Robert’s first rehearsal was yesterday afternoon. Not much to report yet, as he really just used the time to look at the dancers he’d be working with. There are 17 of them, and he plans to use them all. They seem to be a nice group with a lot of energy, and holy cow, some of them are crazy-fantastic dancers.

I’m going to a concert tonight : Quartet New Generation. They’re — get this — a recorder quartet. There’s an article about them in today’s NY Times.

I had two license negotiations today, and completely buckled on both, agreeing to what was initially offered. Am I getting soft? In the past, I’ve been difficult in negotiations, to put it nicely. Today I felt maybe I should choose my battles, rather than insisting on absolute victory throughout the negotiation war.

I think my kitty is softening me.

This was a good weekend.

On Friday, the new printer arrived. It’s a tank — it required completely rearranging the closet to make it fit — but it’s nice. Crazy-fast, double-sided, 1200 dpi printing.

Saturday was spent on A Mission. Home Depot opened their first Manhattan store on Friday, and AJ and I were anxious to check it out first thing on Saturday. Breakfast followed by a stop at ABC Carpet & Home (I really want a natural white cowhide rug — any thoughts?) followed by a visit to Home Depot. Stepping into Home Depot in Manhattan is like stepping through a doorway to America. Huge aisles filled with people buying doorknobs. (Who knew there were so many different styles of glass knobs?) It gave me a warm, fuzzy feeling. AJ & I browsed and picked out a few items — a light bulb, a microfiber cleaning cloth to wipe the TV screen, and some Swiffer dusters — and then waited in the huge line to check out. Everybody working at the store was almost excessively helpful. “This is my department,” they’d say with pride, “so just ask if I can help you with anything, like finding the best drill bit.” Where are the New Yorkers? How long until the helpful staff disappears from the floor, leaving only self-loathing, bitter, rude “help?” This place has self check-out, too! Who ever heard of the honor system in NY? A fine shopping experience. I hope it stays like that.

Next it was a tasty lunch at Danny Meyer’s outdoor restaurant, The Shake Shack. After waiting in line for 10 minutes to order, and waiting another 15 for the food, it was a delicious lunch. My only complaint — the music. In honor of it being September 11, there was live music. This consisted of the most earnest people you’ve ever heard singing things like, “We all fight for Jesus/We all fight for Allah/We all die for Jesus/We all die for Allah/Jesus!/Allah!/Jesus!/Allah!/Ahhhhh!” Oy. I mean, if you’re going to sing that while I’m eating my happy little tasty burger, drinking my happy little shake, and enjoying one of the last beautiful days of summer, could you at least use more than two bad chords?

Next it was uptown to shop for shoes. For a few weeks I’ve been looking for shoes to replace the shoes that Loki (my cat) has destroyed. I found some good shoes last week but they were too expensive. Saturday yielded success, and I now have a great new pair.

Saturday night was a party. It was hosted by a man who funded one of my commissions this year. He has the largest home I’ve ever seen — anywhere. It’s roughly 10,000 feet. Keep in mind – this is in Manhattan. It’s a brownstone, plus half of the brownstone next door (walls were knocked down to make a 40-foot wide living room), plus an added floor on top, plus the jacuzzi on the roof. It’s amazing. The food, drinks, and company were just as good.

Yesterday was supposed to be Apple Store Day. AJ called them to confirm that they had the new iMacs on display (she has already ordered one, but wanted to see it in person), and she was told they, in fact, had them on display. Well, we got down there, and there were no iMacs to be found. When she confronted a store employee, AJ was told that whomever answered the phone had “lied.” What’s the point of that? Did they think we’d buy something after being lied to?!

Last night, I prepared Robert’s score for printing. It’s going to be a lot of work to create the parts for this piece, as I wrote it for playback, not performance. That is, when the computer plays something back, it plays it literally. If you want a very rapid crescendo, you can’t just put a hairpin with “molto” inside of it. Well, you can, but to get the best effect, you might put “p” under the first note, “mp” under the second, and so on, ending with “fff” on the last note, for example. Problem is, that looks silly and messy to a real human player, so those things need to be undone and replaced with said hairpin + “molto” in the printed parts. It’s a lot of work.

Robert’s first rehearsal is this afternoon. I’m excited to see what he does. I’m also excited to wear my new shoes.

I hate waiting for deliveries of exciting, much-anticipated items. This happened a few weeks ago when I was waiting for my new computer, and it’s happening again as I wait for the new printer. I just keep refreshing the FedEx tracking page, hoping to see, “Status: Parking truck on 69th Street.”

I put a new sound file on the site a few days ago. It’s music I wrote for a little internet ad for MetLife. (Much thanks to The Abacus for securing that unusual gig.) It’s short & sweet and doesn’t do much, but it shows off some pretty fantastic guitar samples from the Hans Zimmer Guitar Collection.

It’s fun writing little 60-second tunes. I would love to write music for commercials, partially because it’s fun and a lot easier to write a 30-second “tune” than a 15-minute “piece,” and partially because the money is appealing.

And money is fun because it lets you buy treats.