We met the host at the station for a writing session that Blake thought would take maybe an hour. I thought he was nuts, that it would take much longer, but even I underestimated the four hours that it took. Intros and outros for eight segments over four shows, as well as question ideas.

After that, we put together the set for the scenes of our TV movie that we are shooting on Monday, then did the shot sheets. We ended up being at the studio for twelve hours. I missed seeing The Five Year Engagement at the Academy, which didn’t break my heart, though Mom really liked it a lot.

Originally, I was going to be taking care of Josh yesterday, which would have meant an 8a walk, a noon walk and then babysitting from 4p-10p, but through a misunderstanding the owner got someone else. That turned out for the best, that’s for certain!

(cross-posted to livejournal)

Very easy day, only four walks, thank goodness. Did not use the cane while walking dogs, as I don’t have difficulty walking when I am walking, what is tricky is walking after getting up. Also, who wants to have a dog walker with a cane? So I pulled it out in the evening when I had to stand up and walk to the bathroom, and it turned out to be pretty handy!

I really do have to have my stupid knee checked out.

(cross-posted to livejournal)

Yesterday I had to get up at 6a in order to finish a prop for the show that I had totally put off until the last possible second, i.e. yesterday at 6a. It was a book cover for a fake diet book, and I ended up calling it “Lose 10 Pounds in 20 Hours! Guaranteed!” I should totally write that book, it would be total bullshit and make a mint, because nothing makes more money than the promise of totally impossible things achieved with no effort involved! The sequel will be called “Sit on Your Ass and Wait for Money to Fall Out of the Sky! Guaranteed!” I see a series!

I knew that I had Bailey and Rocky for their biweekly Mommy out of town walk, but totally forgot that I had Josh until I looked at my schedule email that half the time I barely look at since I keep my schedule in my phone completely updated. Not this time! Because I was trying to get more of the Josh slots that started out being available, but then not available, I didn’t put in the slots that I actually had. Whoops! But all was well and he was walked on time.

I was sleepy all day, though, and ended up falling asleep at Groovy’s house! I sat on the sofa after the walk, she cuddled up next to me and I was out like a light. Fortunately, I was in no rush to get to Sasha and Mia’s house, and frankly even if it had made me late, I really really needed the rest.

Choir rehearsal after work, the first one in a while because of Easter and being in Oakland and the show, so hooray! I was back! And could barely stay awake! I certainly couldn’t handle talking to the choir master afterwards about maybe getting in the damn choir someday, so I just sang, left, drove home, and collapsed on my face on the back porch. Just kidding, I did manage to walk through the door and up the stairs and undress and get into bed, but just barely.

(cross-posted to livejournal)

Not really, but every time someone says “Not last night, but the night before,” it’s an automatic response, like “Marco!” “Polo!” which Blake and I do in the studio when no-one else is around and one doesn’t know where the other is.

This is a complicated way of telling the story that, night before last in the middle of the night I woke up for I don’t know what reason, and then started hearing noises, and was fairly certain that twenty-four robbers were knocking at my door!

Mom puts bottles in front of the door when she goes to bed so that if someone tries to break in, the bottles will fall and this will scare the robbers off. And theoretically wake her up, though she is deaf as a stone these days and the only way the bottles would wake her would be if the robbers picked them up, took them upstairs, went into her room, and dropped them on her head.

My point is, I heard bottles fall. And wondered if I should call 911, or if that would make the robbers find me faster. I was sleeping naked, so the first thing that I did was get out of bed and put a tee-shirt on, because I wanted the robbers to find me decent. Was I hearing someone come up the stairs or were the stairs just creaking because stairs creak at night? And, most importantly of all, was what I heard someone putting out their recycling?

Finally, I heard more bottles fall, and definitely heard them outside. The perils of sleeping with the sliding glass door open on garbage night and also being a little paranoid when I wake up at 3a.

(cross-posted to livejournal)

Or rather, started to run out the door, then noticed that Sally was staring fixedly at a spot on the floor near Mom’s chair. It was Herman!He was either crawling into or out of a pile of papers next to her chair, I snatched him up and put him outside, then ran to the dentist. I knew Sally would find him! why else do we have cats but to find our turtles?

Got my permanent crown put in, which didn’t take but a second, so I had a ton of time to kill before walking Honey. I decided to go to the McDonald’s near church and hang out there for a little minute instead of doing what I usually do, which is eat in the car while I’m driving.

I ordered, then stepped to the side, and suddenly this guy in his fifties threw his arm around my shoulder and said, “Hey there, pretty lady!” I shoved him away from me and said, “Back off, dude!” because I am an Angelino and say dude all the damn time now. He put on a pair of glasses and said, “Does this help?” I said, “No! Now back off!” He said that there wasn’t any reason for me to be mad, and I said that there sure was and that he had better not be touching me, and also, while we are at it, to fuck off.

Finally I got him to go away, walked back up to the counter and said that I had changed my mind and wanted my food to go so that I could get away from the goddamn lunatic. The woman currently ordering said, “Did you know that guy?” I said that I’d never seen him before in my life! Admittedly, I have a bad memory, but if that asshole actually knew me, he would have either called me by name, or said, ‘Don’t you remember me? It’s Danny, from church!’ or whatever, and the fact that he was using general language made it clear that he was human spam.

She stepped away to get her drink, then came back to say that he was sitting behind us and that he had said something nasty to her when she was nearer him, so I decided to be very aware when I was walking to my car. I don’t know if he was a scammer or a crazy, but either way I didn’t know whether he was dangerous or not. Turned out that he didn’t follow me or anything, but this is the second time that I have been bothered at that McDonald’s, (though the first time was not so much an assault as a sort of homeless guy having a conversation with me beyond the point where I was still conversing), which is the most convenient one and nearest my house, but I might just have to stick with the drive-through from now on.

(cross-posted to livejournal)

Afterwards, I did my race race race over the hill to get to Studio City, but again I got trapped in traffic when I was near the 405. Who are all these people and why do they want SO MUCH to get on this freeway that it doesn’t occur to them to try to find a better way to go? Not that I want them clogging up my surface streets, but still.

Next week I will avoid Santa Monica altogether, go straight to Wilshire and then to Beverly Glen. Thing that everyone is fascinated by in NY: the weather, because we are out in it. Thing that everyone in LA is fascinated by: the traffic, because we are out in it.

I ended up being on the latest side that I could be, which meant that I couldn’t meet Mom at the TV Academy to see Touch, which was fine because I didn’t really want to go. I might have exaggerated about how late I would show up at this thing, but I’m not admitting anything.

By the way, still no Herman. Wherever he is in this house, he is happy there and won’t come out for nothing.

(cross-posted to livejournal)

Mom went to see Eye of the Storm at the Academy, but I didn’t feel like it, so I stayed home and tried to catch up on some entries here and on The Thirteenth Baby Opossum.

Herman the box turtle kept trying to get into the house, so I finally just let him. I could keep my eye on him and make sure that he didn’t disappear. There he was, under the table. Then he disappeared, but I looked and there he was in the bathroom. Then he disappeared, but I looked and…nope, he was gone. I figured that he was in the den, because I was pretty sure I would have noticed him coming back into the living room, and he definitely wasn’t in the bathroom or laundry room, but I just couldn’t find him.

I tried to get Sally to help, because she has a tendency to to stare fixedly at him when he is walking around, sometimes dancing around, trying to get him to play with her, but he demurs. Anyway, couldn’t find him, he somewhere in this house and he will be found, he didn’t run up the stairs, he didn’t open the door and make a break for it, he is in the den. Somewhere.

Mom wasn’t nuts about Eye of the Storm, no loss on my part.

(cross-posted to livejournal)

We took a break and went to lunch. We wanted to go to the diner, but the diner tends to be open when it feels like being open, and that was not one of those moments. We found another place nearby, Acapulco, a Mexican place very similar to El Torito, where I had eaten the night before. Let me tell you, though, when we walked in and told them that we had never been there before, (they asked, we didn’t just walk in and announce it), they treated us as though they have been waiting their entire lives for us to arrive. Free stuff abounded, free cheese dipping sauce (can’t remember what that’s called, something like quesedilla), free flan for dessert, they really really wanted us to come back! And we shall!

We weren’t done with the shot book, so I went to see Headhunters, which I adored, then back to Blake’s to finish up and slept over. I love having my own room there! Very convenient!

Queso, that’s what it was called. Very yummy!

(cross-posted to livejournal)

I’ve been so busy all the time, every day, every evening, Mom has been wanting to go to El Torito and I just haven’t had the time. Then I realized that I had last night off, so we went. It was very crowded because it was Friday night, which is either karaoke or taco night or some nonsense, I just want my nachos and Mom wants her chile relleno and we want Sonya to serve us and we don’t want to eat in the middle of a frat party, is that too much to ask? It was not.

I realized yesterday morning that I was five days late for my Sweetleaf recording and I had better hop to it before poor ‘dillo (the producer/writer) fell apart with despair. Sweetleaf is an ongoing audio story that plays on Slice of SciFi on Fridays during the listener feedback show, about a fairy and his girlfriend and all of the weirdos that they deal with. I play Kat, whom they first thought was a vampire, but turned out to be a mathemagician, don’t ask because that’s the best I can explain it. It’s a fun little show, and I use a rather outrageous Dracula-style Romanian accent.

I did those files, then realized that I had agreed to be in another show and I was four days past deadline on that one! It’s called The Line and it’s some sort of fantasy continuing drama. I have never listened to it, but it looked interesting and I auditioned for the role of Baroness Helen Cravendale, so there you have it! Did the lines, looking forward to hearing it.

My leg is getting worse. Is it my leg or my knee, I can’t tell anymore, and frankly barely care, all I know is that it hurts all the time and it’s super hard to walk immediately after getting up.

(cross-posted to livejournal)

(cross-posted to livejournal)