I pointed to this 19 years ago; it’s since disappeared from its home place, but the Wayback Machine kept a copy.

I have been working remotely from my clients since 1995, and, on balance, it suits me. But on days the basement shop seems more like a prison bunker than an escape pod, I would chuck it all in for the stresses and pleasures of real coworkers. Sometimes you really do want some to ask “how was your weekend?”

Because of various excavations of photos from platform to platform to platform (Flickr, OVI, Google Photos, iPhoto) over the years, now that I’ve settled on Apple’s ecosystem to maintain my photos, I’ve ended up with a bunch of photos that have the wrong date.

By “have the wrong date,” I mean, for example, “Photos thinks they’re from May 2020 when, in fact, I took them in March 2013.”

The thing is, the right date is burned into the EXIF data in the photo itself, so I needed a way to say to all the affected photos “change your date to match what’s in the EXIF.”

I wasn’t up to mystically incanting this in AppleScript, but I figured that I could give JavaScript a try, now that JavaScript is an equal scripting partner under macOS.

So here’s a try at a JavaScript that does just that:

var Photos = Application("Photos");
var path = Path("/Users/peter/Desktop/photos");

for (var photo of Photos.selection()) {
	var filename = photo.filename();
	Photos.export([photo], {to: path, usingOriginals: true});
	var tmpfile = Path("/Users/peter/Desktop/photos/" + filename);
	app = Application.currentApplication();
	app.includeStandardAdditions = true;
	var newDate = app.doShellScript("/usr/local/bin/exiftool -T -DateTimeOriginal '" + tmpfile + "'");
	if (newDate != '-') {
		var d = new Date(newDate);
		photo.date = d;
	}
}

With that script in Script Editor, I can select one or more photos in Photos, run the script, and have those photos with an EXIF date get their date updated.

You’ll notice that there’s a kludgey export of the original photo to a working directory; that serves two purposes:

1. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to identify the original path for a photo in Photos, so as to run exiftool against it; this saves me the trouble.
2. I end up with a working directory filled with the original photos should something go horribly wrong with the script.

To get this to work you’ll need to install exiftool, and adjust the path to it in the script as necessary.

Your mileage with the script may vary, but it worked for my purposes, and that glut of May 2020 photos are now safely back in March 2013.

My father died a year ago today, marking the start of difficult season of loss and grieving that lasted, two months to the day, to Catherine’s death this January, and beyond.

It has been hard going, by times, and settling into this changed life is still a work in progress. Time has healed some things, and amplified others. There’s anger in grieving, all manner of it, and things to be reckoned with; as the anger subsides it reveals gentler layers underneath, and, for both my father and for Catherine, many of those gentler layers are only just now coming to the surface.

Of all the photos I have of me and Dad together, I like this one the best: in the fall of 2004, sixteen years ago, we were visiting Plitvice Lakes National Park in Croatia, part of an epic father-and-son trip to the old country. Toward the end of our walk through the park it started to rain.

And rain.

And rain.

We got soaked. Really really soaked.

But, as you can see from the smiles on our faces, we didn’t mind at all.

My father and I, especially in my teenage years, didn’t have the gentlest of relationships; of the arguments I’ve had in my life, the longest and most dug-in were with him. That we found ourselves in deepest Croatia, in the rain, with smiles on our faces, was a testament to our working through that.

You are missed and loved, Dad.

As the secrets of cooking for the household reveal themselves to me, the next step in my questing was baba ghanoush.

I’d imagined all sorts of alchemy would be required; turns out to be as simple as:

• Cut an eggplant in half, brush with olive oil, bake, cut side down, in a 400°F oven for 30 minutes.
• Scoop out the guts and combine with tahini, lemon juice, salt, cumin and olive oil.

That’s it. There’s a batch waiting for tomorrow’s snack curing in the refrigerator right now.

 When rearranging a drawer is restful: the magic of ‘pottering’:

Micro-pottering is defined as “those moments in the day when you do something that is not strictly necessary but gives you a short break… to readjust your thoughts.”

Not samples. Not covers. Somewhere in between.

• Beguiling Eyes from Stephen Fearing references Both Sides Now from Joni Mitchell.
• Save Us from Lennon Stella references I Love You Always Forever from Donna Lewis.
• Play It All Night Long from from Warren Zevon references Sweet Home Alabama from Lynrd Skynrd. Or it is Sweet Home Alabama from a parallel universe.

Others?

Oliver picked up new eyeglasses this afternoon, the first new pair since his stylish orange and blue ones, now retired, from spring 2017.

We returned to Matheson Eyewear, and received customary good service and fine selection.

Catherine was clearly the liaison to pioneer days in our household; had the end times arrived before she died, it would have been her out in the yard keeping the cooking fire burning and tending the potato batteries to keep our laptops charged.

As such, any responsibility for cast iron cookware was clearly in her bailiwick. As a result, our trusty cast iron frying pan sat unused and unloved in a corner for most of this year.

Then, recently, Dave Atkinson, who has more than a trace of pioneer-liaison in him, wrote lovingly about his own cast iron; then I read a glowing reference for cast iron in my recipe for squash and chickpea skillet pie in a cookbook. And so I decided it was time to learn how to season the unloved frying pan.

Fortunately I found a “this is really simple; don’t overthink it” guide online: rub oil all over the pan until it positively glows, in the oven for 30 minutes at 400°F, repeat. I repeated 3 times. The result: a beautifully seasoned piece of pioneer non-stick cookware.

I celebrated by making said squash and chickpea pie.

Friend of the blog, and friend of the Island, Nell Bang-Jensen is one of the creative forces behind Philadelphia’s Theatre Horizon, a theatre that is making the best of coronatimes by launching myriad bold new ventures, including Virtual Drama Experience for children, a move to Zoom for their Autism Drama Program, and a series of works presented from home called Art Houses:

Professional award-winning theatre artists are paired with local area households to create an evening of original theater. Each performance will expand on the concept of family in the era of quarantine and explore the sensational moments that can be found within the familiar every day.

The first Art Houses production is coming up on December 5, 2020 on Zoom:

Meet Becky Bradbeer, a fierce lover of theater, as she creates her own performance from home. Exploring ideas of independence, caregiving, and performativity while living in a body with cerebral palsy, Becky opens up the curtains to her vibrant life and the unexpected turns that lead to this moment in the pandemic. 

Better than your average Zoom, the work includes a package-in-the-mail:

Ticket holders will also receive a “mystery box” in the mail before the performance with contents chosen by Becky. These boxes will provide a tactile relationship to the performance, and mimic the surprise of a live show.

I’ve purchased two tickets, and encourage you to consider joining us in the virtual audience.