Finally One of the Gang

YAY! My dear agency called today and I finally got a Law & Order shoot. Looks like I CAN get arrested, after all. I was feeling terribly left out because every single person I know keeps getting on the various Law & Orders (I'm doing SVU), and I felt like the girl who didn't get asked to the prom. However, shooting tomorrow! Naturally, the location bus will be leaving at some Godforsaken hour, but what the hell.

God, they want a lot of damn luggage. It's a scene in a blue collar bar (in Bayonne, New Jersey - yet another stop on my ongoing tour of local beauty spots), and they want three damn outfits. Yeah, well - they'll get them, but I'll bet right this instant that they'll go for the first thing I put on, which will be an old t-shirt, jeans, sneakers (no, NOT running shoes - plain old once-white sneaks) and a jean jacket. Anybody want to lay odds? Hey, I know my blue collar bars. I spent many a happy hour in various Blarney Stones over the years, some of which I actually remember.

Meanwhile, I'm getting myself together for France. I had shopping plans for tomorrow, but they're at RiteAid, which stays open until 10 pm, and from what I hear, L&O doesn't shoot late. This is fine, because I have a senior citizen card at RiteAid which allows me 20% off anything on the first Tuesday of every month, and I'm sure as hell gonna use it tomorrow - suntan lotion, body wash, tooth stuff...you know, the little bits and pieces. I'm not buying it over there because of the relation of the Euro to the dollar, and also because the prices in our town are jacked up for tourists anyway. Not to mention that I don't have a senior citizen discount card for France.

So I made my packing list (yeah, right - jeans, t-shirts, bathing suit, one dress for Sarah's birthday dinner, nightgown, bathrobe - Yvoire is NOT the fashion capital of the world), I printed out all 16 pages of my trip insurance thing, and tomorrow I'll print out my actual ticket. Wednesday I'm going to KMart for cat food (64 cents a can as opposed to 89 cents a can at the deli), and Thursday it's off to the pharmacy for my prescriptions and Barnes & Noble for plane flight reading because I have a discount card for them, too - I have learned over my many, many years of traveling that you can spend more damn money in the airport just getting to the damn plane than you do on vacation. However, I WILL hit the duty-free for cigarettes because I'm not nuts.

And yes, I am a heavily organized traveler. This is because I'm congenitally lazy and hate fuss. There is absolutely NOTHING more calculated to cause fuss than to try and do everything at top speed an hour before you leave for the airport. My husband used to drive me completely up a wall with this sort of thing. I would have everything all packed up, we would be out of the house and half way to getting a taxi, and he would suddenly decide he needed something he'd forgotten about and run back to the house to look for it - sometimes three or four times. Sometimes when our luggage was in the taxi. The result was that I was invariably a gibbering wreck before we even GOT to the airport - and he would then decide, as we were racing toward our gate, that it would be a fine moment to disappear into the bathroom for ten minutes. Of course, by the time we got on the plane, I would think of absolutely nothing but cornering the entire beer supply...

So not only do I make packing lists, but I also leave early. This year, because Sarah's leaving the day before me, there's only me to worry about, so I can happily leave early, early, early for the airport. My flight is at 9:30 pm, so I'll be out the door at 5 pm. Well, this really isn't too early.

1. I'm not taking an airport car. I'm going to Port Authority to catch the airport bus.
2. It's August - vacation time and crowded airport.
3. Security, God bless its idiotic little heart.
4. Duty-free, for the cigarettes.
5. Possibility of nice cold beer before take-off, just as a reward for navigating all of the above.

Anyway, I like airports.

Well, to bed. I just got my call time, which is a merciful 7:30 am at 14th and 7th Avenue...goody. That'll give me time to sort out my outfits.

Love, Wendy