So, I was just hanging out on Muk's blog, recounting the story of the day I met a todler named "Iago" in the park, when I remembered another story from the many days I spent as a nanny hanging out at the Tot Lot in Prospect Park. Here in the journalism-lite trade, this story is now what we call "relevent" because of the release of The DaVinci Code film. (note: hats off to Michelle Collins at "You Can't Make It Up" for coming up with an entirely new reason to hate the DaVinci Juggernaut. I'm always on the lookout for those.)
So one day I was at the Tot Lot as per usual with MostFavoritePerson who was just beginning to walk. While we were hanging out, giddy from the excitement that comes from pulling yourself up and taking a few tottering steps, a dad arrived with a son about MFP's age and a small Asian woman who I assumed to be his wife. The dad was, in a word, hot and he cut a handsome rakish figure. Then, he opened his mouth and we all noticed he was British. He looked very much like a rock star, one whose idenity you can't quite put your finger on, you just have some vague sense that he is famous. Spittle began to form in the corners of the mouths of the other mothers who were hanging around. All attention was on this rockstar British dad, as moms kept one lazy eye monitoring their own offspring.
Of course, I was used to being in the presence of attractive dads at the playground, although I was more familiar with the hipster or "grup" variety. This was afterall Park Slope. Life went on. MostFavoritePerson fell down and bonked her head. At this time in her life, the ONLY way to comfort her was to sing "Teddybears' Picnic" to her, so I instantly scooped her up and began singing and rocking her. I noticed the rockstar British dad watching me and smiling.
Later, MFP was standing on one end of the platform on top of the slide. She wanted to go across, but I needed to get to the other side and position myself at the other end to be there in case she toppled over. I was hesitant to let go of the back of her dress and sprint around to the other side. Rockstar british Dad was there, and he sensed my hesitation. "It's all right," he said in his lovely accent. "I've got her."
There's a pretty strong community at the Tot Lot where people look out for each other's kids, so I let him hold onto MFP as I went around the slide so that she could practice tottering over to me. "What's your name?" rockstar British dad asked my baby. Since she was a baby and couldn't answer, I told him, "Veronique" using her full name instead of her nickname. The occassion seemed to call for such formality.
"Veronique, that's a brilliant name!" he said. The baby looked up at him, and I swear even she had stars in her eyes. "She's beautiful! When I have a little girl, I want her to be just like Veronique." The baby and I were both drooling. "Well, your son is beautiful too," I said dumbly.
"Yah, he's alright, isn't he?" He kept playing with MFP and calling her by her name. Then he picked up a Bert puppet to amuse his own son. MFP was also enthralled. Soon, all the babies in the Tot Lot saw the Bert schtick and were fixated. They began crawling all over each other to get closer to the charasmatic puppeteer. He was like the Pied Piper, I think I saw one baby elbow another just to get closer to him. Soon, all of these babies were crawling all over him and this guy was loving it. The mothers were embarassed but too paralyzed by lust to do anything about it.
Then, a petite, dark-haired woman rode up on a bicycle. "Look everyone, it's my wife!" said the Dad. I realized the Asian woman he was with must have been the nanny. The guy made to get up and some of the babies started to cry. "I just want to give my wife a smooch!" he said. While the mothers consoled their children, the rockstar British dad ran over to the woman and gave her a kiss. Then they walked a discreet distance away from the children to have a cigarette. The woman was Jennifer Connlley and I realized that the man I had been talking to was Paul Bettany, now appearing as a flagellating albino monk in a theater near you.
7 comments:
Oh.my.god. I love him. At first no one really knew him so it was fine. Now I'm embarassed to admit it, but I'm not quite sure why. I was reading through the post with one foot out the door at work. And I almost didn't read to the end...I REALLY wanted to get out of the office. But something compelled me to keep reading. Thanks for a great ending!!
You see, this is the story you should tell all people when they are first introduced to you.
He sounds like a nice guy, though I'm amazed no one recognized him.
P.S. That Michelle is funny and right, though like her, I avoided the book because I supsicious of anything so popular and didn't want to read it on the subway. Now I've read it in paper back, and I liked it. So what da ya know?
Once I was walking behind a couple on my way up to 7th- she was pushing a stroller, he had the baby on his shoulders. We both stopped to wait to cross, and I was staring at the baby, who was very adorable and was wearing an equally adorable green rain jacket. The dad turned to the mom to repeat something funny the little one had said. At that mom, I realized I was standing behind the beautiful Jennifer/Paul duo.
Out of the corner of his eye, PB must have seen me there looking up at him, and he seemed to get a bit more reserved. He said something in a low tone to JC, and they both seemed to make an effort to face forward until it was time to cross. I fear they thought I was a crazed stalker. I mean, I think I was behaving fairly normally-- I get a little gaga over most babies, and had it been anyone other than a famous couple, I might've went up and talked to the parents about their cutie. Anyway, I suddenly felt sheepish for simply walking behind them, and made a pointed break to the left when we were all crossing the street so they'd know I wasn't following them home.
After that incident I saw the happy family walking down 7th Avenue with Jennifer's older son too. They walk among us.
However, in my mind this story pales in comparisson to the time I was taking a dog I was dog sitting for out and encountered John Turturro casually strolling down 4th street in the middle of the day. I almost crapped my pants. The dog actually did crap (possibly unrelated to Turturro sighting).
SuperSkater, don't forget the time you found yourself on the stairmaster next to Jennifer Connelly.
That's just weird. It wasn't at the Y I hope. She should have her own gym shouldn't she?
I guess she was/is a member of my gym, but I've only seen her once. My friend saw her there once as well, around the same time period. It's been a while, so she may have upgraded to some chichi location.
In reality, she was a couple machines over, but still close enough that I had to concentrate in order to not keep looking over at her while she was working out. I mean, on a regular day it's tough for me to remain upright while on the treadmill, but the horrific thought of falling on my face in front of the entire gym because I was trying to gawk at Jennifer Connolly was enough to keep me on the straight and narrow.
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