The Wizard of Oz

Who is running this show? Is there a man behind the curtain, and if so, why does he yank my levers like that? I mean, comon'. I got a heart and some brains, a bit of nerve too but it would be nice if they all worked together for a common goal instead of making me show up like the frazzled, frayed and floppy scarecrow that I was today.

Let's take this further. Shakespeare had something with that  all the worlds a stage bit. And yep, I am merely a player. Today I played the role of the angry, scowlee Woman #3 who is irrational and frustrated with all aspects of reality and shakes her fist alot. And my son of course plays the 'mewling infant' and frankly when I'm deep into that character I do feel badly for the tiny dude. Not that he was mistreated mind you, not the case.

But today was not so much filled with song and smiles. Oh but wait, to my credit I did sing "Over the Rainbow" to mr. tiny face this morning. Which makes this post all the more aptly named. But for the rest of the day it was a little more, 'How about a nap dude?'and 'Seriously? Eat again?'. My dear grandmother recommends going out of doors when this type of mood strikes and since I know she is regular reader (how great is that?) I will say for the record I thought. "I should go outside". And so Granny, I thought it. And well, we did see outside on the way to the car to go see a woman about a giant dinosaur costume. Because the mission is now pretty much full speed short film and I need a giant costume, basically a mascot sized dinosaur costume for this little movie. Something along these lines...

 

So we'll see if this kind of thing can be procured for less than 1200 dollars that this particular dino is pulling down. That would be nice since that number soars way out of our budget range. Does the fact that we need such a thing make you curious about our short film? Gooood.

Tonight when the BHB went to sleep and the cute hubs came home the relief came too. I think the reality is I got spoiled rotten by the double parent situation that went on there for 2 solid weeks on the trip. I know that soon enough we'll have some help because soon enough I'll be booked on a big job and soon enough that kid will be like 6 and off to school so believe me I know that I need to enjoy his ridiculous cuteness and drop my bad 'Woman #3' attitude. She's such a bit player and not important to this scene.

This photo documents a nap that sent me driving around town in order to make sure to preserve. It was a chunky 1.5 hour nap so perhaps worth the gas? I wasn't driving the whole time, I stopped and hung out in a parking lot at Whole Foods waiting for him to awake so we could go gather food for dinner. I will say that I did get to observe the sunset warm-up with silhouette-ee palm trees and pastel streaked skies during that time. And notice the sweet breeze moving through the trees. And take a deep breath or two.

So I guess I did make it outside today. But I was a few skips shy of the yellow brick road.

Reality Bites

Home. A mix of sensations as we return from the long journey. Relief to have a sturdy changing table instead of the precarious balancing act of changing pad atop various luggage pieces in the back of the Prius. Please to witness.

Relief to see the brown dog (especially now since he's without his big old Elizabethian collar!) Relief to be in our comfy bed. And bhb to be in his own bed too.

But alot of ah well's too...

I feel sad to loose that day-to-day-what-is-next, it's-all-new and especially the every meal is something pretty darn delicious and likely dairy and wheat based. I suspect my body is excited to see about some veg and hiking again but (sniff) I'm going to miss you scone.

I think the hardest adjustment involved in a homecoming is all of the crap that you got to leave sitting on the desk and on kitchen counter and especially on all of the mental shelves that get alerted to your arrival the moment your plane lands or the car hits city limits. All of the to-do's, don't forget's and in my case the 'why has it taken 2 months to get to Target to get the springy rod thing for the bathroom drapes?' kinda thinking. I can tell you that springee rod didn't get one iota of my time for two weeks and now it along with a hundred other stupid tiny things are sitting on my head again like one of those funny little marmots.

And BB (before Baby) that list was long and hard. Now? That list is long and staying long not getting touched. Tomorrow we'll be reading our new favorite book 'Is Your Mama a Llama?' and I'll look up in that mirthful way, look past the dog shedding in my direction, and admire the way the curtain is sorta perched on the window instead of hanging. And my choices are? Pretty much suck it up.

But we do have a new adventure that got rolling today that is pretty great. And likely to kick my ass and make for some good blog fun for any of y'all playing along.

Yes, I'm talking about the short film. Two friends have graciously offered their time to help us produce this thing. (ok well to be clear I begged and I'm a pest) but end of day it's a truly kind and magnanimous act to help us since even though I'm a damn good director,  I'm only a really mediocre producer and I'm producing along with them. But! Since I feel massive pressure to stay up and on top of it so as to not waste their time I actually think it might work. Think. Hope. Think. Hope and Hope.

Let's refer to them going forward as the wonder twins. If they want me to reveal their secret identity, they can say so. But we met today and kicked off the process. T-minus two months and counting to gather a huge force of people to practically but-not-totally-but-pretty-much-donate their time to help, actors (preferably a famous one or two) to commit a bunch of lines to memory, places to trust us to shoot and not hurt the space we inhabit, equipment to pull out of thin air and just a melange of all around magic has to occur. I truly don't know how we're going to pull off this shoot - to do it properly we should have literally 10x the money we do.

Deep breath. So here's my first question to you guys. Anyone know any of the famous dudes on this list? Some are just stoopid famous and would likely never come near our set but you know what? Life is crazy and magical and who the hell knows, right? And so we're working that 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon here, if you've got a degree or two and want to share that connection, oh please do. Please email me at jane at turtledreams dot net.

It's a good script, it really is.

Peter Krause
Ron Livingston
Billy Crudup
Eddie Jemison
Justin Kirk

Richard Jenkins
Tony Shalhoub
Christopher Lloyd
Ian Holm
Philip Seymour Hoffman
Campbell Scott
Stanley Tucci
Morgan Freeman
Scott Adsit
Kevin Nealon
Kevin Bacon (Bacon number 0).

But before we get too excited about the new adventure, let's take a moment to look back at the one that just commenced. A few faves out of the literal 600 pictures we took:

The night we left...

Bear down.

 

I think this is one of the two of us is one of those shots that will live on. Not sure why.

Elf got loose among the giant redwoods.

This trip was given to us courtesy of 'family bonding' funds from California State. And while you wonder why we accept money from our broke-ass state, I must say family bonding it truly was.

The Oregon Trail

Most hotels offer wifi now, and godblessthem for it. My eyes are all overexposed from the screen-light causing me to squint at these words. Thank goodness for the keyboard back-lighting as I sit here typing in the pitch dark next to snoring baby and hubs.

Hello from the Oregon coast! Or actually, factually, we are now on the northern California coast in Crescent City which sits right above the Redwood forest. But we spent the last two days more or less on the Oregon coast and boy was it yummy. In this moment I hear a lighthouse horn that should be more romantic sounding than it is and the churning humming of the mini-fridge that makes maxi-mum noise but that makes it sound bad but wait! I misrepresent. I'm peaceful, I'm content and actually a little sleepy from a sunburn thanks to an amazing hike through white dunes (see pic to right). But the main feeling running me now is that I couldn't be further from home.

We've been gone so long away from the smoke and madness of LA and in the meantime have gotten all woo-d by the beauty of the pacific northwest. If I hadn't already lived here before and felt the unrelenting sprinkling rain, low-flying gray and bone-chilling cold of the winters we would have already put in an urgent call to a moving company to pack our place. But September is Chamber of Commerce time for Oregon and Washington and I WON"T BE FOOLED DAMMIT! As tempting as it is. And do you want to know why this land is so damn delicious? It's the trees.

On the drive up we found ourselves going into the evenings more than once and the night we drove into Ashland well past the big-headed baby's bedtime. Thankfully he'd drifted off to some quality sleep in his car chair (aka the bucket) and I sat beside him in the backseat as we drove along in silence through the dense siskiyou trees. Now I'm going to risk you guys thinking I am nuts (oh really Jane? Like this is new?) but I am telling you these trees were talking to me. Or better said, stroking the side of my face with their gorgeous green, cool softness. Stoic and statuesque, they loved me from rooted solidarity in the dark. The moon was amping up the magic by providing back-lighting and ghostly suggestions.

Oh lawd I tried getting all poetic on you people. So sorry, but... don't hold back...do you think I have a future?

Anyway. I'm just here to tell you that if you take the 101 South through Oregon you will become a conservationist and get better at only using 3 squares of toilet paper or okay 4 but no more than 5 for a special day and only 1/2 a paper napkin with your turkey sandwich and god forbid ever print anything again. It's devastating to realize that we are all such giant consumers of these amazing creatures. You can see in this picture the thick gorgeous fringe of trees on the roadside. But what you can't see is that right behind them more often than not is nothing. Speeding along you can glimpse through the fringe a graveyard of churned up earth where trees used to be. It's land chunked out by clear-cutting or perhaps you'll see a little tiny army of baby trees on their way up.

I couldn't help but think of those one walled sets that you see on backlots in hollywood. It's a great looking storefront or what-have-you but it's literally one wall with empty nothingness behind it. I think these NW Chamber of Commerce troublemakers keep that one or two layers of trees by the 101 so we don't see the insidious tree-killing going on the back room.

What's a tourist to do. The world is so full of troubles but at least we got to eat ice-cream at Tillamook creamery, right? And while this trip has been such a reprieve from the banality of it all and I will readily admit magical Northwest has soothed my singed little self, it's best to tell you the whole truth. While I started this post with a big ol dose of contentment and yum we should probably round out those emotions with some serious paper guilt and a little bit of sadness for the trees.

Road Trip

Or a better name for this would be head trip. But let’s start at the beginning, shall we?

As you likely know, LA is burning. Again. And if you don’t live in LA you’re probably thinking. 'Whatev’s'. And that’s fair. When you have floods that take out all of your cows and tract housing I think, 'Aww. That sucks'. And then proceed to order my venti decaf cappuccino and obsess over how they never get the foam right instead of doing the right thing and sending dollars over the internet to your flooded plains. So I get it.

But the burning hill-line (like skyline) was so unnerving to me this time around. And I attribute that to my new status as protector-provider-procreator-person. And as that person, I, along with my teammate (aka the dad, hubs, cute husband) decided that the proper thing to do when you can see flames from your house is run. Sure the flames were 10 miles away and really the likelihood of them getting to our particular place of residence was pretty darn low. Yet I still got a new sticky sensation of unease that sent us packing. Of course that sticky sensation might have come from how freakin’ hot it was. But I’m talking about something else.

Parenthood has me right out on the precarious edge of reason and normalcy. I’ve heard friends reference this in the past and of course I just couldn’t understand it. When I was pregnant at a Christmas party last year (you know, cute pregnant? Not cankles and giant-face pregnant. That came later) my step-brother said to me, ‘Get ready to be terrified all the time’. Huh, I thought. This big guy is afraid? How cute. But yep, now I get it. It’s like a combination of a constant low-level adrenaline buzz spiked with a splash of irrational fear the imminent, untimely exit for my immediate family unit as well as everyone else I hold dear. How many times a night do I check to see if the wee one is breathing? Shoot this week I woke up cute hubs worried that he wasn’t breathing. I don’t know if this gut-bomb of anxiety diminishes over time, but here at almost five months in I’m still on the razor’s edge.

Plus the smoke was really bad. Here is a picture I shot last Saturday as the fire really kicked into gear.

Ominous, right? The real trouble came when our AC units were not doing their job of closing the vent and our place was filling with smoke. With watering eyes and hurting lungs I turned to our DEAR dear friends who had just came down from SF on Saturday to stay with us and meet the BHB and said. “We gotta go”. My lungs are big and they hurt, this is clearly not okay for the tiny-lunged dude. Thank god they not only understood, but they also gave us the key to their place is SF. So we home swapped. Not as interesting as wife swapping but just as weird.
Or it sure felt weird when we were driving out of town…did we just leave some of our BF’s ever in our smoky house? Did we just dump our sweet still-cone-headed dog on them to care for? Are we really passing up a flight to Seattle in favor of driving all the way there with a five month old? I ask you. Now that is nuts.

Unfortunately the ominous feeling of those towers of smoke and the smell of national forest burning didn’t fade when the image left our rear view mirror.

That dark feeling of doom trailed us north on 1-5 and didn’t actually shake off until we arrived in Seattle four days later. The trip was long and strange, we took it really slow and only did about 5 hours worth of driving per day – not that we only drove five hours mind you. More like eight - which is a heck of a lot of time to think.

The good news is that the big-headed-baby has been an unbelievable pleasure of a road-trip buddy. On the way up he was just a sweet, cooing, drooling, smiling, foot-waving rockstar. We rotated sitting in the back having face time with him with his adorable grin and then tried to have a little grown-up time in the front when he napped. The miles rolled by and the trees got bigger, our car dirtier and the baby farts funnier.


But we finally made it. Today we’re in Seattle which is our previous home. It’s beautiful here. There is nothing like early September in Seattle, it’s pretty much ideal.

I’m feeling better being around many dear friends but I am told by the same dear friends that the new fear-factor running my show doesn’t go away. Sure the first year is precarious and there’s lots to worry about, but it’s only just begun.

Anyone have any advice for coping mechanisms for this new cocktail of feelings? I think the recipe is part fear, part anxiety, largely overwhelming, heartbreaking love that is shaken And stirred. Do tell if you’ve found any chasers. Oh and despite my fun with the martini analogy here since I don’t drink booze anymore please don’t tease me with how you get it done that way. Please tell the other ways, if they exist…

Broadcast News

Friends, this post was written Saturday night but not completed due to a fleeing from LA that occurred. More on the Escape from LA and subsequent fun road trip in the next installment...!

8/29/2009
What a weird day in LA.

The smoke from the 'Station Fire' - which is not far at all from where I live, was whooshing into the sky in a way that was at once beautiful and tragic. And it was visible from all over town and even 50 miles away. I was looking at the billowing beauty and wondering about the event when I suddenly got this feeling of flee'ing and panic. Perhaps I tuned into the squirrels and birds and other little creatures who were trying to find their way out? Sometimes my psychic powers suck.

It makes me think of the book "I Am a Bunny" that I my dear friend gave me that I now read incessantly for the big-headed baby.  What about Nicolas the bunny that lives in a hollow tree? Crap! All of those name-less faceless bunnies. Owwwwch-eee, heart crushing sadness.

Tonight I went to the Emmy's. This was courtesty of the BHB who has in recent times become a champion go-to-sleeper and marriage-saver. While it was fancy and beautiful with the ladies in their sparkly dresses, it was also extremely depressing as each speech referenced the dying broadcast news industry and in particular 100's of jobs that were chopped that very weekend. I felt bad for them until they didn't give us the statue. I kid, I kid. But I think our PSA was too sub-tel. The one that won featured a little girl getting hit by a bike (for pedestrian safety) I about jumped out of my purty brown dress when they showed it. Here's ours for your viewing pleasure.

News of the fires broke into 30 Rock the other day. And I'm truly sorry about those fires, I am, but can I watch that terrible news at 11 please? There weren't evacuations yet, so may I see the madcap adventures of my fave show? I only watch TV like once a week but no escape for me. Instead I get to watch the gorgeous nighttime flames in black sky footage and worry about Nicholas the bunny and his friends. Not madcap. Not funny. Just damn sad.

And what about the fact that the station fire was no-where near civilization but when the rancho-expensive-homes-by-the-ocean-fire broke out they pulled resources from the gorgeous Angeles Forest to save those dopes and their marble bathrooms. And now that fire is totally out of control and heading toward 100's of homes that likely do not have marble anywhere, and are all evacuated. Ugh, what a terrible feeling to leave your home and not know if you'll have anything to go back to.

*Update, as you likely know...10,000 homes have been threatened and at this time and it's now historical in it's vast blackening and danger. Sunday the smoke was so bad in our home that we made like a bunny and headed out of our forest tree...

Signs

One of my BF's ever was my roommate for about eight months. That actually didn't go so well but thankfully the friendship survived it. She and I shared a love of looking for 'signs' from the universe, which some days I am totally tuned in to and other days you could land a flock of angels on my head who are delivering pdf instruction booklet's on how to live joyfully and have s-loads of cash but I'd be too busy watching dog videos on YouTube to get the message. My friend/roomie was always noting that there were planes going overhead right at a particular moment that related to her mental state and was also concerned because she heard sirens alot and wondered darkness it might be alluding to. My then boyfriend-now-husband thought it had something to do with the fact that we lived under a flightpath and three blocks from a hospital. Jeez, what a cynic.

So I was just sitting down to write this post about a recent event that we could easily categorize under 'sign' when I heard a little voice outside my front door. We have an impressively large front door, and due to the hot evening it was open. Apparently this very large door is very inviting to a little-voiced- completely-ineabriated women which is what I found when I shushed the yelling dog and peered out into the semi-darkness. Unfortunately the porch light was off but through the screen door (not security door mind you, this is a troubling fact) I witnessed a wobbly little blonde person with what I believe was a large bottle in each hand. We enjoyed the following conversation:

(bongo kicked it off)

bongo: Hey! Wtf are you doing on our porch! It's freakin 11pm lady. Hey!
drunk lady: Hi there. Nice doggy. Can I sit on your porch?
me: No sweetie, I'm sorry.
drunk lady: (indignant) Whaaaat? Really?
me: No, I can't have you out there I have a baby sleeping in here and this dog is going to keep barking...
my head: WTF! Why am I telling a crazy lady on my porch about my sleeping baby!?
drunk lady: (heading toward the chair) It's nice here.
me: I'm sorry, no you cannot.
my head: Is she wearing bunny ears?
bongo: Dammit! My porch! Hey!
drunk lady: (turning back toward the street) They call me tinkerbell!
me: That's great. Okay! Have a good night!
drunk lady: somethingelseverytraceyjordanfrom30rock
me: (swinging giant door shut) Have a good night!

So okay, that's an odd little scenario. And yes you bet it makes me grateful for my brown dog even though he looks drunk too with a lampshade on his head.

But here's the really weird thing. I was thinking about how I was going to link back here to talk about the recent sign I experienced...(please stay tuned, it's coming). And if you went back there, you can see why this is weird. And if you didn't, fine! I'll tell you. At the top of that post, (did you finally go that time?) is a picture of tinkerbell. Seriously! Is that nuts? Okay, I'm kinda freaked out.

Let's pause to illustrate a few points using photo evidence:

Giant door behind big dog head

above: Big headed baby and post-op pooch on the porch. I guess tinkerbell has it right, it's a great porch for hanging out...


Me looking all glam for a pregnant lady. Again, as large as I am, how big is that door? BHB was almost fully baked, this was the week before he showed up.


Ok! I'm finally getting to the story. So if you did follow one of my 45 links back to the Courage! Courage! post you probably read about how the hubs and I are making a movie. Starting with a short first, which is very billy bob uh-huh slingblade of us. And if you did read that simpy stuff about how a-scared I am about it, then you'll appreciate what happened. And if you did go back there, you should probably comment there so I know you did. Omg I'm annoying.

The feature is called Nov 13th. The short is called Nov 1st. I won't say much here but I will tell you that the story involves a vedic astrologer. One night hubs and I were talking about said movie and how we need a website for it. So I decided to go search an image for the background of the site. I typed in 'Vedic Astrology Chart' and used google images. I find a few, nothing thrills me until I scroll down and find this one.

So if you just went there you might have noticed what I next got very excited about. Try it, go to that image, and hit 'save as'. Tell me what happens.

Right? Isn't that crazy? Here is what I saw:

I literally almost threw my laptop out of my lap from the shock of it. How! What! Why is this image called "Nov_13_chart.gif". So for those of you reading late night with blurry eyes here is just a reminder: Our feature is called Nov 13th. Seriously.

Upon further review I find that the image comes from another blog, an astrologer's blog. Big whut-whut to Juliana. I scrolled through in search of the answer, and apparently she created this chart for a full moon last Nov 13th, 2008.

So can I get an amen on the freaky-deaky nature of this event? So is it a sign? Do we pretty much have to make this movie?

Tonight handsome husband and I had another meeting about the shoot. We've decided to make it a daily ritual to meet for 20 minutes to check-in on our progress. My current journal (which is being handily ignored in favor of this blog) has this on the cover "Anything you do everyday can open into the deepest spiritual place which is freedom". Rumi.

So, we are going to meet daily. And I'll keep y'all posted. Right now we're choosing between two long weekends to shoot the short. Either Nov 6-9 or Nov 13-16. That's pretty much a no-brainer, right?

The Science of Sleep

I'm holding my breath here tonight.

The little guy, see multiple pictures below to reference the guy of which I speak, went to sleep a few hours ago in the same fashion that I bragged about here. And this is night number three. (not in a row, but still....this week!)

I'm saying this very quietly here as to not jinx us.

(whispering) But...It's freakin' amazing! Right?

AND? Last night he didn't wake up until 5:15am. Asleep at 7:45 pm, awake at 5:15 am to eat, back to sleep til 8:15am. I'm not a mathe-ee person but I can tell you that is a DAMN long time.

Tonight I even tried really hard to f it up by staying out at a friend's house having deeeelicious turkey burgers off her grill which delayed his bedtime substantially. Basically started the go-to-bed-sweet-big-headed-baby routine at like 8:10pm instead of 7pm. But godbless him he did the same gentle, open-eyed, thumb in mouth roll over see ya later mom thing.

I LOVE HIM SO MUCH!!!

As I said before I hesitate to talk about these things due to my anxiety that by blatantly shooting off at the keyboard about it I may just be setting myself up for a big ol nightmare down the road. However, since this blog is quickly becoming his 'baby-book' I figured I better write about it so one dark day I can look back to my own reality and remember this day fondly.

Today, future Jane, is a good day. You will have another.

And in the spirit of the baby book concept, please find a short photo essay below - a sleep tribute. Starting at the very beginning...

peaceful on the 'billy bed'

tiny sweet face


plane trip @ 9 weeks - he slept like a star.

at first, car rides were nightmarish, wailing-fests...then he learned how to sleep in the bucket and life has been much sweeter since.


how terrifying is this bird?Anyone know of any sleep voodoo dance that I should do to keep this going?