A Magickal Meliss: A Tale of Tea: Part 2

Part 2: Getting it all on film

Filming was to commence on Monday
but I just wasn’t ready yet
there were things I was still unsure about

like where in the woods were we going to set all this up?
Going into the woods is a whole process itself
you gotta spray yourself down with poison so no ticks get on you
BUT before you go back into the house,
you gotta go into the lock-down area
remove your poison contaminated clothing
and get a shower, so you don’t poison your whole house and cats in the process
you can’t just go into the woods and come back out - no, it just doesn’t work like that.

and props weren’t ready yet either

Plus honestly, I was really tired from all the work I’d already done
and I just wanted to chill
it was vacation after all
I said to him, “I’m all stressed out about a movie that has almost no money riding on it.”
We laughed.

Tuesday we went to a local country market to see my art friend Addison.

Wednesday - filming was to commence.
There were cupcakes to make in the morning
and whipped cream
and given the cat circus schedule of eating in the morning and having lunch at 12
yes, my cats eat lunch,
we ended up beginning to trudge everything up the hill and into the woods at 1:45
in the sweltering heat
a table, 4 wooden chairs, boxes of glass bottles and plates, blah blah blah.....
You know, everything you saw in the pictures.
We finally got everything in the woods and set up at 3:15.
It was exactly that time when The Hubby looked up at the sky and said,
“Is it supposed to rain?”
It was that time when I looked up and saw a sky that looked like this

I prayed
I begged
I pleaded
I took pictures in the process
which mostly came out blurry because there was no longer enough light in the woods
for the camera to work properly
I got mad
in general
and more specifically with God
I said, “God, I am mad at you!”
I said to The Hubby, “See! See how my life is?! Every time I try to do something, it turns out like this!!”

The wind picked up and started blowing all my silvery coins and bug wings and green tinted lanterns away and onto the ground - THAT WAS IT!
I had a mini-fit
and then I said - "fine.....FINE!!!!"
"You win storm!!"
And we dragged everything back to the house.
The Hubby said, “It’s supposed to be fun, not perfect????"
I rolled my eyes and replied, "Uh-huh."

Even though I was mad, I decided to enjoy the rest of the day...
even though things had not gone the way I wanted them to.

There was always tomorrow.....
right???

In the meantime,
I saw an interview Oprah did with Cheryl Strayed,
author of “Wild”
who said she discovered that, “God was not a granter of wishes.”
This information changed our relationship,
strengthened it,
strengthened me,
changed my point of view,
in a whole new way.

On that tomorrow, Thursday, it rained.
On the next tomorrow, Friday, it rained.
At this point, I was getting a little worried
And stressed
because I needed The Hubby to do all this and he had to return to work
and I needed time before the party, which was the next weekend, to edit everything.
I needed to get this set up and filmed this Saturday and Sunday period.
But what could I do about it?
Nothing.
I had a choice, I could ruin these rainy days by being upset or
I could go on with my day I was given to live,
enjoying them as they were
and hoping for the future
and trusting that it would all work out.

Which is what I did.....we drove a hundred and ten miles to get donuts again.
Hey, when you want Krispy Kreme and the closest one you want to drive to is Maryland
(cause you don’t want to drive to Philly)
you make it happen.
This time The Hubby didn’t drive like a jerk and we didn’t almost get killed or shown over, I’m happy to say (unlike my birthday donut drive).

On Saturday morning, IT'S OVERCAST. GRRRRR!!!
The weather man said, “After noon the sun will come out.”
Okay Weatherman, I'm trusting you.
So we waited........
and for the entire hour of noon, it was still overcast,
but at 1:00 on the dot.....the sun came out!
Filming On!
We spent the last two days of vacation filming.
We did many takes,
EXTRA takes,
cause that was all I was getting to work with
and I didn't want to end up with video that just wasn't going to work.

But there were still problems:

some of those 24 Al-liss-es didn’t want to stand up (but I made them)

the ground was wet still, so Rabbit the knock-off watch dealer and I got wet (we dried)

The Hubby improvises all his lines
which is a really impressive talent and he’s really really good at it,
but unfortunately that leaves me in the dark as to what he’s going to do and which character is talking.....(Oh well, so the film doesn't look exactly the way I wish it did.)

the wind was blowing just enough to move the coins and wings all over the table (which was just enough to generally annoy me)

and then there were the ants and the bee -
who invited the bee to tea? I thought as I was taking this picture.

Apparently it was me because literally two seconds later....one showed up
and would not leave me alone!!
It just kept flying around me, chasing me all over the place.
The Hubby threatened it with death
and he would have killed it
but lucky for it, it left.

We (when I say we, I mean he) lost the lantern that used to hang above this doll’s head on her bed.
We (I mean we this time) looked for it, but come on, it's the woods.
(It doesn't bother me too much, I can make a new one.)

I spilled the ‘tea’ on the table and on me.
It was difficult making the ‘tea’ disappear as if Al-liss was drinking it without making any noise while pouring it into a plastic container held by The Hubby off camera.
And I refused to ‘take one for the team’ and drink paint water.
No, I'm not poisoning myself for art's sake.

The one thing that I did not want to happen never did......
my cute striped stockings never got snagged on any sticks or sticker bushes while walking through the woods and ruined!
YAY, that's one for me!

It was a lot of work, but finally.....
it was all done.
And then there was a big huge sigh of relief.....
It
all
got
done
despite the weather,
Everything I wanted to do,
we did.