Ames texted me: Don't forget to bring a wide brimmed hat for the film shoot
In the land of underwear and socks, I flipped out my cell phone and texted back: Getting hat now.
"But do you think it's a little too much?" I whined to Corb as I placed the hat on my head. It was an explorer's hat, all right. Stanley would most decidedly have met Livingstone in it, if there was a WalMart around in those days selling cheap wide-brimmed hats. "Where's a mirror? I need to see what I look like here."
"Be quiet and pose," said Corb, whipping out his camera. He reached over and pulled down the strings that wrapped around the front of the hat, so that it looked like I was wearing a baby bonnet. "And make a pouty face, while you're at it."
Being the obedient servent I am, I complied. Then, like a dog with a bone, I returned to my topic. "But it looks really silly, right? I mean, even without the baby face. Even though Ames is insisting I bring this, I look totally ridiculous, don't I?" Ames, by the way, is the director of the video shoot. She from LA and has a voice that would make Mercedes McCambridge proud.
"You look fine," replied Corb, then giggled. "I gotta post this onto Facebook!"
"Oh, Jesus..." And with that, I raced to the changing rooms. I made a beeline into the nearest open room. "Just a second!" I called out to the Hispanic woman overseeing the rooms, who frowned and tried to protest I was in a handicapped changing room.
I ignored her. I stared in the mirror. "Hmmm..."
###
Thirty minutes later, Corb and I reached Josie's place. The kids were relaxed on the couch, in that lifeless rag doll pose that all teenagers assume when they are resting on a couch.
The first words out of Theo's mouth:
"What are you wearing on your head?"
He said it precisely, in clipped, measured tones. Apparently, the King was not amused.
I posed for him. "Oh, do you like it? It's my traveling hat."
Theo paused for a moment. He pursed his lips. "I do not like it."
"Oh. Isn't there a Doctor Seuss book like this? 'Do you like my hat?' 'I do not like your hat.' 'Good-bye.' 'Good-bye.'" I walked into the living room to sit down next to him.
A foot, placed on the section of the couch I intended to sit in. "So, I get it's your traveling hat. Why are you wearing it now?"
"Oh. I'm breaking it in."
Ashes looked up from the book she was reading. "Dad," she said, amused. "Some things are better left not broken in."
###
This trip is really kind of weird to me, because the timing is just so off.
I know how these video shoots go. It's a full day of taping and setting up the shots and trudging through debris and talking to people and doing the political stuff, like haking hands and making small talk. By the end of the day, you're exhausted, and you have absolutely no time to do anything else BUT the work at hand. Which means, that I am going to get nothing else but this video done for the next our days. And after that, I have all next week off.
This is like two weeks out of work, and I'm a little worried about what's going to happen to all the other stuff I'm working on. Then again, it could be good experience for the people I work with, if the job offer that Joe is dangling in front of me comes to be. Maybe it's time they learn to do the things that I do.
###
Arrived in Oklahoma. Picked up the rental car and drove to the hotel. Made it into the lobby, just in time for our production meeting.
"It's a nice hat," said Amy, approving. "Cut off those strings. They make you look silly."
No comments:
Post a Comment