Well, dear readers, it is the Jewish New Year – Rosh Hashanah – and it is my fervent hope and prayer that the Jewish New Year will be filled with health, wealth, happiness, creativity, and all things bright and beautiful. And matzoh. And gefilte fish. And chopped liver. And brisket. And noodle kugel. And borscht. Leave us not forget borscht. Too many people forget borscht and how do you think that makes borscht feel? Red as a beet, that’s how it makes borscht feel. Anyway, let’s all celebrate Rosh Hashanah by dancing the Hora – on this holiday we even allow prostitutes to dance the Hora, although when they do it we call it the Whora. We don’t allow groaning at haineshisway.com. We just don’t. Otherwise, I’m currently listening for the fifth time to Gabriel Yared’s beautiful score to A Promise. And I did watch a motion picture last night, entitled The Other, the 1972 film adaptation of Tom Tryon’s novel. I already wrote about it the other day, so I’ll just say that every time I watch the movie, I’m always hoping it will be better than it actually is, but it’s the same as it’s always been – a near miss. Robert Mulligan is simply too tasteful a filmmaker to take this film to the horror areas it absolutely must go. It’s a pretty film to look at, bucolic, with nice period settings. The book’s central conceit, which is literary, just doesn’t work on screen for many reasons I won’t go into so as not to spoil anything for those who may not have seen it. The book is fantastic – at least that’s my memory of it from all those years ago – and it was a huge best-seller. It IS fun to see Uta Hagen on the screen and the rest of the cast is serviceable, with a couple of odd casting choices. The one brilliant thing about the film is the Jerry Goldsmith score – it’s just wonderful and does everything a score should do, although some scenes need music and probably had some written but not used – the new CD release has several unused cues. Anyway, it was nice to see it again. Otherwise, yesterday was pretty much thoroughly irritating with one exception, the one exception being a great pastrami sandwich from Langer’s.
I got seven hours of sleep, got up, and immediately found that our webhost had done the same thing they did last month – charged an extra $100 for over-usage charges. When that happened last month, they admitted the charge should never have been there – we’ve had the same usage forever – these overages stem from the number of times their server goes down and they have to reset things. Not our fault, obviously. So, imagine my chagrin when I saw that they’d not only done it again, but the problem it immediately caused. I keep just enough in PayPal to pay the monthly auto pays at the beginning of the month. Well, because of their faux charge, that caused the Spectrum payment to not go through. So, I had to call Spectrum, make the payment from another account, and completely reset up auto payments. Then I contacted our host, who didn’t get back to me for many hours. At the very end of the day, they credited back the money, although it has not shown up yet – if it’s not there by the time I wake up, they’re going to have to make sure it was processed. It should be instant when it’s a PayPal debit card. If it’s not there soon then another auto pay will be rejected. That would not have happened had the yearly charge for Microsoft 365 hadn’t come through – I find it endlessly odd that one gets no notice that they’re going to charge the yearly, so that one is prepared for it. None of this would be an issue if they hadn’t changed their policy a couple of years ago – originally, if there wasn’t enough in the PayPal account, they’d charge your credit card on file to cover the charge. Funnily, when the Microsoft charge came in and there wasn’t enough to cover it, that’s exactly what they did, so it went through. Go know.
After food, I began the ordeal of setting up the virtual doctor’s appointment for the eye doctor referral. That was quite the process. Endless questions, photographing license and insurance card and a selfie – it just went on and on and on. Finally, I selected a doctor to converse with at 2:15. She showed up a half-hour after that but was very nice. She asked yet more questions. By the end, she’d put in the referral for the Cedars eye specialist. She said that might take a day or two, but I got confirmation a couple of hours later and can make the appointment when I get up today. It’s in Beverly Hills, California. After all that, I was ready for some damn relaxation. I’d already put into script form the mini-musical thing before going to bed the night before, so that’s done, and it came out very well. And that brings us up to now.
Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, I’ll do whatever needs doing, I’ll make the eye doctor appointment, I’ll work at the piano getting songs in my fingers, I’ll check in with the mail place, I’ll do a quick Gelson’s run and perhaps get something Jewish to celebrate the New Year – perhaps some kugel or matzo ball soup or something like that. After that, I can watch, listen, and relax.
Tomorrow and the weekend are unknown at the moment, although I know the Patrice Leconte Maigret will be here on Friday, so I’ll definitely watch that. I’m hoping for a quiet weekend.
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, make an eye doctor appointment, work at the piano, check with the mail place, do a quick Gelson’s run, and then watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: I forgot to do Ask BK day yesterday, today is Ask BK Day, the day in which you get to ask me or any dear reader any old question you like and we get to give any old answer we like. So, let’s have loads of lovely questions and loads of lovely answers and loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, as we wish everyone a Happy Jewish New Year aka Rosh Hashanah, and may the borscht be with you.