Well, dear readers, I am sitting here like so much fish, listening to a fun operetta by Eduard Kunneke with the amusing title of Der Vetter aus Dingsda (The Cousin from Dingsda), which I gather has something to do with a cousin from Dingsda. The conductor’s name is also amusing – Heinz Geese. It’s a fairly typical German operetta – some attractive tunes and a little over an hour long. I think it’s supposed to be funny, but there’s no libretto and the booklet is in German. It’s quite bubbly, though, and a mood lightener, which is what I needed, which you’ll understand in a moment. Other music o’ the day included another Decca Entartete CD, this one by Alexander Zemlinsky. From the reviews, I expected this would be another one I loved, but I’m afraid it was not much to my liking. Two vocal symphonies – not my favorite thing, sung symphonies, and these both have non-stop singing. The first has some interesting orchestral colors, but nothing to really hang onto and just too much singing. The second is even weirder, as it’s a symphonic setting of some Langston Hughes poems but in German. I wanted to love it and I suppose I’ll give it another listen at some point, but right now it’s my least favorite in this wonderful series. That was about it for music, though, because yesterday was, well, let’s just get to it, shall we?
Yesterday was a somewhat really annoying day, especially the first part of it. I did get eight hours of sleep, arising at eleven o’clock. I had a lot of e-mails to deal with, and so I dealt with them. Then I began futzing and finessing and got that done – the usual additions and deletions and smoothing out of things. Then I girded my loins and drove over to the bank. Well, I didn’t gird nearly enough. I began at Union Bank to cash my monthly pension check. Usually, there’s no one at this bank, maybe one or two people waiting and that’s it. But noooo, today there were fifteen people waiting, and one teller. So, that took forty-five minutes. My actual time with the teller was under two minutes.
Then I walked over to the Bank of America down the street and that was an absolute horror show. The regular line stretched all the way to the rear doors and there were many people outside waiting. Thankfully, the business line was open and that one only had about eight people in it, and since I’m a business customer, that’s where I went. It still took about forty minutes and my actual teller time was under two minutes. The reason for the extreme crowd? Every other Bank of America in the San Fernando Valley is closed. I don’t get it and it really sucks. And you know that two-thirds of the people who came from all over the Valley could have done their business in the ATM. Horrible. I was quite irritable after that.
But there was more coming – when I arrived at the mail place there was yet another out of control line and I went berserk. I called the manager and told him this was not acceptable. They need to post a sign saying that people pay a lot of money every year to get their mail there and that any Amazon return customers will have to let those people who pay get their stuff first. If they did that, I’m pretty sure every one of those people would go literally one mile away to the Whole Foods, which is an official Amazon drop-off. As it was, one jerk had – wait for it – THIRTY returns. I would not allow that jackass in the store, frankly. Anyway, the owner got my stuff and brought it to me, and I was out of there in ten minutes. But I lost far too much of the day for all that waiting. I came right home but I was so annoyed that I ordered a pepperoni pizza from Pizza Wagon of Brooklyn – a medium pizza, way too much for me, but at that point all I wanted was to eat everything in sight and I ate the entire damn pizza all by myself. But not all at once because I had to finesse the final two tracks. All that’s done, then I made the decision to push filming one week, although Hartley will shoot all her songs this week, which means we have to decide on wardrobe before she starts. So, we’re having a Zoom meeting tonight to sort all that out. It’s going to make the editing time intense, as I really don’t want to push the air date into February.
I didn’t start writing new pages until almost six, which was the most irritating of all. I’ve now told everyone they cannot bug me during the day with anything – I need the day to write at least half of what I want to write every day and I’m NOT going to have any more days where I do everything BUT write. Anyway, I wrote for two-and-a-half hours and got eleven pages done and began chapter five. Then I took a music break and I’ll do at least four more pages after I post the notes. That will make fifteen pages, and I’m fine with that number every day. If I do more, great – if I do a bit less, that’s okay, too.
Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, I’ll do whatever needs doing, I’ll futz and finesse and then write new pages – that’s going to be most of the day. I’ll only break to hopefully pick up some packages, eat, and take a couple of music breaks. I may watch The Prom, as I got a screener of that, although I’m not sure it’s my cuppa. I’ll write more in the evening, and we also have a short Zoom session to do some tests and discuss wardrobe. At some point, I’ll relax.
Tomorrow and the rest of the week is more of the same, and that goes for the weekend to. If Hartley films her songs this week, I’ll also look at those and make sure everything’s okay and then get that stuff to the editor so he can start compiling everything. And no more damn waiting. So tired of the waiting game.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up when I’m up, do whatever needs doing, futz and finesse and write new pages, hopefully pick up some packages, eat something very light, maybe watch something, maybe listen, definitely write more, and then relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What’s the most pizza you’ve ever eaten at one time? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, where I shall not dream of the waiting game.