Notes from the crib

Last night DH went to church to fix the computer (clearly a good man, unlike his bitter wife). While there he encountered a security guard demanding to know who he was and what he was doing. He said that there were some movie props being moved in, and the rent-a-cop was protecting the set. DH told the security dude that he was there to fix the computer, that he'd been called by the secretary, and that the dude could call the pastor if he wanted, but that DH wasn't going to be responsible for waking up the pastor (it was after 10PM at that point). DH was allowed to go on his merry way and he diagnosed the computer problem and came home.

Meanwhile, I decided I could either mope about not being in the movie, or do something about it. So today George and I took a drive to see how closely we could get to the church. It turns out we could get really close. Only one road directly behind the church was shut down, with sheriff's deputies posted at both ends. George and I made a wide circle on the roads around the church, pulling off a few times to take pictures of the church surrounded by movie equipment (trailers, catering tents, bright lights, etc.). George fell asleep during this excursion, so I headed home and put him to bed for a nap. I then decided to call the people that live across the street from the church and ask them if I could come park on their property and watch the movie filming. The lady called me back a little bit later and gave me permission. She is a church member and on the church council, and I was able to share with her my disappointment in not being part of the information circle at church and feeling left out. I suggested maybe we work on better communication (this is not the only thing that I've felt left out of as far as church goes, it was just the latest and most "important" one to me). We ended up having a good conversation and I feel much more at peace with what happened, and that we may be able to use this as a way to increase the communication channel at church. I think if the church wants to grow and add new members, better communication will go a long way in supporting that.

After George woke from his nap, we had lunch, and then headed over to the church neighbor's property. They were not home, so I sat in the car for awhile before I got up the nerve to get out (I'm shy!) George and I first walked around the property and then I got up the nerve to go back to the car and get the camera. I started taking pictures of George and occasionally would take a few pictures of the movie shoot. Primarily, I used my camera's zoom lens as binoculars to see what was going on at the shoot. My eye sight is not that great, and we were a distance away, what with the church being in the middle of farmland. I am not even 100% of the actors that were there, although I think I saw Brad Pitt and the fairly-unknown actress playing his wife.

George and I played and snapped pictures for an hour and a half. He started getting a little too close to the road, which bothered me since I didn't want to be really obvious (although I wasn't hiding myself at all), and I didn't want him to get run over as the movie cars were driving back and forth. (The scene they were shooting involved actors getting into cars, and they shot it over and over and over again - so it went something like this: actors approach cars, open doors, close doors, car drives away, car circles parking lot and gets back in place, scene repeats.) George started to fuss when I took him away from the road, so I marched us back to the car - there was no way I was going to interrupt a movie shoot with a crying baby.

We get situated in the car, and I start it up. Then I notice a young lady walking down the driveway towards us. If I hadn't known better, I'd have thought she belonged to the household whose property I was on, but I knew she didn't so I waited to see if she was coming to get me. She was. She introduced herself as someone from the locations crew and said that "Someone has seen you taking pictures". I agreed that yes, I was taking pictures but that most of them were of my son (they were). She said that the set was closed and that I wasn't supposed to be taking pictures, and that the director was mad and the actors get upset with people taking pictures. She again said "Someone saw you taking pictures." I'm not sure what response she was wanting from me. I didn't give much of one and she walked away. I know that I wasn't doing anything wrong, I wasn't on the church property, but I still feel bad. I hate getting "in trouble".

Then as I leave the driveway to head home, the girl comes running back. Apparently they are now filming right where I am wanting to turn. So she asks me to stop and turn off my engine. I comply and leave the windows rolled down. But then George starts to cry, since we aren't moving anymore and he hates the car if we aren't moving. I turn on the car enough to roll up the windows and sit there wondering how I'm supposed to know when it's safe for me to drive away. I try to look for the girl, but she's walked all the way across the church grounds and isn't paying any attention to me anymore. I stay still until it gets uncomfortable in the car and decide that I'm getting out of there. So I turn the car back on, back up, and head out the other direction. I hope that I didn't ruin a scene. I don't think I did, as other cars starting crossing the scene in the direction I had originally wanted to go. Gosh, if they didn't want cars and people around, why didn't they close off more roads?

Tonight I'm feeling bad, like I did something wrong. DH thinks the girl was trying to intimidate me with her "Someone saw you taking pictures", but I wonder if she just was told to come over, so she did, but she really didn't care? She didn't ask for my camera or ask me to delete my pictures. And legally, I wasn't doing anything wrong. But I'm such a goody-two-shoes that I feel like I broke some rule. It's not like I'm going to sell the pictures to the Enquirer or divulge secret plot points of the movie. I just wanted to document something fun that George and I did, and maybe make a scrapbook page for him to look at someday.

Anyway, my favorite pictures of the day were of George in the yard. Here's a few...

As you can tell, he's not that impressed with the movie shoot going on right behind him. What's a movie star when you've got rocks and old corn cobs?