Thanks, GBO, you are right that I can grunt and fume here, but I need to shape it up for the long and late car ride.
I took it upon myself to defuse some of the tension earlier by e-mailing him about something exciting that happened today.
I have an old cassette copy of a solo (violin) recital I did 9 years ago (the last before I broke my hand and ended my professional career). I never got the DAT master, and do not have a digital file. Today I wrote an audio producer whom I've worked with in my capacity as a language-book editor and who is very fond of me, to ask his opinion about where to have this cassette tape turned into digital form. He wrote back immediately, and not only did he offer to do it for me, but to do it free of charge AND try to restore it to enhance the quality of sound, which has no doubt deteriorated over the years of being on a cassette.
I was very excited, because this guy has worked with the Rolling Stones, Chuck Berry, and many other heavy hitters I can't recall (his stories are endless), and he is VERY good - not to mention he has always had a little soft spot for me (not in a romantic way but in a fatherly kind of way), and promises to pay very personal attention to it. I would never get this kind of quality work if I took it into some random sound studio in NYC.
So I decided to ignore the tension of this morning and write S. the exciting news. He wrote back quickly and enthusiastically, saying several times how great this was, and how nice to be able to take care of it, and how wonderful [producer] is to do it for me, and added this:
Looking forward to our trip to Vermont. I moved your table legs into the hallway [up by the door from the basement] and all my stuff is in the living room; the food is all in the cooler in the fridge.
So it looks like he is trying to get past it, too.
I also have a little more time to pack, as he is on a late deadline at work, so I can be nice and calm when I get there and not be freaked out that I'm going to be late.
