It was a Skylar kinda day.

Need I say more!!!!!

I married a Cubs Fan!

..and yet somehow I ended up at Wrigley Field in Chicago at a Cubs/Pirates game with my husband and my father in law doing the tomahawk chop and rooting for the Atlanta Braves. :) It's a playoff thing!

Other than getting to spend the weekend with the men in my family, I got to see a great city, eat lots of bad but yummy food, drink lots of beers, use my Mamiya camera for the first time in months, AND THE CUBBES WON!!! BOTH games! The energy inside that stadium when the Cubs are winning and the playoffs are around the corner is unlike anything I have ever experienced. It was the perfect weekend... like one of those memories that you wrap yourself up in when things go wrong or your having a bad day. Makes you kinda want to have a bad day. Nahhhhhh.

Priceless!

On our way to the premiere party last night, Jess and I were sitting in traffic on Wilshire Blvd. You know, that horrible part where Santa Monica and Wilshire meet and all hell breaks loose? Well, apparently they put traffic cops out there to deal with the rush hour madness. Clearly we weren't moving fast enough for the chicks behind us because they just kept laying on the horn. Of course, I flipped them off and the traffic cop must have seen me because right before the next light change he comes up to me and chats about the idiots who are honking. He looks at them and says "Oh, he's gonna have to wait." (Obviously he didn't get a good look at them because they were very much the typical "primped" stupid LA chicks). And true to his word, after the light changed, we went and he stopped them for no reason. They just had to sit there and wait. Jess said the looks on their faces were priceless. Sometimes Karma really is a bitch.

Recovering...

...from an open bar and visiting old friends. "Kid Nation" premiered last night and Jess and I partied it up with colleagues and "family" from those windy and cold days in Santa Fe. I was drunk by the first commercial break... which mind you was 39 minutes into the show... and I don't remember the end of the show. I ran into a few of my "boys" and the night was a blur until about midnight when my Red Bull kicked in and I started downing soda water. Late night pizza on Hollywood Blvd is a fantastic thing might I add and thanks Jess for suggesting it! Anyway, the show looked great, it was nice to see everyone and I loved being introduced as Jess's wife to all of those who I hadn't had a chance to get to know while I worked on the show. 9 million people watched "Kid Nation," so we must have done something right. We'll just have to see if they bring the show back for another season.

We actually left the beach this weekend!

For the first time in a long while, we ventured away from the beach for our weekend plans. Friday night we surprised and old friend by showing up to hear him play at a local bar in Pasadena. Avery James and The Hillendales are fantastic and I highly recommend them... and I am not just saying that because AJ is like a brother to me. He can come across as a fierce and somewhat rough-edged individual of few words spoken and tales told only through his eyes and his ink, but put the man on stage and he is a born performer complete with heartbreaking lyrics and that deep sexy smokers voice that Kiefer Sutherland has had us swooning over for years. Jess and I had a blast enjoying the music and catching up with AJ. Much to our dismay due in part to Jess's hangover, Saturday morning began with an 8am alarm to prepare us for the Direct TV guy who would be here to install our new DVR boxes. Apparently our little HD TiVo box will no longer be able to receive the new HD channels so we needed to upgrade. **PAUSE** A moment of silence for the passing of Mr. TiVo in our household. 6 hours, 3 phone calls to Direct TV, a $100 credit, and 3 months of free Starz later, the "Cable Guy" came. It took him 4 hours to do what Jess could have done in 1 hour and as much as we were ridiculously annoyed at his lackadaisical attitude towards the whole install (like we had nothing better to do but sit around all day waiting for him), we faired quite well with the freebies and the fact that he totally forgot to take back all of the DVRs that he was supposed to collect. The instant he left, cables and boxes still strewn about the house, we headed out to Encino to visit some friends (Hi E & E) for a BBQ. It was great to see our camping buddies again and meet their new pup, catch up with PVision and meet his lady, spend some time with my sis in law, hang with the best dog in the world... oh yeah, and his owner :) and get the tour of our host's home which I had last seen when they moved in. Great food, good company and a kick ass cookie and we wrapped up the evening with what felt like the longest car ride home in the world. Again, another early morning on Sunday as we woke to get ready for a birthday lunch in Redondo for a friend's 17 year old son. Too much food... longing to crawl back on the couch and nap... A quick drive home and that is where we ended up trying to recover from the weekend. Next weekend it's 2 Cubs games in Chicago. I guess we are going even further away this time. I should rest up.

"THAT'S A WRAP"

Just so you know, when you call "WRAP," especially when you call it on our 14th hour of work, it means that we will start wrapping the sets. If you meant to shoot "pick up" shots, then you never should have called "wrap." Thank you for getting me home in such a timely manor... at 2:30am.

The Job From Hell...

I really love it when I agree to do a job and my Production Designer says "Thank you so much for doing this. It is such a weight off my shoulders. I am not stressed anymore and now I know it will get done right." My response being "Great, now I am dealing with all of your stress." And he says "Yeah, but you do it so well." I think it was a compliment (I mean how great is it that your boss trusts you with a job so much that he can go out of town and leave it all up to you to handle) but now, 7 days into the job, I realize that it may have in fact been an evil plot to kill me.

This is the job where the more hours you put into it the less money you make and the director's soul job is to make you look like an idiot. HIS compliment to me last night when we wrapped at 12am was "I know this was a challenge for you but I wanted to let you know that you did a great job and I appreciate it." Hmmmm. A challenge eh? Was he referring to the fact that it has been a challenge trying to buy and rent for this job on a budget that matches my high school allowance (and I went to high school in the 80's) with a prep time that matches the time it takes Lindsay Lohan to relapse after rehab. Or was he talking about the fact that he scouted the locations with us the day before we shot (until 2pm might I add) and changed everything that we had talked about in the Art Department Meeting that he chose NOT to attend. Hmmm, I am not sure. Maybe it was a challenge because I shopped for and dressed the parts of the sets that we had discussed and then he shot in parts of the sets that we had NOT discussed and complained that they looked "bare." Noooo, it HAD to be the fact that I worked from 7am-10:30pm the night before and then came home to work on a fake newspaper (entire companies are actually dedicated to doing this job) until 1am and when I showed it to him in the morning before we started shooting, he didn't like it and asked me to fix it. I am sure it was none of those things. I am sure he was just being polite.

Asshole.

So this morning, I am refusing to work and relaxing on my couch and dreaming of working on a job with a budget AND a prep time AND a boss who is there to guide me and teach me instead of double booking himself and disappearing. Remember I said "dreaming." The only thing I have learned from this show is that my boss doesn't know what I am really worth and at this rate when the job wraps, my Art PA will be making more money than me.