Busy Busy Busy

Things here at Maison Forrest are pretty crazed lately, as we are getting more involved in school activities, teaching, home improvement, and gearing up for NaNoWriMo (more about all that in future posts). I'm reminded of the wonderful Sandra Boynton song, Busy, Busy, Busy, sung by the lovely Kevin Kline.



I like to think of him this way as he's singing the song, dashing and dramatic. Yes, I know the pic is from the truly horrible film Wild Wild West, but he looked mighty fine.


Kline has done a ton of musical theatre; he studied at Julliard and received two Tony Awards for work in the musicals "On the Twentieth Century" (1978) and "The Pirates of Penzance" (1981).


He reprised the role of the Pirate King in a film version of Pirates of Penzance that's now in my queue. I'll provide a review once we've watched it. I've neglected the children's (and my own) Gilbert and Sullivan education, but am moving to rectify that. Of course, KK is also a fine Shakespearean actor, the quickest way to my heart.

I have to admit, I didn't know anything about my prospective second husband's personal life. A quick survey of imdb brought me a few surprises. He's married to Phoebe Cates! Of Fast Times at Ridgemont High fame! Did you know this? And though Cates is almost precisely my age, he's quite a bit older than I'd suspected - 62. Their 16 year age difference doesn't bother me, though. Not in the way that the McCain's 18 year difference or Fred Thompson's 24 year difference does. Of course, even if there'd been no age difference whatsoever in those cases, I would have thought negatively about the parties in question because the men dumped their first wives. As the first Mrs. McCain observed, "

‘My marriage ended because John McCain didn’t want to be 40, he wanted to be 25. You know that happens...it just does.’

Yeah, I know it does. I'm watching that unfold in the dissolution of a dear friend's marriage, and it bites the big one. But the Cates-Kline marriage seems different. He noted

"We're both sensible, and we don't separate for long periods of time. We take care of the marriage.''

There's no doubt marriage takes work. They've been at it a while, married almost as long as Professor X and I. People have commented that our length of marriage is impressive; in theatrical circles, it seems like a Herculean feat.

And they have two children, Greta and Owen, pictured here together in a 2001 film, The Anniversary Party. Cates' old FTaRH costar, Jennifer Jason Leigh, directed the film. Have I been living in a cave? I never knew these things.



So now I have a new appreciation for Kline's performance of Boynton's song. With a lovely wife and two kids, he surely personally knows what it's like to be "very, very busy."

We’re very very busy
And we’ve got a lot to do
And we haven’t got a minute
To explain it all to you
For on Sunday Monday Tuesday
There are people we must see
And on Wednesday Thursday Friday
We’re as busy as can be
With our most important meetings
And our most important calls
And we have to do so many things
And post them on the walls…

We have to hurry far away
And then we hurry near
And we have to hurry everywhere
And be both there and here
And we have to send out messages
By e-mail, phone, and fax
And we’re talking every minute
And we really can’t relax
And we think there is a reason
To be running neck-and-neck
And it must be quite important
But we don’t have time to check.

Lyrics by Sandra Boynton