Craft Services

The kids got booked for a photo shoot last week for a Japanese company that sells Hawaiian style jewelry. For some reason the Japanese (and not just their aunt Nancy) really seem to like my kids and we are often stopped by tourists in Waikiki to take their picture. I don't know if it is the double stroller that intrigues them or what. Sometimes they want to be in the picture with them, sometimes they just want the kids. I have found out that they do not want a picture of their momma, as I am usually shooed to the side and out of the sight of the viewfinder.*

Also, for some reason, A.'s ethnicity is listed as Eurasian on the agency's site and they have her listed as having television experience. Unless you mean she watches her fair share, that is incorrect. But I digress...

So the other two jobs they have done have been for swimming pools and accessories so this was to be a different experience. They had a hair and makeup person, they gave them a wardrobe (A. scored a very cute Ralph Lauren dress**) and they had craft services - you know - food. Unfortunately that is where our inexperience and unprofessionalism came into play. They had a wonderful spread of sandwiches and fruit and cake and cheese, beautifully displayed might I add. I saw the other models walking around and snacking on morsels of this and that, so blinded by the freshness of the berries (something we don't find w/in our budget very often when on an island) I starting plucking grapes and fruit and feeding them to M., after a few minutes of doing so, I am very nicely told that we are eating the props. Very cool. I thought it was a little strange to be serving champagne at 8 in the morning. Mortified, I am directed to the counter around the corner where the food we are allowed to eat is, and we continue to munch away.

The kids endured three hours of taking pictures with their new, taller, better-looking family (hot mom, dad, grandma and grandpa) and I took the opportunity to sneak around and take a few photos of the gorgeous house they had rented (owned by the family that runs Wahoo's over here). What A. called an "outside" house, the front and back walls (which are windows) all completely retract so you can walk from the front of the house to the back without opening a door. I also tried to sneak a few pics of the photo shoot itself, which I am sure would be frowned upon and I'm so sad I didn't get a picture of an indoor "family portrait" that they took because I would have had Sara photoshop mine and Ben's faces (yes just faces, I'm keeping that rockin body are you kidding me) onto the models. And we would also be getting the dog the kids always wanted.

I asked the director where we could possibly see the final product and she said, "in our stores in Japan", so if anyone is going that way, I might have you look them up. But now that my kids are going to be famous in Japan, I will be charging for tourists to take pictures with them, you can be sure of that.

*Little do they know that there was a time in my life that many an Asian wanted to take my picture as I was often mistaken as Britney Spears or one of the Spice Girls while working and cavorting around China. Maybe it's just the Chinese that like me.

**A. also got to wear "old faithful", the ubiquitous brown dress, the plaid one in the cream puff shot is the new one. Of course she immediately (of her own volition) put a sweater over her bare shoulders when we left the shoot, then it got hot.