The Toby Show

The stars dig my toddler

Huck played big man on the film set today.  First he met Sarah Silverman, who Oooo'ed and Ahhh'd.  Then in the middle of a raucus game of hide and seek in the production office, in walked Steve Buscemi, one of the other stars.  Steve decided he'd sneak up behind Huck and give him a scare but Huck turned the tables on him--he wheeled around, looked the man straight in the eye and yelled, "Go hide!" 

Everyone thought he was very cute and very "outgoing."  Couldn't help wondering if that was code for surprisingly loud and practically feral, but whatever.  I'm sure it broke up the day for everyone. 

Mixing business with snickerdoodles

This stack of screenplays is my homework.  Lots of late night reading and revising this week.  But more importantly, lots of late night sugary goodness, too.

Snickerdoodles

2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup shortening
8 Tbsp unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 cups sugar, plus 3 Tbsp
2 large eggs
1 Tbsp ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Sift flour, baking soda and salt in a bowl (I just whisk mine because I had an unfortunate sifter mishap involving wet bran a while back).

Use a hand held or stand mixer and beat together the shortening and butter.  Add the 1 1/2 cups sugar and continue beating until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes.  Add the eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each.  Add flour mixture and blend until smooth.

Mix the 3 Tbsps sugar with the cinnamon in a small bowl.  Roll the dough, by hand, into 1 1/2 inch balls.  Roll the balls in the cinnamon sugar.  Flatten the balls into 1/2 disks and space them evenly on unlined cookie sheets.

Bake until light brown, but still moist in the center (Mmmmmm), about 12 minutes. Cool on a rack.

And if you love snickerdoodles as much as I do, just mix up one of these using the ratio above (actually I go for a little more cinnamon) to keep on hand for whenever the snickerdoodle craving hits you.

Served with milk, this cookie cures depression.

Catching up...

Well we got back from Texas over the weekend.  It was a rough visit but I must say, we put on a lovely funeral that Stephen's Mom would have been happy with, and it was nice too to see everyone.  Funerals do bring people out.

And on Tuesday Stephen left to produce a film (not one of ours, it's just a gun for hire gig) and will be gone for the next 3 months.  Yes, 3 months.  Before you're too horrified, it's a good thing.  We're all taking this one for the team because he'll be making in three months what it took me a year to make when I was working, and then some.  It won't be fun but it's doable and it totally relieves the crunch from me going Stay-at-home Mom. 

We used to do this kind of thing all the time when we lived in New York and one of us would go off on a gig.  And as you know, I relish the alone time.  At least at the beginning.

But it's really the only separation longer than 2 weeks since Huck was born, and that's odd.  We've both got MacBooks with built-in cameras though and have set up a nightly video conference at 6:30pm to visit and say goodnight.  It's not the real thing but we've been prepping Huck for "Daddy's Long Trip" and are hoping a little nightly visual contact will mitigate any of his concern.  I told Stephen that if nothing else, it will certainly endear him to his crew that he breaks away from the shoot every night to iChat with his kid before bedtime.  Awwwwww.  He'll need to fire someone the first week so don't think he's just a big softie.

And on Saturday our 19 year old niece is coming up for a month to be my part-time nanny and companion. I'm thrilled about it.  Besides loving her to pieces and always enjoying her company, it will be a huge help to have an extra set of hands for some of time Stephen's away.

The other pertinent news is that I had my Level II Nucal Translucency Ultrasound on Monday and this old lady's chances of having a baby with a chromosomal abnormality went from 1 in 160 fro my age, to 1 in 3000.  So that's all good.  Plus we got to see a super wiggly little baby that was doing the wave and pulling on it's ears.  Not that they could have seen much with the baby's position, but we've opted not to find out the sex this time around.  With Huck we wanted to know but this kid will be wearing hand-me-downs either way so why not let it be a nice surprise?

That's all for the big update.  Thanks so much for all your concern and well-wishes.  The Circle of Life, huh?  I wish it was all as nice and clean as a Disney movie, but that's life.  We muddle through.  I'll be back up and running now, thanks for sticking out the wait.

Vous avez de la ciboulette sur votre dent.

Stephen and I have decided to learn French together.  There seems to be some chance we might move to Luxembourg for several months this spring.  Either German, French or Luxembourgish will come in handy there.

I tried to learn German once.  Okay, truth be told I didn't try that hard, but the grammar was asinine.  All I came away with was the ability to say "I'm from the United States" and "Can I have an English menu."  So basically, I can come off as a pompous ass in German.  And since they don't make Learn Luxembourgish In Your Car cd's, French it is!

And why not?  The grammar is supposed to be the easiest and we've both got a pretty good ear for dialects and pronunciation.  And we can all work on it together since they say this is supposed to be the best time for kids to absorb other languages.  Also, Stephen's father and sister are fluent in French so we've got built in people to practice with and help us when we have questions.

Now, I know you're wondering...why in the world might you be moving to Luxembourg? 

Show biz.

There's a company in the Gran-Duchy of Luxembourg that might want to make one of our movies, possibly in the spring, contingent on all sort of things.  No merde.  It sounds all exciting, but if you know anything about the movie business you know that it mean absolutely nothing until somebody sticks their neck out and ponies up some cash.  Once someone is exposed financially, then it's real.  Until then, it's all just spun sugar.  We'll know in the next month whether it's all systems go or tears and recrimination. 

But that hasn't kept me from ordering French Language cd's already.  What can I say, I'm a hopeless optimist.  At the very least I'll know how to cuss a blue streak in French if the deal falls through.

Zeitgeist

Have you ever noticed that just when you have the most brilliant idea ever...someone else has it too? 

It doesn't particularly bother me.  I put a lot of ideas out there in the world out there so it stands to reason that some of them will bounce back.  Plus, I gave up trying to walk on the cutting edge when I left New York City--I couldn't afford the handbags it takes.  But I do find the phenomenon really fascinating.

The other day I said to myself, "Gee..." I always say Gee to myself.  "Gee, I think I'll write about children's books I don't like.  All the Moms blog about books they love."  A cool enough idea, right?  Think again.  I read through a month's worth of Parent Hacks the other day and see that they did a whole contest on this in the same friggin month!  I guess we were all on the same page.  Very cool contest though on creepiest children's books with many freaky and annoying titles I didn't mention. 

It happens with movie ideas, too.  We called our agents recently and pitched an idea we thought had everything--it was exciting, it had a hook, a great lead character.  It was the kind of movie idea that if executed well could be a 4th of July release and make Will Smith think, "Damn, I wish I'd thought of that!".  Big, big, big.  Our agent told us it was great!  So great in fact, another writer sold it to Fox 6 months earlier.  Back to the old drawing board as they say in the funnies.

There's nothing untoward going on.  Nobody overheard anybody else in an elevator and stole their magic.  Sometimes you just tap into the collective consciousness and start riding a wave that's already surging anyway. 

Still, I'm always surprised.  I always think, "Uh oh, I guess I'm less interesting and unique than I thought."

That's the key really.  It's a very big world out there.  People are doing all sorts of interesting things and it's not that unusual for many of them, not just a few, but many, to be doing the same thing as you.  And yes, even thinking the same thing as you.  Spoooooky.  True originality is really, really, REALLY hard.  Everybody hits it once in a while but more often than not, you're just tapping into the cosmic jelly.  And so is everyone else.

In fact, somebody's probably already written this post.

Pencils down means pencils down

Well, the strike is on.  Officially since Monday but we get news slow out here.  Thank God I don't live in LA or New York anymore or I'd feel obligated to find a babysitter and go out in support.  Instead, I get to sit on my sofa watching Blues Clues in my jammies and read about other people standing up for our future income streams.  Just how I like it.

At least I have an excuse (1000 miles) for not getting in the fracas.  Apparently, some idiot in LA has taken out an ad on Craigslist looking for a strike stand-in.  His strike captain has no idea what he looks like so he's on the make for a proxy to pay $10 an hour to do his picket line duty for him.

Now that is a level of responsibility shirking I can really only aspire to.