Lights! Glamour! Action! Pittsburgh's Oscar Party

Eight weeks after giving birth I suckered my husband into staying home with our two toddlers and an infant to attend the Pittsburgh Film Office’s Oscar Gala Light! Glamour! Action!

Thanks to my new shapewear collection from Yummie Tummie I fit into my girlfriend’s red gown since the buzz was that red was the this year's color. Because I am Miss Shorty and she is 5’11’’ I wore the 6” Target platforms I snagged while shopping for a birthday present for my daughter’s friend. Glittery pumps have made its way from drag queen to runway. I wanted the sparkly Miu Miu ankle booties last season, but was afraid to make the investment for a pair of shoes I would worship and never wear.

As I ran around the house with an infant latched to my bosom, throwing on every piece of glam jewelry I own I imagined my acceptance speech for the future film “Accidental Mama.” In my reoccurring fantasy I give birth backstage after the excitement of breaking my water while accepting the Oscar for best original screenplay. This was a reprieve from the nightmare of moving to the suburbs that has been disturbing my psyche lately. My limo has turned into a minivan, literally.

My husband Patrick stayed at home with the children so I arrived solo to Clubhouse Section at Heinz Field. My good friend Tara Rieland coordinated a Super Heroes themed fashion show after the party’s theme. Local salons glamorously interpreted super heroes.

Stephanie Marie’s buxom Wonder Woman was a hit and I loved it because I secretly imagined her as a Super Hero Wet Nurse. I could use one of those sometimes.

There was a lot of burgeoning talent in the crowd that came out to celebrate the success of Pittsburgh’s movie industry. One of the catalysts for the success was caught mingling, Chris Breakwell of 31st Street Studios. His Hollywood guests were in town for a press conference that took place the next day on Monday.

All parts of the industry came out to celebrate movie’s biggest night. On Set Dresser Mamie Stein came in pretty striped dress. Docherty Model Breanne White came out in her prom dress that she bought at e.b.pepper.

While I still had my lashes on thanks to Katherine Reel, I was going to find some more mommies in the house. Theresa Gaugler and Denise Mueller from modeling agency Wilhelmina made it out in their matching Jimmy Choo shoes. What struck me was the Donna Karen clad mom Theresa had five children at home. She was happy that the oldest could now babysit for her.

I found one very pregnant woman MaryAnn McBride who was 35 weeks into her fourth pregnancy. She is in her second surrogate pregnancy, God bless her. I am not a happy pregnant person, nope I am not. I think I might strangle my husband if I get pregnant again. Nice way to end my Oscar Party story with a death threat.

My Phoenix Rising

For me, 2012 will be the year of the Phoenix. My son was born on Christmas Day, a perfect gift.

On Christmas Eve I experienced an extreme increase in pelvic pressure. It felt like I was walking around with my unborn son’s head sticking out between my legs. After a night of crying my eyes out in pain and frustration while we placed presents around the tree and Patrick assembled the drum kit Santa had delivered for our 18-month-old son, I called my doctor who was on call. He wanted me to come in and at least get examined.

I got to see my kids fight over the drum kit before we left for the hospital. I was 6cm, no cervix left with a bulging amniotic sac. The doctor assessed that I had been in a slow labor for days and it was time to end the pain by speeding the process up by breaking my water. I was excited and devastated. Did I really want to give my son a Christmas birthday? Did I have a choice?

Getting an epidural was the best thing I ever did and, frankly I wish I still had one. Leading up to this point, I was debating a drug-free birth since my deliveries come so fast and furious, but the last week had been so painful the relief was a blessing. The anesthesiologist was a recent mom who helped my son figure out his new Buzz Lightyear toy. So while I laid there getting an epidural and urine catheter, Lyra and Luca were chasing this rocket around the room eating Cheerios.
Normally, toddlers are not allowed in delivery rooms, but it was Christmas and my dad was an infamous surgeon at the hospital, so no one said anything about the kids running around opening all the cabinets. The kids were fascinated by the monitors hooked up to my belly that made little beats. I told the kids that the sound was the choo-choo train in the baby’s heart.

My dad and son Luca were passed out in the waiting room when the baby came. My sister had decided to take Lyra out of the room when the baby was actually delivered but the time to push came so quickly no one gave my sister any warning. I was talking through my contractions with great difficulty when the doctor took me out of the “fire hydrant” position (which resembled a dog peeing on a fire hydrant) to give the first push.

Lyra was in Patrick’s arms holding my leg open when suddenly there was a baby’s head that appeared and then his body. Lyra’s eyes got so big and she said “Mommy, you peed on Baby Laser! You pee on potty!” She also remarked that mommy had grass on her peepee and that mommy had a booboo on her peepee. My peepee was well talked about that day.

She was enrapture with the baby and wanted to hold his hand to comfort his crying. She even pulled out my epidural line, which she got to do when Luca was born as well.

When my son walked in the room and saw me breast-feeding the infant he looked at me as if I had betrayed him and exclaimed, “Boobee, mine! Boobee, mine!”

It really was a blessed day to complete our family, which is why the next day seemed to pull that elation down a few notches. The day after Christmas, I got my bags ready to leave because I had made it clear to the staff I wanted to bring my baby home and have Christmas with the family. Instead, a young female doctor came in and explained that she wasn’t letting the baby leave because my blood type made him more likely to be jaundiced, but more importantly because she heard a heart murmur that could be a defect that needed to be diagnosed by a specialist. I was floored, not my perfect baby boy. He was healthiest and heaviest baby of mine yet at 7lbs 15.5oz.

Over the course of the day we discovered he has a VSD, a small to moderate hole in the ventricular septum towards the apex of his heart. Depending on what doctor you spoke to the odds of it growing together was either 50 to 80 percent. We would have to watch it over the next few months before determining how it would be dealt with.

Before that day we had decided to call him Laszlo Caspian, a name that combines a Hungarian king’s name that means “the power and the glory” with the character Prince Caspian from The Chronicles of Narnia.

The next night in the hospital I decided that his little life had already inspired me and with God’s help he will rise above his broken heart. Therefore, we decided his name should be Lazar Phoenix, a name that combines the Old Hebrew name Lazarus which means “with God’s help” or “God’s helper” and the glorious legend of the Phoenix Rising that can be found as a constellation in the stars.

Please welcome my son Lazar Phoenix, also called Baby Laser, born with a broken heart that will heal with the help of the heavens and stars. For now it’s a waiting game while we listen to the choo-choo train in his heart hoping that its little whistle will be silenced on its own.

I wish you all a Phoenix Rising year.

Occupy Libertine! Protesting Everyday Fashion Trends

While I was covering New York Fashion Week Spring 2012 this past September, I got to interview a few designers about their collections for next year and sneak in a few questions about how their childhood still inspires their creativity.
The most standout designers that really captured the rebellious sentiments of what would become the “Occupy Enter City Name” movement was the Libertine show by Johnson Hartig.

Johnson launched Libertine in 2000 with Cindy Greene, an Indie rockstar in Fischerspooner. Cindy later went off to explore other creative ventures leaving Libertine to Johnson’s whimsical and bold intuitions. It is befitting to Johnson’s persona that the term “libertine” is defined as “a person who is morally unrestrained” that has roots in 17th century France and Britain. Johnson captures a vintage rebellion with a tailored edge, inspired by elegant and highbrow themes. He is like a dandy court jester who has the ability to make fun of the aristocrats while frolicking amongst them.

Backstage at his downtown show at Exit Art, another little rebel yell to the commercialized Lincoln Center shows uptown; I found Charlotte Free the pink-haired model that is hard to miss on the runway. I asked her if a mama could rock pink hair and she gave me a few pointers on how to use beet juice instead of dyes. She was super sweet. I will have to try it one of these days since my Romanian husband cooks a lot of beets. I just need to figure out how to avoid dying my entire head pink. With my beauty skill level I would end up looking like something my 3-year-old daughter painted.

Johnson was jumping around each model adjusting hair and hems, basically avoiding the pregnant mama standing in the corner with a camera. However, he did come up to me and give me a peck on the cheek, “Sorry darling I am crazy.” I was like, “Wow!” maybe I will forgive him for making me wait an hour or more for a little interview that would only last five minutes. For a moment I felt a little glamorous to be greeted like a friend by a world famous designer.

Although Libertine has been an exclusive label only available in brick and mortar stores in places like Bergdorf, Saks Fifth Avenue, and in locations like Tokyo, he has had a few collaborations with Target and Converse. He even partnered with way-out-there artist Damien Hirst.

His trademark is painting or printing graphics on beautiful pieces, sort of mixing it up while keeping it sophisticated. Sometimes the image is an animal or a design painted across a perfect suit or blouse.

For this season he created striations of white on black that evoked a winter forest silhouette on some pieces. The slogan “Tax the Rich More” appeared on a skirt. Most of the collection appeared with painted graffiti-like “X’s” and “O’s”. I thought it was a nod to the political sides like red and blue states, but actually Johnson told me it was hugs and kisses because “What’s a kiss without a hug.”
Not surprisingly his childhood was inspired by his own little world that he began creating and also in part by the elegance of the women of the 60s and 70s.

“When I was a kid I had a little bit of a morbid curiosity with death,” he says after we establish he initially mistook me for someone else. “I remembered I would build these mausoleums for Kennedy and Abe Lincoln out of bricks; then I would go around the neighborhood and pick little bits of ferns and foliage and landscape these mausoleums. It started with statues you got from gas stations.”

Many of his collections are modern vintage interpretations of flirty, but feminine looks. “I think women were super glamorous then and women paid attention to their hair and make-up and what they wore.”

Ironically, the Maybelline make-up artists were told to give the girls a 60s look with only slate eyelids and a little lipstick. The persona was that they didn’t need much more to look rebellious. I think the look is very “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” minus the Goth outfits and tattoos, of course.

The whole time I was straining to keep standing in heels and a pregnant belly I couldn’t help to admire Johnson’s collection of large diamond animal rings on each finger from Van Clef archives and Cartier. When he would button a jacket or puff up a model’s hair it looked as if the little sparkling creatures were guiding his hands or doing his bidding.

Of course, I was standing there a long time staring at him rubbing my belly like a Buddha doll trying to summon him to come and talk to me. I got a little kiss out of it at least and he approved of my baby’s name Lazar, Americanized to sound like “laser”.