40% of Team Steinkellner Walk to School

Emma and I drive down about halfway to school and park near the Montecito Coffee Shop. We start walking towards school. She talks about how one day when she is 20, she’ll have a limo dropping her off everywhere. When we get to the railing along the offices on the other side East Valley Road she walks them like a “tight rope”. (Or maybe she says “type rope” which is what we called it when I was a kid.) She doesn’t waver a bit. Doesn’t even do that arm flurry thing to keep her balance.

On the flat part where Mrs. Hammer, (her ex-kindergarten teacher) lives she clutches my arm for no reason. As firm as a bride on the arm of her father.

We walk past the sign that tells handicapped people to turn back at this point. Emma is talking about her past or the future. I can’t remember but it doesn’t matter. It’s just fun to listen to Emma. Like reading Mark Twain or watching Magic throw a full court bounce pass.

Maybe the discussion is about the girl up ahead who looks tall enough to be in high school but is only in fifth grade. Or whether Emma is going to walk through the soccer field or the sidewalk along the fence, when she walks alone. She chooses the sidewalk.

And now it is time for her to walk alone. So, she does. With less ceremony than opening a door.

I walk the other way pretending to be walking back to the car. I sneak glances back.

She walks along with a bounce that is half girl and half young woman. I watch her all the way until she is around the curve near the bike rack. (We had talked about how many kids were riding their bikes to school this year.)

She walks away into the day. Like someone walking onto a jet into the future.

And I walk back to the car. It is hard to see because my eyes are a little watery. It is one of those times when your whole past bursts into your eyes. Bye-bye baby.

The Best Show on CBS is About to Premiere (Seventeen Years Ago): Meets the TV Critics

“I think that a lot of people think… or maybe feel might be a better … it’s hard to put into words… and this isn’t just me talking… not the entire cast and I’m not the spokesman or rather spokesperson but it’s just that it seems to me, personally that… What was the question, again?”

“Sure, on the surface it looks like a show about successful good-looking people in really attractive surroundings but underneath we have the same problems as kinda not great looking people who live in a dump. That might not be apparent in the pilot but I think it becomes more obvious as the series goes on.”

“I’m the comedy relief so they always stick me in the back when we do the magazine cover shots.”

“Well, I’m not sure what my grandfather would think of it. He wrote mostly short stories and novels. But they did make a lot of those into movies which could be thought of as the tv shows of their time. His characters like the ones in The Sun, Also Rises were pretty attractive in words. I’m pretty sure he liked sexy as much as the next guy. No crime in that. Even the Bible is pretty hot when you get to David and Bathsheba.”

“I am totally jazzed. I just bought a new house so this puppy better fly.”

What’s On the I-Pod in my Mind.

Cheri singing her campfire medley to close her act at that gay cabaret in the Valley.

Four year old Billy Steinkellner doing Jingle Bells at the top of his lungs at five in the morning in some neighbor’s front yard.

Li’l Emma singing in the backseat with head phones on and her eyes closed.

Teddy and his sisters doing the opening song from Beauty and the Beast complete with all incidental dialog.

Me singing The 16th of September (the ordinary day) Song from the late lamented “The Case Against Christmas”.

Cheri singing the cast album from On the Road with Guy DiSimone.

The three creators from Cheers singing Happy Trails to You on our last night working on the show.

Me improvising a song as the Big Bad Wolf the first time Cheri sees me on stage at the Groundlings.

Emma doing just her part of that “ding, ding, ding, dong, dong” Christmas Carol.

All the Montecito Union School’s Holiday Sing’s Hannukah songs. (What can I say? I love Hannukah songs.)

Kit singing every morning in her crib with baby monitor quality.

Teddy doing Brush Up Your Shakespeare.

Cheri doing one of a possible 10,000 Young American songs complete with intricate choreography at the drop of a hat.

Emma and Nanda doing their fabulous show biz medley at the Senior’s home that they are “famous for”.

Teddy (and Emma) playing the shofar in Temple.

The Non-Trophy Events of Our Times

Taking grief from the sales clerk that rightfully belongs to her previous customer.

Not screaming out loud when the Captain announces (in that ubiquitous southern drawl) that the plane is A) 19th in line to take off, B) Delayed for another 45 minutes because they can’t locate the mumble mumble necessary paperwork for the repair that was made 30 minutes ago, C) that we can’t land in the next hour because their is some bad weather five hundred miles away from where we are right, now.

Staying totally silent while being dressed down for humiliating somebody who is related to you by blood.

Spilling something on your shirt while you are out on the one day of the week you felt like wearing white.

Driving all the way to the vet to get the only kind of food your dog’s delicate tummy can keep down on the one day of the week the office is closed.

Coaching the 5th grade basketball “B” teams composed of all the players who didn’t get picked for the “A” team. This guarantees that your team will get whupped by everybody else’s “A” team. Which means you will be winless at the end of the season because nobody else has a “B” team. (Slight bonus there is no greater thrill for a man than to be called “Coach”. Deserved or not.)

Donating blood. (Though, instead of trophies they do give you coupons for free pizza, ice cream and movie tickets.)

What Mom is Doing for Memorial Day Week-end (besides bumping her head on that glass ceiling.)

We can’t be Pope.

We can’t even be priests. (Well, maybe sometime in the next 2,000 years.)

We can’t be major league baseball players. (Even if we take a whole bunch of steroids. BTW it is obvious that this is written by a man because we would never stoop to using the phrase “whole bunch of steroids”.)

We can’t play golf at Augusta National where the Masters is played because a genius named “Hootie” says we can’t.

We can’t get 25 million dollars for starring in a movie like some male stars.

We can win an Oscar for Best Director once every 84 years like clockwork but there better be an awful lot of guys in it.

We can have raw power in a movie but it has to be rated XXX.

We can’t be POTUS. (Yet.)

The most powerful representative of our group is Oprah. (Oprah is great but come on, Oprah?)

And just when we started to make real progress in the world they started outsourcing all our jobs.

We could go on with this list but first we have to make dinner, call in sick for people, make the doctor’s appointments, apologize, dress the kids, go to church, remind everyone of everything, drive everyone everywhere they have to go and act like it’s no trouble at all.

How Come White Folks Are in Charge, again?

White folks dance like they’ve got a stick up their butt but they want to make sure that they don’t do anything that might make it fall out.

White folks buy retail unless they “know somebody”. Then they really get ripped off.

White folks sometimes own trailer parks but they sure ain’t bragging about it.

White folks are responsible for creating, maintaining and proliferating some of the most boring organizations on earth. If a non-white folk should happen to join one of these groups they eventually quit or become just as boring as everyone else.

White folks have the richest, least fun religions. (This would lead one to believe that God is a non-white folk since everything else She creates is pretty fun. Even spiders. Point of fact since neither Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, Moses or Confucius were white, strictly speaking, no white folk has ever created a major religion. Mormonism — AKA Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and Scientology? Okay, you got me there.)

So, all in all, white folks sure got a lotta gall acting so “high and mighty”. (A popular expression of white folks.)

How a Member of Team Steinkellner Can Become Invisible.

I have no idea how many times I have come across this picture without seeing what is truly important. I have always liked it because it is a picture of the area right outside the playroom. It is a kooky little side yard with all this crazy long grass.

The grass seems to be a rare strain, possibly from another planet. But it is really just regular long grass. It’s what our whole lawn would look like if we never cut it.

I have always loved this picture because instead of a window view it looks like a framed painting. I thought there was a postcard story in there somewhere. So, I’ve kept it with the other postcards in the hopes that one day an idea would pop out of my brain and onto the page.

What I failed to notice all those times of looking at it, is that two year old Emma is in the picture. It must have been taken when we first moved into the house because there is no furniture in the room.

Emma is laying down on her back in front of the window. She is in the shadows but how does one not see Emma? Now, that I see her, I can tell she is this bundle of energy about to explode even though she is pretending to relax with a cup and a book.

Never tell Emma about this story or I’ll never hear the end of it. One day I’ll be walking her down the aisle and she’ll whisper in my ear –”Remember that time you didn’t see me in that picture”. Because that’s the way we roll…