Well, dear readers, we had us a big ol’ rainstorm yesterday, the likes of which we haven’t seen since the month I moved into this house back in 2004. It literally poured all day long and well into the evening, when it finally abated. Now, for ten years everyone has been crying for rain and bemoaning the drought, but one day of rain like this literally shuts this city down. Shows were cancelled, freeways were closed in both directions, and six blocks from here a twenty-foot sinkhole swallowed up two cars. As for me, save for working with Grant and going to dinner, I stayed warm and cozy in the home environment. But I think I’m the only sane person in the City of Studio, because when it pours like this, everyone immediately has to go out and do things, eat, fill up restaurants, and drive stupidly. It’s quite the phenomenon.
Otherwise, yesterday was quite a nice little day. I was up at around nine-fifteen, answered e-mails, printed out a few orders, then got organized so that the work session with Grant Geissman would go quickly, since we only had less than two hours before he had to leave. I went to him at eleven and we actually got all the fixes I’d found entered in about thirty minutes, which was very fast for us. Then we played with the way the chapter headings and title were and found a style we really liked – I’d brought over several examples of books where I liked the style and he saw those and then did his own thing. Then we did a quick pass through the book to make sure the newly formatted page endings didn’t have any bad breaks. Then he sent me a new PDF. He’s hoping he can get to the cover and back cover on Sunday.
I then picked up one little package, then came right home to get out of the rain. I opened the PDF and double-checked all the fixes we’d done and went through every page looking for bad breaks and anything else untoward. I spent about two hours doing that. I found one bad break that I’d caught already but that hadn’t been entered because we missed it after fixing the other problem on that page, and I found only one bad break at the end of one page. I found two more inconsistencies in the style we chose for any mentions of time – sometimes I’d write it out, i.e. three o’clock and sometimes I’d do 3:00 – in the end we went with the numerals as it suited the book better, but no one proofer caught every instance of the written out version and during this final go-through I found the two additional ones, so I think we’ve now got them all. And surprisingly I found two more examples of ragged text – neither of us understood how that happened – these two were only one paragraph each so that’s why I missed it when doing the major proofing. Then I sent those additional fixes to Grant so he can enter them and then send me a new PDF. That I’ll go through on Sunday night one final time, but I’m hoping we’ll have caught everything. The book looks really great. Then I sat on my couch like so much fish.
Yesterday, I watched a motion picture on Blu and Ray entitled The Yakuza. I saw it back in the day and one other time. I liked it back then, liked it the last time I saw it, and certainly liked it yesterday. I don’t think it’s a masterpiece, but it’s a really solid movie with terrific performances by Robert Mitchum, Brian Keith, Ken Takakura, and others. It has a wonderful score by Dave Grusin, good direction by Sidney Pollack, and a good script by Paul Schrader and Robert Towne.
After that, it was time to get ready for dinner, which I did. I then carefully moseyed on over to Muse Margaret and hubby Richard’s house. They had a nice fire going, and it’s always a wonderful time when we have our little dinners. She made my favorite chicken dish, asparagus, salad, Spanish rice and, for dessert, homemade right out of the oven chocolate chip cookies – it was all yummilicious in the extreme. The conversation was also yummilicious and then we even played a game of Scrabble. I hadn’t played Scrabble in years and I do love it. After that I came right home – by then the rain had stopped, although as I’m typing these here notes it seems to have started up again, but just lightly.
Today, I have to be up by eight-thirty as she of the Evil Eye is coming, then I’ll leave, do a few things, not eat, hopefully pick up some packages, then I have the belated birthday dinner with Sami and her mom, which I’m looking forward to.
Tomorrow I can relax until I judge the finals for the singing contest. I’m sure I’ll grab a bite to eat afterwards, then I’ll hopefully give the book the final once-over at which point I have to walk away and let it be. Hopefully I’ll also see the cover and back cover that night. I gather Monday is a holiday, so that’s nice. I’ll use that day to make the show order and write the commentary. Rupert is getting me little details I need about some of the songs and I should actually have that today. Then next week is very busy.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do things, not eat, hopefully pick up some packages, have a birthday dinner, and then relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite films with Robert Mitchum and Brian Keith? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have had a wonderful warm and cozy home-cooked meal.