Well, dear readers, I was not in hot water yesterday. That is both a good thing and a bad thing. Taking this to its literal extreme I shall explain why. Prior to going to bed I decided to take a hot shower. I turned on the water as I always do and set it where I always set it, which is pretty hot. Only it was, at best, lukewarm. I found that odd, so turned the knob thing for more heat. I got a bit more but is should have been scalding at that point. Five minutes later, there was barely any heat left at all, beyond the valley of the tepid. That made me remember that after I shaved earlier in the afternoon (plenty of hot water for that), I later went to splash my face with hot water and couldn’t really get that much – I thought it was just taking a while to warm up. Then I noticed that even though the heat was on the temperature was lower than it should have been and the air coming out wasn’t really warm.
So, I left the heat on all night, as a test. Once up at nine after six hours of sleep, thanks to the endless robo-calls that have now overtaken my cell phone, I checked the temperature, which should have been seventy-two. It was sixty-seven – clearly something wrong. Then I checked the hot water – not even a semblance of hot water left. I checked the stove and it fired up okay – what I didn’t know at the time is if I’d tried it again or tried other burners it would not have worked.
So, Grant is out of town but I texted both he and his wife. He was baffled by it. His wife called the plumber to come out and check but that wasn’t going to happen until the afternoon. So, I went back to bed and got an additional hour of rest. Then I had a brief visit, then picked up a tiny package, did some banking, then came home. The plumber had yet to call and say he was on his way.
I went over to Grant’s wife’s salon next door and she called the plumber, and they said soon. So, she began my haircut. The plumber arrived in the middle of it. Now, Grant’s daughter Greer had ascertained that Grant’s mother, who lives in a little house behind mine, also could not light her stove. She said she had hot water, but that would have soon gone cold had she left it running. So this had become very baffling because I kept thinking how could the pilot light on two water heaters, the stoves, and the heater all go out at the same time.
We found out almost immediately. Apparently under the house there’s a device that in case of an earthquake, the device is tripped and it shuts down all gas instantly. It took him about ten seconds to reset, then reset the two water heaters and voila, problem solved. So, that was good. She completed my haircut and I finally got to go get something to eat – some Taco Bell, which I brought home and ate all up.
I also did some work at the piano and on the computer, got what I think might just be a fun way to do something I was going to approach in a very dark way – now I’m thinking to start that way and then evolve into this other thing that would be fun and still interestingly weird. I would like to say I printed out a LOT of orders for our new soundtrack release, but alas at this point it’s something of a disaster, which is really and truly irritating. So, I’m going to stick to show releases for a while, because those all do very well for us. Well, in the slightly amusing department, I just happened to go to PayPal to check on stuff and lo and behold and behold and lo there were seven orders there that had not shown up in my e-mail. So, I quit the mail program and relaunched and then they all magically showed up. Those were at least somewhat helpful. Then I sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I watched a motion picture on the Flix of Net entitled Red Dragon, the first of the Hannibal Lecter books. I’d seen Manhunter, which is also based on that book, but while I know that film has its rabid devotees (despite it being a huge bomb at the time), I did not like it at all – in fact, I don’t think I have ever liked a film by Michael Mann because they’re all about him and his “style.” This version, from 2002, by all accounts is much closer to the book. I’m not really a fan of the director, Brett Ratner, but he is clearly trying to pull a Jonathan Demme here and have it be like Silence of the Lambs. He’s not Demme, of course, but at least he stays out of the way in terms of “style.” The screenplay is quite good and is by Ted Tally, who wrote Silence of the Lambs. And it’s always a pleasure to see Anthony Hopkins. I run hot and cold on Edward Norton, mostly cold, but he’s okay here. Mary Louise Parker has a thankless role, but Ralph Fiennes is very good as Francis Dolarhyde and so is Emily Blunt as a blind woman who takes a misguided fancy to him. Harvey Keitel isn’t as good as Scott Glenn as Jack Crawford – he’s just kind of by the numbers here. So, I enjoyed it okay. I’ve never seen the film of the third book, Hannibal, mostly because I found that novel so over the top and disgusting I simply had no interest.
After that, I attended to a few things on the computer, took a hot (yay) shower and began these here notes.
Today I’ll be up by eight-thirty due to she of the Evil Eye arriving soon thereafter. I don’t want to eat a light breakfast tomorrow, although I suppose I could go and have an English muffin and a side of bacon. That wouldn’t be too horrible, but I’m eating a nice meal later so I want to save it for that. So, I may just hang out here, although I do have to do more banking at some point. Hopefully I’ll pick up some packages, then I’ll relax until it’s time for our stumble-through at five. I’ll give whatever notes I have and then a few of us are supping after. When I get back, I’ll just relax.
Tomorrow, I’ll hopefully arise after a good night’s beauty sleep, and then I’ll relax until it’s time to mosey on over to The Federal for our sound check and then show. I’m sure some of us will go out afterwards. The coming week if filled with meetings and meals, planning the next Kritzerland, speaking to some arts kids at a high school, but mostly writing songs and trying to finish up the score so we can begin truly integrating everything into the script so I can see where things need to be rewritten or moved or changed so that we don’t have redundancy between dialogue and songs and to make sure everything flows really smoothly and that we’re always setting up the songs as they need to be.
Let’s all put on our pointy party hats and our colored tights and pantaloons, let’s all break out the cheese slices and the ham chunks, let’s all dance the Hora or the old-fashioned waltz because today is the birthday of our very own dear reader George. So, let’s give a big haineshisway.com birthday cheer to our very own dear reader George. On the count of three: One, two, three – A BIG HAINESHISWAY.COM BIRTHDAY CHEER TO OUR VERY OWN DEAR READER GEORGE!!!
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do things, bank, hopefully pick up packages, relax, do a stumble-through, eat, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite “Knock-Knock” jokes? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to once again have hot water.