Lights, camera, action

Arriving home bleary-eyed from Italy, I was immediately confronted by frantic messages from my next-door neighbor. Someone wants to make a movie, the messages said, and they want to use your house and ours. Time was of the essence. Call blah blah blah. Call yesterday, if not sooner.

So I called, and I learned that an independent producer would indeed be filming a movie and, out of all the potential houses in Seattle, had chosen mine and two of my neighbors to serve as his set. We talked. Or rather, they talked and I gaped. Negotiations progressed, dollar amounts were bandied about, time periods were blocked out.

Tomorrow, I sign the final contract and get my check.

Then I try to figure out what to do with my cats for 15 days, while my house is stripped bare, used as a movie set for a few days, and then rehabilitated so that it once more -- supposedly -- looks approximately the same as it does now.

The movie is about a couple who move into a neighborhood (MY neighborhood!), find their property infested by raccoons (oh yeah, you came to the right place, baby!), and decide to fudge the zoning codes by building a small addition to their house -- right under the nose of an irritable nosy woman who happens to be living in MY house. Bad things happen. The script is described as "black comedy."

The movie will be filmed next month and released sometime in 2010. It features seriously big Hollywood stars. See it at a theater near you. You can admire the acting, enjoy the comedy. For me, at least, the entire focus of the movie will be the glories of my house.

Stare in wonder at my house, movie fans. Stare and marvel.