I wish I had seen that show!!!! Several people told me they saw the show also and that Caroline crawled under a train that had run over a little girl. Isnt Caroline the coolest???? Saving lives like that is waaaaay more important than doing an acting job, so I am happy that firefighters are finally being really appreciated.

When I see my sister on film, I dont see myself. I see her. But when I see myself on film, I see her in me! Like when I smile a certain way, or when my eye turns in (we both have one eye that is a little lazy), or when I walk (we both have that truckdriver gait). When I first saw myself in Christine, I almost fell over when I saw my walk!!! To me, that was the way Caroline walked, but I had never seen myself walk, so I guess that is why I hadnt realized that I walked the same way.

I am very proud of Caroline, who she is, and what she does.

Thank you for your letter!

Alexandra

Alexandra

Ian and I love doing crosswords together! My mom got us into them and now my dad sends us crosswords every week that he cuts out of the New York Times. We go to movies, of course, although I have to admit Ian loves going more than I do. I have the attention span of a gnat, so if the movie isnt good I just want to leaaaaaaaave! Ian, bless his sweet self, is much more patient than I!

I really am having fun with our photo albums (although I havent started our wedding album yet. Isnt that funny – a year gone by!). I have very few loose photos around, because as soon as a roll is developed I put what I want in the book, and send the rest to friends/family. This summer I captioned several albums, so when I get old and senile I will know who is in the pictures!

I began knitting earlier this year, and so far I have made 3 scarves (for Ian, for Caroline and one for my friend Tom) and 2 hats (a baby one for my best friend Roya’s baby, and one for Ian). It is an excellent thing to do on a set where there is so much waiting around! I am not that good really, but I enjoy it alot.

I love to read, and I have been finding most of my fiction books from Oprah’s Book Club. On location for a film, I will read almost 2 books a week, but at home I read less. An excellent book from her selection that I read recently was Back Roads. Ian and Caroline read it and they loved it also.

Have a wonderful holiday season,

Alexandra

Road Angels was a wonderful thing I did for 7 years on New Year’s Eve. It was a non-profit program where volunteers would be on call to drive people home who were too drunk to drive safely. Volunteers would pair up and have a pager that would go off after midnight, signalling that someone had called the Road Angels office for a ride (Ian and I were a team so we would go home and sleep until our pager went off). The volunteer team calls in to the office and gets the address of where to pick up the people and where to drop them off. We work in teams of 2 for safety, but also so that one of us can drive the drunk person’s car home and the other car can transport other passengers if there are several people in the group. One of the reasons people dont call taxis to take them home when they have drunk too much is that they dont want to leave their car and have to pick it up later. It is also very hard to get cabs on New Year’s Eve.

Some folks think it isnt fair that drunks get free rides home, but all I care about is keeping the roads safe. Unfortunately, Road Angels is no longer in existence here in LA because it didnt get enough funding this year.

I was very sad about that, because I think it was a valuable service it was providing. This year, I guess Ian and I will just go to bed early!

One thing I have signed up for is a Disaster Action Team. This is a national Red Cross program where I would be on a team in my area and when there was a fire or a mudslide or an accident nearby, we would respond to help the victims with a place to stay for the night, a change of clothes if they need some, food, etc etc. I have gone to one training session and am going to another in a couple weeks, then I am hoping to be ready to be assigned to a team. I imagine a Disaster Action Team could be pretty busy on a New Year’s Eve!

That is wonderful that you are wanting to help out. One thing we can all do that night is to be very, very firm with our friends and not let them drive if they have been drinking even a little. Let us each be a designated driver for New Year’s Eve (and for all those holiday parties), and be willing to go out of our way to keep our friends from driving drunk. It isnt easy, because there is alot peer pressure to just give someone the keys and not cause a scene. That happened to me once: My friend was obviously drunk but he made me feel like I was making too big a deal out of it, so I backed off and let him drive home alone. I regret it to this day. He got home without incident, but I regret that I was not strong enough to stick to what was the right thing to do. I will never do that again.

Have a safe holiday.

Alexandra