THE VANCOUVER ATHLETE'S VILLAGE

My friend, Tana - the Key Makeup gal that hired me, just moved into a sweet little condo at the Athlete's Village. It's tiny but gorgeous with an amazing view.

I get a text from her on Saturday afternoon inviting me over for the evening with a couple of other girls I know from work.

I spend the afternoon baking chocolate chip cookies for the producer of the show I start on Tuesday as it's his birthday on Saturday (the same day my son turns 30!!!!). As I won't have any time to do it next week, I am doing them now and will give them to him on the first day of shooting (or they'll dry out by the weekend). The recipe makes a lot so I pack up a few and take them downtown for my evening with friends.

When I get there, they all greet me at the main entrance as the buzzer to let me in hasn't been hooked up to her suite yet. They are all excited to show me the penthouse of the place; the elevator goes right into the suite and hasn't been locked off yet and no one has moved in. We go up and it is, in a word, spectacular. The view is to die for. There's an enormous roof-top deck that could easily hold a hundred people and it overlooks the whole of False Creek and the mountains. If I could live there, I might not be so desperate to get to the Caribbean.

Actually - yeah I still would be.





Laura, Ania, Tana, The Cirque de Soleil Tents in the Distance

(first three photos are from the patio of the penthouse. the other two are Tana's apartment)

YOU ARE SECURITY CLEARED - AGAIN

Get a call from the agency that hired me for the Olympics.

"Hi.  Sorry I am calling you on a Sunday evening but we just wanted to let you know that you have been security cleared for the games and you can go pick up your accreditation and uniform."

Huh?

"Ummm.  I did that already.  On Friday."

"Oh!  You did?"

"Yes. But while I have you...."

I explain the situation with the clearance to work only on Cypress Mountain.  She tells me that she will talk to Gavin, the guy who hired me, and they will try to work out another area for me to work in.  I tell her that I live in Langley so somewhere either closest by or on the SkyTrain route would be the best and she tells me that there is a staging area in Surrey.  FANTASTIC!!  I tell her I would love that and she tells me to expect a call tomorrow about it.

So now I wait.

And pack.  I am moving on Sunday.  My landlord came over and asked if I could possibly move on Thursday as the people moving in want to have their daughter's birthday party on Saturday.  Panic.  I told her I would see what I could do.  If I got some help packing over the weekend, and if she could find people to move my stuff back into the shed, then I could probably make that work.  But I didn't get any help over the weekend so Sunday it is. 

I am so sick of moving, I can't even tell you.

What Part of "I DON'T WANT TO WORK ON A MOUNTAIN" Did You Not Understand?

Last night I had a read through the hand-book for the games before I went to bed. It has a diagram of the HUGE ID tag I have to wear and a key to all the symbols on it. I don't have many symbols on mine. Not the knife and fork one that I assume means one gets free meals (couldn't find the key for that one but saw it on the sample pictured). Not the one that in no way looks like it means one gets to carpool, but that's what it means. Just one really. A cryptic trio of letters; CYM. I look it up and discover, with horror, that it stands for Cypress Mountain. Oh no. Not there.

When I was hired it was for the job of Resident Assistant Supervisor, where I would get to drive around in a brand new Olympic vehicle with heating that worked and pop in and out of nice downtown hotels all day. Then when VANOC went ahead and did something they had paid an agency a lot of money to do, namely hire their own RA Supervisors, I got reassigned to Staging Area Supervisor. Staging Area is a nice way of saying Bus Stop. It's places at venues and various spots scattered about where athletes and spectators can board the big tour buses to take them where cars won't be allowed to go for the duration of the games.

Not only are there many venues all over Vancouver and Richmond where events take place, there are (who knows how many) pick-up and drop-off points all over the city (and maybe the outskirts - I don't know yet as I STILL haven't had any training). So with possibly 20 or so places to pick from, I get Cypress Bowl? In the interview I was quite clear. I don't want to work at Whistler. I don't like cold and snow. I don't want to work at any mountain venues. Yet the only area I have clearance for is Cypress Bowl. My grandfather had a saying he used a lot: If there's a dinner short, I get it.

I am supposed to do a lot of paperwork for this job, I think. Scheduling, reports, that sort of thing. So I am thinking there must be a trailer or some sort of indoor spot at each 'Staging Area' to do this. But I don't know that for sure. It may be my car. Judging by the thickness of the pants I got yesterday, they expect I will be out in the cold a lot. Twelve hours a day outside, up Cypress Bowl (where I have shot several movies so know VERY well how freezing cold it gets up there this time of year) is NOT what I signed up for. Actually, and this may be at the root of my total aversion to working up there, on one show I was working at night at the top of Cypress on second unit and when my hours were done, the main unit still had a couple of hours to go. I handed in my paperwork and took a shuttle from set to the parking lot. There were over two hundred cars in the huge lot, due to two full crews on a very big show. When the shuttle drove away, I was left in complete darkness to try to find my car. I walked up and down the rows for twenty minutes in the freezing cold, squinting into the darkness and could not locate it. I started to panic. I didn't know if another shuttle was coming back, because I am often one of the last people to leave, and the main unit wouldn't be arriving for hours. To my great relief, another shuttle finally arrived and I ran to it before she could drive off, climbed in the front seat and told her she wasn't leaving until we found my car. It took another five or ten minutes of driving up and down before I spotted it. The next day I went to Canadian Tire and bought a nifty flashlight that charges by plugging into the lighter socket and has a setting where it flashes on and off so brightly, it lights up the entire inside of my car like a lighthouse. It never leaves the socket and I always turn it on once I am parked whenever I have to work nights. I haven't had any trouble finding my car in the dark since.

Anyway, an email has been composed and sent to the consultant at the agency who hired me. Summed up? Get me off of mountain duty. Please.

Oh - and THIS is the difference when you take a photo from a higher angle. If I get to have it redone to clear me for a new area I won't open my eyes until they slide that camera higher up the pole!

KITTED OUT FOR THE 2010 GAMES

Here's a trailer for a movie I worked on... I blogged about it back in October.

Got an email yesterday telling me to be at the PNE (Pacific National Exhibition) grounds between noon and one to get my official ID and wardrobe for the Olympics.

I set off at around eleven, after making sure my hair and makeup look good. Don't want to have an ID photo that 'looks like you've been in a bar brawl' as my dear friend said when she saw my passport photo.

I am not sure where to park, I don't really want to park across the street in the huge lots usually full to the brim when the PNE is open in the summer. So instead I cheekily pull onto the grounds themselves and park in a small lot that has a few cars in it, some with the Olympic decals on the sides. Should be fine to park here.

I am not sure which of the many huge buildings on this end of the grounds is the Forum Building and as I am walking along wondering how long and how far it will be before I find it, someone comes out of a doorway nearby. "Scuse me." I call out, "Do you happen to know where the Forum Building is?" She points the way and it's the big one right in front of me.

I go around to the front door and am greeted by a fellow who holds the door open for me. Inside there's another fellow, this one decked out in the blue fleece of the games (wonder if I will get one of those vests?) and he asks if I am a volunteer. I say no and he directs me to the left. What follows is a very well thought out process of working my way through various stations: checking in, getting my photo taken (it looks hideous - I TOLD him to take it from higher up but did he listen?), getting my laminated and HUGE ID tag to wear and which will also get me on all transit for free for the next two and a half months, then to the wardrobe area where I try on samples for size, then to collect my eight items. Once that is done I go through the final checkpoint where all my items are scanned, just like at a store but only I don't have to pay at the end. It seems the touque did not make it into my bag (even though I saw him take one off the shelf) so the guy goes back and gets me one.

All in all, it takes about an hour and when I get back to my van I pull everything out and have a good look at it. Each clothing item is of the highest quality fabrics and workmanship. There are two pullover shirts made out of a soft cotton fabric that has an almost fleecy feel to the inside. One is plain blue, the other has a faint pattern on it. There's the fleece vest I saw earlier; a pair of warm ski pants that have about a zillion pockets and are thick with a soft filling (they will do nothing for the figure); there's a fabulous Gore-Tex jacket that zips up on an angle so that you don't catch your neck in the top last bit of zip (so I caught my hair in it instead when I tried on the sample inside); and the touque. There's a 'welcome kit' that contains a souvenir hand-book, a bunch of postcards, a bottle of Cold FX, a Cold FX Olympic pin, a pack of 2 pieces of Excel Gum (cheap'os), a stainless steel travel mug (OH YAY!!! I have been looking at them ever since I lost mine on the plane back from Florida but didn't want to pay the twenty dollars for a good one that wouldn't leak - this one's a good one), a card to swipe at Petro Canada gas stations for five cents off of 200 liters of gas, another card that gives me $1000 towards a new GM vehicle (as if), and a coupon for 15% off of a day of shopping at The Bay. All of it is in a lovely big dark blue carry bag. It's a lot of very expensive stuff. I am guessing about five hundred dollars worth (just found out it's actually eight hundred dollars worth!). I am not going to tell them that I feel like this is enough payment for a few weeks of work. If they want to give me an hourly wage on top of this, who am I to argue?

I tuck it all back in the bag and get into the van. I am going to drive over the bridge to North Vancouver and surprise my daughter at work with a Starbucks Toffee-Nut Latte and a cupcake. She is a preschool teacher and it's nap time so she will have a couple of hours to herself.

It's a gorgeous day today and as I make my way across the river, I can see the North Shore mountains and I am shocked at how little snow there is up there. The run down Grouse is very clear from here and there are huge patches of rock and earth visible all over it. It's as if spring has arrived in Vancouver. It's a balmy day. Not the best news for VANOC. All of the snowboarding events are to be held on Cypress Bowl. They closed down last weekend to try to preserve what little snow they have. If this weather keeps up, there won't be any snow up there. Thank goodness Whistler had a good lot of it this year and, apparently, will be fine for the games.

At this rate, they should have given us tee-shirts and cargo pants to wear to work.

LIFE'S AN ADVENTURE

Yesterday someone came to take a look at the bookshelf I have on Kijiji and she liked it... it matched the red for her son's room perfectly. She called later to ask if I would take $125 for it and I said no. I paid over $700 for it new, albeit 15 years ago, and I am asking $150. If twenty five dollars keeps her from buying it, then so be it.

I call the agency that hired me for the Olympics to find out just exactly how much work I can expect and I find out that the job they hired me for, supervisor of resident assistants, is no longer mine as VANOC went and hired a bunch of kids to do that job. So now I will be a supervisor at a 'staging area'. This means that buses with athletes, their families, or spectators will need to have various drop off and pick up places around Vancouver. Each of these areas is called a 'staging area'. I will supervise the crew at one of these spots. Not sure what that will look like. Will I have somewhere to go out of the rain and cold? I guess we shall see.

I also found out yesterday that the apartment on English Bay that I was hoping to sublet won't be available as someone had spoken for it earlier for more money. She hadn't heard back from them so wasn't sure they would take it but now she has talked to them and they are. So was wondering where I would be living at the end of the month. But I just heard from my friend Denise who I stayed with for five months last year and she said I could stay with her again as her daughter has gone to Europe until August. So that is GREAT news as I loved living there and I love Denise. She has been just the best friend to me through all of this.

Speaking of good friends, I dropped off a minivan load of boxes to my friend Fran's house on Saturday night. She is going to store stuff in boxes for me in her crawl space. So now I just need to get more packed so I can take a load up this weekend. I need to get motivated.

Because I have no idea what I will do when the Olympics are over I have been exploring a couple of options. One that has opened up, due to still having a profile up on Findacrew.com, is a boat that is in the Caribbean and plans to be there for several years. Right now it is in St. Thomas but is heading down to Barbuda and Antigua for the annual races in April. I have been emailing the chap, who is from Scotland, and he would be willing to wait for me in Antigua before carrying on to ports farther south. It is extremely tempting and I will give it serious thought. I still really want to sail the Caribbean and I am not getting any younger and can't see doing it any other way. This guy is super laid back and likes to take the journey slow and stay as long as one is enjoying the place so that sounds like a great match for me right there. I hate moving on before I have had my fill.

I am also continuing talking to the guy from Mexico who wants to sail down to Ecuador but I am still not sure about his itinerary nor his age. He's in his seventies and that worries me. I don't want to be out in the Pacific with an incapacitated (read, dead) captain and have to bring the boat in alone. Not at all.

I also found out that the likelihood of me getting a settlement from the mall is slim to none. I spoke to a lawyer on Friday who recommended a personal injury firm in Vancouver and he said that if they passed me off to someone else, then the chances of my winning in court was slim. They passed me off. So, very reluctantly, I guess I will just drop the whole thing. It is very frustrating to me because it was a hard fall, I did have injuries and the concussion took a lot out of me over the summer. I feel cheated and I don't like that feeling. It seems nothing is going my way these days when it comes to making some money. Not even something like this which would seem like a sure thing. I certainly read enough on line about people getting offered cash and merchandise (a 50" flatscreen TV and $2,500 cash in one case) on the spot when they fell in a store, so why not me?

Ahh well, bring it on. I will always have Palm Springs.

BUSY WEEK

Well it's been an interesting week. Got a letter from the insurance adjuster for the maintenance crew at the mall saying they have determined they are not responsible for my fall. So a lawyer has been procured and I will be visiting him tomorrow.

I didn't get together with all of my kids before Shonah went back to Kelowna but was hoping to do so with the other two and their partners on New Years Day. All too busy and so I haven't had any family time this holiday and I miss it. I guess I can't have everything.

New Years Eve was a bit of a wash out. I went to see Avatar with a friend in the afternoon and I have to say I was very impressed. I am not into 'cartoons' for adults nor am I a science fiction fan by any stretch of the imagination. But I loved the story, the effects, the world created... everything. I have to say that I fell in love with the visuals of Pandora because they so closely resembled the world of Edanna in the game Exile, the third installment of the MYST series. I was addicted to these games back a few years ago, and my kids tired of me constantly pointing to something and saying "that looks like it came right out of Riven." or whatever world it happened to resemble. If you have never played these games, I HIGHLY recommend you do so. They appeal to those of us who's entire video game playing experience has been Duck Hunt. It's not about killing or blowing things up. It's about discovering what this place is, why it's in the condition it's in, and solving multiple puzzles along the way to unlock the big reveal at the end. The graphics are spectacular (especially with a larger screen, surround sound, and a darkened room - you feel like you are THERE), the puzzles just complicated enough to be challenging without being impossible, and the story (which continues from game to game) is absorbing. I can't recommend too strongly that you give them a go. But do them in order; Myst, Riven, Exile. There's more but I haven't had a strong enough graphics card to be able to play them. Sadly.

Anyhow, the movie was so long that I ended up showing up about an hour or so late to a small party. All couples but for me. Not exactly the best setting for me but I knew most of the people and so had a nice time chatting with a few. I went to the same party last year and forgot that they like to have it all wrapped up and everyone gone by 9:30. Yes... that's right. On New Years Eve. So I was home by ten and watching the telly. Happy New Year to me.

Earlier this week I had a ton of paperwork to get caught up on for a few of the agencies I am involved with at the moment. Then Tuesday evening at 5:15 had an appointment with a career counselor/life coach. It was to be my second time seeing her but she didn't show up. She forgot she scheduled me in and was in the office downstairs and went home while I was waiting upstairs.

Wednesday, yesterday, I went for my initial training for the Olympic Games. It was just a lecture format about the history of the games, the meaning of all the logos being used at these games, some general rules and guidelines for conduct,... that sort of thing. Overall it was interesting and informative. Thank goodness it wrapped an hour early though. Neither of the girls doing the presentation were great public speakers. And both of them were from the states. Of about thirty of us in the room, only five or six of us were from the area. The rest were from other parts of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, France, the Ukraine, and other places far flung. It kind of irked me. There's a lot of people right here in BC out of work right now. The two women presenters have been working here since summer. Why couldn't I have one of their jobs? Why did they get precedence over me? It's not like I didn't apply for everything I saw for the Olympics.

Another thing that irked me. We are supposed to be sensitive to other cultures and so don't use idioms or jargon they won't understand, which is reasonable. But we are not to point using our fingers, rather with our whole hand, open and palm up because some cultures find pointing offensive. Well I am sorry, but it's fine to point here in Canada. That is OUR culture. Why do we have to modify our culture for visitors? They don't do it when we visit them. In fact, go to any travel website and you will find a list of things that we need to modify about our dress and behaviour depending on which country we are to visit. So... we have a culture here in Canada. We have our own ways of doing things. You're a visitor here. Deal with it. I really don't have a lot of patience for that sort of thing.

And don't get me going on those stupid, STUPID mascots we have. They have NOTHING to do with B.C. They look more like something that would be suited to the Olympics in Japan. We had to endure half an hour of talk about them in case guests ask us for information or names, or what the hell animal they actually are supposed to be (half orca, half bear; a sasquatch; and some sort of spirit bear, eagle thing. Oh and, get this, a marmot [called MukMuk - ACK! should be YukYuk] which was supposed to be a side kick but the public raised such an outcry, calling and writing to demand it be given full mascot status like the other three had. REALLY? Some people really need to get a life.) I am glad I am not going to be dealing with the public because I would have a hard time to keep from rolling my eyes as I say, "Really? You can't think of anything better to spend your money on than those dreadful things?"

Parking was at a premium at the location of the training session so I thought about taking the SkyTrain down but decided I would see if I could park in the nearby lot for ACFC, as I am a member. I asked the receptionist and she said it was fine. Which was great because it was just one building away. When I came out from asking, I saw a good friend from the film industry just getting into his car. I ran over and said hi. I could tell he didn't recognize me at first, I have lost a fair bit of weight and changed my hair. But once he did, we hugged and talked for a bit. I was very sad to hear that he is battling cancer, has been since the spring, and has been given three to five years. And now his life is all about the disease and the doctors and hospital. I remember my friend Anne, who died this past April, talking about how one's life is robbed as soon as you are diagnosed with cancer. It's a horrible disease and I am full sure we would have a cure by now if it wasn't for it being such a huge industry for the pharmaceutical companies not to mention all the doctors and hospital wings that are devoted entirely to the disease.

Today I am determined to start the very unwelcome task of, yet again, packing up my stuff and sorting through it all. I need to determine what to keep and put in my friends crawlspace; what to garage sale in the spring and put back into the shed. Yes.. BACK into the shed. Turns out, I can keep stuff in there as long as I want to. HUH? Then what was the call back in September all about telling me I HAD to have it all out by the end of October? So I was thrown into panic again, for nothing? I just don't get it.

At the end of January I will be out of here and, hopefully, moved into a sub-let on English Bay in a heritage apartment. An actress friend is going to be in LA for two months and, if someone else who said they wanted it but didn't get back to her doesn't want it, it's mine. That will be so convenient for the Games, and a lot of fun being right downtown and on the water. I can't wait.

And just in case you can't resist:

Van-0, Job-1

One week to the day I bought it, the van broke down.

I am driving into Vancouver on the #1 Highway, on my way to a job interview, and I am thinking about how the windshield wipers aren't moving across the windshield very fast. And it's pelting down rain. If the wiper motor is about to die, this is not a good time for it to happen. I pull into the fast lane to pass a truck and when I put my foot down, nothing happens. Then the van starts to slow down. I manage to make it to a pull-out where there's construction going on in the wide strip between the east and west lanes. The van sputters to a stop and the red light shaped like a battery comes on. I burst into tears.

I am not one to burst into tears for something like this. I am a pretty strong woman. At least, that is what all of my friends tell me. Up until recently, I could probably count on one hand the times I have cried for myself. Cry in a movie...all the time; cry at Hallmark commercials...sure, I'll admit to that. But for me? Hardly. But lately, I find myself fighting back tears quite a bit. I am overwhelmed. I wake up in the morning too early and for a few brief seconds, I feel normal. Then, as if someone flipped a switch on, I feel the current of stress, fear and panic start to course through my body. I am so stressed out that I have constant chest pain. Yes I have been to the doctors, I was just there last week for an annual check-up and mentioned the chest pains so now have a requisition for an EKG.

There have been a few times in my life where I have wondered where my breaking point is. You know, the point where you don't care anymore and just fall to the floor wherever you may be, and let the men in white jackets cart you off. I remember thinking that very thought one day many years ago while I was walking through the mall with one or all of my children in tow. I don't recall what was going on in my life, why I was feeling so on edge, but I remember coming to the conclusion that it was simply pride that was keeping me upright. I didn't want to look like an idiot in a public place. I am not sure what it is keeping me upright this time. I fell in the mall in June, slipped on a puddle of water in my flip flops, and it wasn't all that embarrassing. So now I've broken down that barrier, I could do it again without much thought.

Anyhow, I digress.

So I sit here in the car, crying. I get a grip and call my son. As soon as I hear his voice, I blubber again. I explain the problem and ask him to call me a tow truck. He does and then calls back to tell me they're on their way and to ask if I'm ok. I lie and tell him I am ok. But when I hang up, all I can think about is how I can't afford this. I am pretty sure it's the alternator and I know from past experience that this is not going to come in much under $400. That plus the tow, which I will pay full price for because I hadn't gone and gotten BCAA yet, will pretty much clean me right out. I call the place I had an interview and tell them I won't be able to make it. As I wait in the van, it starts to get cold. I was playing with some buttons on the console two days ago, that said 'vent'. But when I pushed them, I couldn't figure out what they did. I kept pushing them and, finally, realized they opened and closed the side windows at the very back of the van. Then one wouldn't close. The buttons, both of them, quit working. So now cold, wet air is coming in on the passenger side. As the minutes tick away and thousands of cars blast by me, I am getting colder and colder. By the time I've been here an hour, I am freezing. My son texts me to ask if they've come yet and I text back 'no'.

I finally dial 411 and get the number for the tow truck company. When I ask how long it will be, she tells me they haven't sent one yet because my son said I didn't have a credit card and they were waiting confirmation of where I was getting it towed to see if it was somewhere they could bill through. Great. He didn't tell me that. So I tell them where I want it towed and they tell me they will put me into the system. I am anticipating another hour-long wait but about 15 minutes later, a tow truck goes slowly by on the right-hand shoulder, then keeps going. I figure he is going to have to take the exit up ahead and double back to me. He couldn't make it over to the left shoulder because of traffic. A few minutes go by and then he pulls up in front of me and I get to climb into the cab of his truck where there is hot air blasting out of the vents. Heaven. Pure heaven.

We drop the van off at the mechanics and then he takes me to a bank machine where I pull out a hundred and give him almost all of it. My son calls me to say he is going to bring me his car. Bless his little heart. I wait for him at a coffee shop and soon he pulls in in his Jeep and is girlfriend is right behind him in his Jetta. They are moving in together today, into an apartment in Yale Town. This is out of their way and inconvenient; I am so very grateful. We hug and I get the keys and then they leave in a hurry to get downtown. I get into the Jetta and decide to continue my trip downtown. I am too late for the interview, but I also planned to drop in on a temp agency that is hiring for the Olympics.

By the end of the day, I know my van is going to cost $413 to fix, and that I have a job starting sometime in January at the Olympics. I will be supervising a team of people who will be posted, one to a hotel, to make sure that Olympians are being transported to their venues on time. WOOT! I can't wait. Now I just need some temp work in December. OR, you can contribute to keeping me from living out of my van by using the 'donate' button above. I got that idea from a starving actor friend. :)