MOVING AHEAD IN APRIL

For all my paucity of posts, I got a real live comment the other day!  So someone is reading.... So at the very least, I can keep the photos coming.... 

April 19:

So now I'm sort of cheating.  Because when we're writing, there's just nothing to take pictures of.  My computer screen?  Fast food bags?....  Yeah, you get the idea.  So some of this week's photos aren't quite synced up with their dates.  Oh well....  Here's Sabrina, happy after her successful choral competition, and about to head to Disneyland for the rest of the day.  What's not to smile about?



April 20:

For 4/20, I could have taken a picture of the panel discussion I attended at school on the problems of teenage drinking and drugs.  ("They're holding that on 4/20?!" many were heard to exclaim.)  But this was not just any 4/20.  This was 4/20/2011.... the day that SkyNet becomes self-aware and launches its attack against humanity.  So we were very reassured to find ourselves driving alongside a truck of liquid nitrogen.  Best to be prepared, I always say.



April 21: 

One of the nice things about finishing a script is that feeling of freedom.  You can do things you normally wouldn't take the time for.  And because you're about to be paid, you can afford them.  Like going out to a decadent breakfast.  Perhaps a decadent breakfast of cinnamon French toast with sautéed bananas, candied pecans, and ooey-gooey cinnamon sauce.



April 22:

Another thing you can do when you've finished a script is say to your daughter, "Hey, would you like to go buy an Easter dress?"



April 23:

I'm not sure where the kids' cute little Easter baskets are.  You know, the little green wicker ones with the stuffed lambs peeking over the edge.  Oh well.  Lee was in charge of buying Easter candy this year, and he never would have fit everything he bought into those tiny baskets.  I have a friend who, to her credit, puts books in her kids' Easter baskets.  For us, it's all Sees and Cadbury.



April 24:

Our church started celebrating Easter at the Hollywood Bowl a few years back, when we were under construction....  And now we're the only Easter service there (the sunrise service having sputtered out a couple of years ago due to lack of funding).  I absolutely love it.  I love it that there's no pressure to get dressed up -- I wore jeans this year.  There are still people in some amazing outfits with the huge hats, and that's fine, too.  I love getting there early to get a box seat, and sitting there eating bagels and lox as the morning starts to warm up.  I love seeing dozens and dozens of people I know on a festive occasion, and seeing them in a location where I would normally not expect to see a single person I know....  I just love the whole thing.



I'll be squeezing in a few more Easter pics this week!

MORE APRIL

I've felt as if posting my 365 photos here was redundant -- after all, the 365 Project posts them everyday on Facebook.  Or they did.  For some reason, Facebook has deleted the 365 app with no warning and no reason.  So suddenly these posts here matter somehow....

April 12:

On Sabrina's day off skiing last week, she wanted to go to the Mammoth outlet stores.  We ended up at the Coach store, taking advantage of the 75% sales.  The cute brown/gold/red bag is Sabrina's.  The sensible grey one is mine.  But I get to borrow hers!



April 13:

When Lee was a little boy, his mom would put him on the train in San Diego during the summers to go visit his dad in Thousand Oaks.  He always had a stop at the Fullerton train station.... and when we stopped for lunch at the Old Spaghetti Factory there, he recognized the building.  Eerie!



April 14:

Cory got to play a murderer in the one act he was cast in for the HW Playwrights' Festival.  Please don't say "typecasting."



April 15:

Sabrina's school choir when to a big competition/music festival down in Orange County.... and won every prize they could possibly win.  Pretty impressive for a middle school competing in a high school competition!.... To top it all off, they got invited to perform at Carnegie Hall!...  Somebody remind again why the public schools are cutting music out of their curriculum?



April 16:

Nothing says Palm Sunday like cute kids waving palm fronds.  Somewhere in this gang are Emma, Emily, Katie and other kids we love.  And just outside the frame are a whole lot of parents warning that a palm frond is not a weapon.



April 17:

Okay, fine, so he's a murderer, but at least he has some remorse.  Here's Cory in his last performance at the Playwrights Festival, agonizing...



More to come!

WHERE DID APRIL GO??

We delivered our script and headed to the mountains.  And I wanted to blog, but I was (a) deeply engrossed on a pair of books and (b) fighting a massive headache the whole time (I think I was allergic to something in our condo).  So, well, I just didn't.

And when we got back, we dove into yet another rewrite on this script (which I should be able to talk about in a month or so).  I want to talk about the books I read, and I will, as soon as we deliver the *next* draft of the script next week....

Meanwhile, here's some more pics!

March 29:

Cats fit in the windowsill, children fit in the snow....  Here is our Leia.  I am so happy she is nestled at the windowsill, because it means she isn't draped across my legs as I work, pinning me down so I don't dare get up.



March 30:

A sad little tree in Santa Monica.  There are days I feel like this.



March 31:

This is the restroom behind the Chipotle in Studio City.  Nice of them to let us know.



April 1:

This is the day we delivered our script, at 1:30 a.m., after a 19-hour straight writing binge.  So no wonder I was questioning my eyes when I walked past this....



April 2:

There's a little stretch in Studio City that has the real potential to become a "burger district."  Since there was a line at the new Umami Burger there, we walked down the block to The Counter.  My burger wasn't quite so photogenic (all grilled onions and dried cranberries), but here's Lee's.



April 3:

We got to Mammoth and checked in to our condo, only to find that the snow was higher than our 2nd floor windows on one side of the building!  This is the view from our bedroom window.  And as it turned out, one of our bedroom windows was broken.  So we got the chance to learn that an igloo really can be quite warm and toasty.



April 4: 

Lee and Sabrina at the top of the mountain... With the top-of-the-mountain sign close to buried under the 30' base of snow!



April 5:

From the top of the mountain to the top of California.  Mammoth is the 2nd highest mountain in CA.... and from the top, one can see Mt. Whitney, the tallest mountain.



April 6:

A little Bananagrams on a spring break evening.  I guess I didn't keep my columns as straight as I should have.  But seriously, what is wrong with the words "zipqua" and "renterdrip"?  We decided "renterdrip" is what happens when a renter breaks the plumbing and doesn't let the landlord know.  And Cory spent the rest of the week muttering things like, "For the love of zipqua!"



April 7:

I love it when the world goes black-and-white.  We got almost a foot of snow one night, and opened our balcony door to see this sight.



April 8: 

Our friends Eve and Jefferson on the top of the mountain with Sabrina.



April 9:

For Christmas, all the moms in our mother-daughter book group gave our daughters "Prudent Advice," a book of random advice a mom wrote to her newborn daughter.  And we all wrote our own comments throughout.  When we got together in April, our girls took turns reading our comments to each other.  Fun!



April 10:

My small group is sad to see Cheryl leave for a few months -- but happy for the reason:  She's getting married, then heading straight to the set of her movie being filmed.  Here's good-bye for the next few months.



April 11:

We had to power through the last draft of our script in two weeks.  Then we're told they need another draft, and could we have it in one week.  Oh my.  Lee immediately went out to buy donuts, which as everyone knows, is at the top of the list of approved writer fuel.  Notice that my donut is sitting right on my computer keyboard, as if to add a little extra power and zest to the script.



...And now I am ashamed to admit that I have missed a few days of photos.  Too much writing.  But I will post more, and I will finish this script, and I will have more to say....

A LITTLE MORE MARCH

Nothing makes me realize how little I have to say these days than coming over here to post something.  I'm just working on so many projects I can't really discuss at the moment, so maybe that's why I feel tongue-tied all around.  Or maybe I'm tired of talking about myself -- I don't even feel like complaining about AT&T, and believe me, I could do some complaining!  Or maybe it's Facebook.

But I do have some pictures!

March 21:

We bought flowers for our leading ladies at Living Room Musicals, but Velma left hers behind.  We are still enjoying them!



March 22:

Over at the 365project, where all these shots are posted, this is the least popular photo I have ever taken.  Which is probably emblematic of my life for these two weeks.  I have a script due on Friday, and I need fuel to keep going and finish it.



March 23:

And sometimes when one is stuck in the mode of I'm-writing-don't-talk-to-me-I'm-not-leaving-the-house, one relies on leftovers.  Here we have leftover turkey sandwiches and leftover lemon pepper pasta.  And that's the best I can do today.



March 24:

The entire film school at USC used to fit in this footprint.  Which is very hard to believe, given that this space is about the size of the courtyard in the new film school buildings.  (This pic was taken from the third floor of one of the three (so far) buildings of the school.)



March 25:

I don't mind it when phone companies build fake palm trees or fake pine trees to camouflage cell phone towers.  But a giant concrete pineapple?  Really?



March 26: 

Even though I'm still writing, I started cooking again.  Here, the back-engineered burger from "My Father's Office" in Santa Monica.  One of the best burgers in all of L.A., but we can't take our kids there because it's a bar, no one under 21 admitted.  Burger is topped with Gruyere and blue cheese, and with a mixture of onions, Worcestershire, vinegar, sugar, ketchup, bacon, and liquid smoke.  Yum.



March 27:

Time to upgrade the phones.  And though the iPhone 4 sounded tempting, that $49 deal from AT&T on the iPhone 3GS sounded pretty good, too.  So off we went to the AT&T store -- only to learn that they are either liars or utterly incompetent.  I had called two months ago to confirm which lines of ours were ready for upgrades -- and they gave me completely wrong information (and that wrong info, by the way, kept me paying for lines we're not using).  And, by the way, AT&T has blatantly lied to us before ("You don't want to go to Verizon, because AT&T is buying Verizon, it was just announced.")

When we talked to the manager of the AT&T store, he was more concerned about whether we appreciated the fact that he was trying to help us than with actually helping us.  ("I don't feel appreciated right now."  Seriously.)  After about half an hour of their total inability to straighten things out or to figure out why we were given absolutely wrong information earlier, we looked at each other and said, "Verizon?" 

So AT&T lost a longtime customer.  Here we are at the Apple Store with our new iPhone 4.  And we already had to call Verizon customer service (to change the number we were assigned).  They were a pleasure to deal with.



March 28:

The first official day of spring break.  What more does one need than a Wii, a controller, and a couch?



More to come... We finish a script Friday and head to the mountains Sunday....

MORE MARCH

Okay, some more pics while I think of something poignant or trenchant to say....

March 17:

The last week or so before Living Room Musicals is filled with laying down last minute music tracks, making last minute script corrections.... and writing down the music cues.  Saturday we did CHICAGO, so last week I spent hours and hours counting music out by the measure to make sure I knew were all the cues were.  Here's my script open to the trickiest song to cue:  "Cell Block Tango."



March 18: 

Friday we went to the Harvard-Westlake Film Festival.  Cory insisted it was being held at the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood.  No, I insisted.  It must be at one of the smaller, more modern theaters behind the Dome.  And then we walked into the Dome, and Cory got to say "I told you so."  The festival was terrific -- incredible work by high school filmmakers from all over California.  By the time we left, Cory was already making his plans to enter next year.



March 19:

We don't videotape Living Room Musicals.  We don't record it.  It's a one-time-only experience, shared only by the people in the room.  We don't photograph it, either.  But Sabrina grabbed my iPhone and snapped a few photos after we were done.  Here, a happy "Velma Kelly," triumphant and relieved after a wonderful performance.



March 20:

I showed this picture to Lee, and he said, "I didn't know your iPhone could take black and white photos."  It can't.  This is a color photo.  Taken from the door of the café at church in the middle of the weekend's rainstorm.



...More to come!

LIVING ROOM MUSICALS: CHICAGO

A couple of years ago, as Lee and I were watching Cory's middle school production of Fiddler on the Roof, we bemoaned the fact that once you're out of high school, unless you're a professional, you never get to be part of a musical again.

Why does it have to be that way, we wondered.  What if... what if we could invite a bunch of people over to our living room and just, you know, put on a musical?

Last night, we celebrated (that's the right word) our third Living Room Musical with a raucous and terrific performance of Chicago.  No audience -- everyone there plays a part.  No rehearsal -- just the script and music a couple of weeks in advance.  Talk about flying without a net!

Amateurs and professionals alike.  Writers and actors, students and teachers, teenagers and adults....  An amazing amount of talent and skill and preparation.  And one phenomenal performance -- Joel McCrary as Amos Hart singing "Mister Cellophane" -- that I felt incredibly privileged to witness.

I just run the music and cue the performers, so I get to see the whole thing.  It's such a treat!  I love seeing the joy of everyone there as they conquer their stage fright and fear of being underprepared and come through the other side in triumph.  As one participant posted on Facebook today, it was more fun than should be allowed.

A special night, indeed.  We're already thinking about the next one (probably early fall)... Will it be West Side Story?  Into the Woods?  Spamalot?....  Stay tuned...

MARCHING ALONG

We're just past halfway through March, so here are the photos from the month....

March 1:

What's not to love about a happy kitty? 



March 2:

May 21.  Would that be before or after Cory's fencing team awards ceremony?  I'm just trying to plan.  Although perhaps I'll write this one in pencil.



March 3:

So there I am at the Nordstrom Rack, and they're having a major designer sale.  Stella McCartney, Valentino, Armani black label.  And I see a pair of jeans.  Not even worth looking at, of course.  Short curvy girls like me can't wear high end designer jeans.  I'm not talking True Religion, 7 for All Mankind -- I'm talking the $300+ jeans.  But here's a pair, marked down to $60... and it sure looks like it'll fit.  It does.  Not only does it fit, it fits perfectly -- no hemming needed, no gap in the back of the waistline.  I love them.  My favorite pair of jeans ever.  Ever.



March 4:

Two pairs of ankle boots, one pair of 4" wedge sandals, and a pair of cute combat boots for Sabrina.  All in all, a good day.



March 5:

Our friend Lauri's daughter was born at 30 weeks, at only 3.2 pounds, due to a version of pre-eclampsia that could have/would have killed both mom and baby.  And yet here we are, before little Lily's due date even, throwing a shower for mom and daughter, safely home from the hospital.  Great rejoicing was shared by all.  (And great food, by the way.)



March 6: 

Our dear friend Jack, who stood up for us in our wedding, has the same birthday party every year.  We gather to watch Casablanca, toast with "Here's Looking at You, Kid," and eat spice cake.  Some things never change, and we like that.



March 7:

"What do you mean, there's school in the morning?!"



March 8:

For about five more minutes, I'll still be taller than Sabrina.  Well, maybe a little longer than that as long as I don't ever take these shoes off.



March 9:

Aztec chicken.  No idea why it's called that.  Chicken dredged in flour, chili powder and thyme, cooked in orange juice.  And I'm taking a picture of it because I had an all-writing day and didn't do anything worth taking a picture of.



March 10:

One of my classes at USC is held in the conference room of another department.  We were warned in no uncertain terms that there was to be no eating in this room.  None, you hear me?  None.  If any of us try to bring food in, the threshold guardians of the department stop us and remind us:  No food!... And then one day we walk in, and a veritable feast is spread out across the conference table.  Um.....  And even now, every week, there's an assortment of eating implements.....  I'm sure there's an alternative explanation.



March 11:

We have a fairly new family tradition of going out to dinner every Friday.  Sometimes we're lucky enough to meet neighbors for dinner... Here, our friends Greg and Kathy (their daughters are just off screen).  Great friends and chicken piccata.  Works for me.



March 12:

Is it really spring until the first Girl Scout cookie? 



March 13:

Arlene was Sabrina's nanny, and now here she is with her own baby!  And Sabrina's old enough to babysit baby Avery, if only Arlene and her husband Ocean didn't live in Seattle.  What a treat to get to see them!



March 14:

I hate the transition to Daylight Savings Time.  But if this is what I see in the morning, maybe I can live with it...



March 15: 

Yes, this is the worst possible picture.  We were stuck in the back of the auditorium for Sabrina's choir competition with no seats, no angle to take the photo, my iPhone did that weird thing it does when trying to photograph from (relative) darkness into light, and I jiggled the phone when I took the photo.  But to top it off, somehow it uploaded upside down.  So I imported into iPhoto, flipped it -- and it still imported upside down.  Whatever.  (Sabrina's choir won the competition.)



March 16:

My new favorite photo of Sabrina.  And not just because she has a new haircut.  Where did she get those cheekbones, anyway?



Okay, that gets us through the Ides of March plus a day.  More soon!