So, yesterday, Mom and I were driving in the car, and suddenly I realized that it was Daddy's 83rd birthday, so we sang Happy birthday to you. Mom sang at the end "And many more" and I said "Yes, through all of eternity, I think..."

I have started playing Chip's Challenge.

I used to play it all the time, but then I stopped, an occurrence that co-incided, I think, with my internet addiction. And now, no internet...so Chip's Challenge has popped back into the forefront.

I cannot believe that I have so much to read and to do and so many people to see and instead I'm wasting my time trying like hell to get past Level 23!!

Anyway, I dragged myself away from the computer, and went to Penny's to get my hair cut.

No, not the department store, silly! Penny is my hairdresser, and she has been almost the only person to cut my hair since I first went to her, when I was twelve. The funny thing is that she looks almost exactly the same, twenty-two years later. I sure as shit don't.

So she trimmed my hair, 'cause I'm still growing it out, and then Did it, 'cause we were going to an Event that evening.

What was this Event?

It was a tribute to Francis Lederer, a B movie actor from the 30's. O God, I'm not saying this right. Let's start at the beginning.

Once upon a time, 40 years ago, Czechoslovakian actor Francis Lederer and dancer Dorothy Barrett decided to start an acting and dancing school for children, called the American National Academy. Twenty-six years ago, I started taking classes there. Francis taught the advanced acting class, and I was the youngest child in it--most of the other kids in his class were teenagers.

Twenty-five years ago, my Mom started teaching acting there, at ANA (though we still call it ANTA, because it was originally affiliated with ANTA...never mind), so that even after I left, when I was fourteen and went away to school, I still knew what was going on there. She stopped teaching there after my Da died, but she's still friendly with everyone there.

So last night it was a formal dinner for Francis, who just turned 99, I think to congratulate him for not dying.

We went with Joan Tintocalis, the mother of one of my oldest friends, Teri, who also attended ANA as a child, and who's 4 year old daughter goes there now and was performing with the kids that evening.

The event actually took place at the Grand Ballroom at Beverly Garland Holiday Inn, which led me to muse on the fact that they actually have a Grand Ballroom at the Holiday Inn. Joan said that the hotel in that spot used to be a Howard Johnson, so it was moving up in the world. I said:

"I suppose we're lucky that we're not having this thing at a Motel 6!"

The whole thing, was, of course, a hellish nightmare, but that was to be expected.

We were at this terrible table in the back with a couple of the other teachers, and more than our share of big creeps. One oily fellow with greased-back black hair and a pencil moustache who looked like a gigolo, and a short, fat ex-circus performer, the kind of guy who turns every single conversation into a vaudeville routine and basically puts everyone to sleep. Also, he is anti-merger (of SAG and AFTRA) and he was sitting next my pro-merger mother, which, as you can imagine, went over really well.

The show was, of course, the same old shit from forever. The routines are completely stuck in amber, and have been since I was a child. I could have gotten up and done them along with the kids--they are in my DNA. Those costumes looked pretty familiar as well.

The funny thing, which I had forgotten until Mom mentioned it, is that Francis always hated the kiddies dancing, and now that he's 99, he's forced to watch it, as he can not longer bolt from the room.

After the kidlings there was a bunch of other "entertainment", including the worst rendition of "Soliloquy" from Carousel ever inflicted upon an innocent audience, and culminating with a singer who was so bad that he cleared the room.

This is not a joke. He started singing, and everyone in the room suddenly remembered urgent appointments elsewhere. I said that he was actually a Holiday Inn employee, making certain that the event wouldn't go overtime.

Before bolting from the room, screaming into the night, I ended up going over to say hi to Francis. I didn't want to, because I knew that he wouldn't have a vaguest idea who I was, and I would be the fiftieth person in his face whom he didn't recognize that evening, but I finally decided to be polite.

I said "Hi Francis, I'm Kimberly Zuckert, Gladys Zuckert's daughter, you taught me when I was little" and he kissed my hand and looked at me blankly, then looked over my shoulder at the next person that he didn't remember.

My mom, when she said hi to him, said "Hi Francis, I'm Gladys Zuckert, I taught at the Academy for twenty-three years." Nothing. "And I worked with you in the show The Roaring Twenties in 1956," and he knew exactly who she was.

The whole evening wasn't a write-off, since I had great fun making snide comments in Joan's ear, and I saw Teri and Kristen, who was really cute as a dancing doll, and I saw a childhood friend of mine, Patricia Coyle, whom I haven't seen in about twenty years or so, and, in the raffle (where the grand prize was a three day two night stay at...the Holiday Inn. I said "Don't we all already live in LA?), I won the centerpiece.

Today's horoscope:
The old, familiar standbys work best tonight. For optimum pleasure, depend on what makes you feel safe and secure.

One year ago today:
I looked like I had Bell's palsy!

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Last Updated Tues 27 December 16:01:09 1998