Posted on 10/19/2004 7:33:25 PM PDT by O.C. - Old Cracker
NEW YORK -- On Katie Couric's busy schedule, the phone interview about her new children's book was set for 4:30 p.m., about 12 hours after she had left for work as co-host of NBC's Today.
When she called at 5, she was apologetic and explained she had forgotten that one of her daughters had a volleyball game. So while rushing to the game on the Upper East Side, Couric called by cellphone. She laughed and said, ''I'm trying to multitask.''
The latest example of that is Couric's The Blue Ribbon Day (Doubleday, $15.95), on sale this week, a sequel to her 2000 best seller, The Brand New Kid.
Couric says writing the 26-page book, in verse, was ''fun, not work. I enjoy writing little ditties. . . . A book is tangible, not like an interview that goes off into the stratosphere.''
The book is about friends, Ellie and Carrie, named after Couric's daughters, ages 13 and 8, but is not based on them. In the novel, they try out for a soccer team. Ellie is a star. Carrie is not and is cut from the team, but she wins a science fair.
Couric, 47, says she wanted to ''get across a family life lesson in a fun way: Everyone is good at something. As parents, we're often afraid to let our kids experience disappointments, but they can learn from that.''
The Blue Ribbon Day is about the small disappointments that seem so big to children. Couric remembers mostly sitting on the bench of her softball team and failing to land a major role in a school production of Carnival as a girl in Northern Virginia. ''At first I was cast as a deaf-mute -- if it's politically correct to say that -- then ended as a dancing bear. But I wanted the lead, of course.''
The book's proceeds benefit cancer research. Couric's husband, lawyer Jay Monahan, died of colon cancer in 1998; her oldest sister, Emily Couric, a Virginia state senator, died of pancreatic cancer in 2001.
Couric says she's ''sort of embarrassed'' to join the growing list of celebrities, including Madonna and Jay Leno, who are writing kids' books.
''But I was doing this before it became quite the trend,'' she says. ''I think I have something to share. I'm not trying to exploit my celebrity; I'm trying to be helpful.''
Couric plans to write a children's book about peer pressure and might write a memoir someday. She says she promised her father, a retired newspaperman, that she'd write it by herself. ''He said, 'No journalist worth his or her salt should have a co-author.' ''
And as a successful working mother, how does she do it all? ''I basically like to stay busy. Even when I'm resting, I'm thinking. And I have more downtime than people realize. . . . I try not to overschedule myself.''
But as many parents can tell you, it's tough to have it all. Couric got to her daughter's volleyball game after it ended, but in time to walk her home.
I'll be having nightmares, after seeing that photo. She looks like a braying ass.
Pretty damn funny. She makes $65 million and still can't think of two things at once?
I can't bring the photo up. But sight unseen I believe this article should have included a Barf Alert in the title.
The great misnomer of the 'SuperMom' 80s was that the women held up as 'role models' (think back to Jane Pauley and her having twins--Janie was the original Katie) had a SWAT team of assistants, drivers, nannies, housekeepers, make-up artists, hair stylists, personal shoppers, cooks, accountants...yadayadayada...need I go on...to help them with the mechanics of life. And its all that 'stuff' folks (along with no having their 6 figure income) that make them what the are. Blue Ribbon my patoot...Katie couldn't carry my SUV keys.
Sounds like a rotten mother.
Another self-absorbed baby-boomer.
Ooops...I was still thinking 80s when I typed 6 figure income...oh silly me!!! Let me re-phrase that to '8 figure income.'
Krazy Couric is more "full of herself" than either of the KlinToons. If that's possible. She makes me sick.
Blue Ribbon Mom? How about Red Ribbon Communist?
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