Coming Up for Air, Part 1

When I stumbled home Wednesday night at midnight I was exhausted. Spent. Totally. And sick. When a body gets to be over 50 you can't do the things you used to do without a second thought. It just can't.

But life...life, that sneaky bastard...has a habit of piling up stuff all at once, no doubt to get the blood pumping and the complacent mind energized. Well, this was my week. I had a back-breaker of a project at MediaAgents (bless 'em!) that is so good and such a hoot and it will, no doubt, make it onto YouTube (I'll put up a link when its there). If you want to see something I've done with them in the past, here is "HP 'The Juggler.'"

For an "industrial," it's quite clever and has the air of "edge"--something you just don't see in corporate communications. Good people, the Agents. Well, on top of that, Fu was indicating that life was just too hard...her back legs weren't working, she had no balance anymore, wasn't eating solid food, and more often than not, threw it up. Her body was breaking down. So, that meant a last trip to the vet--for a cat I'd cared for for 23 years. Then, my good friend, Steve M. called me to tell me his students I gave a lecture to this quarter had done an outstanding job doing new sound for "Star Wars" and "Spaceballs," and I should come to the evening show at The Crest Theater (for the past two quarters, The Crest has generously provided an honest-to-gosh theater for the students to watch their work/party/see how their mix works in that honest-to-gosh theater. It's a Wrap Party/Education in Mixing (More on that, later).

Looking at it, its not too full of a plate. But Day 2 of sound design went to 11pm. My appointment at the vet's was at 8:00am on Day Three, the deadline for two videos was at 4:00pm Fed-Ex time that same day, and the student films started at 7:00pm and would run to midnight. I also invited the core of "The League of the Underemployed" to The Crest screening--so many of their events have ocurred there.

By the end of Day Two I was feeling a bit moth-eared. I was determined to get as much done as possible so that it would be easier to meet my deadline of 2:00 pm the next day. Plus, another video with an even tighter deadline came in, so I devoted four houre to it, as well. By the time I thought it was safe to stop, it was 11pm. I made the midnight boat and was home just before 1am, where I found K. with the cat on her lap, both sound-asleep. I'll get into more details of life with Fu the last few weeks at a later time, but I ended up asleep on the Couch (it's big!) with Fu curled up next to me under a blanket. K. hobbled off to bed. My alarm went off at 6...I was so groggy I hesitated and stayed with Fu 'til 6:30. Then showered, shaved, drank some coffee, got her carrying case from the shed, and put a couple of towels in the bottom of it to make the ride more comfortable. K. was crying. We said our good-byes and I took Fu on her Last Ride. By 8:30 it was done and I got on the 9:00am ferry. I called K. and reassured her about Fu, that it was very peaceful and she just gravitated into my arms and fell asleep there, the perfect ending. "Smokey's acting pretty wierd about it," K. said. "Sure," I said. "Fu got to go somewhere, and he didn't!" That made her laugh, and I felt better for her.

In Schmuckilteo, I stopped by a Wacky Mackies and did something I never do--since I didn't eat breakfast and I was still groggy, I ordered two Egg Muffins and a large Coke, straight, no Nutrasweet. Probably not the best of ideas but I was starving. I started work and I was grilling down on the project. But by 12:00 I was feeling ill, and I had a headache that was just pounding. Was it the food, lack of sleep, the result of the previous day's long day? I had no idea, but I had to get the thing done. So, I powered through it, being one of those "man-up" kind of days.

The Agents were happy with the work, though with tweaks and adjustments I didn't finish until three in the afternoon. While dubs were fervently being made, I made "stems" (separate files for foreign versions of just narration, just music, just effects) and called it good. I was out by 5:15pm. But still feeling poorly. I carried my box of sound effects to where my car was parked ten blocks away. I settled in to meet Walaka. Through my haze I understood that I would be meeting him at the Baskin-Robbins near Greenlake. Actually, because my stomach was a bit, shall we say, sensitive--I'm convinced it was food poisoning, not from Wacky Mackie's, but the previous day's lunch--we torpedoed a plan to have dinner before the screening, and Walaka went to a Greenlake pizza joint for a couple slices. That's where I was supposed to meet him. But my sensitive stomach said, "Hmmm. Baskin-Robbins! That sounds comforting!" So I went there, where they had bountiful parking but a no-tolerance policy for non-customer parking. I went in and indulged in a double scoop of Maui Fudge Almond and Rainbow Sherbert. I took a long, luxurious time eating it, and since I, for once, got there early, it was only when I was done scraping the bottom of the container and only coming up with wax that I noticed that Walaka had not arrived yet. And it was 6:17pm. Jeez! We'd have to leave in thirteen minutes. So I called. He called me back. "Where are you?" "I'm at Amati's, eating pizza! Where are you?" "Baskin-Robbins." "That's the next block over! Come eat pizza!"

So, I get into my car. There was the restaurant one block over. But at 6:30pm on a warm Summer day in the Greenlake neighborhood, the nearest parking space was four blocks away. We met on the sidewalk--it took me so long to park, he got worried and went to find me at the ice cream place, and he gave me a thrilling scooter ride up to my car.

Well, this is getting a bit verbose and we haven't even gotten to the screening yet. Best to save that for tomorrow.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tomorrow: The Screening, some further thoughts on "Star Wars" in general, some thank you's, and an ironic ending.

Update 07/02/07---Here's the "HP-Disaster Proof" video