Join me in Times Square for some Special K Resolutions
Dec 31, 2010 What's Going On
This coming Monday, January 3rd, I’m very excited to be participating in a special “resolutions” event in Times Square, the Special K Gain Tour. For so many people, New Years is a time to find a renewed motivation for being healthy and losing weight, but it’s easy to get obsessed with the numbers on the scale instead of the broader picture. For myself, I don’t really care what the number is as long as I can go clothes shopping without getting frustrated, or go for a jog without killing my knees.
Special K gets this, and that’s why they’re going to have a giant scale in Times Square on Monday, where you can step on and find out not how much you need to lose, but what you can gain: confidence, power, pride, courage, or some other inspirational attribute to help you on your weight-loss journey.
To participate, just show up at Times Square Studios, 1500 Broadway (between 43rd and 44th) on Monday, January 3rd between 2pm and 5pm. You’ll get to step on the big scale and you might even get to see your big “gain” on the big screen in Times Square! Participants will also receive coupon books, Special K samples, and T-shirts (while supplies last, of course). You may even wind up on the next Special K commercial!
This is especially exciting for me because I’ve been a huge Special K fan for a long time. I have a cupboard full of their Snack Bars (Chocolate Drizzle is my favorite!) and Protein Meal Replacement bars, and just recently fell in love with the Chocolate Protein Shakes! When I’m going to be out and about all day, or stuck at my kids’ school for an event, I really like that I can throw a bar or shake in my bag and not worry about looking for food and trying to count calories. And of course, Special K Cereal has been a staple in my house for years.
I hope to see you Monday! I’ll be at the event from 2-3pm. But if you’re not in the NYC area, please be sure to check out the “Gain Tour” tab on the Special K Facebook page, and SpecialK.com.
Amy is being compensated by Special K to attend the event mentioned in this post.
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 5. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information. Amy also blogs at Filming In Brooklyn, Behind the Screen, and Momtourage, and podcasts with The Blogging Angels.
Tags: New Year's resolutions, Special K Gain Tour, Weight Loss
And on Friday Fiona will lose an arm in a wheat thresher
Dec 31, 2010 What's Going On
So we’re in Buffalo visiting my mom. We got in very late Monday (or, technically, very early Tuesday) and I went to lunch with a couple of high school friends on Tuesday. When I got back to my mom’s house nobody was here. After a while I got a call from Jake saying that Fiona fell on her head and they were all in the ER.
Now, there are ways to break bad news, and I have to say, Jake hasn’t mastered this yet. What he should have said was that Fiona had a small accident while sledding, and that while she seems to be absolutely fine – no loss of consciousness or throwing up or anything else scary that I associate with bad head injuries – her nose and lip were bruised and swollen so grandma thought that it would be best to take her to the ER (for the record, my mom is a nurse, but as she says herself she’s not a “real” nurse – she works in the OR and is about as useful in a “real” emergency as my Wall St. lawyer husband would be if you got arrested in a bar fight).
I went to the ER to deliver my insurance card and pick up Jake. Fiona was fine with my mom and frankly, I was thrilled not to spend an afternoon in the ER. Poor Fiona looked pretty banged up: her nose was all puffy, she was developing a black eye, and her upper lip was so swollen she looked like a Simpsons character. In the end it turned out that she had fractured her nose in a very small way and knocked a baby tooth loose – all things that will resolve themselves. She spent the rest of the day on the couch looking pathetic and milking it for all the donuts and cookies she could get.
The next day, Wednesday, I was downstairs while Fiona was getting a shower (not as weird as you would think – it’s a very small house and you can hear every little thing that happens no matter where you are). I heard a thud and a yell and I ran upstairs to find her sitting in the tub, doubled over and crying. She had been pressing down on a pump soap container, it slipped out from under her, and she fell stomach-first onto the side of the tub. She was OK, but started whining about how this was the worst trip ever and wanted to go home. I told her to cheer up, that it couldn’t possibly get any worse.
Thursday morning Fiona started throwing up. And kept throwing up. She continued throwing up until there was nothing left, and then threw up a few more times for good measure. Then my mom started feeling queasy, and threw up. By evening, both of them were in my mom’s bed with separate buckets.
So, I’m just wondering what disaster Friday will bring.
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information. Amy also blogs at Filming In Brooklyn, Behind the Screen, Momtourage, and podcasts with The Blogging Angels.
Tags: Buffalo, ER, stomach virus
Merry Christmas, and good luck
Dec 25, 2010 What's Going On
As the clock ticks down to the end of another Christmas, I wanted to say how grateful I am for everything I have. My family is healthy and happy, my husband has a good job, and I’ve been fortunate to turn a hobby I love into a fledgling career. I’m lucky.
It makes me sad to see so many tweets and posts and articles about people who aren’t as lucky. Because really, for a lot of people, that’s all it boils down to. I don’t mean to discount hard work – pretty much all of what my husband and I have can be tied directly to hard work. But luck gave us opportunities. Luck gave us great families. We were lucky to be born in the U.S. We were lucky to meet each other. We are lucky that our children were born healthy and remain so. We’re lucky every time we get into our car and it doesn’t crash, every time we get sick but then get better. Luck has kept us out of falling planes and burning buildings. Where we had good luck, many many others had bad luck.
I wish all of you good luck in the year to come.
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information. Amy also blogs at Filming In Brooklyn, Behind the Screen, Momtourage, and podcasts with The Blogging Angels.
Breaking spaghetti
Dec 24, 2010 What's Going On
A while back I was watching a rerun of one of my favorite shows, NUMB3RS, and Charlie mentioned that you can’t hold a strand of spaghetti at the ends and break it into less than three pieces, due to something called fragmentation. Of course I had to try it immediately, and then spent a while picking shards of dried pasta off of every surface in the kitchen.
I don’t know what made me think of it today, but while I was making the kids spaghetti for dinner I told them to try it. They thought it was so cool we decided to take some slow motion video of it.
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information. Amy also blogs at Filming In Brooklyn, Behind the Screen, Momtourage, and podcasts with The Blogging Angels.
Tags: fragmentation, NUMB3RS, spaghetti
My interview with Blythe Danner, from “Little Fockers”
Dec 23, 2010 Uncategorized
I got to sit down recently with some very talented actors. After interviewing Little Fockers cast members Daisy Tahan, Colin Baiocchi, and Jessica Alba, I ended the day getting to meet someone who’s been making me laugh for years on everything from MASH to Will & Grace to the entire Meet the Parents franchise.
Blythe Danner is an actress with a list of credits a mile and a half long, and yet it was hard to get the interview started because she was asking us questions! She was fascinated with the idea of blogs, and really seemed to want to understand what they were all about. It was really charming. She referred to herself as “ancient” and admitted that she just doesn’t know much about computers at all. She Skypes with her grandchildren (daughter Gwyneth Paltrow’s kids), but really only when someone helps her.
Once we were finally able to swing the questions around towards her career, she gushed about being able to work with the fabulous Meet the Fockers cast again on Little Fockers, where she reprises her role as Greg Focker’s (Ben Stiller’s) mother-in-law, Dina Byrnes. “It’s like coming back to a security blanket. It’s wonderful because we’ve had three now. And coming back in, you don’t have to second guess or even guess to begin with how people work because you know. So, it’s always wonderful. To hear that they were doing a third, I was thrilled.”
I told Ms. Danner how I was watching a rerun of MASH one day and saw an actress who looked amazingly like Gwyneth Paltrow, and sure enough when I got to the credits, it was Blythe Danner. She admitted that yes, she’s been told there was quite a resemblance between her and her daughter at the same age, but that Gwyneth has better cheekbones (“movie star cheekbones”), from her father. But the more interesting tidbit to come out of the MASH mention was that she’d filmed that episode about two weeks after having her first child, and she had it in her contract that she had to be able to feed her baby whenever he needed it (of course, she had no idea it would be so often!). Producers hated this, but it was a deal breaker for her.
When asked if she shares the over-involved-parent trait of her Fockers character Dina, she said that she has to be careful what she says to her daughter about the kids, because she wants to be around her grandchildren as much as possible, so she tends to wait until Gwyneth asks for her opinion. But she practically swells with pride when talking about Gwyneth’s skills as a mom. “[She] is just such an extraordinary mother who has much more patience than I ever did. She’s just so good with her kids. They’ll be on airplanes from London to here. They get off the plane and they always compliment her because she speaks to them, I’ve never heard her dismiss them.”
She ended the interview by turning the spotlight around on all of us again, asking for our business cards so that she could check out this whole blogging thing. I hope she likes what she sees.
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information. Amy also blogs at Filming In Brooklyn, Behind the Screen, Momtourage, and podcasts with The Blogging Angels.
Yup, it’s a post about my hair (and Jake Gyllenhaal)
Dec 22, 2010 What's Going On
I changed my twitter picture yesterday, for the first time ever, and I’ve lost count of how many compliments I’ve gotten about my hair. Yes, I curled it that day (I was going to a party). And yes, it took a long time – about an hour start to finish (I have a crapload of hair). Actually, that hairdo is due completely to an event I went to at BlogHer over the summer, Getting Gorgeous.
At the event I received several hairstyling products courtesy of Remington, and the most intriguing one was a Ceramic Curling Wand. I’d never seen such a thing. It came with a little heat resistant glove, so that you can wrap your hair around it right to the ends without burning your fingers (your ears, though, are on their own).
Also at that same event I had the pleasure of meeting Sarah Potempa (who had just given birth to her first baby a few weeks before!), a celebrity hairstylist, who was there asking trivia question and giving out prizes. After BlogHer was over I found out that I had won the grand prize from Sarah, a haircut and style! I was so excited, but also felt a little bad for her. My hair is super thick and stubborn and I was really hoping she’d be able to show off her skills, but knew it would be quite a challenge (little did I know just how good she is!).
I made an appointment with her for my birthday, figuring that would be as good a day as any to have gorgeous hair (I was going out to dinner with The Ass). I got out of the subway near her office to find a really apologetic message from her: the photo shoot she was working on had run over, and would I mind meeting her there instead? Of course not, it was only a few blocks away, and I’d get to peek in on a photo shoot! I waked over quickly, dying with curiosity about who would be there.
I arrived at the shoot and Sarah greeted me warmly, looking gorgeous and not at all like someone who has a small baby at home. As she led me upstairs she let me know that the shoot was with Jake Gyllenhaal (her client) and Anne Hathaway, who appear together in Love and Other Drugs. Wow, jackpot. I was suddenly feeling very frumpy and nervous. I don’t tend to get nervous around famous people, but I’m usually a bit more prepared for it – I’m going to an event, I’ve got an interview appointment, I’m stalking them – so I was trying very hard not to act like a big nosey dork as I waited on a couch, Anne and Jake looking gorgeous on the other side of the room as music blasted and they posed for the November 26th cover of Entertainment Weekly (no, I was not there for the naked part – dammit!).
At various points during the shoot Anne wandered over a couple feet away from me, but I behaved myself and kept my nose in my newspaper, sneaking looks at her when she was distracted (she’s ethereally beautiful). When the shoot was over Sarah brought me in to the hair and make-up area, and we got started with my consultation.
Eventually Jake Gyllenhaal wandered in, and hung out for a while as I was getting my hair cut. Yes, hung out. Thankfully, having to keep still for Sarah kept me from leaping on top of him. That would have been embarrassing. We talked about kids, and NY theater, and Brooklyn…I think. It was all a blur. I don’t get wowed by celebrity – it just doesn’t seem to take much to get famous these days – but I’m easily floored by talent, and he’s got it. I think I first fell in love with him in Moonlight Mile, and what can I say about Brokeback Mountain that hasn’t already been said? He’s amazing.
I’m not usually one to need pictures with every celebrity that I meet. Often I’d rather take the picture than be in it, or skip it altogether. In this case, though, I was the one sheepishly asking for a picture. I have to say that Jake’s expression in the pic is just about what it should be: another picture with a person I don’t know, yawn. I don’t blame him, I was basically bothering him in a place where there aren’t usually fans wandering around. He was super nice about it all.
After he left, Sarah got back to doing my hair. She cut it completely dry, which was something new for me, but makes total sense. My hair has a mind of its own, and often does something completely wacky after I dry it. so it’s so much better to cut it that way. She straightened it, to make sure the cut looked good that way too, and then asked me if I wanted her to curl it. I’ve wasted thousands of dollars and countless hours trying to get it curly, what was one more try? I didn’t really hold out any hope that it would even last through dinner, but it was worth a shot.
The first thing I noticed was that Sarah was spraying each strand of hair with a water-based hairspray, which she said was key. The second thing I noticed was that she wasn’t using her curling iron the usual way, by grabbing the end of the strand in the little clip thing and rolling the rest around the barrel. Instead she never opened the clip, but wrapped it around the barrel starting at the root. Wait a minute, that’s what my new Remington Curling Wand is for! Hmm…would I actually be able to reproduce this at home?
Not only did my hair turn out great, but it stayed that way throughout my entire date. I never once had the urge to put it behind my ears, which is huge for me. I finally tried it myself for a Hanukkah party, where I saw a bunch of people who usually see me unshowered and in sweats, dropping my kids off at school. So my hair was quite a hit. Plus, since my Remington Curling Wand is smaller than the curling iron that Sarah used, I got a much tighter curl (of course, it took a lot longer too).
Now all I have to do is get quicker at it, so that I don’t just have to save great hair for special occasions! Thanks again to Sarah Potempa. Sarah has an awesome website with all sorts of tricks and tips for doing your hair, plus news about which celebrity head she’s got her hands on. You should check it out, it’s really entertaining, and you can even ask her questions.
Also, a big thanks to the ladies behind Getting Gorgeous, Audrey and Vera. You definitely helped me get one step closer.
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 1. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information. Amy also blogs at Filming In Brooklyn, Behind the Screen, and Momtourage, and podcasts with The Blogging Angels.
Tags: Anne Hathaway, BlogHer, Getting Gorgeous, hair, Jake Gyllenhaal, Love and Other Drugs, Sarah Potempa
Jessica Alba talks “Little Fockers,” Motherhood, and Life in a Fishbowl
Dec 22, 2010 Uncategorized
Recently I sat down with some other bloggers and a few cast members of the new movie Little Fockers, opening December 22nd (today!). Yesterday I posted my interview with the two funny kids in the movie, Daisy Tahan and Colin Baiocchi. After they left, we all (the bloggers) started talking amongst ourselves, and Jessica Alba (looking absolutely stunning, by the way) walked into the middle of a passionate discussion about the worst of reality TV, and she jumped right in with those shows about teenage mothers. It was a great way to start the interview, and led right into a discussion of a pregnant celebrity’s life in a fishbowl.
Jessica explained that while she was pregnant (and hot and hormonal – been there!) the paparazzi were really, intensely rude, saying nasty things about the baby’s father and calling her a bitch and a slut. “I was followed every day. I had to stop flipping them off. My mom said, ‘It’s just really not becoming when you always have this scowl, and you’re flipping them off and you’re pregnant. You don’t want your daughter to see this.’”
Motherhood has definitely changed Jessica’s attitude towards work. Her toddler daughter, Honor, has made her shift her priorities in a way that only having children can. “I would pretty much take any job I could get before I had her, but it meant that I was working for almost 12 months a year for a decade, pretty much. So, when I took a year off midway through the pregnancy, I realized I had a family, and I had friends and I had a home. I didn’t have to live in hotels or be in my bed for only 10 days a year. Everything just sort of made sense. And I was certainly not as hard on myself, certainly not as critical, and enjoyed life a lot more and having a different perspective on life, on the business, on family, on everything was amazing.”
Of course her career is still very important to her, motherhood or not, but now she only takes roles that she’s really passionate about, and that don’t take too much time – at least until Honor is in school. She said that one of the most difficult things about being a mom is forgiving herself for not spending every second with her daughter, and also not having all the answers for her. “Knowing that she’s going to have to be sad or disappointed or angry [is hard]. And even though I feel totally responsible for it, letting that go and knowing that that’s just part of being a human being. At the end of the day, it’ll be good for her, as long as she knows she’s loved, but all that stuff’s really hard.”
Talking about why she wanted to be in Little Fockers really brought out her sarcastic side (and you know how I feel about sarcasm – like money or chocolate, you can never have too much). “The cast is terrible. [Director] Paul Weitz, never heard of him. American Pie, About a Boy.” But then she got serious: “You know, Paul, the director, first of all, is fantastic. And I’m a fan, and I’ve always wanted to work with him. And then, obviously, is there a better comedian, writer, director, actor than Ben Stiller right now? He’s amazing. I feel so lucky and honored to have the opportunity to even be in this group of people and these actors.
“I learned a lot, and it was challenging. And I’ve never done a comedy before like this, and I’ve always wanted to. It’s kind of why I started acting is to make people laugh.”
Jessica certainly made me laugh, both in the interview and in the movie. I wish her well.
That’s me in the back – I have enough pictures of myself next to skinny actresses!
Part three coming later today: Blythe Danner, the Queen of Great Genes.
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information. Amy also blogs at Filming In Brooklyn, Behind the Screen, Momtourage, and podcasts with The Blogging Angels.
Tags: Jessica Alba, Little Fockers, motherhood, paparazzi, pregnancy
My sit down with some “Little Fockers”
Dec 22, 2010 Uncategorized
I had the opportunity recently to sit down with some cast members from the new movie Little Fockers, which opens on December 22nd. There are worse ways to spend a Sunday than at the Ritz Carlton with some other bloggers, talking to an actress I’ve admired for decades (Blythe Danner), a red hot super gorgeous star (Jessica Alba), and a couple of very talented child actors who were hilarious to interview together (Daisy Tahan and Colin Baiocchi).
First up were the kids, Daisy (nine) and Colin (eight). In Little Fockers they play, well, the little Fockers – the young twins of Greg and Pam Focker (played by Ben Stiller and Teri Polo). They had a very interesting dynamic in the interview: Colin would race to answer every question first and longest, while Daisy would hold her hand over her mouth in mock (at least I think it was mock) embarrassment and patiently wait her turn. Her answers were as poised and well thought out as his were energetic and stream-of-consciousness.
I started out asking the kids what their favorite part of being in movies was. Colin loved the stunts – getting to hang in a harness and pretend to fall. But Daisy, she was on the same page as me:
“There’s this thing called Crafties on set, and there are these big tables with snacks all over them. And every time you’re on a different movie, there are different snacks on the table.”
See, that Daisy, she and I could make a movie together. Of course, they’d have to drag the two of us away from the craft services table, kicking and screaming.
Both kids said that their favorite person to work with in the movie was Teri Polo, who plays their mom. Apparently, she does a spot-on imitation of Elmo – so exact that Colin called it “creepy.” It sounds like they generally had a great time working on the film, especially when filming the big birthday party scene – they got to play on all of the different rides and attractions brought in for the over-the-top party, including a giant ball pit and a bouncy house.
I asked them if there’s anything about working on movies and TV shows that they don’t like, and they both said that there was nothing. After much pressing, I got them to admit that sometimes they don’t enjoy doing the same thing over and over and over again, but that’s it – they love what they do. They even claim to like doing press!
I do worry about kids who have careers at such young ages, because there are so many train wreck stories out there. But I just didn’t get that vibe from these two. Daisy happily talked about her pets (she has a bunny, a hamster, and a dog). They both spoke enthusiastically about school. Colin likes history, and reading fantasy chapter books, like Harry Potter; Daisy likes reading books about talking animals, and used to be on her school’s student council. And when asked what other kids who want to be actors should do, they both gave answers that made me feel like they’ve got good heads on their little shoulders. Daisy said that you should always be nice to people on the set, and Colin said you should always do your best. Good advice no matter what you want to do in life.
***
Next up will be Jessica Alba!
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information. Amy also blogs at Filming In Brooklyn, Behind the Screen, Momtourage, and podcasts with The Blogging Angels.
Tags: Ben Stiller, Blythe Danner, Colin Baiocchi, Daisy Tahan, Interview, Jessica Alba, Little Fockers, Teri Polo
