People like this make me cling to karma
Jul 22, 2010 Around NYC
So I was driving the kids to camp this morning – my two, plus another girl that we carpool with. The drive is long and maddening, a route filled with double (and occasionally triple) parked cars, buses, dollar vans, completely nutty livery cab drivers, encroaching pedestrians waiting to cross the street, and bikes who don’t have a lane so they take whichever one they can grab. It’s forty-five minutes (if traffic is good) each way of lane changing and avoidance and white knuckles, and that’s on a good, routine day. Not like two days ago, when we were held up for twenty minutes because just ahead of us a parked car pretty much lost its door to a passing bus. Or the day before that, when I discovered that my car’s air conditioning wasn’t working (it was 95 degrees).
Today was going fine, and then a guy almost ran me into oncoming traffic trying to avoid a double-parked van. I was driving along in my lane on the left, and he was next to me on the right, and all of a sudden he was changing lanes right into me. I slammed on the brakes and the horn, all three kids screamed, and this guy slipped just in front of me. I’m pretty sure I let out a string of expletives while it was happening, but I’m not sure. Hopefully the kids were screaming too loud to hear me. Thanks to the guy behind me paying attention I didn’t get rear-ended.
So all of that would have been bad enough, but honestly not all that unusual for driving in Brooklyn. It was what the guy did next that got my blood boiling. He – with nothing in front of him and still very close in front of me, since I was still trying to avoid getting hit from behind if I stopped completely – slammed on the brakes so that he could yell at me and give me the finger and shake his fist. I slammed on the brakes so hard that the anti-lock brakes engaged, and I missed hitting this guy by about an inch. All so that he could aim his anger at me for a situation that had been his fault.
I laid on the horn some more and he got going. He was in front of me for a few more blocks and it took everything I had not to pull up next to him at the traffic lights and call him every name in the book. But that would have been about the dumbest thing I could have done. The guy’s behavior had already clued me in to the fact that he was unhinged. Plus, I had three kids in the car that I’d be putting in danger. Plus, I’d be setting a terrible example for them, especially for my son. Plus, I can’t claim to be better than people like this guy if I act like this guy.
In a situation like that, the only thing that gets me breathing normally again is my belief in karma. Not the traditional karma, where God decides what happens to you based on your actions, but more of a man-made karma. That you shape what happens to you based on how you live your life, how you treat others. I don’t have ulcers because I really believe that something bad will happen to that guy because of how he acted today.
If you ask my kids what karma means, they’ll both say “Do good things and good things will happen to you.” I don’t dwell on the other part with them, the part that gets me through the day: do bad things and you’ll get what’s coming to you. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday. So I don’t get myself into trouble yelling at this guy and making him madder. I sit back and let it go, knowing that someday he’ll get what’s coming to him.
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, and Momtourage.
Tags: driving in Brooklyn, road rage
“The Good Wife” filming today at the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens
Jul 20, 2010 Around NYC
This morning while driving back from my kids’ summer camp I stumbled upon the unmistakable sight of dozens of large trucks lining the street, setting up for a movie or TV shoot near the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens. It turned out to be CBS’ The Good Wife, my new favorite show from last season. The Good Wife has an amazing cast of powerhouse actors, including Julianna Margulies 
(ER), Chris Noth (Sex and the City, Law & Order), Josh Charles (Dead Poets’ Society and the completely underrated and overlooked Sports Night) Christine Baranski (Cybill, Mamma Mia, and sucky secret-keeping), and Alan Cumming (X-Men and the 1998 Broadway revival of Cabaret). Plus a couple of fantastic cast members who were previously unknown to me, Matt Czuchry and Archi Panjabi, who TV Guide’s Matt Roush referred to as a “Super-Hero Mystery Sex Goddess.” I went to a panel discussion a few months ago to hear several members of the cast discuss the show, and it was really fascinating.
Anyway, I wish I had time today to wander around the Botanic Gardens hoping to run into Julianna Margulies and gush about how amazing she is on the show, but I had to take my dying Saturn in to have the AC fixed. And as huge a fan of the show as I am (and as much as I’ve been neglecting Filming In Brooklyn), broken AC during a heat wave trumps fawning fan-girl adventures every time. This especially sucks because when I went to that panel discussion and had the chance to ask a question, I very self-servingly told the cast about Filming In Brooklyn and begged them to let me on-set should I ever show up while they were in my borough. Matt Czuchry said OK, but I’d have to wear the same lime-green raincoat I wore to The Paley Center that night. But at least I’m sitting comfortably on my couch right now instead of standing in the blazing sun in a bright coat trying to explain myself to a disinterested production assistant.
The “set” signs point to an entrance on Washington Avenue near Crown Street, and the trucks line several blocks of Washington Avenue as well as a couple of side streets. I hope for the cast’s sake that they’re not stuck in coats today filming a Chicago winter scene. There isn’t enough Kleenex in NYC to blot those foreheads fast enough.
“The Good Wife” at the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens [Filming In Brooklyn]
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, and Momtourage.
Tags: Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, Filming In Brooklyn, Julianna Margulies, The Good Wife
Cheryl Hines? I can hardly Curb My Enthusiasm!
May 21, 2010 Around NYC
Yes, that terrible joke in the title is my way of saying that Cheryl Hines will be stopping by the Hebrew National Better-than-a-Picnic picnic tomorrow. Yay! I love her on Curb Your Enthusiasm. When it first started I really hated the concept of improvised dialogue. But the Enthusiasm cast ran with hit, and got really good at it. (And then of course a whole cadre of improvised shows followed and nobody else got it right.)
You can see her below on Good Day NY talking about the upcoming season, which is filming in NYC (yay!) as well as the picnic and the charity Hebrew National is partnering with to make this “better than a picnic.”
Cheryl will be at the picnic until noon. We’ll be participating in a service project for a charity that’s near and dear to her heart, the Magic Summer Lunchbox Program (from Feeding America), making reusable lunch bags for kids who get free school lunch during the school year but are often left hungry in the summer. Did you know that you can feed one child for the whole summer for $36? You can donate to Feeding America here.
UPDATE: Just wanted to add that the local partner for the Magic Summer Lunchbox Program is the Food Bank for New York City.
I’ve also got some more specific directions for anyone driving to the picnic. I’m told that Randall’s Island is not very big and there will be signs throughout the island directing us to the picnic location, but the last thing I want to do is get lost on the way. There are directions to the island itself here, and then once you’re on the island:
Please follow signs heading south for the Wards’ Island/Ward’s Meadows Fields.
Pass Field 74 (left) and 63 (right) and park in the Parking Lot just past Field 63.
The Hebrew National BBQ will be at the north end of the Parking Lot on your right.
Remember, you can see what’s going on with the picnic here, and keep up-to-date on Hebrew National happenings on their Facebook page. And if all that isn’t enough great info for you, follow the fun on Twitter with the hashtag #HebrewNational. The picnic runs from 11:30-3:30pm, and is free to the public. There will be a live band, a mechanical bull, giant puzzles, lots of hot dogs, the service project, and of course lots of hot dogs! And beautiful Randall’s Island, which I’m very excited to see. Can’t wait!
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has Compensation Levels of 5 & 6. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information. Amy also blogs at Filming In Brooklyn, Behind the Screen, and the NYC Moms Blog.
Tags: Cheryl Hines, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Feeding America, Magic Summer Lunchbox program
