Day 231, coffee, shopping, play

Sunday, 7/21/2019

Up at my customary 6am, when the orange sun rose above a band of cloud over the Bay and came through my curtains. Did the NYT crossword, and at 7:45 headed out for coffee and a roll, and was disappointed. This week I decided, on a whim, to go to The Prolific Oven. Here I found the one young woman on duty sad that none of her pastries had come in, “but they’ll be here in a minute”. So I ordered a cappuccino and sat down to read the paper. But after ten minutes, no pastries. So I walked on to Paris Baguette, a place I had dissed a couple of weeks ago, but it was handy.

Finished with the paper, it completely slipped my mind that I’d intended also to visit the downtown Farmer’s Market, and I just walked home, noting yet another coffee shop to try. At 10am I headed out to the Bonobos store in the Santana Row center off Winchester in San Jose. Here a very helpful clerk named Alex assisted me in finding the right size and style of pants and a blazer. Choosing pants wasn’t easy, as they have all waist sizes in one-inch increments (in contrast to Levi’s, which go 32-34-36 etc.) and in four cuts, Athletic, Regular, Slim and Tailored. It turns out that my shape fits the 33-Slim in their dress pants and 35 in the chinos. For the blazer, Alex showed me that their 40 short was a perfect fit for length, sleeve length, and shoulders. Unfortunately it doesn’t quite button easily over my middle. He pointed out this one adjustment could be done by a tailor. I happen to know a good tailor/alterations shop which is now only three blocks from where I live, so I went with that.

The whole order, three pairs of pants and the blazer, totaled under $600. Take that, Neiman and Wilkes. The goods will arrive next week; then I’ll take the jacket to the tailor, and after that, will post some pictures.

From San Jose I drove to Redwood City, Broadway, and had lunch near the Dragon Theater where, at 2pm I sat down to watch The How and the Why, a play by Sarah Treem. This was an excellent play, rich in both intellectual and emotional twists and surprises, and very well acted by its cast of only two.

In the evening I exchanged texts with Chuck agreeing to meet tomorrow at 11:30.

Day 230, painting, shopping, tour, concert

Saturday, 7/20/2019

At 5am I woke up and had a hard time going back to sleep from fretting about my painting. Where could it be? I finally got up at 5:30. Coffee. An hour later the paper comes. An hour later the dining room opens for breakfast. On my way down I decide to just have a wee peek into some of the common rooms which this past week were shut off so their renovation can start. I opened the door into the former 6th floor lounge, and found: a big empty room and a bunch of framed artwork leaning against the wall, some wrapped in paper as for storage. And my painting in the middle. This is a serious mix-up by somebody; that painting (and I think, some of the others) was marked with colored dot stickers indicating it was to remain hung until it could be moved to my new unit.

Well, all’s well that ends well; I picked up the painting and moved it back to my room.

I was scheduled for the 2pm tour at the Museum today so I had a couple of hours, and I went to Stanford Shopping Center to resume my search for trousers and a blazer. Last evening I had found what looked like a nice pair of pants on the Nordstrom website, on sale marked down from $200 to $130. Since a pair of Levi’s costs circa $90, I feel like $200 is more or less in line for a pair of wool trousers.

It took a while to find the right size of these; the very helpful clerk assured me that this brand tended to run large, so I started with 34″. Way too tight. 35″. Nope. Each time, going into the fitting room, taking off my pants, putting on the trial pair, taking them off, folding them, putting my own back on… The 36″ size was really too tight (so much for running large, since 36″ Levi’s are a bit loose on me) but close enough to a fit that I could close them and put on my belt and look in the mirror and… I didn’t like they way they draped. Bloused out to the side like jhodpurs almost. Nothing like the picture on the website. I snuck out past the very helpful clerk while he was on the phone so I wouldn’t have to endure any more suggestions.

I dropped in to Wilkes Bashford and was almost ready to try on a pair of their pants when I noticed the price tag, $475. Nope. I mentioned to the very helpful clerk that I was also interested in a blazer and he mentioned that their blazers started at $2200. “I’m sure they are lovely; thank you so much for your time.” “You have a nice day, sir.”

Nieman Marcus. Very helpful clerk. But I just can’t swallow $300 for a pair of slacks. Wondering if I was totally out of touch (it has been a long time since I shopped for clothes), I wandered on down the concourse. Took a look in Banana Republic (from the sublime to the ridiculous, right?) who actually have blazers but not in any color I wanted to try. Had a smoothie at Jamba Juice and thought it over. Yesterday at Nordstrom I had started with the Bonobo display. They had nice looking blazers, I might have bought one except they didn’t have the combination of size and color I wanted. But the Bonobo line is, if not exactly cheap, reasonable. Sucking my smoothie I opened their website on my phone and saw that they have their own store on Santana Row. I decided heck, I’m going there. Tomorrow.

Went to the Museum, led a tour, people liked it. Came home, ate a quick supper at 5:30, then walked the mile down Middlefield to Rinconada park where there was a free concert, part of Palo Alto’s summer series, at 6:30. A band that alternates Creedence Clearwater and Bob Seeger numbers. They weren’t that good but the songs were great (Stuck in Lodi Again, Born on the Bayou, etc.) and I listened for an hour and walked back.

Day 229, tree guy, shopping, painting, I suck at games

Friday, 7/19/2019

Went for a run. Felt fine. Didn’t have time to end the run with a stop at a coffee shop because I had to be at Tasso street before 10am. Which I was. Looking inside, it seems only the most basic prep work has been done. Plastic drop clothes taped down to the floors and over wood not to be painted. A start made at removing the wallpaper in the kitchen, and kitchen cabinet doors removed.

The tree guy,

Diego, took my notes and wrote up an estimate. To keep the oak branches off the roof, he recommended removing one large branch entirely. This is a branch about 12 inches in diameter at the big end and stretching easily 50 feet out over the house to the garage. However he pointed out there are plenty of big branches above it and the tree would look more balanced with it gone.

Since the tree is shared with next door, I went next door and got Jean, the lady of the house to come out and consult. She agreed to removing the big branch. She also dropped the small bombshell that they may be moving out and selling, too. They have bought a larger house deeper into Old Palo Alto, at Tennyson and Webster. Holy crap that must have cost them a bundle! She’s not sure what they will do with this house, but she was interested in meeting “your realtor”, so an opportunity for Chuck.

There’s a scheduling problem, however: the tree company doesn’t have any open slots for this 2-day job until mid-August, by when I sincerely hope the house will be sold. Possibly they can get me one day sooner, we’ll see.

I spent some time composing two long texts to Chuck detailing these items. Then I drove down to

Target

where I can buy my antacid Ranitidine (generic Zantac) cheaper. Target’s pharmacy is a CVS outlet, but everything there costs half what it does at CVS on University Avenue.

I also bought a bathmat. I’ve been wanting something to step on getting out of the shower; I’d been using a small hand towel which seems tacky as well as not very effective. I picked a cheapish one in a light beige which, when I got it back and dropped it on the floor, proved to be a perfect match to the color of the bathroom floor tile. Yay me.

From there I drove to Nordstrom’s in Stanford Shopping Center. I’m determined to get myself a

new blazer

and one or two pairs of “nice” pants. What I learned from trying on several blazers is that my size is 42 Short. Size 42 is just right to enclose my thorax and the sleeve length is right, but the hem hangs down below my butt cheeks and looks wrong. So, 42S would probably be perfect. I could be sure of that if Nordstrom had had any 42S blazers in stock, but they didn’t.

The only thing left on my to-do list for day was laundry, so I headed back to do that. I talked briefly to Craig in the hall about the puzzle of what’s happened to my Dean Linsky

oil painting

of Yosemite Valley. Just after moving in, it was hung opposite the 6th floor lounge. Since, several people have commented on it favorably. A week ago, when Angela inventoried my room in the pre-move planning, we discussed the painting and I thought had agreed it would be moved into my temporary quarters when I moved.

Two days ago I noticed it was not on the wall any more, along with quite a bit of other art, so I queried Angela, stopping in at her office in the basement. She disclaimed any knowledge, “We haven’t started moving any art; see your floor rep, Mister Allen must have moved it.”

I bumped into Craig in the hall yesterday and he assured me in rather vague terms, that the painting had been stored in a safe place. He didn’t say where. I emailed Angela to say this, and she responded rather firmly that since she didn’t know anything about it, the painting was not Channing House’s responsibility.

Tonight I ate dinner with Craig, Diane and Patti, and afterward got clarification from Craig. When he said the art was safe, he was not speaking from his own knowledge, he was just reassuring me of his confidence that the move process would be done right. He doesn’t have any personal knowledge of where the art has gone. So it wasn’t Angela’s crew it must have been Gentle Transitions? I will take this up with Angela Monday.

Meanwhile I tried a new

computer game.

I’d like to have a really deep, absorbing game to play, maybe for a couple of hours a day off and on. The one I’m trying is called The Long Dark, and by all accounts it is very deep in the sense of needing many, many hours to play through to any conclusion, and to have a vast terrain for the player to explore. Just the ticket, right? So I bought it when it was on sale at Steam (the online gaming store) and I had browsed a couple of tutorials so I knew the general objectives (don’t freeze to death or be eaten by wolves) and game play (wander through a post-apocalyptic frozen waste, searching for the things that will keep you warm and defended from wolves). Now I fired it up and tried it.

And failed utterly. This is really kind of funny. The game opens with you in a small office with a window opening onto a hangar in which a seaplane is visible. It’s cold and your first objective in this ultra-beginner tutorial phase, is to light a fire. Well, I managed that. I found the matches on the desk. I found some firewood. I found some newsprint. Now I had what the game requires so I could click on a little stove and say “Light Fire” and oh boy, a fire started, casting nice bars of orange light and warming my player character up. Freezing avoided. Next objective, “Explore the Hangar”. To do that, all you have to do is open the door from the office to the hangar. But it won’t open.

In the course of all this I was somewhat distressed by the slow, laggy response of the game to my mouse moves. When I got my monster 27in iMac I expected its graphics and CPU would be up to serious game play. So I’d started the game at full screen, 5000+pixel width image and all graphics options to High. But it was clearly struggling at those settings. So I cut the game back to a 3000×2000 window and reduced all the options (textures, shadows, etc) to Medium. Much better. Now I could get around the office smoothly and I looked at everything. Picked up everything pick-uppable. No kind of key or anything else that might work to open the office door.

I can’t get out of the first location in the game! This is so basic, that I looked at two different walk-through tutorials and they don’t even mention opening the office door as any kind of challenge. They just say, “now explore the hangar, look for this, that, etc.” But I can’t! I feel like such a flop. I suck at games. (Looking at another walkthrough video, I don’t think I want to play Long Dark anyway. But I should be able to get to the second step of the tutorial. Geez.)

Day 228, Yosemite, concert

Thursday, 7/18/2019

Thursday means a slower start, breakfast in the dining room, and a 9am departure for the East Bay, this week to the vast Yosemite warehouse of the CHM. My task this day was to take photographs of artifacts. Aurora, the collections manager, has embarked herself and her band of volunteers on what will be a years-long process, a 100% inventory of the collection. Unlike the prior cataloging projects I worked in during 2008-9 and 2015-16, which had the fun acronym of CARP, Collections Accession and Reconciliation Project, this much larger project has no cute acronym, nor does it have a grant to fund it.

Anyway, this involves bringing down each box of artifacts and checking that it contains what it’s supposed to. The check is easy because the Museum database, an app named Mimsy, allows searching for artifacts by box number. Then you have a list and a count of artifacts that should be in the box, and can quickly verify that they are there and whether they have photographs in the catalog. A visual check finds whether the packing is optimal, so artifacts aren’t crowded, and noting any wasted space that could be used.

Typically everything will match up and the box can be moved back to shelving under a new and more space-efficient stacking scheme. Space is a problem, as the warehouse that once seemed so huge, is approaching fullness, and the Museum continues to accept new artifacts. Aurora calls the problem of space-efficient box stacking as “museum Tetris”.

For various reasons, some artifacts had never been photographed, and maybe one percent will turn up, or not turn up, to be in the box they’re supposed to be in. Today I was photographing things that needed it. Normally photography is a two-person job, but it can be done by one, and I enjoy doing it by myself, so that was a fun day.

On the way home, responding to a text from Deborah, I stopped at Tasso street to verify that a large cabinet was still in the garage. She has a potential buyer. It is there; and I was pleased to see that there was also a painting crew busily at work prepping the interior. So that’s moving along.

I at supper with Rosina, Robin, Mel, Mary (another Mary, there are a lot of Marys around here) and Ed. Working on this.

In the mailbox was a letter from the TSA telling me “Congratulations!” my application for TSA Precheck has been approved for another bunch of years.

From supper I took a Lyft to Dinkelspiel for another Stanford Jazz Festival concert. This was a much-anticipated (by others, I’d never attended one) Evening with Victor Lin. Lin is an enthusiastic teacher and proponent of jazz and, based on what I heard tonight, a superb jazz pianist. He opened the show with two long numbers that were just lovely to listen to, and to follow him through all the variations he was doing. This was the 22nd “Evening” he’s run, where he introduces students and teachers from the festival, matching them in unexpected combinations, giving them things to do outside their comfort zone, and hilarity ensues. Like bringing out four other pianists and having all five of them playing blues on the two Steinways on stage, swapping seats and reaching over each other. Tonight some of the combinations didn’t work, and the whole second half seemed slow and a bit of a downer to me, and other people who’d seen previous shows agreed.

The “other people” in question were Jerry, Betty and Margaret from Channing House, who were sitting at the other end of the row I was in. I was able to get a ride home with them. During the ride Margaret, finding I was in the process of selling my house, went at length into her (fairly recent, I gather) home sale. She had an early offer for the house as-is, but the buyers wanted a contingency on the sale of their own home and 90 days to do it. Margaret’s realtor advised her they were unrealistic, and wouldn’t be able to sell their house at the price they needed, so she rejected the offer, and went ahead with the painting and staging routine, which she apparently found stressful. In the end, the best offer they got was from the original buyers, whose home had sold, but their new offer was $100K less than before. She felt aggrieved by this process, reasonably so.

Day 227, not much

Wednesday, 7/17/2019

When I don’t do a blog post at night before going to bed, I have to do it, as now, first thing in the morning. Even then I struggle: what the heck did I do yesterday? All that shows on my calendar is a normal stint at FOPAL. I went for a run; then I somehow whiled away two hours. I drove to FOPAL about 11am and worked there until 3:30pm. Came home quite tired, well that’s no surprise, after being on my feet, schlepping boxes of books, for more than four hours. Had a nap, went to supper, sitting with Rosina and Billie and Ed.

Watched some TV, went to bed. I’m pretty sure there was something else in there. Maybe it will come back to me.

Oh, right. A bit of grief. During the morning, looking at various internet sites, I saw an article on the use of an AI to restore old photographs. Which reminded me of a website I used to spend some time at, where amateurs shared their efforts at restoring old photos, around 2005 or so. I got a lot of pointers from it while restoring old pictures from an album of my own. But what was its URL? I’m pretty sure it was “restorationpro…something”. No such URL exists now.

Well, maybe at some time I saved a bookmark for it? I hardly ever look into my saved bookmarks any more, but when I went to Safari’s Edit Bookmarks menu, there they were, a couple of generations of them, imported at different times. I spent half an hour going through and deleting all the ones I’m no longer interested in, or that don’t exist any more.

Toward the bottom was a set of Marian’s bookmarks, imported into some browser sometime, and somehow imported by me and then carried along through generations of browsers. So I looked through and there were the links to all her enthusiasms, knitting sites, videos on how to quilt, various online retailers she liked to browse, and a nice collection of reference sites for projects she’d worked on. I got pretty teary-eyed seeing those. It really hurt.

Didn’t find the photo restoration site, either.

Day 226, book, lunch, money, concert

Tuesday, 7/16/2019

In the morning I drove to the YMCA for some exercises. This strikes me ever more strongly as a waste of money. Especially so when, in the evening, I found a letter from the Y saying they were unable to process my monthly payment against the credit card on file. When I logged on to their site, which is apparently a new one to which all accounts have been recently transferred, I found the records in some disarray. First, they had the user’s name as Marian Cortesi. Marian may once have briefly had a Y membership but I’m dubious about that; and the access to the account was via my email address, not hers. Second, when I tried to update the account info, I was able to change the mailing address, but not the name. The account showed a list of four credit cards, all out of date. I was able to remove three of them, but the fourth–actually Marian’s old BofA card which should never have been in there–could not be removed because, the site claimed, a charge was pending against it. Well, duh, you can “pend” against that card as long as you like; it was cancelled six months ago and will never pay.

Thinking about it, I speculate that when the Y set up their new website, they merged a very old, inactive account of Marian’s with my current and active account. That would explain all the dead cards in the payment method list, and the use of her name with my email.

So I paid the pending amount using a different card (one that I am almost sure I gave them the last time they couldn’t charge a dead card, but it isn’t in this diary). But with pending balance 0, it still can’t delete that old card because of “open charges”. Bad website. I really need to transition to things I can do here in the C.H. fitness center. But still waiting on C.H. management to select a replacement fitness director.

Back to the unit, and now I was able to actually order two proof copies of the book from Amazon. They won’t arrive until next week, but, yay. Looking forward to that. I spent an hour doing classifications on Zooniverse. Then went out to lunch with Scott at Gombei, where I haven’t been since… Marian and I might have gone there once in 2018 but I’m thinking it was probably 2017. We used to go there on an occasional Sunday night when we felt like eating out, and most of our regular spots were closed.

At 2:30 I went down to the lobby to meet Deborah. We went up to the penthouse and sat down and went over the accounting from the sale. It was a very successful sale, in her opinion, and in mine. My net take from it, including the money that people paid me directly when they picked up the bed and the desk, was just slightly over $2,000. Deborah had brought my share of the weekend sale in cash! So there I was holding a wad of $1650, feeling like a drug dealer.

I thanked her profusely. She was fun to work with, honest, good-natured. And she saved me a ton of effort and stress. If I’d tried to price and sell all that stuff, oh what a job that would have been. She earned every penny of her share.

At 6 I went out to Stanford for a concert, one more in the Stanford Jazz Workshop series. This was “Sarah Reich’s Tap Into Jazz”. Here she is in performance. There were a few problems with this concert, not her fault. I see in the video she is wearing the same mic, but at Stanford she had consistent problems with it, going dead, or crackling when she moved. There was a video to introduce the show and whoever ran the projector had the sound up way too far, unpleasantly loud and distorted on the highs. And the floor of the stage at Campbell Recital Hall was not as resonant as a good tap floor should be. She soldiered on. The band, only a four-piece group, was tight. It was an OK show but for a fan of Gaby Diaz, just OK.

Day 225, realty, FOPAL, book

Monday, 7/15/2019

After a run this morning, I passed time easily until 11am. Then I drove to Tasso street to meet with Amy and Chuck. I was early, and looked around the house. Looking at it now I see lots of worn and messy bits. It looks old especially the kitchen, and could definitely use upgrading.

Amy and Chuck walked around and Amy chose colors and decided how much of the woodwork should be painted over with light colors, something she likes to do to make a house look larger, lighter, and more inviting. OK, I can see how it looks “dark” in certain aspects owing to dark wood paneling and trim. But that’s in daylight, with the only source of light the windows. At night, furnished and lit up inside, it looks cozy. But buyers won’t see it that way; they’ll see it in daytime. I said to them, I don’t live here any more; you are the professionals; do your job. They deferred to me on a couple of minor points, but mainly I stood back.

One decision was that I would not have the fireplace converted to a modern gas insert. Buyers won’t even notice it, or be impressed if it were pointed out.

However, my idea to have a tree maintenance company trim the oak was seconded; and indeed Amy asked to have the other trees over the back yard cut back to not touch the garage or house roofs and let in more light.

From there I went down to FOPAL, stopping at the grocery store to buy some bread. I’m going to keep a loaf of bread in my room for those occasions when I just want a sandwich for lunch.

Back at C.H. I had a bit of a nap, then went down for supper. Sat at an open table with Rosina, Joanne, and (I think) Mary?

After supper I rebuilt the cover image for the book. I’ve gotten some help from the Affinity forum and solved another issue for myself, so I could do that. Then I started the lengthy Kindle procedure to process the book while I watched Jeopardy. And the Kindle site was happy with my new cover and book body, so it is ready to be published on Kindle, and to order a sample print book.

Day 224, coffee, book, movie

Sunday, 7/14/2019

I had a date for coffee with Harriet this morning. We met at Mme. Collette at 8, and had a lengthy chat over coffee and pastries. I had imagined she might want to see Channing House, so I tidied my apartment before going out. During this I thought of a name for the decorating style I’ve achieved here: MCMM, Mid-Century Modern Monastic. Really, the open, spare feeling, with plain walls and carpet, is reminiscent (alright, very slightly reminiscent) of a monastic cell. A very comfortable cell. The plain walls aren’t an affectation; it’s just that I’ve not hung any of the prints I brought from Tasso street. When I move back from purgatory in January, I will hang them.

Anyway, Harriet expressed no interest in seeing the place. So we parted about 9am. I worked a bit on the book, regenerating the PDF of the text to correct one of the two problems that Kindle Direct found in my uploads. The other problem had to do with the cover image, and I decided to remake two of the three parts of that. But I quickly ran into small issues with Affinity, and decided to post a request for help on its user forum. Did that and set the project aside until Monday.

I didn’t fancy the lunch menu at C.H. — nothing wrong with it, I just didn’t like the formality of sitting down in the dining room as at dinner. Some days you just want a peanut butter sandwich, you know? So I walked up Homer street to Whole Foods and had a smoothie.

After lunch I paid a few bills and organized a couple of files. Later I decided to see a movie, and went out to a 5pm showing of Toy Story 4. It’s cute. I found it dragged a bit, and just too many events. Could have used cutting IMO. Anyway, I just made it back to C.H. in time for supper at 6:59.

Day 223, tour, book, concert

Saturday, 7/13/2019

In the morning I worked on creating a proper cover image for a print book. This involved a fair amount of frustration trying to use Affinity Pro, which has most of the features of PhotoShop but just enough interface differences that I frequently ran into roadblocks where I just didn’t understand what it had done, or did but couldn’t see why it did that. Joys of learning a new app.

At 11am I drove to the museum and led the noon tour. A group of 14 college students from Taiwan attached themselves to the tour, making quite a crowd. The leader told me he had brought a similar group through last year and I’d been the tour leader then. I don’t remember; but I wish this time he had booked a private tour instead of just joining the standard one. Anyway it went ok, the group as a whole gave me a nice applause round and the Taiwan students insisted on a group photo with me in the middle.

Back home I did a bit more on the book, including uploading my cover image and having Kindle Direct generate a preview version of the completed book. This process takes something like half an hour — the software warns you, “you might want to go have coffee, or perhaps make a sandwich” while it runs. At the end of the lengthy process it found two issues that I have to fix. One, the cover image is about 150 pixels too narrow; I don’t understand why as I built it on top of their template image. And it found one place in a 270pp book where the text bled past the margin, in effect, finding a small bug in the Leanpub PDF generation. I’ll work on fixing those another day. But print publication is a few hours’ work away.

After a quick (solitary) supper (lamb curry, which was quite good) I headed out on a Lyft to Dinkelspiel for the first of the Stanford Jazz Festival concerts I signed up for weeks ago. This was led by Andrew Motis, with whom I was very impressed. Just a slip of a girl but she plays a mean trumpet and sings brilliantly. Maybe most impressive when she did an Ella Fitzgerald scat number and nailed it. She started with a small five-piece combo including Ken Peplowski, a great clarinetist whom I’ve heard in prior SJF seasons. For the second half they brought in another ten musicians, “Stanford All-Stars,” I think mostly faculty, and did big-band numbers. There are few sounds finer than a tight big band. A very nice concert.

Day 222, house, book, dinner

Friday, 7/12/2019

Started with a run; it was fine. Then I drove to the Tasso street house just to see it cleaned out. Sean was there, and I gave him permission to sleep there through Sunday. Everything is gone from the house except the dryer, and that is supposed to be picked up this afternoon. Some of the cabinets from the shop in the garage should also go today, according to Sean.

I drove to Summerwinds Nursery and picked up a bag of planting mix and a small pot. A week ago, walking down Lytton avenue at the end of my run, I was struck by a plant that was spilling out of a planter in front of an office building. Dark coppery-red leaves and small bright yellow flowers. I pulled a small cutting from it and stuck it in water when I got home. Now, after a week in water, it is showing roots, so I want to pot it.

I didn’t do that now, but instead worked on the book. I was trying to solve a formatting problem with a two-page appendix which was formatted using a table. The Leanpub code just couldn’t get it right. I kept changing one thing or another and re-generating the PDF over and over. Each generation took several minutes. Finally I realized that the software just wouldn’t do what I thought it did (spanning a cell across multiple columns) and I revised the data into nested lists instead. That worked so I now had a satisfactory print-ready PDF.

Then I downloaded the Kindle Direct cover template and turned to making cover PDFs. Problem: my lovely cover is not in the 6×9 ratio of the required book size. It’s a bit wider. As-is, bits of the title are cropped on the right, and there’s a gap top and bottom. If I drag it to the needed aspect ratio it looks wrong. I spent an hour trying to find a solution, then set it aside for tomorrow.

Dinner arranged by Patti with Craig, whose wife is off vacationing with their daughter in Cambridge, England, David, and Jean, neither of whom I’d met. Nice conversation.