Monsoon Season

Look, could all my readers get together and started collecting pairs of animals? I've got my carpenter friend working on the ark...40 cubits, as specified...and no, I don't know what the hell a cubit is either (note: line only works if you remember Bill Cosby's standup act).

You will now have to excuse me for being quite vulgar, but I am going to paraphrase Samuel L. Jackson: I am tired of these mother fucking drops from this mother fucking sky. It has now rained for four straight days, we get a brief break over the weekend, and it's then going to rain for another nine days. E-FUCKING-NUFF! I have personally mildewed.

Meanwhile, now that I have impolitely vented my spleen about the weather, last week's three day law firm job wasn't that bad. Looking back, I realize that I haven't mentioned this.

I'm not on partial unemployment at the moment, so I was quite startled to get a call from the Department of Labor a couple of weeks ago. Being a cynical New Yorker, my first thought was that they had decided that I shouldn't have been getting unemployment and now wanted me to pay it back. But no...they had a job for me. I really did NOT want to go to an office job, and I CERTAINLY didn't want to go to a law firm, but as it happens, it wasn't at all bad. The reason that the Department of Labor called me is that my name turned up on their database as someone who could use a Dictaphone, which is evidently a dying art.

Anyway, it's the first time in my life I have ever been profoundly grateful for the no smoking in offices rule. You have never seen such a mess in your life...and I know messes. There were thick heavy files stacked on every single available surface to a height of at least a foot in all cases...including on the floor. Horrendous. But the work was very much my sort of thing (hand me the stuff and leave me alone, thank you very much), and the guy I was working for actually wrote a check for me, had me endorse it, ran down to the bank and paid me in cash...and gave me paid lunch hours. So, altogether not bad. Horrendously underpaid, though. Legal work used to be $20 an hour...I was getting $12. But since I wouldn't have been getting anything otherwise...why not.

Then I got a call on Tuesday to go shoot Arbitrage (some financial thriller with Susan Sarandon), which was great, but annoying. I called in on Tuesday night as directed to get my call time, and was told it was 1 pm. Terrific! Actually it didn't matter what time it was, because we were shooting on 28th Street and 11th Avenue, meaning it was about a five minute taxi ride away (I could have walked, but not in the aforementioned monsoon). However, on Wednesday morning they called me at 6:30 am to tell me the new call time was 9 am. Obviously I had no problem with that...five minutes away, right? What I DID have a problem with, however, as did all the other background people, was that they proceeded to leave us sitting in holding until about 5:30 pm. But as usual, breakfast, nice lunch, and the company of a lot of cops and retired cops (a lot of cops moonlight as background people and actors in general), who are generally good company and tell great stories. And the earlier call time and the long wait meant that I not only got fed, but a little overtime as well.

Then I went and met my pal Caesar at Sarah's bar, and then I came home and fell into bed. Today I have done nothing whatsover. I may make another stab at getting Sarah's stuff in order tomorrow, but I haven't decided yet.

And on Saturday the greatest street fair in the world occurs, the Bedford Barrow Commerce/Ye Older Village Faire! Yay! It's also supposedly the Rapture and we'll all going to die. Well, personally, if I'm going to die, doing it with great food, cold beer, good music and a bunch of friends seems to be exactly the right time and place. See you on the Other Side! (Bring beer.)

Love, Wendy