Randomosity
Dec 22, 2008 Randomosity
This is what’s been floating around in my head for the past week. I need to clear it out to make room for more.
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What the hell was going on with my hair in Sunday Morning’s Video?
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Jeremy Piven just left the Broadway show Speed the Plow. His doctor was on Good Morning America on Saturday claiming that he left because of acute Mercury poisoning. David Mamet, who wrote the play, had this to say: “My understanding is that he is leaving show business to pursue a career as a thermometer.”
Mr. Piven, who has won Emmys as Ari Gold on Entourage, had gotten good reviews in his Broadway debut. But he had been trying for a while to get out of the play early, before the scheduled February closing date. His doctor was convincing this morning, but nobody else involved with the show believes a word of it. I have absolutely no idea if Mr. Piven is sick or not. I love him on Entourage – he’s incredibly fun to watch. But he has a reputation as an asshole. I’ve gotten emails (for my other blog) from people who claim to have worked with him or been on a set around him saying that he’s a nightmare, and that out of all of the actors on Entourage his real life is probably closest to that of the characters’.
So, whether he’s sick or not, it doesn’t really matter. Everybody thinks he bailed. And that’s why reputation matters. If he really is sick, that just sucks for him, because nobody believes him. You can’t act like a jerk for years and then expect sympathy.
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The weather this past weekend actually made me miss Buffalo. In December in Buffalo, at least you know that if there’s weather it will be snow and it will be shovelable. If you’re a sledder or snowboarder or skier it might even be fun. But what happened for our first snowfall here in Brooklyn was not fun.
Actually, it wasn’t our first snowfall. That was a few days before, but it consisted of giant wet flakes that didn’t stick:
On Friday, however, we had an actual snow. And during the day, while it was coming down, it was great, and really pretty.
But later it got just warm enough to turn into sleet, and then the wind picked up – right around the time that my daughter and I had to take a walk down a street that had turned into a wind-tunnel. My umbrella turned inside out three times, and my daughter was walking behind me, clinging to my legs, trying to keep the blowing ice from hitting her face. This walk would normally take us ten or fifteen minutes, but this time it was thirty freezing minutes.
After two days of slightly warmer weather and cold rain, everything is now wet and slushy. Every corner has been turned into a concrete slip-’n'-slide with ankle deep water at the bottom. And it’s turning cold again, so all of that wetness is going to freeze. Lovely. I’ll take snow any day. It’s shovelable.
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We finally got our tree on Sunday. I was afraid that we’d have trouble finding a good one – and I did have to drive around for a while with the kids looking – but once we finally found a place selling them, the selection was great. All of the trees were being kept in stands with water in the bottom, so they all looked really good, unlike the one we were stuck with last year which lost half of its needles as my husband carried it up the stairs.
I actually managed to find the boxes with the lights and decorations, even the stuff I bought after Christmas last year for 90% off. Only one ornament had broken and the lights weren’t tangled. All in all the decorating was a lot of fun. We only had to threaten to send the kids to bed once.
However, I still haven’t found the box with the stockings and stocking holders. Still looking…
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From my step-mom:
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Originally posted on Selfish Mom
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Tags: Christmas Tree, Entourage, Jeremy Piven, snow
Dragging out the first day of school
Sep 4, 2008 What's Going On
I spend my days tracking down film and TV productions for my other blog, Filming In Brooklyn. I can do most of the running around during the day, while Pasta Boy and Munchkin are in camp or school. But the past month, between camp and school, has been rough. I’ve hired babysitters a couple of times when there were shoots that I just had to go to, like for Entourage. But for the most part, Filming In Brooklyn had to rely on other websites’ pictures for a few weeks. I’ve taken Pasta Boy along on a couple of shoots, with varying results. Rescue Me went great, because the real firemen on the set let Pasta Boy hang out in a real fire truck for almost the whole time we were here. But that L’Oreal commercial with Andie MacDowell? Not so much.
I mentioned on FIB a couple of times that things would be back to normal in September. Munchkin would be starting Pre-K, and for the first time ever I would have both of my kids in the same school. But I totally forgot about the first week phase-in for the Pre-K classes! Tuesday and Wednesday, she was only there for an hour and fifteen minutes. Thursday will be a little better, it’s a half day. Friday, finally, will be the first full day.
I don’t agree with this method. I know that the first day can be hard on kids (and teachers!) but I like the band-aid approach better: just rip the kids out of your arms, say a gentle but firm goodbye, and leave! Don’t drag it out, it just makes it harder on the kids. Trust me, they get better a few minutes after you leave.
And how do working parents handle this? Once school starts, it should really start, so that parents don’t have to disrupt their entire week. The kids will be fine! I suspect this process developed in a lot of schools because of some parents, who just couldn’t take it. But this is one of those times when I’m going to say, don’t be selfish! If your child is old enough to go to school, then you’re old enough to let her.
Originally posted on Selfish Mom
Tags: Andie MacDowell, Entourage, L'Oreal, pre-k, Rescue Me, school
