Coronavirus stuff: in the KP household, things are much the same. New York City is about to do a Phase 1 reopening. It occurred to me that it’s entirely possible that if I get job interviews (knock wood), I may actually have to go to an office in a suit at some point for one, and would also need a mask. I’ve been wearing mostly bandanas outside, and my one mask, with a pretty galaxy pattern, seems to have gone missing. I’ve ordered another one with a wry movie quote on it, but it has not arrived yet. So I bought some disposable ones, which don’t look frivolous or like I’m a bandit.
(speaking of bandits, I’ve been working my way slowly, when I iron pillowcases, through the anthology that is The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. It’s really great, I’ll review it when I finish it.)
Since things are opening up and I may get a job eventually, I conferred with my dad and will be heading down to Durham for a visit, probably to overlap Father’s Day. I’ll probably drive so I will avoid the petri dish of an airplane. Avis has been paid for the last car I destroyed, so I’m sure they’ll be delighted to rent me another one. It’s about a day’s drive, no big deal. C may or may not come.
Social unrest stuff. There has been rioting and looting in NYC, but in our little village of Jackson Heights, only peaceful protests, which we’ve heard out our window. There’s been a curfew the last couple of nights, but we haven’t been inclined to go out anyway. I have to head into ‘high end shopping’ Manhattan neighborhoods on Friday for my dentist appointment, but if all goes as expected, I won’t have to walk more than a few dozen feet between the subway exit and the building, so regardless of what’s going on, it should be OK. (and I’ll get this effing tooth problem fixed, again, knock wood)
Work stuff: didn’t get the job at the mayor’s office, but I keep doing my job search routine (which I tweak at the beginning of every month, but it’s pretty good now, i think). Being submitted now for a contract job which is below my pay grade in both title and salary, but it’s fully remote, and I’m fine with that. Still studying for the CBAP, getting a lot of charity scarves knit as I watch the videos.
Movies, TV, books: we watched both seasons of “After Life”, which is lovely. I was going to turn in another direction afterward, but we also just finished the (shortened) season of “The Good Fight”, and before turning off the CBS All Access subscription, we decided to give “Star Trek: Picard” a try. Jury’s still out on whether we’ll do the whole thing, but I like it. And also working through the Latin “One Day at a Time”, which is a riot. Rita Moreno is a masterclass, just watching her, and the show as a whole is often deeper than its surface hilarity would indicate. (I loved the scene in last night’s episode when queer daughter Elena introduces her friends and their pronouns. Also, when Rita actually got to say “I like to be in America” and Justina Machado responded, “I know you do”. Bwahahaha.)
We watched “Where’d You Go, Bernadette” and “Lovebirds”, both entertaining enough for a sit-on-the-couch evening. I’m sure we’ve seen other stuff too.
Books: ooo, I read Lee Child’s Jack Reacher book, “Past Tense” in about two fun-filled days. He always delivers. (And then heard a game on this weekend’s “Lovett or Leave It” where they had to match book character descriptions with the actors who played them on screen, and the first one was Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher. For the record, Tom Cruise looks nothing like book Jack Reacher, but I thought he did a good job in the movies.)
And I just (finally) started N.K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy. Like it so far, but it’s sad. And am now reading KJ Charles’s “Sins of the Cities” series (m/m) stuff. And almost done with “Winds of Changes” (Mercedes Lackey).
Piano stuff: I’d hoped to have Invention #8 ready to record when it came up in the rotation last week, but it was not quite there. Making progress on the 1st mvmt of the Haydn D Major: can play the whole movement at half speed except for one frustrating part which I’m working on. Oh, I may have mentioned (but not here) that I’m cataloguing my piano music into a spreadsheet, so I can easily later find which book has my five different copies of Chaminade’s Scarf Dance or whatever. And I ended up ordering the complete 9-volume set of the Scribner Radio Music Library (we already had vol. 9, from C’s mom) and that turned out to be a great purchase, including a book of some really great opera medleys.
I also managed to, through sleuthing, track down a book of piano stuff that Sibling Sam and I learned out of growing up, but which has since disappeared. I couldn’t remember its name, so I had to do judicious Google searching based on some song titles -but I found it! And ordered it! So I will be able to revisit stuff that I remember spending hours at the piano attempting to play and driving my family nuts. I’ll record some of those too, just because it’ll be cute and fun.
(Oh, I also got a new copy of the Hanons, because mine was falling apart, but I specifically ordered one with spiral binding and the one that arrived is not spiral bound and I am vexed. So once I can safely go to an office supply store, I’ll have it spiral bound and laminated along with some other music books that have been waiting for that. )
Yep.
This post is part of a larger project, #MOC19. Read more about the Mass Observation COVID-19 project here.
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