Leaving Tomorrow!

Now, the first thing I want you to do is leap on over to Sarah's most recent blog at http://sarahbooz.blogspot.com/ (note to self: LEARN TO DO LINKS!) because she's put up three pictures of our little place in France...a skill which I meant to make her show me earlier today only I didn't. OK?

There. Isn't it gorgeous?

Long, hot day yesterday. We went a little over 11 hours, which is fine with me because it means that when I get back from France I will have a nicely sized check waiting for me. I will need this because even though I know perfectly well there's not anything I need to buy while I'm there (except for kicking in my share of the food and electricity and wine and like that there), I'll find something...I always do.

Why on earth can't people film things in some sort of logical relation to the actual weather? There I was in Bayonne, NJ all day yesterday - and we all know what yesterday was like, a hideous steam bath - wearing my nice heavy jean jacket and walking back and forth in direct sunlight. See my frequent comments on the glamour of movie/TV making. Yeah, right. Of course, you understand that the one time I did film a cold weather scene in actual cold weather I bitched and screamed about that, too (well, there was some justification on that one; it was the outdoor set in November with NO COFFEE) - there's no pleasing me. Oh, and I did actually change clothes three times. Jean jacket, pink T-shirt and jeans for walking up and down the street, pink T-shirt and blue shirt and jeans for walking through the bar, and khakis and a blue polo shirt for doing nothing after that since they didn't use me in the third bit. Ah, well - God bless SAG, which is going to pay me an extra 15.25 for more than one outfit. I love my union.

So - walk back and forth, walk through a bar, walk back and forth on the other side of the street, hang out in holding for the better part of the day. The usual, naturally, but this shoot had an extra added attraction.

We were quite a small group, about 22 of us, and therefore we did a lot more whole-group chatting than usual. The Boardwalk Empire shoots were all mob scenes (like over two hundred background people), so you tended to form a small group within the big group. But this gang was small and chatty.

It turns out that one of the guys had left his wife at home with her elderly, sick dog. The dog was 17 and not doing well, and he spent the better part of the day on his cell phone trying to get her to face the reality that it was time for the dog to be taken to the vet and put to sleep (to save it any suffering, of course), but she seemed to be resisting this idea. Naturally he told us what was going on (well, we could all hear the phone calls anyway), so we were commiserating and telling him about having to put down our own animals (which of course turned into a rousing discussion of assisted suicide/euthanasia for humans at one point). (Of which, by the way, I am in favor...don't you DARE try to keep a comatose me alive with feeding tubes and machines when I've basically already left the room.)

Well, toward the end of the day his phone rang again, and this time we all clearly heard his first words. Which, memorably, were: "$200 for an URN?"

Oh, dear. I'm afraid a few of us had to head out of the room at that point. I'm sorry - but after all the doom and gloom with the dog all day long, that just gave some of us the giggles. I don't know WHY it did (but then some people, of whom I am unfortunately one, just get to a point where they can't take it any more).

At any rate, this one is going down in history as the strangest remark I've ever heard in holding.

I have one chore left to do tomorrow, and then I shall pack (consulting my handy packing list as I go) and launch myself into the wonderful post-apocalyptic world of overseas airline travel - wearing my slip off shoes, carrying my toothpaste in a little plastic bag, and knowing that they will pull me out of line to wand me further because I look so completely inoffensive that the TSA people can never believe that I actually AM inoffensive. And then I shall hop on the plane and sit in my happy economy seat - or as we seasoned travelers like to refer to it - the Greyhound Bus of the skies.

I'll tell you ALL about the trip next week!

Love, Wendy