Well, dear readers, yesterday was a real push me – pull you kind of day. It started out with a thud after seven hours of sleep, when my engineer informed me he’s leaving town Wednesday and won’t be back until January 3, which means I won’t be able to finesse and finalize the mixes until that week – and it also happens to be a Kritzerland rehearsal week and a writing the new book week. I was not so happy, but he assures me he’s working hard on it, which isn’t really the point – the point is he’s gone and I can’t finish anything and it’s going to push me right up against our official ship date when my plan was to try and ship them by the end of the year. I can see no way this will get to the mastering guy before the tenth of January now, and then he needs a few days – once it gets to the plant, it will only be a day or two but I was most irritated.
After having the back-and-forth on that, I then answered some really irritating e-mails and by that time I was so irritated I just left and went to the mail place. There I had two happy surprises – not huge happy but happy surprises nonetheless, plus a screener. I did some banking, then came back home. Meanwhile, Sami’s mom surprised me by asking if we could do our mutual birthday dinner last night rather than Wednesday. I said I could. So, I did some work on the computer, then got ready for our early dinner at the Woodland Hills Ruth’s Chris, where we now dine annually at this time of year.
We had a lot of fun and yakked quite a bit. Sami is about to be in the throes of leaving town to do her college auditions, but she had the comfort zone of already being accepted at some school I never heard of and if she goes there they’ve already offered her a 25K scholarship off her tuition, which effectively cuts that in half. But I think she’s hoping for Juilliard or Carnegie Mellon. What she has going for her, and what I’ve been on her about since she began high school and I could hear that her choir teacher was trying to smooth out and smother her voice, is that her sound is like nobody else’s. In the Kritzerland shows for the past two years that’s been my biggest battle with her – to get her out of that stupid nonsense her moron choir teacher was attempting to do. And at one of her auditions, whoever was in the room hearing her said exactly that and hearing someone other than me say it really hit home for her and she now understands why I was so strong about it.
I had my usual salad with 1000-Island dressing, a few pieces of their wonderful bread, then the New York steak, which I ordered medium well and which is supposed to be just a little pink in the center. They didn’t quite achieve that so I didn’t like it as much as usual, and they also were a little stingy with the sizzling butter, but this branch of Ruth’s Chris has never been as good as the Beverly Hills branch. Sami and her mom shared a steak, and for our sides we of course had the lobster mac-and-cheese, some corn, and some potatoes – I ate none of the latter. It was all very good, and then the birthday duo got a teeny-tiny cheesecake thing for our dessert, while Sami ordered a Crème Brulee. After that I came directly home, but in a moment of complete muscle memory and senility I went right to my old off-ramp, two miles past where I should have gotten off. That was completely irritating. Push me – pull you. Then I sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I watched a DGA screener of a motion picture entitled Phantom Thread – not an episode of the Star Wars franchise, Phantom Thread is another Paul Thomas Anderson film with Daniel Day-Lewis, supposedly his final film (we’ll just see about that – apparently he’s pulled that before). It’s yet another completely weird movie and I can’t say I liked it all that much. It is very pretty to look at and very old-fashioned (it’s about a 1950s clothing designer in London) – the actors are fine, but Mr. Day-Lewis’s ACTING is always so INTENSE and it’s just not for me. I cannot imagine it would be any fun to work with such a person and thankfully I’ll never have to. It’s 130 minutes long, too. There are some good scenes, very little plot, and an okay old-fashioned score.
After that, I just relaxed, talked to Muse Margaret – I’ll be supping at her house come Friday night.
Today, I have to make a run to Doug Haverty’s home environment, hopefully I’ll pick up some packages, and then a couple of folks are coming by to pick up stuff. I’ll probably eat after they’ve gone, or maybe even with the mom and kid who are coming last. I might like to go to Marie Callendar’s – I’ve been meaning to since the move, but haven’t had the time. We shall see.
Tomorrow I have to do work on the Kritzerland show, I think I may be dining with someone but can’t remember, and all that kind of stuff. Thursday and Friday is more of the same, plus I’ll do the Costco run for the Christmas Eve Do, which is coming up a lot sooner than I thought it was.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do a run, hopefully pick up packages, have a couple of visitors, eat, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What actors, male and female, truly annoy you? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy that the day of the push me – pull you is done.