December 20, 2013

 

Merrry Christmas Everyone,

 

We had a great Christmas last year in Santa Fe.  It snowed on Christmas eve, We enjoyed the traditional Farolito walk with friends, as bonfires, luminarias, Christmas carolers, and cups of hot chocolate warm the way along the route from the historic Plaza to the end of Canyon Road. On Christmas day the kids went sledding in the quickly melting snow on our road.  We had an intimate family dinner and all agreed it was one of the best Christmases ever.  We vowed to go back this year, and were so resolved that we decided to leave all our Christmas ornaments in the garage in Santa Fe.

 

And as I write this from my living room in Los Angeles, I am enjoying the sight of a lovely noble fir with tinsel, a star, and no ornaments. The good news is that our place in Santa Fe has been rented for much of this year. Seeing as how in this crappy economy we don’t seem to qualify for a re-fi (the bank that happily gave us the bad loan in 2007, doesn’t seem to understand the concept of free-lance employment in 2013), well we can’t complain about an LA Christmas this year.

 

Other good news:  I have 3 new brothers!  Their names are Scott, Dale, and Rick.  I adopted Dale and Scott, and Rick adopted me..  Since I haven’t talked to my oldest brother Charlie in nearly 3 years (after a very Jerry Springer New Years Day) this seems like a decent dose of overcompensation.  At the very start of the year, I got the word that my niece, Cristy (age 48), was about to succumb to her cancer and flew up to Washington state to see her.  I ended up staying throughout her 5 day hospice, helping out her husband Rick and taking shifts with other family.  Camping out with my nephews (Christy’s older brothers Scott and Dale) on the living room floor, I was struck by how familiar this felt.  How much I missed my own brothers, and how these boys were losing their own little sister.  On Mothers’ day, Rick (the widow) was evidently experiencing a milestone.  In a Happy Mother’s Day text, he asked if I would be his sister, and of course I accepted. It’s all good.  Well, except for the part where new love is born out of loss and hardship.

 

Somewhere between Christmas and Cristy’s passing, I prepped and shot the teaser for a movie in LA that I hope to produce.  I discovered a new business model for independent film.  If you shoot between Christmas and new years, you get everything, and nearly everybody, for free.  Film people can’t sit still, even when the town is dead.  The good news is that everything went great, and I was very pleased with what we eventually put together to help raise $ for the full movie.  (you can watch it at http://youtu.be/PaHBfdWxzJA).  The bad news is that progress on this project has been sluggish, and we’ve had to perform CPR on it several times.  I’m between chest compressions as I write this.

 

Work-wise, it’s been a prosperous year.  Dennis worked on a terrific TV show called “The Bridge” as UPM/Co-Producer, and will return for a second season in Jan.  It even shot in LA for a change!   I was the one who had to go on location this year, working in New York on the pilot for “The Blacklist.”  The show was a great excuse to hang out with all of my friends. But the best part was hanging out every weekend with Dennis’ son Chance and his beautiful family in Brooklyn (wife Emma, and their kids Honor, Ellis, and Carter).  It’s always a funny struggle to visit with them and establish my identity with my grandchildren.  My name is Cyndy, and Chance’s mom is also named Cyndy.  Yes, that’s right.  The kids have 2 grandmothers named Cyndy. (Yes, Dennis married 2 women with the name Cyndy). I finally got beyond being the imposter grandma. I had a swank apartment on the east side, and managed to finally establish myself as “Grandma Cyndy with the pool at her apartment.”  In short, we had a bonding time, and I LOVE my New York kids!  I would be very happy if they would stay little and cute for as long as possible.

 

Since pilot season, I have been stay at home mom with my kids.  Sam is 13, and Nell is going on 10.  They are both doing great.  Healthy, good grades and all that.  I couldn’t ask for more in 2 children (well maybe more piano practice). I’m reluctant to take too much more time off, but I got to say that being home every day has been great.  I won’t ever get this time back.  I can see their childhoods racing by.  Sam grew 5 inches this year, and is officially taller than me. Next fall he’ll be a freshman in high school.  Nell has only one more year of elementary after this spring, and is getting pretty good about bossing me around.  Where does the time go?

 

With the stay at home mom routine, I finally got some writing done this year.  First I started blogging about my mom’s family’s vaudeville roots.  If you google “cyndy fuj’s vaudeville” (don’t forget the apostrophe) your search results will show links to all of the posts I did on “travalanche” which is my friend’s vaudeville blog.  It sounds really boring but I encourage you to check it out.  I have a lot of great historical pictures up there as well.  The blogging turned out to be a warm up for me.  At the end of summer, I started a workshop in my living room of “the Last Vaudevillian” which is a re-write of a play I began in the ‘90s about my vaudeville roots.  I recruited ten of wonderful actors, singers & musicians (mainly from Pacific Resident Theatre in Venice) and we started reading new and old scenes from the play. Many of the actors were also from multi-generational acting families. We strung it together one evening for an invited audience.  So I am out of the gate now.  I intend to begin another re-write on the plane to New York next week and intend to organize a public reading in LA next year, so consider yourself invited.

 

I know this is getting long, but I want to tell you one more important thing.  But first I have to tell you the story about how Nell got her name.

 

In 2003 were trying to get pregnant with a second child and we not having great luck with a fertility clinic in LA.  Then Dennis got a job in South Africa on a movie.  Sam and I came to Capetown for an extended visit.  Our gorgeous hotel room overlooked the Indian and Atlantic Oceans.  Within walking distance was the V & A Waterfront, where you catch the ferry to Robben Island.  Of course we went there (a couple of times actually) and you walk through a gallery where they sell art that Mandela created as a fundraiser for the AIDS crisis in that country.  Dennis and I decided to buy some of that art, and as a result we were invited to a banquet in Nelson Mandela’s honor in Johannesburg.  At the same time, I had stumbled upon an OB/GYN in Capetown who was doing some fertility work with me.  Basically, he had prescribed the same medication as the LA doctor, except that he made me do several blood tests to determine the exact hour that ovulation would occur.  While we were getting ready to leave for Johannesburg, I received a message from the doctor that the “day” would be the same day as the Mandela banquet.  “Don’t wait until after dinner” he said on the message.  “About 4pm would be perfect.”  Well we went to the banquet, and it was amazing of course. A long story made short, Dennis managed to be standing near the door when they escorted Mandela out of the room.  Mandela had just had a new baby granddaughter, and Dennis managed to say her name to him as he was leaving: “Zaziwe” which means hope in Xhosa (the native language there).  Mandela smiled and shook Dennis hand and said “Yes, Zaziwe!”   We vowed that if I was pregnant, we would name the baby Nelson or Nelly or something to honor him.  And the rest is history.

 

Remember Mandela. His passing is a great loss, but his legacy is tremendous.  A civil war that was about to take place did not take place.  A lot of very conservative people in that country – people that thought he belonged in prison for being a terrorist – were won over by him.  People that did unspeakable learned to ask for forgiveness.  Others who were victims were able to forgive their offenders. It’s an amazing story that we can learn so much from.

 

zaziwe.