You all probably know that my husband leads a double life.  In his work life, he's a Respiratory Therapist that works with people to help stop the tobacco addiction but after hours, he's quite a busy local actor.  He works with community theater, a private entertainment company and other groups that need actors.  Over the years he's filmed quite a few movies for different producer/directors.  

A few weeks ago one of the directors that Hubby has worked with quite a bit announced that he was doing a feature length film and was looking for actors.   Since it was open auditions, I went and auditioned.  Hubby had already told him a little about me.  And the audition was quite non threatening and comfortable.  We just read a page of script from an old TV show.  And it was over.  

I got an email from him telling me that I'd gotten a part with lines even.  I knew it would be very small but I was delighted.  I'm not sure if I got the part because I have a wee bit of talent or because I am married to an actor that he likes working with.   I think probably the latter.  Anyway last weekend was my day of shooting.  

We arrived at 10:30 but the filming never started until about noon.  It is an interesting process.  The Director is quite professional.  He has a lot of movies in his resume.  It takes a while for him to get things set up but when it's time to shoot it, he's quick.  He knows what he wants and then goes about getting it.  He gives good direction and then off we go.  

I had 3 lines in the movie.  We'll see if it makes the final cut of the movie.  I'm a  reporter at 3 press conferences.  We did them back to back.  I was kind of proud to see that other than the main characters, I was the only other actor that had lines out of about 20 or so people.    *still not getting a big ego....I'm still Hubby's wife* 

He broke each scene down into small sections.  Then he took each section and did reaction shots, wide shots, close ups of the actor who was doing lines and then reaction shots of the actor(s) reacting to the lines.  Quite a process.  

I never in my life would have thought I'd be in a movie and with actual lines.  From what I understand there is some interest in this film out in Hollywood.  But time will tell on that.  If the movie hits then the actors will get some reimbursement.   That matters not to me.  If the movie hits.....well how cool would that be.  

*off to practice my autograph*

So many emotions for the last 2 weeks, sadness, guilt, regret, anger and just plain stress.  My mother passed away on Feb 11th.  It was totally unexpected.  But maybe when a parent dies no matter when or what has happened to precede it, that is a normal reaction.  My mother has never been particularly healthy.  She gets a cold and it hangs on forever.  She gets the flu and is sick for weeks.   She was in the hospital before Christmas for a couple of weeks with some pneumonia, worsening of her COPD and some CHF *congestive heart failure*.  She came home with oxygen and with some conditioning in the transitional care unit and at home, she seemed to bounce back.  On the 1st of Feb she was taken to the ER with cold symptoms and difficulty breathing.  They didn't keep her much to her distress because there was no signs of any pneumonia or bacterial infection and in the ER her O2 sats were 99 at rest and 93 with activity.   They gave her antibiotics for ? secondary infection.  She took to her bed and was hardly eating or drinking.   That Wednesday one of the nurses called and suggested hospice to help her a bit with the breathing.  COPD is an easy diagnosis to get hospice in for.  So we did that and they helped her and the breathing got easier and she seemed more comfortable.  But 4 days later on Saturday morning, I got a call from the Assisted Living place that she was unresponsive.  It was in the middle of a blizzard and we couldn't get to Fargo until late afternoon.  By then hospice was in and scheduled 24 hour care.  It wasn't a stroke.  She had all the signs that you see with end of life.