribute.

lists

Christopher Moore, the author of Lamb, one of my favorite books, commented on his Facebook that "bloggers:making lists is not writing."
and yet another favorite author Umberto Eco says, "We like lists because we don't want to die." Eco just came out with a book about Lists.

I love lists. I love lists of words. I wrote a play many moons ago, where I would list would write a word and then two more similar ones that seemed to push it forward. It's like searching for an action in theatre.

Your action could be "to educate", but if you look up a list of words like educate - you get to enlighten, to nurture, to cultivate, to counsel -- each maintains the idea of "to educate" but shift the nuance. In theatre we are always looking for the high stakes verb to play. To educate - great starting point but general. To enlighten - stronger and more direct.

art in my house

This is in the living room. It is signed - but who knows if Dali really signed it. It's a print given to me and my hubby by my sister and her ex-husband.

















My kid is terrified of "skeleton bones", and yet this does not bother her. She has even tried to draw it... not bad for a five year old. I think the skeleton bone fear came from a Disney movie... drat!








The husband gave me this. It's a giclee print. It was in my office at work, and now my office at home. I love it. I love this period of Picasso and I think Dora Maar is amazing.













In the rest of the house we have various actual paintings, prints and mixed media that we have acquired at benefit auctions for non-profit theatres. But, in my bedroom is a 3X4 painting of my wedding bouquet. An amazing artist named Dorothy Annette was doing "studies in white" and asked to borrow it (this was after I told her my mother had saved my bouquet and it had dried beautifully). When she lost her studio, she gave me the painting on loan, until she could find another studio. I enjoy it every day and awake to its beauty. (forgive the dim lit picture - the kid is asleep in my room - pain fumes in hers -see previous post - but the picture doesn't do the painting justice.)

color

Today I started to prep my 5 year old daughter's room for a new paint treatment.

When I was pregnant with her, the husband and I decided a gender neutral palate would be best (even though we knew we were having a girl). So the carpet we chose was (and is) sage green. The walls were a soft yellow from the floor to about five feet, then a border, then a warm white. The border was classic Winnie-the-Pooh.

I had made a very firm rule with my family - no pink for my kid. A rule I enforced with my mother but didn't have the heart to enforce with my mother-in-law after she had knitted one of the most beautiful receiving blankets I have ever seen. The blanket was pink. My mother-in-law also got her adorable (pink) clothes.

My mom somehow understood the double standard, after grilling me about the pictures starting to surface of my newborn in pink.

The husband discovered that our baby looks terrific in salmon and many shades of green. He has exquisite taste in clothing for her. I love it when he shops.

When she was a babe, I dressed her in pants and jeans. When she learned to talk, she started to want dresses and skirts.

When I started taking her shopping so she could pick out her own clothes - she would go straight for the pink and purple.

Now she is 5. She has developed her own tastes. She loves Fancy Nancy. She wants to learn French. She has begun kindergarten. The "nursery" now needs to change. So I let her pick the colors of her room. She requested two colors - pink and purple - on alternating walls. So "One Enchanted Evening" a light purple will be on two walls and "Enchanted Princess" a light pink will be on the other two.

I will no longer fight this. I have a girly-girl who will play in a dirt-pile in a frilly dress and enjoy it! And yes, that dress was light green.

Late night art

The question that came to mind today - is it beneficial for an artist to have their work displayed in a restaurant or coffee shop?

lasting

About seven years ago, I got it in my head that I would make furniture. Outdoor furniture - do some woodworking. The desire was great.

A mentor told me that all us theatre people have this need for the tangible. The art we create exists in a moment. There is no way to save it. Pictures don't do it justice. Filmed versions of theatrical experiences are always strange to watch. Theatre is about the moment, the immediate connection with the audience. It lasts for a certain period of time and then is no more.

Perhaps this is why drawing has gotten me excited. Perhaps this is why I want to start creating book art (not scrapbooking). I guess I am interested in creating something that will out live me.

Something that lasts.

Drawing

I have joined an adult drawing class. We meet once a week for two hours. It is one of those "anyone can draw" kind of classes - so no one can feel bad if they have never drawn before. I used to draw - well, copy really. Cartoon characters, etc. I really never drew anything from my own imagination. Nor have I been able to do a "quick sketch" of something.

My daughter wants me to draw for her all the time - especially at restaurants where you can draw on the paper tablecloth. So I would like to not make a total fool of myself - thus the class.

Unfortunately I have not been able to draw every day - just the two hours in class. Like going to the gym - if you don't work those muscles they just get flabby. Oh for a few more hours in the day.

I will post some pictures soon. When the class resumes in October we are tackling still life...

What is my favorite work of art?

Last month, I went to the DeYoung's exhibit The Birth of Impressionism - treasures of the Musee d'Orsay (closing this weekend) and discovered a new painting by Claude Monet called The Magpie. I was madly enamored with it. The stark white - the lone bird sitting on top of a fence which could be a musical scale. When I lived in England, I was told that if you see one magpie, it is warning you of danger. Two meant joy. I used the magpie as the costume for Puck in Midsummer when I had to design it in college. But don't remember ever seeing this painting.

I remember being 20 and wandering around Paris, I spent a lot of time in the d'Orsay and the Louvre. I was a poor college student, eating mostly bread and cheese so I could afford to see the sites and visit the museums. I bought two posters there. A Renoir called The Seine at Asnières - The Skiff and a Monet. The Renoir was a gift to my older sister, who framed the poster and hung it in her house. 15 years later, it is still in her house. The Monet, I had framed and it hung in my apartment and then my office. One night 10 years ago, our offices were burglarized, cash was stolen and so was my framed Monet poster. Of all the bizarre things to take!

I don't think of the Impressionists much anymore. Like the Pre-Raphaelites, the Impressionists were my favorite in college. Now I am drawn to the Kandinsky, Picasso and Braque. But going to the DeYoung and seeing all these paintings again, 15 years later, make me remember why I loved them in the first place - the colors, the changing qualities of light, the brush strokes...
I'm looking forward to the second part of the exhibition. To re-discover some of these works and find more...
I did spend about 15 minutes just staring at Whistler's mother. You can see the color in her cheeks... I also didn't remember this painting. I was very confused at first and thought she was holding a light bulb, but then realized it was a mirror. It's called Truth by Jules Joseph Lefebvre. The painting is a bit larger than life size. It started the exhibit along with William Bouguereau's Birth of Venus.