Rachel Callahan

Where Eggs Come From.

March 30, 2012March 30, 2012 Rachel Callahan Guest Post, NoahBlogs

Hi, Noah here.

I really don’t have time to blog right now, because I’m busy preparing for Easter.

Looking at Pinterest on The Servant Who Calls Herself Mommy’s iPhone has me feeling all sorts of angst over her lack of holiday decorating skills, so I’ve decided to set off on doing it myself.

What. You don’t think I did all of this??

I see that doubt in your eyes.

And I’m disgusted by it.

You and your prejudices, thinking babies can’t be as artistically talented as full-sized people. It’s wrong, it’s ugly, and you should be ashamed.

But you know what’s even more impressive than my ability to draw eggs?

Oh yes – there’s more.

The fact that I didn’t use my hands – I used my butt.

So when you can draw dots, stripes, plaid, and chevrons with your backside, we’ll talk again.

Paint Chip Art

Something about Springtime makes me want to put away the math, the reading, and the spelling and just focus on art.

After all, the kid is barely five. And at five, paint and glue and pretty colors earn me quite a few Awesomest Mommy Points.

(Besides the fact that I find it all rather cathartic myself.)

I have a huge deck of paint chips, compliments of Pelham Paint and Flooring with whom I’m working on a project and giveaway to share with you guys soon. But this paint chip deck sitting around my house, just STARING at me, has been creating an unavoidable desire within me to embark on the journey of Paint Chip Art.

I started a board of paint chip ideas on Pinterest, then began brainstorming on simpler ideas so as to be able to include Ali.

We started small: A tree with fun flowers on it. After all, it’s Springtime, and Ali lives for the opportunity to collect the myriad of weeds spectacular flowers out of our yard.

So we cut out circles. Since I knew Ali was helping me and I myself am horrible at cutting in a circular path, I purposefully went for the not-so-perfect look:

We then matched up the large, medium, and small circles and glued them together. I drew a tree for Ali, and she placed the flowers, with much intensive thought as to where they should go.

And amazingly, she did all of her placement analysis while calmly keeping Noah out of her art.

She’s a natural mother, that one.

Here was our first finished piece:

And she was hooked.

So we expanded our tree concept and started over. I painted a simple tree on canvas,

then we cut out more circles, and she helped me match up the circles and craft glue stick them together (we found that this worked much better than Elmer’s Glue).

After we glued all of our circles onto our tree, we glazed over the finished project with Mod Podge to help everything stay in place and be happy and shiny:

So. Cutting our own circles was really fun, but then I discovered the craft punch aisle at Michaels.

I almost decided to just buy the store out, but reigned myself in and only got a circle punch and a few $1 bin punches.

We punched a ton of paint chips, and then I described an idea to Ali:

“What if we had all the big circles in the corner all close together, then the little shapes spread all over the picture like they were shooting out of it?”

She totally owned the idea and surprised me with how well she was able to translate it onto canvas.

For this project, we strictly used Mod Podge: We painted it onto the canvas to make our shapes stick, then painted it again over the top. The edges still curled up a little, but we didn’t mind since we were going for the whole “shooting out of the picture” effect.

Here’s her finished piece:

Luckily, she had a grandparent in mind for each of these art projects, which means that they’re blessedly not laying around the house, useless and unhung, like our Crayon Art is still doing.

(Instead, they’re hanging around a Grandparent’s house, useless and unhung.)

(Score.)

So next time you’re wandering around a home improvement store waiting on your husband, look like you know what you’re doing and stash a few paint chips away – they offer cheap therapy for you, hours of entertainment for your kid, and, if you play your cards right, awesome grandparent gifts.

A Dissolution of Moral Fibers.

March 28, 2012March 27, 2012 Rachel Callahan "Deep" Thoughts by Rachel, Denim Drama, Don't Listen to my Fashion Advice, Utter Silliness

You know how when you first walk into the Monkey House at the Zoo, you say “Oh, it smells TERRIBLE in here!!”, then you stay a little longer, and say “Well, it’s not so bad…”, and by the time you leave, you can’t smell it at all?

You, my friend, have been living in the Monkey House.

— Tim Gunn; Philosopher, Sage, and Host of Project Runway

America, we are living in the Monkey House.

We have left behind the girth of our moral standards, and have immersed ourselves in a sea of gigantic, cheap, lazy fleece.

It all started with The Snuggie.

Remember when it came out?

We all laughed, gave them as gag gifts, and scoffed at the nonexistent person who actually might consider wearing one.

In fact, I’m pretty sure that The Snuggie was THE joke of 2008.

Then came 2009. And 2010. And 2011.

The Snuggie pressed on, marketing itself to the masses in a myriad of (un)attractive prints and team logos.

And then, we caved.

I now actually know normal people that proudly own Snuggies.

We so overwhelmingly sold our souls to the Snuggie that they even began making them for pets.

Can you not feel the mortification in that dog’s eyes???

But as bad as the invasion of the Snuggie was (and is), the fact that it mainly stays hidden within our homes does, at least, minimize it’s damage.

But it’s impact on the moral fortitude of America’s fashion is the real issue.

The laziness that is intrinsic in “A Blanket that gives you full use of your arms!!” paved the road for the introduction of Pajama Jeans – a product that would have been scoffed and scorned and maligned in the Old World.

But in the new, Snuggie-Accepting world, they have sadly been welcomed with open arms.

Even – and this is where it gets bad – in normal, out-of-the-house use.

Now granted, The Snuggie wasn’t the only thing that led to this atrocity. I blame People of Walmart for this cultural degradation as well. Because previously, when people began to wear something out that had “pajama” in the title, they would hear Stacy and Clinton on their shoulder saying “NEVER wear pajamas out of the house!!”. But now, people simply justify their actions by telling their Stacy and Clintons, “Well I STILL look better than anyone ever featured on People of Walmart!”

Back to Pajama Jeans.

At this juncture, some of you may be feeling a bit defensive.

“Why CAN’T I wear pajamas that look like denim? They’re much more comfortable!! And they look like denim!!”

So I shall take a moment to elaborate.

First of all, the price.

That’s a total of $47.90 for a pair of cotton pajama bottoms.

Forty seven dollars and ninety cents.

I PROMISE you that you can easily find a pair of real jeans that do what real jeans are supposed to do AND that are extremely comfortable for less than $47.90.

Second, the fit.

Nearly fifty bucks, and these “jeans” don’t even flatter the models.

See that bunching? The bulging? That awkwardly snug crotch?

If they don’t look like jeans on the strategically-chosen models, they’re not going to look like jeans on you or me or ANYONE.

And finally, the rear view.

Clearly you can see that the curvature of the butt ends below the pocket, concisely defining these as Mom Jeans.

I beg of you. Don’t pay $47.90 for a knock-off pair of Mom Jeans. Get the real thing for $18 at Wal-Mart!

AND YET.

Pajama Jeans are not even the worst atrocity of our generation of loungewear. They just further paved the way for The King of Fashion Death…

The Forever Lazy.

Need more details?

Now, if they were marketing this bodysuit of awfulness as gag gift sleepwear, that would be one thing.

But no – it’s “perfect for tailgating!!!”

And, speaking of tailgating, it comes with it’s own handy one:

… because who wants their entire fleece onesie to be dragging on the bottom of the tailgating port-o-potty??

And of course it comes in the stylish, albeit ironically named, Hanky Pinky Fuchsia.

(I bet that model was thrilled the day she got the callback for that gig.)

Hurry, America. Don’t walk, but run out of the Monkey House before it’s too late.

Otherwise, don’t blame me when the guests show up at your funeral dressed in nothing but an ugly, leopard-print blanket.

Detox.

March 26, 2012March 26, 2012 Rachel Callahan A Bit More Vulnerable Than I Usually Am, Blogging: the therapy., Thoughts about Faith, Writing WAY Out of my Comfort Zone

This is one of those scary-to-write posts.

Pondering the range of reactions that you might have, I can imagine that some of you will probably think it is frivolous and silly, wondering what the big deal is. Some of you might think that I am a terrible parent, and that my generation and our technology are going to be the ruin of all that is sacred. And some of you will nod your heads fervently in agreement, understanding exactly where my heart is and what I’m trying to accomplish.

Wherever you are on the spectrum, that’s okay – I understand. I just feel the need to put this out there – for myself, and for others that might be combatting with similar struggles.

Last week was more than taking a week off from blogging in protest of my lack of Spring Break.

I was in self-appointed detox.

Because I have an addiction.

Addiction: the state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or to something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming.

I have always enforced the rule that I never blog while my children are awake – that’s what naptimes are for.

However, that rule didn’t stop me from reading my blog comments. Or checking Facebook. Or Twitter. Or my blog stats. Or my emails. Or anything else interesting on my phone at any moment.

Thanks to the life-changing device that is the iPhone and an already quite-healthy love of blogging and all that comes with it, I have found myself consumed by social media.

This absolutely can be, and is for me, an addiction.

Having a phone that can give you any piece of information at any time creates an inability to experience rest, let alone boredom. If my phone is within reach, I’m constantly, and often without even realizing what I’m doing, checking something.

A commercial comes on… I wonder what’s happening on Facebook?

I pull up to a traffic light… let’s check my email!

Ali wanders off for half a second to find a toy… Ooh! Twitter!

It’s consuming. It’s habitual. It’s ever-present. And it’s not who I want to be.

I’ve spent a considerable amount of time over the past few months analyzing why I do these things, and this is what I have realized: I thrive on words of affirmation, and every virtual touch from another human being is like a tiny little high.

An email – high.

A blog comment – high.

A Facebook like – high.

And then there are the notifications.

Bleep – A Facebook comment!

Tweet – A twitter response!

Ding – A new email!!

As much fun as social media is, it absolutely must take a seat in the back of my priority line.

Because…

I don’t want my kids to grow up with the mental image of their mother looking at a glass rectangle instead of looking at them.

I don’t want them to feel like they have to tweet me to get my attention.

I don’t want them to EVER think that they are less important than what might be going on in someone’s life that has an @ in front of their name.

This is unacceptable.

I’ve tried to change before, but unsuccessfully. I was too ashamed to admit the extent of my addiction, so it was all on me. I would set rules and boundaries for myself, only to give them up in a couple day’s time, justifying my need to keep tabs on my email for one reason or another.

At the beginning of the year, I shared my goals with my husband and my small group. And I set a plan in motion.

1. I turned off every notification on my phone, with the exception of phone calls and text messages. I do not need my phone beckoning me and piquing my curiosity every two minutes.

2. I vowed to not pick up my phone in the mornings until after I had my time with God. Reading God’s Word is infinitely more important than reading my Facebook newsfeed or my emails.

3. I agreed to leave my phone in my office every morning from breakfast to lunch, with minimal checking of said phone, and focus only on my children.

But I still had days where I would lapse back into my old habits, especially while we were all sick.

So last week, I decided it was time for a serious detox.

I committed to not touch my phone or my computer from the time that the kids got up in the morning until they went down for naps (with the exception of phone calls or text messages, but even then I vowed to not even so much as peek at my email or any type of social media). And then when they woke up from their naps, I would do the same until after their bedtime.

And you know what? It actually felt good.

With the rule in place and the fact that I had informed eight people of my commitment, the constant pull wasn’t there. I felt no pressure to “just handle something really quick”, no urge to “just answer this tweet – it will only take a minute”, and I just lived.

Like, lived IRL-Only.

Like, lived old-fashioned, in a pre-iPhone world. It felt so vintage and quaint and…relaxingly slow-paced.

Sure, I didn’t get to send out as many tweets or Facebook statuses, and my knowledge of what all of you were doing on a minute-by-minute basis was seriously impaired.

But my knowledge of every single minute of my kid’s lives,

thoughts,

expressions,

and actions

made it so very much worth it.

This week, I’m going back to my original plan – minimal checking. I’m hoping that last week will have helped me distance myself from the “need” to check things constantly, but I know it will still take a conscious effort.

So why not just get rid of my smart phone and get a more archaic phone-call-only device? Because I think it’s deeper than that. I need to deal with the compulsions, not just take away the easiest way to fulfill them. If it weren’t my phone, then it’d be the computer. Or Ali’s iPad. Or any number of other ways to get a “fix”.

What about quitting blogging? Blogging has plenty of drawbacks, for sure – but it also has great benefits. Some days I love it, some days I hate it. But even besides the rich relationships that I enjoy with so many of you, I am leaving a legacy of my children’s lives and a blueprint of who I am for them to one day read – and so it’s worth it to work through my own issues to be able to continue doing that.

And it’s doable – with a little work and a lot of accountability.

A few Saturdays ago, Chris and I took the kids to our local kid’s Science Center. As I watched our kids blissfully play in each area, I also noticed the other kid’s parents.

Every single one of them was completely engrossed – in whatever was on their cell phone screen.

“Hey Daddy!! Look what I made!!”

Without looking up, “That’s great, honey!”

Every. Single. One.

And I realized – that was me. That is me. And it’s not pretty. I just never noticed what it looked like on other people before, because I was always too busy looking down at my own phone.

But here’s to change. Here’s to accountability. Here’s to starting fresh, every day, committed to not losing sight of real life due to the compulsion to share it.

“Grammar”

March 23, 2012March 22, 2012 Rachel Callahan "Deep" Thoughts by Rachel, Anal Retentivity to a Fault, Photographical Oddities

Originally Published October 7, 2010.

I am not a writer by education, as I’m sure proof of such is in abundance around here.

In fact, the classes I despised more than any other were those of the English variety, mainly due to the title of this blog: they were too subjective – especially in the grading.

Especially my first experience with a College English professor… he looked just like Edgar Allen Poe,
except maybe a bit more psychotic and depressed.

And he made it absolutely clear that he despised our class.

(I think it might have been the pencil throwing that clued me in. Oh yeah – that, and all the times he screamed in rage, “I hate this class!!!”)

And so, since we were apparently such despicable human beings, he swore to us that he would not give a single one of us an A, whether we were one of the troublemakers or not.

And he proved to be a good promise keeper.

The semester after I took his class, I Clepped out of the rest of my English Experience.

And sometime in the break before that next semester, he decided to pull out all of his hair, except for a dozen or so long, black and white streaked tufts, leaving him looking like Poe after The Raven got ahold of him.

But, despite my hatred for diagramming and hanging participles and subjective grading, there ARE certain grammar pet peeves that I most definitely have.

And number one on that list is the inappropriate use of quotation marks.

I learned around the age of six what it meant if you put something in quotes – I remember quite vividly an apparently-not-friend of mine telling me “of course you are my …. “friend”!”, while making the ever-famous air quotes with her index and middle fingers.

That day, I figured out that the quote motion was really more like crossing your fingers behind your back, except that you use it when you want to be a bit more cruel obvious.

But alas, apparently not everyone had this traumatic friend experience to teach them that quotes meant “not really”, because people use quotes in the oddest ways, such as this one I spotted at a gas station a while back:

So…is that gum or is it not??

But hey – a hastily handwritten gas station sign can be overlooked. I’m sure no one copychecked that sign, or really even thought too much about it.

But the one I saw last week…wow.

If you don’t even have smart use of punctuation, can I really count on you to have Smart Lipo???

And, all of a sudden, I have an image of being in the surgical prep room getting ready for my Lipo, and Doctor Joey coming in…

“Of COURSE I’m a “real” doctor!!!”

At any rate, I bet that sign made my Poe-ish English professor pull out one more tuft of his hair.

…not that I’m still bitter about my grade or anything.

p.s. – the reason I thought about this post was spotting this sign at the grocery store last week…

Which, for the record, might actually be considered a correct use of quotation marks, seeing as how there was no cheese to “try”.

p.p.s. – If you love unnecessary quotation marks as much as I do, check out the “blog” of “unnecessary quotes” – it keeps me entertained for hours.

p.p.p.s. – I miss you all and am looking forward to being back next week! I wish I could say that we’ve done all sorts of fascinatingly bloggable things this week, but that’d be a lie. And I have a rule against lying in post-scripts. But interesting or not, I’ll be back Monday!

Blowoutfits.

March 21, 2012March 22, 2012 Rachel Callahan Just My Luck, Parent of the Year, Toddlers: The Experience

Originally Published April 8, 2009.

Nobody likes dealing with a blowout.

(let me take a minute to define – “Blowout: bloe-out v. – an infant or toddler’s poop that exceeds their diaper in such a way as to leach out onto EVERY item of clothing that they are wearing, along with whatever they are sitting on and eating at the time of blow. Example of such cited here”)

But after cleaning up the current mess and moving on with life, there’s always the issue of the clothing affected.

That horrible, horrible mess that is the blowoutfit.

HOPEFULLY it was just the child’s clothing and not yours as well, but, whether immediately or later (if you’re not home), it must be dealt with.

I thought that Ali was out of this stage until a couple of Sundays ago when we picked Ali up from Sunday School. I picked her up to give her a hug, and immediately noticed something missing.

“Where are her bloomers??”

Chris dug around in her diaper bag and found them in one of the dreaded produce bags that are used at our church to seal toxic waste.

But that’s not what I’m here to tell you about. HERE’S the real story:

Sometime last summer, Ali was wearing an outfit that happened to be Chris’ favorite. It was pink camo – a Daddy sort of outfit. (The picture is of the outfit, but not the day it happened. It’s just for your visual reference.)

I don’t remember all of the details, but I know that we were on a trip somewhere. Anyway, she had one of the aforementioned blowouts.

It significantly compromised both the shorts and the shirt.

Nasty bad.

Stinky.

Messy.

Miserable.

Since we were out of town and not somewhere where I could immediately clean them, I put them in a Gallon Ziploc bag that I had on hand for such an occasion, and sealed it up.

We got home, and as I was unpacking, I was reminded of her issue when I found the lucky bag.

It was late, I was tired from a long trip home, and the last thing I wanted to do was to open up that bag, now looking especially appetizing what with the stinky steam fogging up the inside of it, and clean up that now settled-in-to-stay toxic poo mess.

But I knew how much her Daddy liked her to wear that outfit, so I didn’t just throw it out, even though the temptation was high.

I set it on top of the washer and vowed to deal with it the next day.

However, sometime between that moment and “Tomorrow is another day”, the bag managed to slip down in between some things in the laundry room. And since it wasn’t exactly something that I was looking forward to making a happy memory while doing, I forgot all about it.

Fast forward from last year to LAST WEEK.

I was getting our beach towels out of the laundry room to get ready for our trip, and lo and behold, what was underneath those beach towels?

A Ziploc bag.

And, although the pink camo was in and of itself completely camouflaged by spotted mold, hairy mold, brown mold, black mold, and green mold, my mind immediately knew what it was.

Oops.

Now at this point I would normally have a grotesquely nauseating picture of the VERY SEALED Ziploc bag for you.

However, in my haste to destroy the evidence and REMOVE THAT EVIL THING FROM MY SIGHT, I threw it away before my blog-instincts kicked in.

I haven’t admitted my trespasses to Chris yet, although I have been keeping an eye out for a new Pink Camo outfit.

No luck.

Let me know if you see one. Size 2T 6. And preferably NOT covered in mold or poo, or moldy poo.

In Which We Had a Jack Bauer-Like Adventure.

March 21, 2012January 6, 2014 Rachel Callahan I'm a Glutton for Adventure, Investigative Report

Originally Published February 26, 2009.

My husband is a structural steel detailer (which means he makes 3D models of structural steel and blueprints and stuff like that), and sometimes he gets to work on pretty cool jobs. He loves checking out his work after construction. He is always especially proud of things that were very difficult or artistic.

The veil meets both of those requirements, so it just might be his detailing crowning glory.

The veil is the top of the 41 floor, 700 foot tall Symphony Center building in midtown Atlanta. He just modeled & detailed the top portion of it, which was very unconventional and was extraordinarily intricate and difficult. The veil, according to him, is “a pair of 6-story 3D space trusses with radiused outer chords that support the extended glass curtainwall”.

Whatever that means.

We have many pictures of this building. Many. Including one that he took off the TV last week, when the building was all lit up in the background of a Dave Matthews concert at Piedmont Park.

You might call it an obsession.

But it is a pretty cool building. Here is what it looks like:
To show how much it sticks out in the Atlanta skyline, here’s a view from Piedmont Park:
So anyway, it was being finished up in 2006, when we happened to be coming back through Atlanta during an amazing anniversary trip to St. Simon’s Island. We stayed overnight in Atlanta, and before we left the next morning, Chris wanted to drive over and see his work of art.

So we headed to midtown and found his mistress of steel.

We parked a couple of blocks away and walked over. We saw the overpowering view from the ground:
Now I absolutely love heights, and Chris absolutely loves his veil, so together, we took our adventure a step further.

Chris wanted to see the veil up close, but you can’t just walk up to a construction site and gain access, especially when said construction site is a partially open & occupied, partially under construction skyscraper that is the new headquarters of one of the world’s biggest law firms, among other things.

Since we had been on vacation, we had a nice change of clothes (convenient), and since it was a weekday, the place was a hub of activity (easy to blend in).

His story was that we were representatives of a subcontractor for the general contractor and we were there to check up on our work. That was technically true, although very unecessary.

So we headed into the lobby, acting as professionally as possible.
Because nothing says professional like taking touristy photos in front of the building.

There was already security in the lobby. There were concierges at a desk and card readers to get to the elevators. Strike one.

So we approach the concierge desk. Chris tells the security guard our story, and he doesn’t have much of a poker face.

The concierge said, “Hold On”, and picked up the phone.

Our hearts started beating as if we were Jack Bauer and Chloe O’Brien in the middle of a mission with our cover about to be blown before our eyes. I know, I know, Chloe works in-office and doesn’t usually go on missions, but she’s the only girl that’s survived so far, so I choose to be her.

He talked quietly for a few moments, and then said, “Okay.”

Relief and fear.

They told security to let us through the gates to the elevators and told us to take the real elevator to the 21st floor and then to get on the construction elevator. And next time, please take the construction entrance through the parking garage, with the annoyed disdain that said we should have known that, which proves assumption on their part that we should have even been there at all.

He lets us through the security checkpoint with his nifty card, where there is one of those high class elevator guys that asks in a low voice, “Whaaat Flooor, siiirr?”

We get off the glistening marble elevator at the 21st floor and there is nothing there but concrete… No walls, no windows, just cool air and hardhats. We make our way to the neither glistening nor marble construction elevator, which is operated by an exceptionally talkative and large fellow who likes to tell everyone how the elevator falls 5 or 10 floors every so often. He asks where we are headed and we say the roof. The elevator stops every so often, and people continue to get off, until its just us and the operator.

We get to 41, and he says, “Go through the door and to the left. You will find a stairwell that will take you on the roof.”

It’s nicely finished, empty, and quiet. we walk up to the door, and see this sign:
“Special Matters and Government Investigations.” Now we REALLY feel like Jack and Chloe. We are in total adventure mode – adrenaline pumping, pretending that we are oh-so-much more important and sneaky than we are.

We open the door, look left, look right, and try to find the stairwell. Easy enough. The stairwell has an extra flight up to the roof. The door opens, and out we step into the breeze, over 600 feet off the street.

The door closes behind us, and then we hear it… The all-too-cliche, just a little too loud CLICK.

Oh yeah, it totally locked behind us.

However, off to the left, we see a 2 Hispanic construction workers eating lunch on the roof, so we assume that they can point us in the right direction when we’re ready to leave. We set off to enjoy our sought after adventure.

It was SO windy.

And SO high.

Where we were, to understand, was on the roof of the actual building, which is where Chris’ work started – the artistic “veil”, or what looks like batwings to me. So in the pictures, we’re looking off the roof and up at Chris’ work.

Notice how much higher we are than the other high rises in Atlanta:
I got WAY closer to the edge than Chris wanted me to to take this picture (that is Stone Mountain in the distance):
And a good upshot of Chris’ work (since we were, after all, “inspecting” it):
So we spent a good 20 minutes on the roof, while the workers ate their lunch and paid us no attention.

Once we were ready to move off of our high perch, we attempted communication, explaining with wild hand movements that the door locked behind us, and we needed them to let us off.

Finally, one said, “Ah”, nodding his head vigorously.

He took us over to another, less impressive door, presumably the service entrance.

Sure enough, it was a straight-down skinny, metal-runged ladder.

And I was wearing heels.

Much to the amusement of the workers, I took off my shoes and dropped them to the bottom of the stairwell, and started down.

Once we both got down, we realized that we were nowhere familiar – on an entirely different floor.

After a bit of wandering around in the dark and messy unfinished floor, we finally found more construction workers, who told us that we had to take the stairs down a couple of floors to catch the elevator.

So we did.

The large talkative elevator operator was glad to see us again, and we must have stopped a dozen times on the way down to pick up and drop off drywall, wood, tools, people.

He took us all the way down to the aforementioned appropriate construction entrance in the parking garage, so we scurried up and out onto the sidewalk, before we got caught on our fake mission.

About a month later, we found out that we were pregnant with Ali…after 2 years of trying.

Adrenaline. It does the body good.

Rachel, Child Not-So-Star.

March 20, 2012March 19, 2012 Rachel Callahan Just My Luck, Mystery Solved, Storytime

Originally Published February 17, 2010.

The year was 1987. I was six years old. There was a movie being filmed in town, and they needed antique cars. My Dad and Granddad both had Model Ts, so they were loaning them to the producers for the movie.

And, it happened to be my lucky day that they needed some children as fillers in one of the scenes. So Dad took me along for the fun.

I was beyond thrilled. I was going to be a Movie Star!! We arrived, and they whisked me off to wardrobe.

WARDROBE!!!

They dressed me in period clothing and gave me a baby doll to carry. Besides the fact that I was MUCH too old to be carrying around a baby doll, it was the ugliest baby doll I’d ever seen.

I hated that doll.

The scene was a carnival, so besides the fact that I was going to be a MOVIE STAR, I got to ride carnival rides – for free!!

Never had there been a better day in my six years.

Except for that stupid doll, of course.

I was assigned to sit on the Merry-Go-Round. I excitedly took my post and started my circular movement.

I went around…and around…and around. I kept thinking that surely I’d get to move on to the Ferris Wheel soon, but no. I sat, spinning endlessly with only my stupid doll to keep me company. For hours.

By the time I was told I could get off, I had sworn off Merry-Go-Rounds for the rest of my life. Or for the day at least.

I was a smart one, though. I “accidentally” forgot my baby doll on the Merry-Go-Round. After all, she was ugly.

My new assignment was to walk around the carnival with my Granddad. Five minutes into my walk, a producer comes running up to me with that awful doll.

“Excuse me, miss – I think you left this on the Merry-Go-Round.”

I was so aggravated and confused as to how they had known it was MY doll. Why couldn’t they have given it to some other little girl?

But I dutifully carried her for the rest of the shoot. Stupid Doll.

After the shoot, my Dad took me to the producer’s office, where I was paid a whopping $70 for my outstanding talent.

(For years I wondered if Dad had staged that whole thing and if HE had actually paid me, but Dad reassures me that I was actually paid for my role.)

Dad immediately took me to the bank and helped me set up a savings account to store my fortune, where it stayed for many years.

When the movie was completed the next year, I received a beautiful invitation to the Premier at The Alabama Theatre.

I couldn’t wait to go see my soon-to-be-famous face!!

Except for one small detail. It was rated R. And I was six.

My DEBUT MOVIE was rated R! I couldn’t even see my infamous performance!! That day, I came to terms with the fact that the world was a very unfair place.

My parents went to the premier, as did a few other people we knew. They told me that the movie itself was horrible, but that I did wonderfully, and that there was a close-up shot of me that EVERYONE saw.

I believed them and reveled in my fame.

Twenty-Two years later, it all of a sudden dawned on me that I was now old enough to see my star-studded performance.

But … I didn’t remember the name of the movie.

I asked Mom about it.

“Oh – you don’t want to see that! It’s a horribly low-budget and violent movie about a gangster dying of Syphilis!!”

“But I do! I was in it!”

“Well, I don’t remember the name of it either. I’ll find out for you, though.”

She went through her Shrine Of Rachel Celebration Box of her Favorite Daughter Folder of my childhood junk and found the invitation.

Verne Miller.

I immediately loved the subtitle. How classy can you be if you’re dying of Syphilis?

I tried to NetFlix it. NetFlix laughed at me.

Blockbuster? No record of such a movie.

Amazon – Found it. Sorta. With some qualifications:

It apparently was never made into DVD, so if I wanted it, I was going to have to lug out our VHS player to see it.
Nobody sells it new. It is as discontinued as it could possibly be. The only copies available are well-used former rentals, but very cheap, at least.

So I ordered it. A $5 investment in the excitement of seeing my debut into celebritydom.

A few minutes into the movie, I recognized the rolling hills from driving by them when we went to the movie set. Then the car turned, and sure enough, he was headed to a carnival:A much smaller carnival than I remembered, but a carnival scene nonetheless.

The scene lasted MAYBE two minutes, and I saw zero traces of myself.

THEY LIED TO ME! THEY ALL LIED TO ME!

Okay…calm down. Maybe he comes back to the carnival.

Sure enough, nearing the end of the movie, he returns to the carnival. This time, it’s about one minute long.

STILL NO ME.

How could this be true?!!?!?

After the movie was over (which wasn’t as horrible as we expected – I guess my Mom helped out by completely trashing our expectations), I agonizingly-VHS-slow-re-winded it back to the original carnival scene to study every character, and then, although skeptical at first, became pretty convinced that I found myself.

There I am, on the Merry-Go-Round, right behind the amazing Star of the Movie, Scott Glenn.

(Don’t ask me who he is. I have no idea.)

My screen time added up to about one fifth of a second. Surely that will earn me my Screen Actor’s Guild membership.

Later, I went back and scoured the second carnival scene and managed to find myself again, this time on my second assignment of walking through the carnival with my Granddad.

Although my screen time was longer, it only featured my backside.

(I don’t know who the woman was, but she was most definitely NOT my Grandmother.)

And then we were seen again from the Police’s point of view when they’re coming into the scene, still backsides only:

Luckily, my Grandfather was a very recognizable figure – I’m not sure I would have even been convinced that I was a girl, much less me in these shots.

Since I know you’re dying to see my amazing acting skills, here’s the first excerpt. Watch very carefully over Verne’s shoulder as the brown arm retracts, and whatever you do, DON’T BLINK.

I know. I’m amazing. I’m expecting a call any day now from James Cameron asking me to star in the Avatar sequel.

With Great Enmity Toward Spring Break…

March 19, 2012March 18, 2012 Rachel Callahan A Day in the Life, Blogging: the therapy.

Every year about this time, I become irate at the world.

Because Spring Break means nothing to me.

Nothing, I say.

While you are all out trekking the beaches, theme parks, and exotic vacation destinations of the world, I’m at home, having another normal week with my not-yet-school-aged children who have no such formalities.

I have been medicating this anger by getting cheap thrills out of dressing my children in matching or coordinating jammies…because I secretly desire to be much higher that I am on The Continuum of Match.

Some appreciate my efforts, some do not.

Non-Teenage, Non-Mutant, Non-Ninja Turtles.

Name That Children’s Book…

But you know what? Even the excitement of matching jammies is no Spring Break.

…especially when I see all of your vacation photos start rolling in on Facebook.

Oh look…they’re in The Cayman Islands!!

And a whole week of DisneyWorld? How nice for them…

FIJI?!??! How did they have time to fly to Fiji for Spring Break?!?

Okay, lest you think I have extraordinarily wealthy taste in friends, I might be exaggerating a smidge.

But you get the idea.

So, to prevent the spreading of my malice and envy throughout the blogosphere this week, and since none of you are here and reading my blog anyway since you’re, like, in FIJI, I’m giving myself a Spring Break.

I’ll be posting some long-buried, mostly-forgotten but halfway decent and possibly even entertaining reposts for the next few days – posts that are so old that 75.4% of you have never laid eyes on them. And instead of writing during naptimes, I’ll be trying to find some fun Spring Break(ish) activities to do with the kids.

(And maybe even have them in matching clothes while going about it.)

(But probably not.)

(Because that’d be weird.)

So go, enjoy your fun and frolicking, and I’ll enjoy sitting out by the freezing baby pool watching Noah’s teeth chatter from within his blue lips and will be pretending that it’s the Fijian Coast of the Southwest Pacific.

And if you’re here with me, feel free to chime in your own enmity toward the Spring Breakers of the world. Go ahead – I’ll affirm your feelings.

Green With Mystery.

March 16, 2012March 16, 2012 Rachel Callahan Parent of the Year, Utter Silliness

Things have been very amiss around here this week.

Food disappearing and/or being spread around the house in the form of sticky crumbs…

Stuff being mysteriously moved around and hidden deeply in toy boxes…

Messes and chaos overwhelming the house until the house itself cannot even be seen…

One might conclude that this is due to poor parenting and child mischief brought on by an onslaught of illness, but this seems to not be the case.

Because Ali vehemently denies participation in any and all crimes, and Noah shakes his head angrily, acting offended at the mere suggestion of any such tomfoolery.

So we discussed the possibilities.

…perhaps we have a stowaway in the basement.

…or maybe Daddy is getting up in the mornings and completely ruining the house before he leaves for work – you know, because he thinks I’d be bored otherwise.

But them we had a moment of realization when we looked at the calendar.

Of course. How silly of us. How simply explainable the phenomenon.

Leprechauns!!!

So we devised a plan.

We set out a temptingly beautiful pathway…

Leading right to….

That’s right. We know how to trap ‘em around here.

Leprechauns: Magically Delicious.

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