Snowball fight!

We spend the first couple of hours each day prepping the strands of lights that we have to use - we have to cut the tags off (because the white tags are visible in the greenery of the bushes and trees) and it's better to do it all at once. That way there aren't little amputated tags all over the lot (which pisses off the groundskeepers).

The room where we do this is right next to where a commercial has been shooting and blanketed part of the lot in snow - some of it fake, but some of it real. They don't normally use real snow, and I have no idea why they did this time, but there it was, right there on the street collecting dirt (like real snow does) and making a terrible mess in the heat.

Although they wrapped several days ago, it's taking them some time to scrape the snow up and throw it into dumpsters (where it's been melting into a funny-smelling lake through which we've been driving our golf cart at full tilt to see how big of a splash we can make) and there's still quite a bit left, so we went out to play in it on our coffee break.

They've cordoned off the area that was covered with snow in order to facilitate clean-up, but people have been driving carts through it anyway - it's the best shortcut on the lot. As we were standing there, trying to see how well the snow would pack (not so much - it's mostly ice), the best boy of another show (he's a great guy and I like him a lot) drove by in a golf cart and guessed what I was thinking - he floored the golf cart, but let's face it, those things aren't that fast. I managed to throw accurately, and nailed him right in the back. I had to run through three inches of slush to get him so I had to work the rest of the night in wet shoes, but it was so totally worth it.

So it's come to this...

For the next five (or six, I'm not sure anymore) weeks, I'm going to be putting up holiday lights at a studio*.

I'm working with a bunch of guys whom I've never met before, but who all are really cool and it's a fun group, but basically I'm a glorified gardener right now.

A gardener who's making union scale plus a night premium, so I certainly can't complain (okay, I can complain about being attacked by a bougainvillea that wasn't in the holiday spirit - I never realized that those things had half-inch long thorns, and apparently they don't enjoy being draped in lights).


The hours aren't so bad - 2:30 pm to 1 am. We're working a nights because our presence is upsetting to the important folks - after all, everyone wants to read the great American novel, but no one wants to watch the room full of chain-smoking monkeys typing away.




*I'm not going to name it, as I'm currently an employee of the studio and not a production, and I'm not certain what the policy on blogs is, so let's all just keep our guesses to ourselves, shall we?