Festival and Freaks

So last time we left off with a story from Montreal from 2 weeks ago. The rest of the weekend was awesome. I have to admit, bringing Dexter (as a 4 month old) to a music festival in another province, had me a bit anxious but once we got to the venue and got all sorted out, all of my nerves went away. The music was amazing. Two days of incredible weather, company and live music was pretty much the highlight of the summer. Dexter was so cute in his big blue headphones to protect his little ears, he was like a goddamn celebrity. When Will put him in the baby bjorn to go and see Major Lazer with the guys, there were more pictures taken of Dex than of Lindsey Lohan's crotch. Hilariously, Dex fell asleep during Major Lazer. He was waaay more into Snoop Dog, probably because he's so West Coast. Anyhow, he was really good and didn't have any meltdown's until the last 2 hours of the car ride home but I was having a meltdown too. I may have spent too much time in the Holiday Inn hottub because it felt like my skin was crawling. Anyhoo, no topical diseases to speak of (this time) and the weekend was awesome. The best part about it was realizing that taking your baby or kid out of the comfort zone is always going to be ok. Even when you think it's a bit over the top, it'll always work out in the end and if you're still anxious when it's happening....drink more.
Ok, on to last week. To let you know, I do some voice work and I was lucky enough to get sent on a couple of auditions last week. Up until this point, Will had always just come with me and sat in the car with Dex because the auditions only take 15 minutes or so. Anyhow, I decided just to take him in with me and figured I would get the receptionist or someone else who was auditioning to hold him while I went in. In hindsight I probably shouldn't really leave my baby with strangers but I try to assume the best rather than the worst. So there's about 3 other women in there waiting to audition and they all go bananas over Dex because he's a baby and women are genetically bread to instantly assume their best baby voice when a baby enters the picture. Can we talk about the baby voice for a minute? We all do it and none of us realizes just how ridiculous we sound while using our baby voice because we're just caught up in the cuteness of the baby and the moment. I am going to record the way I speak to Dex just to listen to what a moron I sound like afterwards. Imagine going into a interview and introducing yourself in the voice you use to talk to you baby or niece or nephew or whatever? The same could be said for your dog voice. We just think that babies and animals need to be spoken to like someones got your balls in a vice; 3 octaves higher with a subtle hint of crazy. Anyhow, back to the audition. This one actress is really the loud one out of the group and is asking me all sorts of questions about the baby and making faces and using her baby voice which sort of sounded a bit like Liza Minelli after some Vicoden and gin. Needless to say, Dex wasn't responding to her very well. She looks up at me and says, "He's never been here before." I was a bit caught of guard and stammered, "Uhhh, no he's not. I've never brought him to an audtion before. He's definitely never been here." "No" she responds "He's never been here before." Ok. Again I say, "Yup, this is his first time at a voice audition." She shakes her head and says, "What I'm saying is he's a new soul." Ohhhhhh riggght. We were talking about reincarnation! Duhhh, how silly of me not to have first gone right to reincarnation.What a rookie conversation mistake! She's nodding her head at me like she's just figured out how to cap the oil well and I just say, "Right well ...sure." There are very few times where I'm at a loss for words but Shirley McLean here managed to stump me. Here's the thing, I think there's something to be said for reincarnation but when a wide eyed voice actress thinks she can read into your babies past lives, it's a bit funny. I didn't leave Dex with her while I auditioned.