the american master bathroom

yesterday, as i was "forced" into taking my first outdoor shower because of a plumbing problem...our prop person from thailand had to take her shower in the main house.

when she came back from her trip to the main house, she was very amused and amazed by the fact that the bathroom that she showered in was attached to a bedroom...that someone had a bathroom right in their bedroom....

i dismissed her amazement at first, but then realized...duuuuhhhhhh....maybe this is something that she has never seen before....so i asked "is that your first time in an american suburban home" and she said yes...she had never seen a bedroom with a bathroom included.

i explained the idea of the "master bedroom", which i realize must be a very western convention in housing plans and something that is not in the older apartments that we are used to living in in NYC.

yet another thing that i unwittingly assumed was universal, but obviously is not...sometimes i surprise myself with the way that i generally think that everyday things in a western society are true all over the world...

my first outdoor shower

on a cool new jersey night with the wind being whipped around by the impending hurricane rita reminense...there i was standing on the slated wood floor of the my first outside shower.

please don't go thinking that this was very adventurous of me, as the whole shower is enclosed with a 6' wall and strategicly placed so you only have to hope that the upstairs nieghbors next door don't go in for peeping.

but i have to say that taking an outside shower beats taking a inside shower anyday. thanks to the little plumbing mishap in the art department beach house.... i think this might only be the first of many outside showers...let's hope that the air outside doesn't get too cold too fast!

will work for food

literally... the art department had our first day off in a week and we decided to spend our day in the hunting and gathering mode...

for the slightly squimish or the crab protectors of the universe...stop reading at this point...

....hunting and gathering for our afternoon snack. after taking a walk on the oceanside of the island, we made our way back to the bayside (a whole 3 blocks) and out to the CRAB DOCK.... where we proceeded to tie perfectly good chicken legs to the end of a strong rope and caste them into the bay, in hopes that there would be some hungry crabbies waiting at the bottom to be caught and hoping we had not wasted that perfectly good chicken that we could have cooked up instead of using as bait!

the beginning of the crabbing didn't go so well...but after the first hour or so, we starting catching some crabs that were actually big enough to keep. by the end of our crabbing excursion we had about 10 or so crabs that were doomed to the boiling pot as soon as we got home.

i have to admit that the whole "cooking" process was a little freaky for me, and i mostly watched as a bystander. i did throw one in the pot, but that was about all that i could do.....and of course we had the one that almost got away....jumping from between the tongs to the kitchen floor and trying to make its way to somewhere far away from us....but his escape was thwarted by the quick grab of chef brandoni and the crab faced the same end as his fellow friends.

in the end, we all sat down at the tiki bar in the backyard and feasted on the freshest seafood that you could get. there is some satisfaction in catching what you eat, but i think that i will draw the line with crabbing....have no fear all those chickens, turkeys and fishes that i come across, i promise that i am not stocking you for my next meal.

a week at the beach

or more appropriately a week at a nj beach first aid station that is serving as the soundstage for the most recent film that i am working on.

in this room that is usually reserved for bingo nights and town meetings and houses the local ambulance squad and police department, we have built 3 individual rooms that are each bigger than a small new york apartment. (with atleast a four foot clearance all around, so the fire marshal is happy)

we have tiled one room, carpetted another and built in a false stairway over hang and kitchen. it is great to see things coming together and even better to hear the men with the first aid squad oggle over our craftsmanship and attention to detail. i think they even offered us the job of redecorating the space when we are done.

the interaction of the local people and the film crew is great. it is nice to get a chance to let people see what this is all about and reveal some of the secrets of the movie world...i think i said once, it was like moths to a light...build a film set, they will come.....i say... bring them on!

random blog comments no more

a recent onslought of anonymous comments...i think, great, people are reading and then i click to see that they are really just advertisers in disguise.

sad to think that there is probably thousands upon hundreds of random computers programmed in this world to dump "comments" on people's blog sights.

easily recognized by the "nice blog, I stop by more often ...check out mine, you might not like it or it is not much but see what you think"

i stop to think that one false click could send all my most personal information out into the cyber space world or something like that...so until these anonymous commenters come up with a better story or show a little more false interest, i refuse to be had......those comments will be deleted from this blog.

would you like disco fries with that?

the art department took its first field trip together this evening to venture onto the "mainland" of new jersey in search of food......

those of you that know nj, can guess where we ended up....a jersey diner. something that new jersey is famous or infamous for, depending on how you feel about diners. and tonight we had the pleasure of introducing our thailand born prop master and our transplanted california carpenter to the whole experience....

however this diner was a bit more of an experience with the discovery of an item that no human being should be asked to consume....yes we are talking about the disco fries....

and you might be asking yourself, what are disco fries, they sound sort of fun...but i dare say they are not...

a messy combination of french fries, brown gravy and lots of cheese...
why they are called disco fries...i will never know
why anyone would order them....i will never know as none of us were adventuresome enough to go to the unknow world of grease and goo

where to find them...that i can tell you, but won't for your own health and safety.

last cross beam standing

an image from my last trip to the ground zero site. a little rememberance of all those lost, all that are still with us and all that will rebuild again.

a self centered plug

so for those new and old visitors that have been stopping by, be sure to take a chance to check out my other blog that is purely a picture journal that i have been keeping for the past few months.

made up of random moments that i happen on over the days
things that catch my eye...

www.wanderingwonderingmoments.blogspot.com

take a look if you like and let me know what ya think...

PS...hi to all those foreigner that have been stopping by the blog....japan, brazil, and a few recent canadian hits too...

natural consumer

so does anyone else out there get a little thrill when they have finished a tube of toothpaste, a pack of gum, a tube of lip gloss or skin lotion or a jar of peanut butter (and i am not talking about the feeling you get if you finished the peanut butter in one sitting!)?

this morning i had a few "finishing moments"...it makes me happy that i am almost done with my toothpaste and i will soon get to stand in the bright lights of the supermarket "health care" aisle at the millions of choices that sit before me and spend a few moments picking THE next toothpaste...

oddly this same feeling came over me after i finished the last package of the 8 pack of oatmeal that i have had in the cabinet for over 5 months....again, i have finished something and it is time to go buy more....

as i thought about this while driving to work today, i wondered, do i have that same feeling with everything that i consume...thankful i discovered the answer to that question was no...i don't finish a soda and think -time to get another one, i don't finish my lunch and think-time to get another one---thank goodness or i would be spend my day eating.

i guess there is just something about long term commitment products...when you buy a jar of jelly, you are stuck with it until you are done...i mean, you could buy another, but that is sort of a waste...well maybe you could have 2 jars going at one time, so you won't get bored....but regardless that jar of jelly is there until you

A. finish it
B. throw it out be the date has expired or
C. throw it out because there is something growing in it even though the date has yet to expire

so the joy in finally getting to the point that you can dump to old jelly and try something new is justifiable if you look at it that way.

off to my cabinets and shelves to see what other things are almost out...i think my conditioner is getting close to the buy more stage....

in the end, i realize that i am a consumer and i rather enjoy that part of my life....i wonder if this is an innate human quality or if it is something that is breed into anyone who lives in a capitalistic society?

THOUGHTS? COMMENTS?

political comment #1

ok, so i am not usually one to post my political ideals in public...but i have to say the recent announcement by the president that the 16th of september will be a day dedicated to reflection and prayer for the disasters that have happened in the past few years....sept 11, katrina, etc

who is he to tell me when i should stop, reflect and pray about the problems of the world!

to think that he is implying that there is a vast majority of people that have not been thinking about the state of the world and the nation on a regular basis is a little naive and unsettling. does he really think that we are all sitting around waiting for someone to tell us when to have a day of reflection.

i hope and am pretty sure that most people have the compassion and intellegence to not need some arrogant man telling us when to think. maybe if he used a little more reflection everyday and not just once a year, we would all be in a better place!

two great meals, a dog dancer and a blue ribbon winner

today was a fairly laid back day after spending the past few days in marathon shopping/traveling mode. mind you, there was still a lot of traveling and shopping today but there were some nice brakes in the constant in and out of the car and stores.

i started the afternoon with a wonderful lunch with my former costume shop manager and good friend. she has recently returned from a pleasant trip to seattle and had much news about her trip and the new grandbaby in her life. we ate at the harvest cafe, which is the best restaurant in town as far as i am concerned!

beautiful weather, a beautiful view of the mountains and the beginnings of the official leaf change in the northeast. a delicious 4 course lunch that is an unusual treat..soup, salad, entree and dessert....we also managed to slip in a glass of wine.... for shame, drinking before noon

then i headed off on my first shopping expedition...a whopping 30 minutes away, as that is the closest shopping area to my town that has a fabric store. a fabric store that was almost out of everything that i was looking for, so i had to have them call another store that was another HOUR away to see if they had what i needed.

as i waited for the very nice, very pierced sales lady to call the various stores, my design advise was solicited by a lady buying black fringe...seemed harmless enough, she thought that i looked "artistic" (must be the glasses) and she proceeded to tell me that she was making a flapper dress......seemed normal enough, but there was more...she was making a flapper outfit to enter some sort of dance contest where she would be performing a flapper dance with her dog....yes her dog.....and she and her dog needed an outfit. she asked my advise on the fringe, on the boa choice and placement, about the dog's boa choice and the necklace, bracelet, earrings and head piece for her (and thankfully not for the dog, the dog was spared the jewelry and head piece part of the costume)

after all this i was still waiting on the very nice, very pierced sales lady to get an answer from the other store and I watched as the dog dancing flapper lady walk off to get more black jet beads, only to be confronted by a little girl on my left claiming to be the daughter of the dancing dog lady. so in the effort of being polite to little kids, i told her she was lucky that her mom knew how to sew and that i did not learn to sew until college.

and in an effort to impress grown ups, this little girl answered back in one breath that "she learned to sew when she was seven and this year she won a blue ribbon and a purple ribbon for her skirt that she made and that was with the 4-H and that she was only eleven now". at which point her mom returned and corrected her in that fact that she was thirteen.

interrupt- the saleslady sweetly telling me that the other store, that is an hour away, has what i need and that they will hold it for me till tomorrow.

so i said goodbye to the mother daughter entertainment section of my day and head down the road to the next few stores (an hour and a half away with traffic----uggggghhhhh)

however, to finish the day, i did manage to sneak in a nice dinner at the house with all the animals, aka karla's house. fresh tomatoes (picked from her garden), steamed cauliflower with a little cheese and corn on the cob- a perfect end of summer dinner and a pretty bizarre day of interesting people and long travels.

shadow of a family

attack of the florida squirrels

back from my trip to florida and just in the knick of time to get away from the "stocking squirrels" that haunted the last three days of my trip.

squirrels, squirrels, squirrels everywhere...or maybe it was just the one that kept following me throughout the weekend

SQUIRREL ENCOUNTER #1
saturday morning i went to let the house cat out on the back porch, but quickly slammed the sliding glass door shut when i saw a little furry animal go running across the INSIDE of the screened in porch.

with closer inspection, there he was, a frantic little guy or maybe girl caught harvesting on my mom's house plants.

so we shoowed the cat back from the door, snuck out onto the porch with hopes that this fuzzy friend was not in attack mode and propped open the porch door so there was a convenient exit for the flower gobbling fiend.

SQUIRREL ENCOUNTER #2
saturday afternoon, my mom, niece, nephew, sister and i went to get into the truck to go to the aquarium. as my sister went to open the door for the kids to get in, she screamed...there is a squirrel on the front seat....

could it be the same one? maybe?

so we shoowed the kids and my mom back to the front porch as my sister opened the drivers side door and i opened the passenger side door....there we saw the acorn on the floor mat, but no squirrel...nothing exited the truck...where did he go?

we got a broom and tried to sweep under all the seats and nothing.....hoping the squirrel managed to get out by himself, the family climbed into the truck and headed off to the aquarium.

all of us secretly hoping that the squirrel would not jump out from under the dash board and send us screaming off the road into the bay. (anyone remember that chris farley/david spade movie with the dead deer in the back seat that wasn't really dead...then you know how we were feeling)

SQUIRREL ENCOUNTER #3
and to complete the trio of squirrel encounters, sunday afternoon we were all having lunch after an afternoon in the pool and there sitting above us in the oak tree was THE squirrel...back again to wreck havoc on our sunny sunday...but instead, he patiently waited, summoned his friend and sat there oggling our hot dog buns and macaroni salad.

and because we are silly humans that think encouraging the wild life is a good thing to do, we made sure to toss out a few ends of the hot dog buns and feed these little monsters. an invite not to stop stocking our family, but to continue popping up in all the unexpected places.

can't image where they will show up next!