Well, dear readers, how can this month be over halfway done, that’s what I want to know. This month is flying by, like a gazelle doing Zepbound whilst singing Zing! Went the Strings of my Heart and Zippity-Do-Dah in the key of B. Slow down, Spartacus, seriously. In other news, we’re having a heat wave here in Los Angeles and environs and naturally the Valley gets the worst of it, just under 100 degrees yesterday. That’s a little too hot to handle. Yesterday was a bit weird. I did get just under eight hours of sleep, I answered lots of e-mails and got confirmation of casting – I think that leaves three roles to go, but I have to check the list. For food, I decided on nearby Antonio’s, an Eyetalian jernt I’ve been going to since the early 1970s. I had my go-to dish there, Spaghetti Siciliano – just pasta, marinara, butter, onions – it’s been disappointing the last few times, but it was spot on yesterday. After that, I did some work on the computer, got the eBook file for the new book plus a new PDF of the book because they found a typo that somehow we’d all missed – easy to miss because the eye skips over things that are just missing a letter in the middle of a word – in this case, it was in the last two pages of the book and the word with typo was “myself” which with typo was “myelf” – I went back and looked at the Word doc and it’s even underlined in red. Luckily, we got it in the nick of time and I sent to the publisher just as they were about to make the final files and put it all together, so they’ll use the fixed PDF. Then Fed Ex brought me a package – a new iPhone. I was very far behind – mine was a 13 – then new one is a 17. It only adds a few bucks onto the phone bill. I’d purchased it at the nearby Spectrum store on Tuesday, but they didn’t have the one with more storage in stock, so it had to be sent, but the guy said to just bring it in, and he’d get it set up for me. This I did, only he wasn’t there. Unfortunately, the young lady who “helped” me was an attitude-laden “why are you bothering me” type. First, she said, “Did you buy it here?” in a kind of accusatory way. I said of course and that I was told the guy would set it up for me, to which she responded, “Well, I didn’t sell it to you.” Then she begrudgingly removed it from the box and transferred the phone number to the new phone. Then she made three attempts to transfer everything from the old phone to the new phone, called a mirror transfer. She never offered to do it via the Cloud. She kept telling me the Cloud was doing an update and so it kept disconnecting and not completing the transfer. I said it was not possible for the Cloud to be doing an update, and she said, “What do you want me to do about it? You’ll have to take it upstairs to the Apple Store and they can do it.” I couldn’t believe it.

So, I went upstairs and was promptly told the first appointment time was in an hour. I said I didn’t want to sit there and wait for an hour, but that was the deal. I went and sat at a table. About ten minutes later, there were about eight employees just standing around gabbing, with nothing to do. I went to one and he graciously came and helped me. Turns out the Cloud wasn’t trying to update, the PHONE was. We had to do that before it could be set up. That took about twenty minutes and once done he was able to do the mirror transfer and that took about twenty minutes. Then he came back and we got everything set up just fine and it ported over everything, including passwords, perfectly.

When I finally got back home, I had to nuke the data and stuff from the old phone, but it’s not working. Hopefully, if I shut it down and start over trying to nuke it, it will. Then I talked to Spectrum because they had to send me a QR code to send in my old phone, which I got three hundred bucks for. I told the lady on the phone about this awful girl at the store and she apologized profusely. And that was the saga of the new phone. I got a case for it but I’m not sure I like it and I may return it – but someone needs to put it and the screen protector on so I can see if I can deal with it.

For my snack, I had some veggie egg rolls that were pretty okay. I had a telephonic call, and then dozed off for a couple of hours, and here we are.

Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, I’ll do whatever needs doing, continue to cast, eat, hopefully get the interior and covers of the new book to approve, and then at some point try to watch, listen, and relax.

Tomorrow, I’m attending an opening night and the after partay that follows. Saturday is an early dinner with Kay Cole to discuss some projects, and Sunday can be a ME day.

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, cast, eat, hopefully get the book stuff to approve, and then watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite cheeses? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy the book interior designers found “myelf” and fixed it. Of course, I’m now quite enamored of the new word, “myelf.”