In September my subscription to The New Yorker expired. I didn’t renew it.

I’d been a subscriber for more than 25 years, and I felt that a lapsed subscription, due nothing more than a change in credit card number, deserved a call from Calvin Trillin to make sure everything was okay.

No call came. So I let it lapse.

Eight months passed.

Today I opened my mailbox to find the May 4, 2020 issue waiting for me, with a label indicating expiration a year hence.

It was not outside the realm of possibility that I had inadvertently renewed the subscription: I haven’t been 100% myself for some time; who knows what I get up to in my dark midnights.

I called The New Yorker.

I talked to the friendliest person I’ve ever talked to on the phone. Way better than Calvin Trillin.

She looked up my record.

“You’ve received a gift subscription!”, she exclaimed.

“From whom?”, I asked, surprised.

“All it says in the system is ‘a friend’,” she replied.

“Isn’t it nice when that happens: you’ll always be wondering…”, she added.

“Indeed I will,” I chuckled.

We said hearty goodbyes, better-than-Calvin-Trillin clerk and I.

Whoever you may be, friend, þúsund takk.

With most of the new apartment buildings that are going up in Charlottetown these days coming right out of the “Apartments, Boxy” pages of the Sears catalogue, it’s easy to forget that, in Harbourside, we have an example of a well-designed, dense, mixed residential & commercial development that embraces the waterfront rather than dominating it.

Oliver is organizing an unconference, in Zoom, for this Friday.

Because we have all been confined to our homes for many weeks, the theme of the unconference, taking off from the theme of earlier unconferences, is “House Stuff that Matters” (HSTM), and we will gather and seek to answer the questions:

What have you learned from the pandemic that you want to keep for the future?

What do you like about the place where you live?

All are welcome to attend. Spread the word.

Friday’s update from the Chief Public Health Office, announcing a slight easing of the Prince Edward Island lockdown, makes allowances for polyamory, but with limits:

You may extend your household unit by one or two members, who are important to supporting your household or who you feel may need closer contact and support (ex: hug, handshake, etc.)

The interior organizer has been taken apart and re-glued, the more hated of the forks, spoons and knives banished.

Businesses on Prince Edward Island are required to have a “COVID-19 Operational Plan” and the province has provided a template to use for this:

The various professional associations and organizations, as well as business owners, are required to create operational plans prior to opening.

All businesses that are now open, and those looking to open during any of the Renew PEI Together phases must have an operational plan in place. The plan must outline how the business will meet public health measures to ensure the health and safety of staff and clients.

You do not need to submit the operational plan to the Chief Public Health Office before reopening. However, the plan will need to be made available during inspections by a government official.

My business is simply: just me, so no other employees to infect or get infected by; no clients or members of the public in my office. So I was able to quickly write up and post a template for Reinvented Inc., and stick a copy on the office door for when the COVID-19 enforcers drop by for a spot check.

Bookseller Dan pointed me to a documentary about facsimile printing presses, which, in turn, led me to learn of The Library Company of Philadelphia:

The Library Company was founded in 1731 by Benjamin Franklin as a subscription library. Members pooled their financial resources so they would be able to afford a larger and finer library than any one of them could have amassed individually.

I spend my days supporting a publication that sports a rendering of Franklin on its cover, so I take some comfort that, 289 years later, Franklin’s library continues to serve its shareholders.

Singer-songwriter Stephen Fearing and luthier Linda Manzer, hosted by Tom Allen, spend 90 minutes talking about the guitar Manzer made for Fearing 30 years ago.