Damn. Boardwalk emailed me today saying they'd rescheduled the shoot. And I was SO looking forward to getting back to my beloved show...
And yesterday, thank God, was (as far as I know) my last day on Black Nativity, and I can't think of a show I'm happier to say goodbye to. Instead of being what they said it would be, which was a matching shot (i.e., back to the set you were on in the first place...in my case, Times Square), it was a whole new scene. In friggin' Harlem.
Now, I certainly have no objection to Harlem. Parts of it are you could die from it gorgeous...the parks, the glorious brownstones...but it's got these hills. These steep, steep hills. And the subway station for where I was going, which was on the same block where I went for my costume fitting, has four flights of stairs...four LONG flights of stairs...up to the street. And then a long, high hill to walk up. Turns out, I learned yesterday, that there's an escalator at the subway. Unfortunately, there's no signage for it.
However, with the help of the MTA Trip Planner, I discovered that I could take a bus to within two blocks...which I did. Bliss. Until I discovered that our action consisted of spending the day walking up and down a muddy hill. And did I mention that it was 32 degrees out with an 18 mile an hour wind? Up and down. Up and down. Every bone in my body aches. I may never be able to feel my toes again, two pairs of socks notwithstanding.
Ah, well. I have rested today. Tomorrow is laundry, grocery shopping (my checks for the first two days of Black Nativity arrived) and a quick jaunt to the good old Bistro, where I had my phone on the back bar charging and managed to leave without it. Dumb. Oh, well...
And opening week of the play coming up!
Love, Wendy
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Monday, February 18, 2013
Things Are Heating Up!
Oh, boy. You know, I can sit here for weeks on end, having wonderful, misty dreams about getting my ass out of bed/off the chair and doing things around the house and whatnot, and then all of a sudden...WHAM. All hell breaks loose.
I have this show I'm doing at Theater for the New City, which is one of my pal Philippe's efforts to bring French-Canadian drama to the United States. He has these little moments every now and then, but we're all very kind to him and bathe his head in cool water and eventually it goes away...
No, this is really, as far as I can tell, a pretty good effort. It's called Bite Your Tongue, and is being marketed as being the things people don't usually say out loud. Well, in this day and age it seems a bit tame, but it's amusing and we've got some good actors. I play a woman of 70 (yeah, not such a far leap, which scares me a little) who is on a tour of New York with a young courier. He does a monologue around me, at the end of which he decides he wants to kiss me. This monologue of his, naturally, is him describing his feelings to another guy...not to me. At any rate, he eventually leans forward to kiss me, and I say No. Twice. This is the sum total of my contribution to the play. Frankly, after playing Shakespearean leads, I find it extremely restful. But it's quite a good workout, too...I'm doing it just about entirely in mime, of a sort...i.e., I'm sort of doing the things he's describing, more or less. It's hard to explain, but it's fun. And I actually get to wear nice clothes, which after the rags I'm wearing in Black Nativity and my usual faded old crud for Boardwalk Empire, is a nice change.
But my Lord, the hoopla that's going on with this thing! Philippe is doing a huge publicity push for the whole project (which will include more plays). So the night before opening, we're throwing a VIP red carpet dinner and after party at someplace called Speakeasy on Mulberry Street. Luckily, it's cocktail dress, not gowns...I haven't the remotest notion where I'd get a gown. Well, yes, of course I do, what what the hell would I do with it after I got it? The younger girls seems to be wearing a lot of red for this, so I'm leaning toward my good black dress with pearls (well, what ELSE?), considering that I'm rather the eminence gris in this circus. But what the hell, we get fed.
So the schedule looks like this:
2/19 - The law firm. Which is good, because I need cash. I've been working on rolled up change for two days. One of the nice things about living in my edgy neighborhood is that EVERYBODY does that while they're waiting for their Social Security and food stamps. The delis don't turn a hair.
2/20 - My third (and last) day on Black Nativity. Matching shot, which means I get to freeze to death in Times Square some more. I'm so excited about this that I may vomit. They DAMN well better have some coffee on that set this time.
2/21 - Rehearsal. Just in case I forget how to say no. Not, actually, that saying no has EVER figured heavily in my life...
2/22 - BOARDWALK! YAHOO! Yup, had my costume fitting last week for this season's assemblage from the bottom of the costume barrel. Ratty denim skirt, ratty brown checked blouse, ratty blazer...the usual. Who cares? And it's a night shoot on Staten Island...which means more money because of night differential. I can't wait! We all know how much I love my Boardwalk.
2/23 - Rehearsal. So I can remember how to say no some more.
2/24 - Sunday off, thank God, for reading the papers and sleeping.
2/25 - Rehearsal.
2/26 - Rehearsal.
2/27 - Long, LONG day. Rehearsal 12 - 5, and then the VIP party and after party. This is tech and dress...I can't imagine how I'm going to stay awake, but TNC has its lovely basement with couches all over the place, and anyone who wants me can come and wake me up. And let's remember that there's a good (I hope) meal at the end of it that I don't have to pay for.
2/28 - Opening night.
2/29 - Complete collapse of elderly actress. Well, at least until call time at the theatre.
So anyone who wants the benefit of my wit and wisdom will simply have to wait until after opening night, which will be described in rich and charming detail. Promise you'll miss me!
Love, Wendy
I have this show I'm doing at Theater for the New City, which is one of my pal Philippe's efforts to bring French-Canadian drama to the United States. He has these little moments every now and then, but we're all very kind to him and bathe his head in cool water and eventually it goes away...
No, this is really, as far as I can tell, a pretty good effort. It's called Bite Your Tongue, and is being marketed as being the things people don't usually say out loud. Well, in this day and age it seems a bit tame, but it's amusing and we've got some good actors. I play a woman of 70 (yeah, not such a far leap, which scares me a little) who is on a tour of New York with a young courier. He does a monologue around me, at the end of which he decides he wants to kiss me. This monologue of his, naturally, is him describing his feelings to another guy...not to me. At any rate, he eventually leans forward to kiss me, and I say No. Twice. This is the sum total of my contribution to the play. Frankly, after playing Shakespearean leads, I find it extremely restful. But it's quite a good workout, too...I'm doing it just about entirely in mime, of a sort...i.e., I'm sort of doing the things he's describing, more or less. It's hard to explain, but it's fun. And I actually get to wear nice clothes, which after the rags I'm wearing in Black Nativity and my usual faded old crud for Boardwalk Empire, is a nice change.
But my Lord, the hoopla that's going on with this thing! Philippe is doing a huge publicity push for the whole project (which will include more plays). So the night before opening, we're throwing a VIP red carpet dinner and after party at someplace called Speakeasy on Mulberry Street. Luckily, it's cocktail dress, not gowns...I haven't the remotest notion where I'd get a gown. Well, yes, of course I do, what what the hell would I do with it after I got it? The younger girls seems to be wearing a lot of red for this, so I'm leaning toward my good black dress with pearls (well, what ELSE?), considering that I'm rather the eminence gris in this circus. But what the hell, we get fed.
So the schedule looks like this:
2/19 - The law firm. Which is good, because I need cash. I've been working on rolled up change for two days. One of the nice things about living in my edgy neighborhood is that EVERYBODY does that while they're waiting for their Social Security and food stamps. The delis don't turn a hair.
2/20 - My third (and last) day on Black Nativity. Matching shot, which means I get to freeze to death in Times Square some more. I'm so excited about this that I may vomit. They DAMN well better have some coffee on that set this time.
2/21 - Rehearsal. Just in case I forget how to say no. Not, actually, that saying no has EVER figured heavily in my life...
2/22 - BOARDWALK! YAHOO! Yup, had my costume fitting last week for this season's assemblage from the bottom of the costume barrel. Ratty denim skirt, ratty brown checked blouse, ratty blazer...the usual. Who cares? And it's a night shoot on Staten Island...which means more money because of night differential. I can't wait! We all know how much I love my Boardwalk.
2/23 - Rehearsal. So I can remember how to say no some more.
2/24 - Sunday off, thank God, for reading the papers and sleeping.
2/25 - Rehearsal.
2/26 - Rehearsal.
2/27 - Long, LONG day. Rehearsal 12 - 5, and then the VIP party and after party. This is tech and dress...I can't imagine how I'm going to stay awake, but TNC has its lovely basement with couches all over the place, and anyone who wants me can come and wake me up. And let's remember that there's a good (I hope) meal at the end of it that I don't have to pay for.
2/28 - Opening night.
2/29 - Complete collapse of elderly actress. Well, at least until call time at the theatre.
So anyone who wants the benefit of my wit and wisdom will simply have to wait until after opening night, which will be described in rich and charming detail. Promise you'll miss me!
Love, Wendy
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Once More, With Feeling
Yes, well, I just wrote a wonderful informative blog letting everyone know what I've been up to...except that my computer elected to freeze and destroy the whole thing. So we're going to try again. While I save hysterically every seven seconds.
I worked all last week! I do realize that this sounds like the world's most ho-hum remark, but you have to remember that I'm semi-retired, and very rarely work more than 3 days a week. So a 5 day week is fairly unusual for me.
Monday, 2/4 - Frantic call from Andrew at the law office. Nancy's got flu! So off I went, to be annoyed all day. Really, the boy is impossible.
Tuesday and Wednesday, 2/5-6 - Freezing my ass off in Times Square for a movie called Black Nativity. I have a horrible feeling they're going to make a mess of this. I know the piece...it's a sort of tone poem by Langston Hughes which is the retelling of the Nativity story using gospel music. I saw it in Chicago way back in the early 60s, and it was wonderful...I don't think expanding it is going to help it at all. However, we all know my mantra...who cares? I'm getting paid.
It was a ghastly couple of days. First of all, the thing seems to be VERY low budget...damned little food, and NO COFFEE that anyone could find. And the second day we had to forage for our own lunches, which is invariably irritating. Admittedly we were in Times Square, so finding food was hardly a problem, but still...
And we were in Times Square. We were in Times Square OUTDOORS. In early friggin' February. Should someone ask you about this, just tell them you don't want to. Aside from the fact that we were freezing to death, the damn tourists and passersby will drive you completely insane. They seem to feel that there's nothing wrong with cutting right across the filming and waving to their mothers or whatever the hell they think they're doing, so you have to keep stopping to shoo them away. Tuesday was bad enough, but Wednesday was horrendous. Tuesday we were shooting modern day, so there wasn't much to see, but Wednesday we were shooting Bethlehem (no, no, I have no idea how Times Square got to be Bethlehem...it seems unlikely in the extreme). Wednesday we had two camels wearing all kinds of camel robes with cloth of gold and embroidery, two horses pulling a chariot thing, and three sheep, who were friendly types who seemed to love all the attention. For all I know, the camels did too, but camels spit and kick and you don't want to go play with them. Sheep seem to like being scratched and cuddled (which came in handy if you wanted to warm your hands...nothing like a nice woolly sheep). As you can imagine, the onlookers were fascinated. Oy.
Meanwhile, remembering what I said about low budget, the background wrangler (that's the guys who gathers up the background people and gets them to set and announces lunch and signs off on vouchers at the end of the day) was evidently either on his first job or congenitally stupid. He called us out to go to the prop truck on Wednesday and when we got outside, I realized I didn't have my ID, so I said, "Where's the prop truck? I'll grab my ID and follow you." So he gestures east on 46th Street. Four minutes later, I emerge with my ID and start off east on 46th. Well, after a block or so I saw nothing that remotely resembled a prop truck, so I went back toward holding and ran into the makeup gal and my pal the hair guy (from Boardwalk) and they walked over to the set with me. Turns out that A. the prop truck was on 48th Street, and B. just after I went inside, the background guy was informed that we didn't need props and should go straight to set. Considering the amount of time I was gone, and considering that the set was immediately visible half a block west, don't you think someone could have waited those four goddamn minutes for me? No, numbnuts realized I was gone and called my agency to tell them I was missing. I wasn't in the least missing...I was doing exactly what I told him I was doing. Idiot.
By the way, it was friggin' FREEZING out there.
Then it was two days at the law office again, Nancy still being felled with flu, and Andrew the lawyer being annoying...you know, if I'm finished with something, it is on the pile where the finished stuff is. It is NOT next to my computer where I keep the not quite finished stuff. So when you prowl all over the desk, confusing my papers and then telling me I don't follow through, I tend to get homicidal. I KNEW those two items weren't finished. THAT IS WHY THEY WERE WHERE THEY WERE, YOU DINGBAT. And to add insult to injury, he didn't even close the office early on Friday, with a blizzard looming. Although, as a born Chicagoan, I must say that New York City itself didn't get much snow at all...7-8 inches hardly qualifies as a blizzard. Yes, I know the outlying areas got slammed...but I was in the city, which didn't, particularly.
However, as of today, all these petty annoyances have faded in a rosy glow...because TOMORROW I HAVE A COSTUME FITTING FOR BOARDWALK! YAHOO! Fourth season, here I come. God only knows what ghastly bits of aging garb they'll throw at me this time...my beloved Lisa, the costume head, takes a positively perverted delight in making me look just awful. Really. She giggles. It's been a running gag for ages now. And we're being fitted for...wait for it...winter again. If we have another summer like last year, I will die. I don't care. I'm back on the Boardwalk! Yay!
Love, Wendy
I worked all last week! I do realize that this sounds like the world's most ho-hum remark, but you have to remember that I'm semi-retired, and very rarely work more than 3 days a week. So a 5 day week is fairly unusual for me.
Monday, 2/4 - Frantic call from Andrew at the law office. Nancy's got flu! So off I went, to be annoyed all day. Really, the boy is impossible.
Tuesday and Wednesday, 2/5-6 - Freezing my ass off in Times Square for a movie called Black Nativity. I have a horrible feeling they're going to make a mess of this. I know the piece...it's a sort of tone poem by Langston Hughes which is the retelling of the Nativity story using gospel music. I saw it in Chicago way back in the early 60s, and it was wonderful...I don't think expanding it is going to help it at all. However, we all know my mantra...who cares? I'm getting paid.
It was a ghastly couple of days. First of all, the thing seems to be VERY low budget...damned little food, and NO COFFEE that anyone could find. And the second day we had to forage for our own lunches, which is invariably irritating. Admittedly we were in Times Square, so finding food was hardly a problem, but still...
And we were in Times Square. We were in Times Square OUTDOORS. In early friggin' February. Should someone ask you about this, just tell them you don't want to. Aside from the fact that we were freezing to death, the damn tourists and passersby will drive you completely insane. They seem to feel that there's nothing wrong with cutting right across the filming and waving to their mothers or whatever the hell they think they're doing, so you have to keep stopping to shoo them away. Tuesday was bad enough, but Wednesday was horrendous. Tuesday we were shooting modern day, so there wasn't much to see, but Wednesday we were shooting Bethlehem (no, no, I have no idea how Times Square got to be Bethlehem...it seems unlikely in the extreme). Wednesday we had two camels wearing all kinds of camel robes with cloth of gold and embroidery, two horses pulling a chariot thing, and three sheep, who were friendly types who seemed to love all the attention. For all I know, the camels did too, but camels spit and kick and you don't want to go play with them. Sheep seem to like being scratched and cuddled (which came in handy if you wanted to warm your hands...nothing like a nice woolly sheep). As you can imagine, the onlookers were fascinated. Oy.
Meanwhile, remembering what I said about low budget, the background wrangler (that's the guys who gathers up the background people and gets them to set and announces lunch and signs off on vouchers at the end of the day) was evidently either on his first job or congenitally stupid. He called us out to go to the prop truck on Wednesday and when we got outside, I realized I didn't have my ID, so I said, "Where's the prop truck? I'll grab my ID and follow you." So he gestures east on 46th Street. Four minutes later, I emerge with my ID and start off east on 46th. Well, after a block or so I saw nothing that remotely resembled a prop truck, so I went back toward holding and ran into the makeup gal and my pal the hair guy (from Boardwalk) and they walked over to the set with me. Turns out that A. the prop truck was on 48th Street, and B. just after I went inside, the background guy was informed that we didn't need props and should go straight to set. Considering the amount of time I was gone, and considering that the set was immediately visible half a block west, don't you think someone could have waited those four goddamn minutes for me? No, numbnuts realized I was gone and called my agency to tell them I was missing. I wasn't in the least missing...I was doing exactly what I told him I was doing. Idiot.
By the way, it was friggin' FREEZING out there.
Then it was two days at the law office again, Nancy still being felled with flu, and Andrew the lawyer being annoying...you know, if I'm finished with something, it is on the pile where the finished stuff is. It is NOT next to my computer where I keep the not quite finished stuff. So when you prowl all over the desk, confusing my papers and then telling me I don't follow through, I tend to get homicidal. I KNEW those two items weren't finished. THAT IS WHY THEY WERE WHERE THEY WERE, YOU DINGBAT. And to add insult to injury, he didn't even close the office early on Friday, with a blizzard looming. Although, as a born Chicagoan, I must say that New York City itself didn't get much snow at all...7-8 inches hardly qualifies as a blizzard. Yes, I know the outlying areas got slammed...but I was in the city, which didn't, particularly.
However, as of today, all these petty annoyances have faded in a rosy glow...because TOMORROW I HAVE A COSTUME FITTING FOR BOARDWALK! YAHOO! Fourth season, here I come. God only knows what ghastly bits of aging garb they'll throw at me this time...my beloved Lisa, the costume head, takes a positively perverted delight in making me look just awful. Really. She giggles. It's been a running gag for ages now. And we're being fitted for...wait for it...winter again. If we have another summer like last year, I will die. I don't care. I'm back on the Boardwalk! Yay!
Love, Wendy
Friday, January 25, 2013
A Cautionary Tale
I have never complained about the United States Post Office. I mean, of course the lines are long around Christmas, and I think my paychecks from movies and TV should arrive faster, but other than that, I conduct business (you know, paying bills and whatnot) just about completely electronically.
I am now complaining. I have never seen such a bunch of blithering idiots in my LIFE. You're going to just LOVE this saga.
On December 19, I got a package from one set of my in-laws. Also in my mailbox that day was one of those little pink slips that tells you there's a package. However, it was entirely blank. So I assumed that the mail person had made a mistake...I already had a package, right?
Well, on Tuesday...yes, that would be Tuesday, the 22nd of January...I got another little pink slip. This one WAS filled out. Complete with date of first attempt at delivery...DECEMBER 19th. Yup. they brought it back ONE MONTH LATER. Now, there was NO reason not to leave it with Jimmy the super, since it didn't say "needs signature" or anything like that. But who knows.
So I called the 800 number for the USPS, and read them the tracking number for the package, which turned out to be wrong. We tracked the thing down, and I got a promise that it would be redelivered the next day.
It wasn't. I called back. It wasn't delivered yesterday either...in fact, it didn't even get on the truck where it was supposed to be. Wasn't delivered today, either...and I know damn well the truck was there because someone else got a pink slip for a package. And I had left a note on the mailbox saying PLEASE RING BELL AT APT. 5E FOR DELIVERY. The note was missing. There was no pink slip.
I have called my local post office, which doesn't answer the phone. I have spoken to the 800 USPS number every single day. Today, just for the sake of variety, I spoke to the NYC Consumer Affairs Department, which helpfully informed me that my post office is the worst in the city. This doesn't make things better.
So I think the package is being returned to sender today, which isn't a disaster, since it must be a Christmas gift from another set of in-laws and probably contained chocolates and mixed nuts, which I would very much like to have, but which are certainly not desperately important to my life and continued well-being. However, the whole thing is just INFURIATING.
Therefore, I exhort you all: Use FedEx. Use UPS. Use DHL. Use a goddamn mule train. BUT DON'T GO NEAR THE POST OFFICE!
Love, Wendy
I am now complaining. I have never seen such a bunch of blithering idiots in my LIFE. You're going to just LOVE this saga.
On December 19, I got a package from one set of my in-laws. Also in my mailbox that day was one of those little pink slips that tells you there's a package. However, it was entirely blank. So I assumed that the mail person had made a mistake...I already had a package, right?
Well, on Tuesday...yes, that would be Tuesday, the 22nd of January...I got another little pink slip. This one WAS filled out. Complete with date of first attempt at delivery...DECEMBER 19th. Yup. they brought it back ONE MONTH LATER. Now, there was NO reason not to leave it with Jimmy the super, since it didn't say "needs signature" or anything like that. But who knows.
So I called the 800 number for the USPS, and read them the tracking number for the package, which turned out to be wrong. We tracked the thing down, and I got a promise that it would be redelivered the next day.
It wasn't. I called back. It wasn't delivered yesterday either...in fact, it didn't even get on the truck where it was supposed to be. Wasn't delivered today, either...and I know damn well the truck was there because someone else got a pink slip for a package. And I had left a note on the mailbox saying PLEASE RING BELL AT APT. 5E FOR DELIVERY. The note was missing. There was no pink slip.
I have called my local post office, which doesn't answer the phone. I have spoken to the 800 USPS number every single day. Today, just for the sake of variety, I spoke to the NYC Consumer Affairs Department, which helpfully informed me that my post office is the worst in the city. This doesn't make things better.
So I think the package is being returned to sender today, which isn't a disaster, since it must be a Christmas gift from another set of in-laws and probably contained chocolates and mixed nuts, which I would very much like to have, but which are certainly not desperately important to my life and continued well-being. However, the whole thing is just INFURIATING.
Therefore, I exhort you all: Use FedEx. Use UPS. Use DHL. Use a goddamn mule train. BUT DON'T GO NEAR THE POST OFFICE!
Love, Wendy
Sunday, January 20, 2013
Yeeks!
I'm amazed I have any followers left. I have just been awful about keeping up here. Well, new year, new resolve. I hope.
Now, let's see where we left off in the dim mists of antiquity.
We had Thanksgiving, of course, and I finally got the number of green beans right...that was exciting. Unfortunately, I forgot to make a note of how many green beans I actually bought, so I'm going to have to go through the whole damn thing again next year. Ah, well...I'm sure the number of eaters will change anyway, so it doesn't make a whole lot of difference.
Then (logically enough), we had Christmas, which wended its usual path through lobsters on Christmas Eve and roast beef for Christmas Day. Nothing new there, either. Sarah, God bless her, bought me a new ironing board...I had asked her to please take down my board and put it away, and she discovered that it no longer folded...so she told me it had to go and removed it and bought me a new one. Yay! You understand I haven't done any of the huge piles of ironing I've got yet...mainly because I haven't gone anywhere that required actual ironed grownup clothing. Actually, I haven't gone anywhere.
I did, however, achieve an actual manager for my career! This is also not going anywhere at the moment...she wants me to take an improv class, which I'm perfectly willing and ready to do...as soon as I get the necessary $350 together to pay for the damn thing. What I need to do is call the class, for God's sake, and find out about payment plans.
However, I was hit with the flu from hell right after New Year's Eve and am just coming back to life...my God, I've never had anything last so damn long. I was only really SICK for a couple of days, but I just couldn't get out of bed. Yuck. Now I just cough incessantly.
I haven't done a movie, I haven't done a TV show, and even my ambulance chasing lawyer is ignoring me...another reason why that damn $350 is looming rather large.
And you are now all as up to date as I am...bored and coughing, although I hope nobody's coughing.
Now I'm going to watch Danny Kaye in Hans Christian Andersen, which is one of my favorite movies ever. It's almost never on TV, so tonight I'm even skipping Downton Abbey (which I can get online anyhow). Yay, Danny Kaye!
Love, Wendy
Now, let's see where we left off in the dim mists of antiquity.
We had Thanksgiving, of course, and I finally got the number of green beans right...that was exciting. Unfortunately, I forgot to make a note of how many green beans I actually bought, so I'm going to have to go through the whole damn thing again next year. Ah, well...I'm sure the number of eaters will change anyway, so it doesn't make a whole lot of difference.
Then (logically enough), we had Christmas, which wended its usual path through lobsters on Christmas Eve and roast beef for Christmas Day. Nothing new there, either. Sarah, God bless her, bought me a new ironing board...I had asked her to please take down my board and put it away, and she discovered that it no longer folded...so she told me it had to go and removed it and bought me a new one. Yay! You understand I haven't done any of the huge piles of ironing I've got yet...mainly because I haven't gone anywhere that required actual ironed grownup clothing. Actually, I haven't gone anywhere.
I did, however, achieve an actual manager for my career! This is also not going anywhere at the moment...she wants me to take an improv class, which I'm perfectly willing and ready to do...as soon as I get the necessary $350 together to pay for the damn thing. What I need to do is call the class, for God's sake, and find out about payment plans.
However, I was hit with the flu from hell right after New Year's Eve and am just coming back to life...my God, I've never had anything last so damn long. I was only really SICK for a couple of days, but I just couldn't get out of bed. Yuck. Now I just cough incessantly.
I haven't done a movie, I haven't done a TV show, and even my ambulance chasing lawyer is ignoring me...another reason why that damn $350 is looming rather large.
And you are now all as up to date as I am...bored and coughing, although I hope nobody's coughing.
Now I'm going to watch Danny Kaye in Hans Christian Andersen, which is one of my favorite movies ever. It's almost never on TV, so tonight I'm even skipping Downton Abbey (which I can get online anyhow). Yay, Danny Kaye!
Love, Wendy
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
Goodbye
There were three of us once. Peter was the eldest, then me, six months later, then Stevie, six months after me. We were the middle. Carol and Cathy were older, and Mary and John younger, and then of coourse there were the New York cousins, who were around, but not really part of us.
Cathy, Stevie, Mary, John...the only brothers and sisters I, as an only child, ever had. Thanksgiving, Christmas, backyards, swings, everything to me. I had an odd childhood...this was my only taste of reality, and what it might be like to grow up naturally and normally.
Stevie (forever Stevie to me) was my own personal still small center. He was his father, all over again. Calm and strong, and good and loving. The army didn't change him...nothing changed him. Whaat he may have felt about Viet Nam remained forever within him. What he gave back to the rest of us was love, in huge measure.
I will, because I must must, adjust to a world without him, but I hate that I have to do so. I still need Stevie at my back. And I am not resigned.
Love, Wendy
Cathy, Stevie, Mary, John...the only brothers and sisters I, as an only child, ever had. Thanksgiving, Christmas, backyards, swings, everything to me. I had an odd childhood...this was my only taste of reality, and what it might be like to grow up naturally and normally.
Stevie (forever Stevie to me) was my own personal still small center. He was his father, all over again. Calm and strong, and good and loving. The army didn't change him...nothing changed him. Whaat he may have felt about Viet Nam remained forever within him. What he gave back to the rest of us was love, in huge measure.
I will, because I must must, adjust to a world without him, but I hate that I have to do so. I still need Stevie at my back. And I am not resigned.
Love, Wendy
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Back From The Abyss
Well, here I am again. Isn't that amazing? I have survived Sandy, and the following nor'easter, and two days in my law office job.
Let's get all caught up.
Before the weather happened, I did this bizarre little deferred pay short film shoot, wherein I portrayed a crazy lady at a flea market. This was a week or two before the Halloween that wasn't. The outfit was superb...my own clothing, with the exception of an amazing hat, which I'll get to. Now, you have to understand that NONE of these clothes have ever been worn together in the history of man...I had a purple mid-calf length street fair cotton skirt, black tights with white socks over them and my ratty old sneakers, a wildly striped sweater with a beige cardigan over it, a huge tie-dye silk scarf around my neck, and a shocking pink furry newsboy cap. And then they made me up as one of those people who puts it on with a trowel in the dark...big pink circles of rouge and eyebrows drawn with a Magic Marker sort of thing. And my hair was teased where it stuck out of the cap. Oh, I was elegant as shit.
These kids evidently succumbed to wanderlust when choosing locations. We shot on a Sunday and Monday. Sunday the shoot was in Red Hook, Brooklyn, which is impossible to get to. You take a subway to some damn where in Brooklyn and then a LONG bus ride. More or less parenthetically, I have never been able to understand Brooklyn bus routes. A bus in Manhattan is named, say, the M14. It travels on 14th Street. See? M14? The 6th Avenue bus travels on Sixth Avenue. Buses in Brooklyn, however, have routes that they evidently patterned after your basic corkscrew...they twist and turn and wander around. Strange.
Anyway, so we shot the flea market scene in a playground in Red Hook.
The next day we were called out in the extreme opposite direction. A subway to Forest Hills, Queens, a place I've NEVER gotten the hang of. Addresses in Queens are like this: 35-04 45th Avenue, on the corner of 74th Street. Really. I find the entire borough impossible. But we were picked up in a van this time, and driven out to Long Beach, Long Island to shoot the dream sequence on the beach. Yes, yes, children, there was a dream sequence on the beach. These kids are aiming for the artsy market, obviously. There was honestly a double bed, complete with quilts and pillows and all, and even a bedside table with a lamp.
Anyway, that was all quite fun, and I must say that when I went to the wrap party on Tuesday night, I was quite impressed with the clips of raw footage they showed. Hey, you never know...they're talking about submitting the thing at Cannes. Why not?
And then came Sandy. It just occurred to me that Sandy slammed us on October 29...wasn't that the same date as the stock market crash? Interesting.
Manhattanites are deeply complacent. For reasons I've never been able to figure out, weather almost always goes AROUND Manhattan Island, instead of landing ON it. This may perhaps be the concerted thoughts of Upper East Side women, all beaming "Don't you DARE rain on my Jimmy Choos!" at it, or perhaps the casual remarks of the downtowners, saying, "No, man, not tonight. I got a good gig over on Ludlow Street." But the fact remains, that while the rest of New York City gets trees uprooted, roof tiles blown all over the place, and all the other bits of disaster, Manhattan just doesn't. Well, OK, there WAS the snow in 2010, but that's really, really rare.
So we here in the city kept saying, remember Hurricane Irene last year (wherein nothing at all happened in Manhattan, after days of weather person hysteria) and sort of ignoring things. Oh, we stocked up on food, figuring it would probably rain (makes it a nuisance to get to the deli, you know), and some people got a couple of candles and maybe a new flashlight.
Boy, did we ever look stupid.
I was feeling pretty pleased with myself on Monday night, what with my elderly flashlight and my little box of small candles (yahrzeit candles, actually, for Jewish memorial flames and some menorahs). I had a freezer full of food and plenty of cigarettes until it quit raining. So I'm sitting there, when...flicker, flicker. Hmmmm. Well, Con Ed did mention brownouts. Flicker, flicker. Where did I put the candles? Flicker, flicker. Ominous music began to sound. Flicker, flicker...phlumpf. Darkness fell.
And darkness stayed, until the following Saturday. By Wednesday, there was no edible food in the freezer and I was down to crackers and cheese and lukewarm water from the tap. The cigarettes were gone and the only thing keeping me even reasonably sane was the fact that I have an electronic cigarette thing and it was still usable. And of course no heat. The flashlight was dying and I had two small candle stumps left. My cell was dead...everybody's cell was dead. Thank God the phone came back to life on Wednesday just long enough for me to get a message from Sarah that she had commandeered a knight in shining armor and a white horse and was riding to my rescue!
So off I went to Brooklyn. (I'm so glad my kid understands me. When she came to the door I hugged her and said, Oh, thank God. Gimme a cigarette. NOW.) The cure was almost worse than the disease, I must admit, since Sarah lives in a converted loft building with damn near no heat. This I can live with, but the fact that all her friends were falling all over themselves to take care of me nearly killed me...their method of taking care of Mom was to keep buying her drinks. And then more drinks. And then...you get the picture.
On Friday night late the lights finally came on at home, and Saturday afternoon I got home to two cats who were very pleased to see me...and a freezer which had refrozen. This waiting until Saturday was intentional because that's what I wanted the freezer to do. There is an enormous difference between throwing out soft, rotted, smelly food and nice neat solid packages of frozen rotted food. The second way is MUCH better.
And in the middle of the storm week, Andrew the lawyer kept texting and calling me to see if I could come into the office. I thought this was rather charmingly optimistic of him, since there was A. no transportation from Brooklyn, and B. his office is in the middle of what was the dark zone. I wouldn't have been able to do anything if I HAD been able/wanted to go to work anyway.
So I finally did go in Tuesday and yesterday. Yesterday was just ghastly. By the time I left the office, it was snowing horizontally and there was a 35 mile an hour wind. I walked two blocks to my bus stop and damn near died, but the fates were finally smiling on me and I got a taxi.
I keep wondering...do you think that God has decided that we should have all of winter in one two week period? Wouldn't that be a lovely idea? If not, I don't even want to think about what comes next On the other hand, OBAMA WON! I swear, all this stuff with hurricanes and nor-easters paled in comparison with my absolute terror about this election...
So now I am going to do laundry, because there is not a clean piece of underwear any place here, and then I am going to restock my icebox, and then I am going to clean the damn house.
I'm so glad to be home!
Love, Wendy
Let's get all caught up.
Before the weather happened, I did this bizarre little deferred pay short film shoot, wherein I portrayed a crazy lady at a flea market. This was a week or two before the Halloween that wasn't. The outfit was superb...my own clothing, with the exception of an amazing hat, which I'll get to. Now, you have to understand that NONE of these clothes have ever been worn together in the history of man...I had a purple mid-calf length street fair cotton skirt, black tights with white socks over them and my ratty old sneakers, a wildly striped sweater with a beige cardigan over it, a huge tie-dye silk scarf around my neck, and a shocking pink furry newsboy cap. And then they made me up as one of those people who puts it on with a trowel in the dark...big pink circles of rouge and eyebrows drawn with a Magic Marker sort of thing. And my hair was teased where it stuck out of the cap. Oh, I was elegant as shit.
These kids evidently succumbed to wanderlust when choosing locations. We shot on a Sunday and Monday. Sunday the shoot was in Red Hook, Brooklyn, which is impossible to get to. You take a subway to some damn where in Brooklyn and then a LONG bus ride. More or less parenthetically, I have never been able to understand Brooklyn bus routes. A bus in Manhattan is named, say, the M14. It travels on 14th Street. See? M14? The 6th Avenue bus travels on Sixth Avenue. Buses in Brooklyn, however, have routes that they evidently patterned after your basic corkscrew...they twist and turn and wander around. Strange.
Anyway, so we shot the flea market scene in a playground in Red Hook.
The next day we were called out in the extreme opposite direction. A subway to Forest Hills, Queens, a place I've NEVER gotten the hang of. Addresses in Queens are like this: 35-04 45th Avenue, on the corner of 74th Street. Really. I find the entire borough impossible. But we were picked up in a van this time, and driven out to Long Beach, Long Island to shoot the dream sequence on the beach. Yes, yes, children, there was a dream sequence on the beach. These kids are aiming for the artsy market, obviously. There was honestly a double bed, complete with quilts and pillows and all, and even a bedside table with a lamp.
Anyway, that was all quite fun, and I must say that when I went to the wrap party on Tuesday night, I was quite impressed with the clips of raw footage they showed. Hey, you never know...they're talking about submitting the thing at Cannes. Why not?
And then came Sandy. It just occurred to me that Sandy slammed us on October 29...wasn't that the same date as the stock market crash? Interesting.
Manhattanites are deeply complacent. For reasons I've never been able to figure out, weather almost always goes AROUND Manhattan Island, instead of landing ON it. This may perhaps be the concerted thoughts of Upper East Side women, all beaming "Don't you DARE rain on my Jimmy Choos!" at it, or perhaps the casual remarks of the downtowners, saying, "No, man, not tonight. I got a good gig over on Ludlow Street." But the fact remains, that while the rest of New York City gets trees uprooted, roof tiles blown all over the place, and all the other bits of disaster, Manhattan just doesn't. Well, OK, there WAS the snow in 2010, but that's really, really rare.
So we here in the city kept saying, remember Hurricane Irene last year (wherein nothing at all happened in Manhattan, after days of weather person hysteria) and sort of ignoring things. Oh, we stocked up on food, figuring it would probably rain (makes it a nuisance to get to the deli, you know), and some people got a couple of candles and maybe a new flashlight.
Boy, did we ever look stupid.
I was feeling pretty pleased with myself on Monday night, what with my elderly flashlight and my little box of small candles (yahrzeit candles, actually, for Jewish memorial flames and some menorahs). I had a freezer full of food and plenty of cigarettes until it quit raining. So I'm sitting there, when...flicker, flicker. Hmmmm. Well, Con Ed did mention brownouts. Flicker, flicker. Where did I put the candles? Flicker, flicker. Ominous music began to sound. Flicker, flicker...phlumpf. Darkness fell.
And darkness stayed, until the following Saturday. By Wednesday, there was no edible food in the freezer and I was down to crackers and cheese and lukewarm water from the tap. The cigarettes were gone and the only thing keeping me even reasonably sane was the fact that I have an electronic cigarette thing and it was still usable. And of course no heat. The flashlight was dying and I had two small candle stumps left. My cell was dead...everybody's cell was dead. Thank God the phone came back to life on Wednesday just long enough for me to get a message from Sarah that she had commandeered a knight in shining armor and a white horse and was riding to my rescue!
So off I went to Brooklyn. (I'm so glad my kid understands me. When she came to the door I hugged her and said, Oh, thank God. Gimme a cigarette. NOW.) The cure was almost worse than the disease, I must admit, since Sarah lives in a converted loft building with damn near no heat. This I can live with, but the fact that all her friends were falling all over themselves to take care of me nearly killed me...their method of taking care of Mom was to keep buying her drinks. And then more drinks. And then...you get the picture.
On Friday night late the lights finally came on at home, and Saturday afternoon I got home to two cats who were very pleased to see me...and a freezer which had refrozen. This waiting until Saturday was intentional because that's what I wanted the freezer to do. There is an enormous difference between throwing out soft, rotted, smelly food and nice neat solid packages of frozen rotted food. The second way is MUCH better.
And in the middle of the storm week, Andrew the lawyer kept texting and calling me to see if I could come into the office. I thought this was rather charmingly optimistic of him, since there was A. no transportation from Brooklyn, and B. his office is in the middle of what was the dark zone. I wouldn't have been able to do anything if I HAD been able/wanted to go to work anyway.
So I finally did go in Tuesday and yesterday. Yesterday was just ghastly. By the time I left the office, it was snowing horizontally and there was a 35 mile an hour wind. I walked two blocks to my bus stop and damn near died, but the fates were finally smiling on me and I got a taxi.
I keep wondering...do you think that God has decided that we should have all of winter in one two week period? Wouldn't that be a lovely idea? If not, I don't even want to think about what comes next On the other hand, OBAMA WON! I swear, all this stuff with hurricanes and nor-easters paled in comparison with my absolute terror about this election...
So now I am going to do laundry, because there is not a clean piece of underwear any place here, and then I am going to restock my icebox, and then I am going to clean the damn house.
I'm so glad to be home!
Love, Wendy
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
The Election
I have tried to stay away from this election, since I know where my vote is going, and I have no patience for most of the incessant ballyhoo and chatter. However, as we get to the end of the whole thing, there is one thing that has started to bother me.
I certainly understand the fixation on the budget and on military spending. The first frightens me, and I'm completely against the second, of course...once anti-war, always anti-war, as far as I'm concerned. And the emphasis on jobs...well, of course. There don't seem to be any. (Of course, if we stopped outsourcing things, it might help.)
But I CANNOT understand this sudden seeming war on women. We have children and the elderly starving to death and homeless in American cities. We have crumbling buildings and indeed, whole neighborhoods. We have ever-increasing crime. Can someone please explain to me why none of these interesting little details seem to be being expressed by anyone? All I seem to hear about is women.
If, as the Romney camp seems to feel, every single woman who becomes pregnant by any method whatsoever, including rape and incest, is forced to have that child, where are you going to put them? And if you cut aid, how are these women going to raise these children? How are they to be fed, or housed, or clothed, or educated? What are these people thinking? That the Lord will provide? Somehow I don't think that calmly expecting manna from heaven to fall on the faces of the deserving is going to work. And neither will the loaves and fishes...particularly not the fishes part, due to the ongoing pollution of our waters. And will there be kind, caring, orphanges established, for when some of these increasingly desperate women simply give up? Somehow I think not.
I thought we had finished with this fight. I thought cooler heads had prevailed. I now think I must have been nuts to think it was so easy.
What on EARTH have we poor women done to all these men that we are supposed to go back to being barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen again?
Love, Wendy
I certainly understand the fixation on the budget and on military spending. The first frightens me, and I'm completely against the second, of course...once anti-war, always anti-war, as far as I'm concerned. And the emphasis on jobs...well, of course. There don't seem to be any. (Of course, if we stopped outsourcing things, it might help.)
But I CANNOT understand this sudden seeming war on women. We have children and the elderly starving to death and homeless in American cities. We have crumbling buildings and indeed, whole neighborhoods. We have ever-increasing crime. Can someone please explain to me why none of these interesting little details seem to be being expressed by anyone? All I seem to hear about is women.
If, as the Romney camp seems to feel, every single woman who becomes pregnant by any method whatsoever, including rape and incest, is forced to have that child, where are you going to put them? And if you cut aid, how are these women going to raise these children? How are they to be fed, or housed, or clothed, or educated? What are these people thinking? That the Lord will provide? Somehow I don't think that calmly expecting manna from heaven to fall on the faces of the deserving is going to work. And neither will the loaves and fishes...particularly not the fishes part, due to the ongoing pollution of our waters. And will there be kind, caring, orphanges established, for when some of these increasingly desperate women simply give up? Somehow I think not.
I thought we had finished with this fight. I thought cooler heads had prevailed. I now think I must have been nuts to think it was so easy.
What on EARTH have we poor women done to all these men that we are supposed to go back to being barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen again?
Love, Wendy
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Back From Chicago!
Well, that was a cold damn week. I knew I was home, because when the weather actually got out of the low 50s I walked around like any other Chicagoan saying how lovely and warm it was.
We got there on Friday the 5th, with both of us dropping off because we hadn't had any sleep. I meant to get a nap before we left, but I was trying to pack and clean up up bit for my pals Jiggers and Kathy to feed the beasts, so I never got around to it...we had a 6 A.M. flight, which meant a car at 3:30 A.M. And Sarah had to work karaoke until 2:30 A.M. I caught a short nap when we got to the hotel, but poor old Sarah just stayed up. My pal Tommy took us out on Friday to a truly terrific show called A Class Act, which is about Ed Kleban, the lyricist for Chorus Line, and it was wonderful. The show is excellently written, using exclusively his own songs, and the actors were great.
Then on Saturday, of course, was the big family party, which featured food (duh...my family doesn't go in for crackers and cheese...when they serve food, they serve FOOD). I must say, that bridesmaid dress waasn't at all as bad in person (I mean in a photograph, obviously) as it was in memory. I actually looked pretty good. Then Sarah and I went off to the Old Town Ale House where we ran into my old drinking buddy Bruce Elliott, who owns the place now, and we had a nice long natter about who's where and what are they up to. This didn't take as long as one would think, for the eminently logical reason that these are people I've known for about 50 years, and therefore there's a fairly large attrition rate. But a few are still with us.
Sunday Sarah took off on her own, having gone out with her cousins the night before and made all sorts of friends, and I went over to Cass and Charlie's for the afterparty from the anniversary party (of COURSE there was an afterparty...there were leftovers, weren't there?). We had a great time laughing and scratching as usual. The thing I like about my family and friends is that we tend to just pick up where we left off last time, which makes for much livelier conversation than everybody stating what they've been doing for the last six years or so.
Then Monday night was the memorial gathering for my friend Dolores, who died last year just before Christmas. As promised, it was the most casual of gatherings, with more old friends and lots of conversation. Poor old Sarah felt like she was in the world's liveliest nursing home, I'm afraid...since I started at Encore Theatre when I was 15, I tend to be the youngest person in the room. This also holds true of the Ale House, since I was drinking there at 15 too. This is not altogether a bad thing. This was very much the usual Encore crew, with people singing snatches of song and occasionally tap dancing a little...Sarah kept wincing when peoples' knees went off like rifle fire. Honestly, the young just don't understand.
Tuesday, God help us, we had lunch with Bill the trustee, who for reasons best known to himself, insisted on driving us all over hell and gone near Chinatown to show us all the new development over there. I'm certaily glad there's new development (it was kind of blighted, after all), but I couldn't care less. I never spent any time in Chinatown anyway (good Chinese lunch, however). Tommy did much better by us on the way to the theatre on Friday, driving us through Near North and all those glorious houses. Then I asked Bill to go by Buckingham Fountain so Sarah could see that great view of the city rising behind it, and he promptly took us BEHIND the fountain. So what we saw was the fountain and the lake, which wasn't what I was after. Sheesh.
That night our cousin Nick took us out for pizza (REAL pizza...take that, New York), and on Wednesday we finally got a small glimpse of what I had intended to see anyway...The Art Institute and the Museum of Science and Industry.
Wednesday night we went out to dinner at a lovely little French place on Wells Street, and Thursday my pal Carolyn took us to lunch (and God bless her, got us on the train to the plane) on our way to the airport. (Thank you, darling!)
So I never got to do much of anything I had intended to do, but we had a great time anyway.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I have a question. WHY will people use unnecessary words? There was an article in the food section in today's NYTimes about snails, which a nice lady seems to be raising. However, in the course of this article, it refers to "cooking with snails."
I'm sorry, you don't cook WITH snails. You just cook snails. I can't see why I would want them in the kitchen in the sense of cooking WITH somebody. They aren't good conversationalists (or talkers at all), and they are absolutely no help whatsoever...you can't ask them to get you something out of the icebox or mince an onion, which is what I think of in terms of cooking with someone. If there are snails in my kitchen, I'm cooking them...not cooking WITH them, damn it.
Love, Wendy
We got there on Friday the 5th, with both of us dropping off because we hadn't had any sleep. I meant to get a nap before we left, but I was trying to pack and clean up up bit for my pals Jiggers and Kathy to feed the beasts, so I never got around to it...we had a 6 A.M. flight, which meant a car at 3:30 A.M. And Sarah had to work karaoke until 2:30 A.M. I caught a short nap when we got to the hotel, but poor old Sarah just stayed up. My pal Tommy took us out on Friday to a truly terrific show called A Class Act, which is about Ed Kleban, the lyricist for Chorus Line, and it was wonderful. The show is excellently written, using exclusively his own songs, and the actors were great.
Then on Saturday, of course, was the big family party, which featured food (duh...my family doesn't go in for crackers and cheese...when they serve food, they serve FOOD). I must say, that bridesmaid dress waasn't at all as bad in person (I mean in a photograph, obviously) as it was in memory. I actually looked pretty good. Then Sarah and I went off to the Old Town Ale House where we ran into my old drinking buddy Bruce Elliott, who owns the place now, and we had a nice long natter about who's where and what are they up to. This didn't take as long as one would think, for the eminently logical reason that these are people I've known for about 50 years, and therefore there's a fairly large attrition rate. But a few are still with us.
Sunday Sarah took off on her own, having gone out with her cousins the night before and made all sorts of friends, and I went over to Cass and Charlie's for the afterparty from the anniversary party (of COURSE there was an afterparty...there were leftovers, weren't there?). We had a great time laughing and scratching as usual. The thing I like about my family and friends is that we tend to just pick up where we left off last time, which makes for much livelier conversation than everybody stating what they've been doing for the last six years or so.
Then Monday night was the memorial gathering for my friend Dolores, who died last year just before Christmas. As promised, it was the most casual of gatherings, with more old friends and lots of conversation. Poor old Sarah felt like she was in the world's liveliest nursing home, I'm afraid...since I started at Encore Theatre when I was 15, I tend to be the youngest person in the room. This also holds true of the Ale House, since I was drinking there at 15 too. This is not altogether a bad thing. This was very much the usual Encore crew, with people singing snatches of song and occasionally tap dancing a little...Sarah kept wincing when peoples' knees went off like rifle fire. Honestly, the young just don't understand.
Tuesday, God help us, we had lunch with Bill the trustee, who for reasons best known to himself, insisted on driving us all over hell and gone near Chinatown to show us all the new development over there. I'm certaily glad there's new development (it was kind of blighted, after all), but I couldn't care less. I never spent any time in Chinatown anyway (good Chinese lunch, however). Tommy did much better by us on the way to the theatre on Friday, driving us through Near North and all those glorious houses. Then I asked Bill to go by Buckingham Fountain so Sarah could see that great view of the city rising behind it, and he promptly took us BEHIND the fountain. So what we saw was the fountain and the lake, which wasn't what I was after. Sheesh.
That night our cousin Nick took us out for pizza (REAL pizza...take that, New York), and on Wednesday we finally got a small glimpse of what I had intended to see anyway...The Art Institute and the Museum of Science and Industry.
Wednesday night we went out to dinner at a lovely little French place on Wells Street, and Thursday my pal Carolyn took us to lunch (and God bless her, got us on the train to the plane) on our way to the airport. (Thank you, darling!)
So I never got to do much of anything I had intended to do, but we had a great time anyway.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I have a question. WHY will people use unnecessary words? There was an article in the food section in today's NYTimes about snails, which a nice lady seems to be raising. However, in the course of this article, it refers to "cooking with snails."
I'm sorry, you don't cook WITH snails. You just cook snails. I can't see why I would want them in the kitchen in the sense of cooking WITH somebody. They aren't good conversationalists (or talkers at all), and they are absolutely no help whatsoever...you can't ask them to get you something out of the icebox or mince an onion, which is what I think of in terms of cooking with someone. If there are snails in my kitchen, I'm cooking them...not cooking WITH them, damn it.
Love, Wendy
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Peculiar
Would you believe that I have just bought a guidebook to Chicago? Yeah. A GUIDEBOOK to CHICAGO. Yes, that would be the place where I was born, and the place where I went from kindergarten through high school and some college, the place where I got married and divorced and had LOTS of way less formal relationships. That Chicago. And I bought a guidebook.
There are sensible reasons for this, actually, chief among them being that I haven't spent any more than about 20 minutes in Chicago since Sarah was about three years old...and since Sarah is now 28, you see the problem. Oh, I've been in and out, but for stated reasons...a reunion, my aunt and uncle's 50th anniversary (and now I'm going to their daughter's 50th anniversary...my, how time flies when you're getting old). Really, though, I haven't spent any extended time there in years. The other reason is that the whole transportation system has changed (I can no longer grab the Illinois Central at Randolph Street and get off at 55th, on account of it's now something called Metra, whatever that may be, and I don't know whether it even still GOES to 55th Street). And naturally, few of the restaurants I frequented are still around, and on top of all THAT, we're staying downtown on Monroe Street, and I'm a Near North and Hyde Park kid.
All of this makes me feel deeply disoriented, obviously. I want to take Sarah to a lot of places in my history, and I'm not even sure I can find them...or that they still exist. It's a distinctly weird feeling.
However, our Chicago social life is coming together nicely. We arrive Friday morning (this coming Friday morning) and my pal Tommy (I wouldn't like to say he's an old friend, but he took me to my senior prom) is taking us to dinner and the theatre. Then Cass and Charley's anniversary is Saturday. Monday we're going to Indiana...yes, I know that sounds strange, but it's a bit of Indiana that's only half an hour away from the Loop (that's downtown Chicago). An old Encore Theatre pal died just before Christmas last year, and this is the memorial. Luckily, Encore people don't deal in solemn anything (as I told Sarah when she tried to balk at this occasion), and it's a great way to let her meet a lot of the people who shaped my life a million or so years ago. Tuesday or Wednesday we're having lunch with Bill the trustee, God help us, and Thursday is an early lunch with my best pal Carolyn (hi, there!) before the plane home.
In between all that, there's the Art Institute and the Museum of Science and Industry and going out to Hyde Park and finding interesting restaurants (another reason for that guidebook) and just general wandering around. It should be a great trip.
But it still feels decidedly peculiar to buy a guidebook to Chicago.
Love, Wendy
There are sensible reasons for this, actually, chief among them being that I haven't spent any more than about 20 minutes in Chicago since Sarah was about three years old...and since Sarah is now 28, you see the problem. Oh, I've been in and out, but for stated reasons...a reunion, my aunt and uncle's 50th anniversary (and now I'm going to their daughter's 50th anniversary...my, how time flies when you're getting old). Really, though, I haven't spent any extended time there in years. The other reason is that the whole transportation system has changed (I can no longer grab the Illinois Central at Randolph Street and get off at 55th, on account of it's now something called Metra, whatever that may be, and I don't know whether it even still GOES to 55th Street). And naturally, few of the restaurants I frequented are still around, and on top of all THAT, we're staying downtown on Monroe Street, and I'm a Near North and Hyde Park kid.
All of this makes me feel deeply disoriented, obviously. I want to take Sarah to a lot of places in my history, and I'm not even sure I can find them...or that they still exist. It's a distinctly weird feeling.
However, our Chicago social life is coming together nicely. We arrive Friday morning (this coming Friday morning) and my pal Tommy (I wouldn't like to say he's an old friend, but he took me to my senior prom) is taking us to dinner and the theatre. Then Cass and Charley's anniversary is Saturday. Monday we're going to Indiana...yes, I know that sounds strange, but it's a bit of Indiana that's only half an hour away from the Loop (that's downtown Chicago). An old Encore Theatre pal died just before Christmas last year, and this is the memorial. Luckily, Encore people don't deal in solemn anything (as I told Sarah when she tried to balk at this occasion), and it's a great way to let her meet a lot of the people who shaped my life a million or so years ago. Tuesday or Wednesday we're having lunch with Bill the trustee, God help us, and Thursday is an early lunch with my best pal Carolyn (hi, there!) before the plane home.
In between all that, there's the Art Institute and the Museum of Science and Industry and going out to Hyde Park and finding interesting restaurants (another reason for that guidebook) and just general wandering around. It should be a great trip.
But it still feels decidedly peculiar to buy a guidebook to Chicago.
Love, Wendy
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
What Have They Done To My Blog, Ma?
Well, THIS is deeply confusing. I have absolutely no idea how to run this new setup, so I think I'll just happily burble away as usual and hope to God that it appears.
So after my great coup of getting upgraded and kissed by Leo DiCaprio, I've been barely able to get arrested...naturally. That's the way it is in this silly business. I did do a shoot last Sunday, but it was on spec. You can do that with some sort of special contract with SAG/AFTRA (I mean the producers have one), and since it's a web series and they will probably want to continue using me, I thought what the hell. I don't have anything web-based on my resume, and it seems to be the coming thing.
It's a show called Subway Stories, and it's filmed guerilla style in the actual subway. It was actually quite amusing, because we were filming at the 57th street stop of the Q line. This was because it's the end of the line for the Q train, which means that the train sits there for about ten minutes before starting on its return trip. This in turn meant that when we heard the little bell ring, signalling that the doors were about to close, we all had to run like hell out of the train if we didn't happen to want to go to the next station and ride back. It's a small cast, so at least I should get a fair amount of camera face time, and it was a nice short shoot, from about 10 am to 3 pm. For obvious reasons, I love a long shoot if I'm getting paid, but if I'm not, shorter is WAY better. Who wants to spend an entire Sunday in a hot subway station? Paraticularly if they're not getting paid.
Then on Monday I went to an open call at a casting place called Amerifilm, which has just landed a contract to cast a feature film, and I'm hoping something comes of that, since it's a real job with, they say, a LOT of work. I'm crossing my fingers for this one.
Other than that, my apartment is a disaster area of truly epic proportions. It finally occurred to me that I am good peasant woman, strong like bull, and that I was getting pretty damn tired of waiting for somebody to come over and help me move the damn bookshelves, so I'm in the process of doing it myself. And what do you know? Turns out the bookshelves weren't a quarter as heavy as I thought they were. So I've got one of the bedroom shelves in its proper configuration, and the two I'm moving in there are completely cleaned out and ready to go.
Unfortunately, the result is that my bed is completely covered in books in the bedroom, and the living room is one big explosion in a bookstore. I did have the sense to keep the bed/couch in the living room free, so I've got somewhere to sleep at least. And the good part about it is that I truly am not going to be able to stand THIS big a mess for very many more minutes, so I actually have the impetus to get it all together. Tomorrow. Oh, come on...naturally I found quite a lot to read while taking the books out of the shelves. And I did a good day's work today, so I'm entitled.
I will keep everyone updated on my progress. Tell me you're all completely thrilled with this.
Love, Wendy
So after my great coup of getting upgraded and kissed by Leo DiCaprio, I've been barely able to get arrested...naturally. That's the way it is in this silly business. I did do a shoot last Sunday, but it was on spec. You can do that with some sort of special contract with SAG/AFTRA (I mean the producers have one), and since it's a web series and they will probably want to continue using me, I thought what the hell. I don't have anything web-based on my resume, and it seems to be the coming thing.
It's a show called Subway Stories, and it's filmed guerilla style in the actual subway. It was actually quite amusing, because we were filming at the 57th street stop of the Q line. This was because it's the end of the line for the Q train, which means that the train sits there for about ten minutes before starting on its return trip. This in turn meant that when we heard the little bell ring, signalling that the doors were about to close, we all had to run like hell out of the train if we didn't happen to want to go to the next station and ride back. It's a small cast, so at least I should get a fair amount of camera face time, and it was a nice short shoot, from about 10 am to 3 pm. For obvious reasons, I love a long shoot if I'm getting paid, but if I'm not, shorter is WAY better. Who wants to spend an entire Sunday in a hot subway station? Paraticularly if they're not getting paid.
Then on Monday I went to an open call at a casting place called Amerifilm, which has just landed a contract to cast a feature film, and I'm hoping something comes of that, since it's a real job with, they say, a LOT of work. I'm crossing my fingers for this one.
Other than that, my apartment is a disaster area of truly epic proportions. It finally occurred to me that I am good peasant woman, strong like bull, and that I was getting pretty damn tired of waiting for somebody to come over and help me move the damn bookshelves, so I'm in the process of doing it myself. And what do you know? Turns out the bookshelves weren't a quarter as heavy as I thought they were. So I've got one of the bedroom shelves in its proper configuration, and the two I'm moving in there are completely cleaned out and ready to go.
Unfortunately, the result is that my bed is completely covered in books in the bedroom, and the living room is one big explosion in a bookstore. I did have the sense to keep the bed/couch in the living room free, so I've got somewhere to sleep at least. And the good part about it is that I truly am not going to be able to stand THIS big a mess for very many more minutes, so I actually have the impetus to get it all together. Tomorrow. Oh, come on...naturally I found quite a lot to read while taking the books out of the shelves. And I did a good day's work today, so I'm entitled.
I will keep everyone updated on my progress. Tell me you're all completely thrilled with this.
Love, Wendy
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
It Just Gets Better
OH, MY GOD.
So I caught my 5:12 am bus yesterday morning out to Closter, New Jersey like a good girl, and got my hair teased and sprayed and my eyebrows made deeply surprised, and went off to breakfast and the set. And we filmed. (Well, you know...it's what we were there for.)
What a day. First of all, I got into a scene (a tiny, baby, itsy bitsy scene consisting of about six words) with Leonardo DiCaprio. Now while actors do speak on camera, very often the actual lines are dubbed in later, when nobody's worrying about staying within their key light and stuff like that, so that while people do say the lines, there's room for improv, as long as the time is correct...and in case you care, DiCaprio is a real potty mouth. So he does what he's supposed to do, which ends him up coming over to my desk on the set, and at one point, to express his jubilation (he has just made a large stock sale), out of nowhere, he gave me a big kiss on the cheek. Imagine my surprise...I think my jaw must have been down to the ground.
After they picked me up off the floor, it was decided that he should introduce himself to me, which he did (nice firm handshake that boy has)...which exchange ended me up having two lines, to wit: I'm Wendy (what can I tell you...they're not good at names around there), and, You got it!
This, my children, is what is known in the business as a "five and under," meaning a scripted exchange that is five words or less. BUT, according to the rules of my glorious union, it takes you out of the background designation and into the contracted principal desgnation. Which takes you into...big drum roll here, please...the designation of people who make $842 dollars a day. Yeah. $842.00. A friggin' day.
So, let's add up the numbers: $300 for Friday's shoot, $145.00 for the Monday holiday, and because the upgrade wasn't given until the afternoon, another $145.00 for Tuesday morning, and $842.00 for the rest of the day. This makes it roughly $1400 for two days work (turned out they didn't need me for today).
Now, this is only an upgrade for one shoot, so let's not get carried away here. Next time I shoot something I'm sure I'll go right back to plain old background status...and indeed, I'll be occupying my usual desk at the law firm tomorrow. And the kiss was an unscripted improv which won't end up on camera.
But sheesh...I had Martin Scorsese grinning at me and giving me a thumbs up, and I was goofing around with Spike Jonez (we kept yawning and accusing each other of causing it...you know how contagious yawns are)...oh, and did I mention that LEONARDO DICAPRIO KISSED ME?
Love, Wendy (you know, the one who got kissed by Leonardo DiCaprio)
So I caught my 5:12 am bus yesterday morning out to Closter, New Jersey like a good girl, and got my hair teased and sprayed and my eyebrows made deeply surprised, and went off to breakfast and the set. And we filmed. (Well, you know...it's what we were there for.)
What a day. First of all, I got into a scene (a tiny, baby, itsy bitsy scene consisting of about six words) with Leonardo DiCaprio. Now while actors do speak on camera, very often the actual lines are dubbed in later, when nobody's worrying about staying within their key light and stuff like that, so that while people do say the lines, there's room for improv, as long as the time is correct...and in case you care, DiCaprio is a real potty mouth. So he does what he's supposed to do, which ends him up coming over to my desk on the set, and at one point, to express his jubilation (he has just made a large stock sale), out of nowhere, he gave me a big kiss on the cheek. Imagine my surprise...I think my jaw must have been down to the ground.
After they picked me up off the floor, it was decided that he should introduce himself to me, which he did (nice firm handshake that boy has)...which exchange ended me up having two lines, to wit: I'm Wendy (what can I tell you...they're not good at names around there), and, You got it!
This, my children, is what is known in the business as a "five and under," meaning a scripted exchange that is five words or less. BUT, according to the rules of my glorious union, it takes you out of the background designation and into the contracted principal desgnation. Which takes you into...big drum roll here, please...the designation of people who make $842 dollars a day. Yeah. $842.00. A friggin' day.
So, let's add up the numbers: $300 for Friday's shoot, $145.00 for the Monday holiday, and because the upgrade wasn't given until the afternoon, another $145.00 for Tuesday morning, and $842.00 for the rest of the day. This makes it roughly $1400 for two days work (turned out they didn't need me for today).
Now, this is only an upgrade for one shoot, so let's not get carried away here. Next time I shoot something I'm sure I'll go right back to plain old background status...and indeed, I'll be occupying my usual desk at the law firm tomorrow. And the kiss was an unscripted improv which won't end up on camera.
But sheesh...I had Martin Scorsese grinning at me and giving me a thumbs up, and I was goofing around with Spike Jonez (we kept yawning and accusing each other of causing it...you know how contagious yawns are)...oh, and did I mention that LEONARDO DICAPRIO KISSED ME?
Love, Wendy (you know, the one who got kissed by Leonardo DiCaprio)
Monday, September 3, 2012
Women Who Run With The Wolf of Wall Street
Damn, that was fun! Admittedly, if I have to take a 5:42 am van, I'd prefer it to be somewhere more reasonable than 96th and Broadway, but really, that's my only quibble with Friday's shoot.
Wait until you see this movie, guys. I am highly featured, and I'm wearing the hair that ate Chicago. You think I'm kidding? I swear it tried to take a bite out of Leonardo DiCaprio. I'm playing a secretary in a penny stock investment firm located in a dying strip mall in 1987. The set is in...are you ready?...a dying strip mall in Closter, New Jersey, and weirdly, it's a place I've actually been before many years back...Closter, not the strip mall. We had a friend who had a house out there and went to a party when Sarah was a baby.
Back to the hair. Remember that for purposes of Boardwalk, my hair is currently down to the middle of my back...so Joe the hairdresser scooped one side of it up, stuck in a comb to keep it there, and then used a curling iron on the rest and teased the bejesus out of it. The result has to be seen to be believed. I'm also wearing very surprised eyebrows and a LOT of eyeshadow. And bright red lipstick. A definite picture...oy.
A good shoot, though. I consider any shoot a good shoot wherein: I am wearing reasonably appropriate clothing for the season we're actually in; I can sit down; it's indoors; and there is air conditioning. And this shoot had an extra added attraction, which was being able to smoke real cigarettes on set. I've smoked on Boardwalk, but they give us these truly ghastly herbal things which are unfiltered and tend to disintegrate. Friday I was smoking lovely Marlboro Lights...heaven.
And today I actually completely cleaned the bathroom! I mean I blitzed that sucker. Tub, sink, toilet, floors. The only problem is that now I'm afraid to use because I might get it dirty again.
And tomorrow I get to do more of it. This is turning out to be a nice little money maker. We put in 13 hours on Friday, because this is a Martin Scorsese film, and Mr Scorsese, as all Boardwalk people know, is actually the Energizer Bunny in disguise. He never stops. This is tiring, but lucrative. The BEST thing, I found out on Friday when JeJe from the union came by (our union sends people to all the working sets just to make sure there are no problems...isn't that great?) is that because we shot Friday and we're shooting tomorrow, WE GET PAID FOR TODAY! All bow before my wonderful union. In case you're counting, that means: Friday we got our straight 8 hours, then two hours of time and a half, then 3 hours of overtime. Then we get paid a straight 8 hours today, and I'll bet that the next two days will be long ones, first of all because of Mr. Scorsese's shooting habits and secondly because we're supposed to have thunderstorms, which slow things down for outdoor shots. It doesn't affect me...I'm going to be sitting at my desk, indoors, smoking a cigarette and trying to keep my hair from attacking people.
Love, Wendy
Wait until you see this movie, guys. I am highly featured, and I'm wearing the hair that ate Chicago. You think I'm kidding? I swear it tried to take a bite out of Leonardo DiCaprio. I'm playing a secretary in a penny stock investment firm located in a dying strip mall in 1987. The set is in...are you ready?...a dying strip mall in Closter, New Jersey, and weirdly, it's a place I've actually been before many years back...Closter, not the strip mall. We had a friend who had a house out there and went to a party when Sarah was a baby.
Back to the hair. Remember that for purposes of Boardwalk, my hair is currently down to the middle of my back...so Joe the hairdresser scooped one side of it up, stuck in a comb to keep it there, and then used a curling iron on the rest and teased the bejesus out of it. The result has to be seen to be believed. I'm also wearing very surprised eyebrows and a LOT of eyeshadow. And bright red lipstick. A definite picture...oy.
A good shoot, though. I consider any shoot a good shoot wherein: I am wearing reasonably appropriate clothing for the season we're actually in; I can sit down; it's indoors; and there is air conditioning. And this shoot had an extra added attraction, which was being able to smoke real cigarettes on set. I've smoked on Boardwalk, but they give us these truly ghastly herbal things which are unfiltered and tend to disintegrate. Friday I was smoking lovely Marlboro Lights...heaven.
And today I actually completely cleaned the bathroom! I mean I blitzed that sucker. Tub, sink, toilet, floors. The only problem is that now I'm afraid to use because I might get it dirty again.
And tomorrow I get to do more of it. This is turning out to be a nice little money maker. We put in 13 hours on Friday, because this is a Martin Scorsese film, and Mr Scorsese, as all Boardwalk people know, is actually the Energizer Bunny in disguise. He never stops. This is tiring, but lucrative. The BEST thing, I found out on Friday when JeJe from the union came by (our union sends people to all the working sets just to make sure there are no problems...isn't that great?) is that because we shot Friday and we're shooting tomorrow, WE GET PAID FOR TODAY! All bow before my wonderful union. In case you're counting, that means: Friday we got our straight 8 hours, then two hours of time and a half, then 3 hours of overtime. Then we get paid a straight 8 hours today, and I'll bet that the next two days will be long ones, first of all because of Mr. Scorsese's shooting habits and secondly because we're supposed to have thunderstorms, which slow things down for outdoor shots. It doesn't affect me...I'm going to be sitting at my desk, indoors, smoking a cigarette and trying to keep my hair from attacking people.
Love, Wendy
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
And We're Back!
And it's been a long, dull couple of weeks around these here parts, which is why I haven't been posting...if my life is boring ME, for God's sake, I can only imagine what it must do to my readers.
However, things are looking up. Tomorrow I'm back at the law firm (which admittedly doesn't do a whole lot for the boredom factor), and Friday, Tuesday and Wednesday I get to do a featured role in The Wolf of Wall Street, the new Leonardo DiCaprio movie.
And I even got a few things done around the house! Not nearly enough, but a step in the right direction. I bought new garbage bins...I can hear you all just panting with excitement here, but really, I'm quite pleased. My old ones were white, you see, and old, and life is too damn short to spend half my time scrubbing down grubby white plastic garbage bins. So now I have nice new shiny black ones, and if they don't get wiped down for a few days (or, you know, a few months...we all know about my hideous housekeeping habits), nobody will notice. I also bought a nice set of little divider bins for the kitchen drawers so I don't spend half my time hunting utensils, twist ties, paper clips...all that stuff that ends up in the kitchen drawers and is so often never seen again. Of course, I haven't unwrapped them yet...
What I've really been doing is hanging out on the computer becoming more and more horrified at what's coming out of the mouths of Republicans. I do realize that there are perfectly nice Republicans with brains out there. It's just that they're not the ones who are being quoted.
Ban ALL abortion, including in cases of rape and incest? The Holocaust never happened? A woman's body has a method of cutting off its own reproductive system if she gets raped? And my favorite, in Arizona, where they have just decided that pregnancy begins two weeks before conception.
This is beginning to be frightening. Paul Ryan...that adorable young man...referred recently to rape as a method of conception. Well, yes, that is strictly true...but...um...
We all know about Todd Akin, who was responsible for the fascinating notion that a woman somehow secretes birth control when she gets raped, so she won't get pregnant. Why are the Republicans so fixated on rape, for heaven's sake? I would truly hate to think it has to do with their deep unspoken desires.
And then there's Art Jones, who is running for a congressional seat in Illinois, who said, "As far as I'm concerned, the Holocaust is nothing more than an international extortion racket by the Jews." This gentleman (for want of a better term) is an avowed racist who runs, among other unsavory activities, "family-friendly neo-Nazi gatherings." What on EARTH can a family-friendly neo-Nazi gathering be like? Adorable little Aryan babies in tiny onesies printed with itsy-bitsy swastikas? Young John 's very first Ku Klux Klan outfit, and doesn't he look cute? Get a picture for the album, Martha...and let's blow it up so we can hang it on the wall next to our prized shot of Darlene lighting the first cross last year! Yay!
I would love to think that these people are in the minority, and to be fair, I'm sure they are. But the notion that even the vice presidential candidate is so completely clueless that he can refer to rape as a method of conception is enormously disturbing. And the GOP platform completely bans abortion under any circumstances and, of course, gay marriage. What they're going to do about all the gay people who are ALREADY married is somewhat beyond me...annul their marriages?
And here's the problem. We forget, we liberal, well-educated urban people, that we are distinctly in the minority. There is a whole lot of America out there, people, and there are a lot of God-fearing Americans who sincerely and deeply believe that homosexuality and abortion are against the laws of God and that rape happens because women ask for it (well, come on...if you're coming home at 10 o'clock at night and you're wearing a skirt, OBVIOUSLY you are). I said almost exactly this in 2008, and we won that time. Let's try to do it again, shall we?
So I am not sleeping terribly well these nights. Get out and vote...early and often, as we used to say in Chicago.
Love, Wendy (who seems to be twitching a lot these days)
However, things are looking up. Tomorrow I'm back at the law firm (which admittedly doesn't do a whole lot for the boredom factor), and Friday, Tuesday and Wednesday I get to do a featured role in The Wolf of Wall Street, the new Leonardo DiCaprio movie.
And I even got a few things done around the house! Not nearly enough, but a step in the right direction. I bought new garbage bins...I can hear you all just panting with excitement here, but really, I'm quite pleased. My old ones were white, you see, and old, and life is too damn short to spend half my time scrubbing down grubby white plastic garbage bins. So now I have nice new shiny black ones, and if they don't get wiped down for a few days (or, you know, a few months...we all know about my hideous housekeeping habits), nobody will notice. I also bought a nice set of little divider bins for the kitchen drawers so I don't spend half my time hunting utensils, twist ties, paper clips...all that stuff that ends up in the kitchen drawers and is so often never seen again. Of course, I haven't unwrapped them yet...
What I've really been doing is hanging out on the computer becoming more and more horrified at what's coming out of the mouths of Republicans. I do realize that there are perfectly nice Republicans with brains out there. It's just that they're not the ones who are being quoted.
Ban ALL abortion, including in cases of rape and incest? The Holocaust never happened? A woman's body has a method of cutting off its own reproductive system if she gets raped? And my favorite, in Arizona, where they have just decided that pregnancy begins two weeks before conception.
This is beginning to be frightening. Paul Ryan...that adorable young man...referred recently to rape as a method of conception. Well, yes, that is strictly true...but...um...
We all know about Todd Akin, who was responsible for the fascinating notion that a woman somehow secretes birth control when she gets raped, so she won't get pregnant. Why are the Republicans so fixated on rape, for heaven's sake? I would truly hate to think it has to do with their deep unspoken desires.
And then there's Art Jones, who is running for a congressional seat in Illinois, who said, "As far as I'm concerned, the Holocaust is nothing more than an international extortion racket by the Jews." This gentleman (for want of a better term) is an avowed racist who runs, among other unsavory activities, "family-friendly neo-Nazi gatherings." What on EARTH can a family-friendly neo-Nazi gathering be like? Adorable little Aryan babies in tiny onesies printed with itsy-bitsy swastikas? Young John 's very first Ku Klux Klan outfit, and doesn't he look cute? Get a picture for the album, Martha...and let's blow it up so we can hang it on the wall next to our prized shot of Darlene lighting the first cross last year! Yay!
I would love to think that these people are in the minority, and to be fair, I'm sure they are. But the notion that even the vice presidential candidate is so completely clueless that he can refer to rape as a method of conception is enormously disturbing. And the GOP platform completely bans abortion under any circumstances and, of course, gay marriage. What they're going to do about all the gay people who are ALREADY married is somewhat beyond me...annul their marriages?
And here's the problem. We forget, we liberal, well-educated urban people, that we are distinctly in the minority. There is a whole lot of America out there, people, and there are a lot of God-fearing Americans who sincerely and deeply believe that homosexuality and abortion are against the laws of God and that rape happens because women ask for it (well, come on...if you're coming home at 10 o'clock at night and you're wearing a skirt, OBVIOUSLY you are). I said almost exactly this in 2008, and we won that time. Let's try to do it again, shall we?
So I am not sleeping terribly well these nights. Get out and vote...early and often, as we used to say in Chicago.
Love, Wendy (who seems to be twitching a lot these days)
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
I Hate Patricia Wells
For those of you who aren't as fascinated wth cooking and cookbooks as I am, Patricia Wells is a cooking teacher and coookbook author, and she drives me flying INSANE.
I am in the process of trying to cull my books (yet again), and to that end, am re-reading things. I have decided that Patricia Wells MUST GO.
Now, the recipes sound WONDERFUL. I mean, mouthwateringly good. BUT...there is no way you or I could ever cook them properly.
Because, you see, Patricia Wells lives in Provence, France, in a million year old farmhouse with a garden and olive trees and a built-in bread oven and a built-in pizza oven and French markets to go to at least twice a week. She insists on telling you where you can get the ingredients for all her dishes, which is very nice of her...but it's terribly difficult for those of us who don't happen to be a neighbor of hers. One of her recipes starts out chattily, "Now this is something I make with the olives from our olive trees." Well, that's very nice. I live in one bedroom in the East Village, lady. I don't happen to HAVE any handy olive trees.
Nor do I have any of the lovely olive oil she gets from a supplier in Provence...admittedly, she very helpfully gives the name, address and phone number of said supplier, but it doesn't do me a lot of good, now does it? Even though I spend a fair amount of time in France, I don't spend it in Provence.
I know perfectly well that I could get a lot of these ingredients right here in Manhattan, but the running around it would entail is madly involved (let's see, I can get those olives on East 79th Street, and that olive oil over at the place on the Lower East Side, and I think Citarella in the West Village can order the langoustines...oy). And I know I can order a lot of things online, but the cost is pretty astronomical...and since I live in a small rental apartment, it's unlikely in the extreme that I'm going to have that bread oven and pizza oven built.
So I bid farewell to Patricia Wells. I wish her many more years of lovely eating in Provence, and feel that she can probably get along without me quite well. And when I want large shrimp, I will happily go to Chinatown, a short bus ride away and an excellent price. And you can't beat it for freshness...sometimes when I've been browsing fish markets in Chinatown, a live fish has thrown itself off the pile and landed at my feet. You can't GET any fresher than that, can you?
Love, Wendy
I am in the process of trying to cull my books (yet again), and to that end, am re-reading things. I have decided that Patricia Wells MUST GO.
Now, the recipes sound WONDERFUL. I mean, mouthwateringly good. BUT...there is no way you or I could ever cook them properly.
Because, you see, Patricia Wells lives in Provence, France, in a million year old farmhouse with a garden and olive trees and a built-in bread oven and a built-in pizza oven and French markets to go to at least twice a week. She insists on telling you where you can get the ingredients for all her dishes, which is very nice of her...but it's terribly difficult for those of us who don't happen to be a neighbor of hers. One of her recipes starts out chattily, "Now this is something I make with the olives from our olive trees." Well, that's very nice. I live in one bedroom in the East Village, lady. I don't happen to HAVE any handy olive trees.
Nor do I have any of the lovely olive oil she gets from a supplier in Provence...admittedly, she very helpfully gives the name, address and phone number of said supplier, but it doesn't do me a lot of good, now does it? Even though I spend a fair amount of time in France, I don't spend it in Provence.
I know perfectly well that I could get a lot of these ingredients right here in Manhattan, but the running around it would entail is madly involved (let's see, I can get those olives on East 79th Street, and that olive oil over at the place on the Lower East Side, and I think Citarella in the West Village can order the langoustines...oy). And I know I can order a lot of things online, but the cost is pretty astronomical...and since I live in a small rental apartment, it's unlikely in the extreme that I'm going to have that bread oven and pizza oven built.
So I bid farewell to Patricia Wells. I wish her many more years of lovely eating in Provence, and feel that she can probably get along without me quite well. And when I want large shrimp, I will happily go to Chinatown, a short bus ride away and an excellent price. And you can't beat it for freshness...sometimes when I've been browsing fish markets in Chinatown, a live fish has thrown itself off the pile and landed at my feet. You can't GET any fresher than that, can you?
Love, Wendy
Friday, August 10, 2012
Rain, Rain, Go Away
Never let it be said that I cannot use a cliche with the best of them, but really, this rain is annoying. I yield to no one in my adoration of most rain...thunderstorms are one of my favorite things in the world, as we all know...but I happen to have about a million things to do today in various corners of the city, and for once, I could do without it.
My list for the day incudes a stop at the pharmacy to pick up a prescription. That's the 14D bus to the M8 bus all the way crosstown. Then I need to get a birthday present for a 2 year old friend of mine, which is the M8 bus back across town to 2nd Avenue. Then I really want to get over to the grocery store, which is a three block walk over to 4th Street because they have cantaloupe on sale at 2 for 3 bucks, and in this heat, I find myself madly craving fruit. Also I need kitty litter, because every time I go to the john, the litter box sidles over to me and starts yanking on my pants leg, saying, "Clean me! Please!" Also at some point I've got to do something about the ironing because if I have to go somewhere where they expect me to look halfway like a normal adult human being, I got nothin'. All my pants and skirts need ironing. (Yes, I KNOW I'm probably the last person in the world who irons. I don't care. Bad enough to look like an old tired broad...I don't need to look ike a SLOPPY old tired broad.) And I'd like to finish up the cleaning and reorganizing I've been doing in the kitchen, because it's almost there. So, a big day.
Last Friday was just lovely on the Boardwalk. It was another one of those weird shoots in terms of hours...van at 6:15 pm, then into costume and makeup and hair, then, for some strange reason, an extremely truncated meal, not like our usual bountiful spreads at ALL. Just some chicken, some fish, and some rice and a vegetable. Good food, you understand...just very little choice. Luckily, I'll eat anything that won't eat me first, so no problem. Odd, though. I guess it's because this was really just a fill-in shot, since we're at the end of the shooting season now. Meanwhile, of COURSE we were in winter clothes, and of COURSE we were dying of the heat. Ugh. We finished up around 2 am...I got home around 3 and dove immediately into an ice cold beer.
The reason I want/need to get a lot done today is that I'm off on a marathon tomorrow. The parents of the aforementioned 2 year are throwing him a birthday party tomorrow, which also happens to be Sarah's birthday. So it's going to be a LONG day...the baby party from 3 to 7, and then barhopping with Sarah...followed immediately by a car service home. And I can foresee that this will wipe out Sunday altogether, as I try valiantly to recover.
Ah ha! It looks like it might be clearing up a bit! Wish me luck...
Love, Wendy
My list for the day incudes a stop at the pharmacy to pick up a prescription. That's the 14D bus to the M8 bus all the way crosstown. Then I need to get a birthday present for a 2 year old friend of mine, which is the M8 bus back across town to 2nd Avenue. Then I really want to get over to the grocery store, which is a three block walk over to 4th Street because they have cantaloupe on sale at 2 for 3 bucks, and in this heat, I find myself madly craving fruit. Also I need kitty litter, because every time I go to the john, the litter box sidles over to me and starts yanking on my pants leg, saying, "Clean me! Please!" Also at some point I've got to do something about the ironing because if I have to go somewhere where they expect me to look halfway like a normal adult human being, I got nothin'. All my pants and skirts need ironing. (Yes, I KNOW I'm probably the last person in the world who irons. I don't care. Bad enough to look like an old tired broad...I don't need to look ike a SLOPPY old tired broad.) And I'd like to finish up the cleaning and reorganizing I've been doing in the kitchen, because it's almost there. So, a big day.
Last Friday was just lovely on the Boardwalk. It was another one of those weird shoots in terms of hours...van at 6:15 pm, then into costume and makeup and hair, then, for some strange reason, an extremely truncated meal, not like our usual bountiful spreads at ALL. Just some chicken, some fish, and some rice and a vegetable. Good food, you understand...just very little choice. Luckily, I'll eat anything that won't eat me first, so no problem. Odd, though. I guess it's because this was really just a fill-in shot, since we're at the end of the shooting season now. Meanwhile, of COURSE we were in winter clothes, and of COURSE we were dying of the heat. Ugh. We finished up around 2 am...I got home around 3 and dove immediately into an ice cold beer.
The reason I want/need to get a lot done today is that I'm off on a marathon tomorrow. The parents of the aforementioned 2 year are throwing him a birthday party tomorrow, which also happens to be Sarah's birthday. So it's going to be a LONG day...the baby party from 3 to 7, and then barhopping with Sarah...followed immediately by a car service home. And I can foresee that this will wipe out Sunday altogether, as I try valiantly to recover.
Ah ha! It looks like it might be clearing up a bit! Wish me luck...
Love, Wendy
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Nothing in Particular
Well, I'm actually only blogging because otherwise I will have to continue cleaning...which, for a change, I'm actually doing. Mainly because I haven't got any movie work, although I got a heads up from Boardwalk for an overnight on Friday which I hope happens, and the law firm is ignoring me altogether, so I've just been sitting around doing damn near nothing.
I've discovered the reason that I'm currently not sleeping well, by the way. Evidently that damn Chelsea apartment is still following me around (mentally, I mean). I seem to be desperately afraid that someone will come and inspect this apartment, because people did come in and out of the Chelsea place...caulking things for smoke, giving me smoke eradicator sprays, etc., etc., and I always felt they were spying on me. Which they probably were. This feeling is still in the back of my head, evidently...and it's taken me this long to track it down and isolate it so I can do something about it. The something I'm doing, obviously is cleaning. And no, I can't see any possibility that anybody around here is going to come and inspect my apartment or anything else...it's just my weird brain. And there's no reason I can't clean the damn place...one bathroom, one bedroom, one kitchen, one living room. So I'm doing it, in the hope I'll sleep better. Brains are strange.
Meanwhile, I'm off to Chicago for a few days in October. My cousin Cathy and her husband Charlie are celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary, for God's sake. I was thinking about boycotting the whole thing because I'm STILL pissed at her about that hideous...truly, truly HIDEOUS...electric blue satin dress she made me wear, but I thought that would be mean spirited. However, I can't answer for myself if she has actual pictures of me in that thing. Anyway, I haven't been home in years, and I've got a lot of pals to see. It should be fun, and Chicago's gorgeous in October.
I had more fun watching the opening of the Olympics. The British really are flying insane. That notion of my beloved Queen parachuting into the Olympic stadium was more than worth the price of admission...and with James Bond, yet. I always knew she had a sense of humor. And I loved the totally batty number with the sick kids in hospital beds, with dancing doctors and nurses, Voldemort, Dementors, Mary Poppins (lots of them) and that bizarre giant baby. A tribute to the National Health Service. Of COURSE. Naturally. And next fall, I'm going to London, my favorite place in the world, come hell or high water. I wanted to go this year, but the combination of the Queen's Jubilee AND the Olympics defeated me. Imagine trying to get a hotel room. Or a flight. Or any other damn thing.
Meanwhile, my kitchen is almost done...I actually organized the cabinets into something more logical. I'm quite proud of myself. When I moved in, I naturally (it being close to Christmas) just threw things into cabinets, which ended me up with the food stuck right next to the stove, where it shouldn't be. So I've fixed that, and put the things I rarely use on high shelves, and cleaned the stove (oh, all right, the top of the stove...let's not get carried away, shall we?), cleaned off the counters, and I'm quite proud of myself. Now I'm going to mop the floor and call it a day. I'll attack the bathroom tomorrow.
Love, Wendy
I've discovered the reason that I'm currently not sleeping well, by the way. Evidently that damn Chelsea apartment is still following me around (mentally, I mean). I seem to be desperately afraid that someone will come and inspect this apartment, because people did come in and out of the Chelsea place...caulking things for smoke, giving me smoke eradicator sprays, etc., etc., and I always felt they were spying on me. Which they probably were. This feeling is still in the back of my head, evidently...and it's taken me this long to track it down and isolate it so I can do something about it. The something I'm doing, obviously is cleaning. And no, I can't see any possibility that anybody around here is going to come and inspect my apartment or anything else...it's just my weird brain. And there's no reason I can't clean the damn place...one bathroom, one bedroom, one kitchen, one living room. So I'm doing it, in the hope I'll sleep better. Brains are strange.
Meanwhile, I'm off to Chicago for a few days in October. My cousin Cathy and her husband Charlie are celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary, for God's sake. I was thinking about boycotting the whole thing because I'm STILL pissed at her about that hideous...truly, truly HIDEOUS...electric blue satin dress she made me wear, but I thought that would be mean spirited. However, I can't answer for myself if she has actual pictures of me in that thing. Anyway, I haven't been home in years, and I've got a lot of pals to see. It should be fun, and Chicago's gorgeous in October.
I had more fun watching the opening of the Olympics. The British really are flying insane. That notion of my beloved Queen parachuting into the Olympic stadium was more than worth the price of admission...and with James Bond, yet. I always knew she had a sense of humor. And I loved the totally batty number with the sick kids in hospital beds, with dancing doctors and nurses, Voldemort, Dementors, Mary Poppins (lots of them) and that bizarre giant baby. A tribute to the National Health Service. Of COURSE. Naturally. And next fall, I'm going to London, my favorite place in the world, come hell or high water. I wanted to go this year, but the combination of the Queen's Jubilee AND the Olympics defeated me. Imagine trying to get a hotel room. Or a flight. Or any other damn thing.
Meanwhile, my kitchen is almost done...I actually organized the cabinets into something more logical. I'm quite proud of myself. When I moved in, I naturally (it being close to Christmas) just threw things into cabinets, which ended me up with the food stuck right next to the stove, where it shouldn't be. So I've fixed that, and put the things I rarely use on high shelves, and cleaned the stove (oh, all right, the top of the stove...let's not get carried away, shall we?), cleaned off the counters, and I'm quite proud of myself. Now I'm going to mop the floor and call it a day. I'll attack the bathroom tomorrow.
Love, Wendy
Thursday, July 19, 2012
You Can Always Move or, Who Died And Made You King?
I am getting increasingly annoyed at the newspaper stories about people complaining about the high noise level around their apartments.
Admittedly, I am a person who happens to love noise. I am perfectly capable of tuning it out, and I can sleep through a nuclear war, so it's not on my list of things to complain about. When I was apartment hunting, I kept having to explain this over and over to real estate people, who took one look at me and said, "You'll want a nice, quiet place." No. No, I won't. A nice quiet place would make me absolutely crazy. I live alone, and I spend a lot of time alone, basically out of choice...I'm quite fond of my own company. But I like to know that life is going on around me. Right now I have a yappy dog who lives on my floor (I just heard him in the hall making a few remarks), and a gent whom I think is next door to me who plays the drums at midnight. This is just fine with me. As are the large family parties that occasionally take place down the hall. I think this is great...it makes me feel at home.
I do, however, know that there are a lot of people who just hate this sort of thing, and that's their prerogative. Who said we should all be alike? The only thing I ask them to do is THINK ABOUT IT BEFORE YOU MOVE, for God's sake.
There was a story in the paper today or yesterday about a building where the residents are up in arms about a rooftop party that goes on next door to them. These people moved into an apartment on Eighth Street in Greenwich Village, which is a large street that runs straight across town and contains a whole lot of restaurants and bars and shops and things. And on Saturday night traffic tends to jam up on it and horns honk. Did it not occur to these people that if they're living on a street like this they are not living in a gated suburban community? Same with people who move in above a bar. Did it somehow escape their attention that there was a bar right next door to the door they were walking into to see that apartment? Did they think somehow that the bar would obligingly lower its noise level because they were now in residence?
Look, if you want to live right in the middle of things, you're going to have noise. If you don't like noise, find another street to live on. There are lots of nice quiet streets in New York, honest.
Now, if you've been living in a nice quiet apartment for a while and they decide to open a bar right under you, that's a different problem. Now you do have a basis for complaint. But NOT if they were there first. Sheesh.
Love, Wendy (who has her radio going and is happily listening to that nice dog, too)
Admittedly, I am a person who happens to love noise. I am perfectly capable of tuning it out, and I can sleep through a nuclear war, so it's not on my list of things to complain about. When I was apartment hunting, I kept having to explain this over and over to real estate people, who took one look at me and said, "You'll want a nice, quiet place." No. No, I won't. A nice quiet place would make me absolutely crazy. I live alone, and I spend a lot of time alone, basically out of choice...I'm quite fond of my own company. But I like to know that life is going on around me. Right now I have a yappy dog who lives on my floor (I just heard him in the hall making a few remarks), and a gent whom I think is next door to me who plays the drums at midnight. This is just fine with me. As are the large family parties that occasionally take place down the hall. I think this is great...it makes me feel at home.
I do, however, know that there are a lot of people who just hate this sort of thing, and that's their prerogative. Who said we should all be alike? The only thing I ask them to do is THINK ABOUT IT BEFORE YOU MOVE, for God's sake.
There was a story in the paper today or yesterday about a building where the residents are up in arms about a rooftop party that goes on next door to them. These people moved into an apartment on Eighth Street in Greenwich Village, which is a large street that runs straight across town and contains a whole lot of restaurants and bars and shops and things. And on Saturday night traffic tends to jam up on it and horns honk. Did it not occur to these people that if they're living on a street like this they are not living in a gated suburban community? Same with people who move in above a bar. Did it somehow escape their attention that there was a bar right next door to the door they were walking into to see that apartment? Did they think somehow that the bar would obligingly lower its noise level because they were now in residence?
Look, if you want to live right in the middle of things, you're going to have noise. If you don't like noise, find another street to live on. There are lots of nice quiet streets in New York, honest.
Now, if you've been living in a nice quiet apartment for a while and they decide to open a bar right under you, that's a different problem. Now you do have a basis for complaint. But NOT if they were there first. Sheesh.
Love, Wendy (who has her radio going and is happily listening to that nice dog, too)
Sunday, July 15, 2012
Reprising My Famous Role as The Wicked Witch of the West by Melting
By which you may gather that, yes, I did play the Wicked Witch many years back, and yes, the temperature being 95 or so, I was back on the Boardwalk for a winter shoot on Friday.
And boy, was I ready for the Boardwalk. I spent damn near the whole week with the lawyer, and I can't even begin to tell you how much that man is getting on my nerves. I mean, a day or two, or even three, every now and then is fine, but he seems to be consuming WAY too much of my time at the moment. However, I must remind myself that it's A. only six hours a day (actually seven hours, but there's lunch) and B. I do get paid, although not nearly enough. Money is a GOOD THING. Just ask Martha Stewart.
But then on Friday I got to go to the Boardwalk for an odd little call. We weren't called for the van until 12:15 pm, so I figured we'd go into the night. This was slightly annoying because my favorite band was playing at the Bistro, and I was beginning to get anxious text messages from the bar personnel as to whether I'd make it, which I thought was cute. Everybody knows how much I love my band. I even got one from Trish the bartender announcing that my seat at the bar was reserved, and sure enough, when I got there, there was a seat for me...with a Reserved card on the bar. I loved it.
However, I had resigned myself to missing the band for once because I knew we were doing two scenes, and by dinner time (around 7 pm) we were just breaking to change into spring instead of winter clothes (i.e., take off the heavy coat, put on the sweater, change to a straw hat from a felt hat) and eat...when all of a sudden me and Joe (a cohort of mine) were told that we were wrapped. The reason was that both Joe and I are heavily featured in this episode...it's the one where I'm toothless...and the next shot would have brought us way too close to the action of the scene where we would have been recognizable. Which would have been okay, except that we were were supposed to be in Atlantic City, and we'd both just been featured in Chicago...in the same time frame. This was fine, except that we would have had to sit around in holding until everybody else was wrapped at 10:30 in order to get back to the city (the set is in a transportation desert in terms of subways and buses). However, turns out that Joe had driven to the set that day and even though he lives in New Jersey, he was driving into the city for some reason. This was fine with me. It's not that I wouldn't have welcomed the extra money, but sitting around in holding reading a book for three hours or so isn't my idea of fun, and it wouldn't have resulted in much more than another say, 45 bucks on the paycheck...I can do without 45 bucks. So I got to the bar in time to claim my Reserved seat and see my band, and everything in the garden was lovely...although I really, REALLY hope we've stopped shooting winter. Two days of rivers of sweat is MORE than enough.
I have done almost nothing all day except read the papers, but I did actually manage to get some WD-40 on my sticky windows. It seems to be working, but of course in the process of getting them open so I could use the stuff, I managed to pull something in my back. Let's just hope that it really does work, because while I love my air conditioning, I don't want it on all the time...every now and then I like a little fresh New York City air. (You have to realize what a total city kid I am...I go out to the country and the air makes me cough all the time. I think it's the lack of exhaust fumes.)
Now I am sitting here cursing New York City's capricious weather. Damn it, they PROMISED me thunderstorms. They are STILL promising me thunderstorms, Absolutely nothing is happening and there's not a cloud in the sky. It's just NOT FAIR. Growl.
Love, Wendy
And boy, was I ready for the Boardwalk. I spent damn near the whole week with the lawyer, and I can't even begin to tell you how much that man is getting on my nerves. I mean, a day or two, or even three, every now and then is fine, but he seems to be consuming WAY too much of my time at the moment. However, I must remind myself that it's A. only six hours a day (actually seven hours, but there's lunch) and B. I do get paid, although not nearly enough. Money is a GOOD THING. Just ask Martha Stewart.
But then on Friday I got to go to the Boardwalk for an odd little call. We weren't called for the van until 12:15 pm, so I figured we'd go into the night. This was slightly annoying because my favorite band was playing at the Bistro, and I was beginning to get anxious text messages from the bar personnel as to whether I'd make it, which I thought was cute. Everybody knows how much I love my band. I even got one from Trish the bartender announcing that my seat at the bar was reserved, and sure enough, when I got there, there was a seat for me...with a Reserved card on the bar. I loved it.
However, I had resigned myself to missing the band for once because I knew we were doing two scenes, and by dinner time (around 7 pm) we were just breaking to change into spring instead of winter clothes (i.e., take off the heavy coat, put on the sweater, change to a straw hat from a felt hat) and eat...when all of a sudden me and Joe (a cohort of mine) were told that we were wrapped. The reason was that both Joe and I are heavily featured in this episode...it's the one where I'm toothless...and the next shot would have brought us way too close to the action of the scene where we would have been recognizable. Which would have been okay, except that we were were supposed to be in Atlantic City, and we'd both just been featured in Chicago...in the same time frame. This was fine, except that we would have had to sit around in holding until everybody else was wrapped at 10:30 in order to get back to the city (the set is in a transportation desert in terms of subways and buses). However, turns out that Joe had driven to the set that day and even though he lives in New Jersey, he was driving into the city for some reason. This was fine with me. It's not that I wouldn't have welcomed the extra money, but sitting around in holding reading a book for three hours or so isn't my idea of fun, and it wouldn't have resulted in much more than another say, 45 bucks on the paycheck...I can do without 45 bucks. So I got to the bar in time to claim my Reserved seat and see my band, and everything in the garden was lovely...although I really, REALLY hope we've stopped shooting winter. Two days of rivers of sweat is MORE than enough.
I have done almost nothing all day except read the papers, but I did actually manage to get some WD-40 on my sticky windows. It seems to be working, but of course in the process of getting them open so I could use the stuff, I managed to pull something in my back. Let's just hope that it really does work, because while I love my air conditioning, I don't want it on all the time...every now and then I like a little fresh New York City air. (You have to realize what a total city kid I am...I go out to the country and the air makes me cough all the time. I think it's the lack of exhaust fumes.)
Now I am sitting here cursing New York City's capricious weather. Damn it, they PROMISED me thunderstorms. They are STILL promising me thunderstorms, Absolutely nothing is happening and there's not a cloud in the sky. It's just NOT FAIR. Growl.
Love, Wendy
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
A Wedding!
No, no, NOT mine. I assure you, twice was more than enough. No, these were the nuptials of one of the gals who works at the Bistro, and she had the reception at the Bistro and was kind enough to invite all the regulars. Of course, this was sort of making a virtue out of necessity, since the owner of the Bistro is deeply opposed to closing the bar for private parties...if you want to have a gathering there, you just have various people wandering in for a drink. However, they're kept away from the hors d'oeuvres and whatever free drink may be around, so it works out.
The bride threw together the wedding (they ran down to City Hall, I'm pretty sure) in about two weeks (no, I don't know why) and I must say, she did a hell of a job in so little time. Decorated tables, wedding favors, adorable little bridesmaids, and her sister, whom I think must have been the maid of honor, in an astonishing outfit involving a silver sequined bra top and silver brocade skin tight more or less skirt...mostly less. The bride herself wore something I wouldn't go near if you paid me, involving rhinestone beading, a large pouffy skirt with more rhinestones all over it, and a laced back...but in fact, it suited her and she looked lovely. And the groom is a handsome guy who was wearing a white linen suit.
Anyway, a good time was had by all, including, one presumes, the old guy with the cane who sat out front at one of the tables all night eating, drinking, and clutching his cane (NOT a member of the wedding group), until he started to pass out and some kind Samaritan enlivened the wedding no end by calling for an ambulance. So we have the wedding going on inside and the fire engine and the ambulance outside...welcome to a Greenwich Village wedding! I hasten to add that the old gent was moving more or less on his own when they strapped him in a wheelchair for the ride to the hospital, so presumably he was fine when he sobered up a bit.
Meanwhile I'm still stuck with the damn law firm...I was there yesterday and I'll be there tomorrow and Friday, unless I get lucky and someone wants me for some REAL work.
I was going to clean house today, which worked out as well as most of my plans to clean house do...i.e., I took a nap until the feeling passed. However, the kids (Sarah and boyfriend Adrian) have promised me that they're coming over to move furniture next week, so maybe I can at least get that done. Of course, I had to promise to come and actually sing at Sarah's Sunday night karaoke gig...you know she needs help getting an audience if she's actually ASKING me to sing. I had high hopes of fucking up her brain entirely by singing the worst rap song I could dig up on the internet, but they're all so uniformly hideous that I figured I couldn't possibly. It's really hard to sing when you're gagging. And I know this because I was once doing musical summer stock when the entire cast came down with stomach flu...actually dancing was a real trip, too. So maybe I'll just do Janis Joplin.
I have finally unpacked my brand new sewing machine. It is GORGEOUS, but I'm slightly afraid of it. I learned to sew on the one we had at home, which was of roughly 1920s vintage, so tomorrow I'm going to get some cheap fabric and after the law firm, I'll sit down with the manual and figure this new baby out. Then I shall make myself something...probably a skirt, just to get my hand back in. I used to be absolutely fearless...you know, lined jackets, pleats, Shakespearean costumes, but it's been a while. Best to start small. Also, I haven't used a pattern in a while...my sewing has been confined to cushion covers, Roman togas (production of Antigone), and capes (Halloween costume for Sarah), which anybody who can draw a circle can do. Oh, cool! In order to have room to lay out a pattern and actually sew things, I'm going to HAVE to clean house! Yay!
Love, Wendy
The bride threw together the wedding (they ran down to City Hall, I'm pretty sure) in about two weeks (no, I don't know why) and I must say, she did a hell of a job in so little time. Decorated tables, wedding favors, adorable little bridesmaids, and her sister, whom I think must have been the maid of honor, in an astonishing outfit involving a silver sequined bra top and silver brocade skin tight more or less skirt...mostly less. The bride herself wore something I wouldn't go near if you paid me, involving rhinestone beading, a large pouffy skirt with more rhinestones all over it, and a laced back...but in fact, it suited her and she looked lovely. And the groom is a handsome guy who was wearing a white linen suit.
Anyway, a good time was had by all, including, one presumes, the old guy with the cane who sat out front at one of the tables all night eating, drinking, and clutching his cane (NOT a member of the wedding group), until he started to pass out and some kind Samaritan enlivened the wedding no end by calling for an ambulance. So we have the wedding going on inside and the fire engine and the ambulance outside...welcome to a Greenwich Village wedding! I hasten to add that the old gent was moving more or less on his own when they strapped him in a wheelchair for the ride to the hospital, so presumably he was fine when he sobered up a bit.
Meanwhile I'm still stuck with the damn law firm...I was there yesterday and I'll be there tomorrow and Friday, unless I get lucky and someone wants me for some REAL work.
I was going to clean house today, which worked out as well as most of my plans to clean house do...i.e., I took a nap until the feeling passed. However, the kids (Sarah and boyfriend Adrian) have promised me that they're coming over to move furniture next week, so maybe I can at least get that done. Of course, I had to promise to come and actually sing at Sarah's Sunday night karaoke gig...you know she needs help getting an audience if she's actually ASKING me to sing. I had high hopes of fucking up her brain entirely by singing the worst rap song I could dig up on the internet, but they're all so uniformly hideous that I figured I couldn't possibly. It's really hard to sing when you're gagging. And I know this because I was once doing musical summer stock when the entire cast came down with stomach flu...actually dancing was a real trip, too. So maybe I'll just do Janis Joplin.
I have finally unpacked my brand new sewing machine. It is GORGEOUS, but I'm slightly afraid of it. I learned to sew on the one we had at home, which was of roughly 1920s vintage, so tomorrow I'm going to get some cheap fabric and after the law firm, I'll sit down with the manual and figure this new baby out. Then I shall make myself something...probably a skirt, just to get my hand back in. I used to be absolutely fearless...you know, lined jackets, pleats, Shakespearean costumes, but it's been a while. Best to start small. Also, I haven't used a pattern in a while...my sewing has been confined to cushion covers, Roman togas (production of Antigone), and capes (Halloween costume for Sarah), which anybody who can draw a circle can do. Oh, cool! In order to have room to lay out a pattern and actually sew things, I'm going to HAVE to clean house! Yay!
Love, Wendy
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