Claudia — Page 1097

Chatty on Wednesday

October 7, 2015 at 8:56 am by Claudia

10-7 mini rainbow

• Early yesterday evening I was outside with Scout. I looked up and saw this.

The sun was to the right (out of picture range) and was it the moon glowing under that cloud? I’m not sure, but that little rainbow-like slash of light appeared. Since my eyes are very sensitive to light, I thought maybe I was seeing something that wasn’t there.

But the camera saw it, too.

A lovely little moment in time.

• We bit the bullet yesterday and ordered heating oil. Gas prices are pretty low at the moment, so we thought this would be a good time to do it and sure enough, our oil guy told us that now was the time because prices were soon going up. High or low, heating oil is expensive.

The heavy gold quilt is covering the bed once again. I’m wearing my flannel pajamas.

I’m pretty sure it’s Autumn.

10-7 zinnia with web

Meanwhile, the zinnias just keep on blooming.

10-7 orange zinnia

• Design Sponge, one of my favorite sites, did a Guide to Ulster County, NY yesterday. That’s where we live. You might find it interesting. Grace Bonney, the founder of Design Sponge, recently moved up here – she’s not all that far from us – and has fallen in love with this beautiful area, just as we have.

We’ve got it all here. And this time of the year? Simply glorious.

• Housekeeping: If you’ve noticed the Cookie pop-up at the bottom of the blog, let me explain why it’s there. The European Union has a law that requires websites to indicate if cookies are being used on their site. Cookies, in case you’re not familiar with that term, are:

‘small pieces of data sent by a website and stored in the user’s web browser while the user is browsing that website…Cookies were designed to be a reliable mechanism for websites to remember information (such as items in a shopping cart) or to record the user’s browsing activity (including clicking particular buttons, logging in, or recording which pages were visited by the user as far back as months or years ago.” Wikipedia.

Every website uses cookies. Ads use cookies. The EU thinks anyone viewing a website should be alerted to that fact. And Google is now enforcing that law. So, any of us who have potential visitors from the EU have to have a ‘cookie warning.’

Blogger blogs already have one. The rest of us have to take care of it ourselves, hence the plug-in I added yesterday (on both my blogs.)

Oy. It’s a bit of a pain in the tush, since anyone who goes on the web for even a minute encounters cookies. You can set your web browser to not allow cookies, if it’s of any great concern to you.

But we do what we have to do, right? I’ve tried to make it as unobtrusive as possible. So, there you go.

I spent a chunk of time yesterday diddling around with all of this and it’s time I’ll never get back. Sigh.

• Book review of X by Sue Grafton on Just Let Me Finish This Page today. Click here.

• Whoops! Forgot to add that The Poisoner’s Handbook (starring Don Sparks) is now showing on Netflix! We saw it listed last night and Genevieve, one of my readers, also wrote me to let me know about it.

Happy Wednesday.

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Back at the Ranch

October 6, 2015 at 9:12 am by Claudia

I’m back at the ranch after a long day in NYC yesterday. No, I didn’t go to the book signing – for a couple of reasons. My morning bus was an hour late getting to our local station. We have no idea why and the reason was never given. This resulted in a couple of panicked phone calls from me to the Stage Manager explaining the problem. I knew yesterday was the only day available for individual sessions and they were to be held in a room that had been rented from 12 – 5 – allowing for 10 straight sessions of 30 minutes each. There was no wiggle room.

By the time I got in the city, I did another 14 block speed walk and, incredibly, I somehow managed to get to the building (with a full bladder), up the stairs, stop in the bathroom, and then alert the stage manager to my arrival by 11:59. I was exhausted already and the day had barely begun.

After my sessions were over, I was tired and I knew that even if I caught the 5:30 bus I wouldn’t get home until 7:30. If I had stayed for the book signing, I wouldn’t have arrived home until at least 11:00. I also knew how excited Don was about the arrival yesterday morning of a box containing his new CD and I felt I should get home in time to celebrate that event. When something like that happens, you can’t wait for your loved one to get home to tell them about it. So I speed walked another 14 blocks and headed home.

And when I walked in the door, what do you suppose was propped up on my table in the den?

10-6 CD

It’s so exciting! I’ll unveil more of it at a later date, but trust me, it’s equally as cool when the sleeve is opened. And the mastered tracks sound fantastic. Huzzah!

(I’m so glad I decided to come home early.)

4-16 doc egg cup

4-16 dopey egg cup 2

Do you remember these guys? There’s a whole set of Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs egg cups that were made for Disney Enterprises in 1937. I’ve always said I wanted to collect them all. Recently, I saw two separate auctions on eBay for Sleepy and for Snow White herself. I bid on both of them, but kept my bid low because, let’s face it, I’m not comfortable spending too much money on anything at the moment. In each case, I was the high bidder for a while, but eventually was outbid. I was sort of heartsick over the whole thing, because they don’t come up for auction that often – especially Snow White – and it just wasn’t a good time for me to do anything but put in a low bid. Sigh. In the end, they went for what I consider a reasonable price…which makes it all the more frustrating! Ah, well. I hope whoever won them appreciates them. (I know they would have been happier in my cottage. I just know it.)

I’ve learned it’s always a good idea to set a limit on an auction and I always do. It’s too easy to get caught up in the excitement of the bidding and you can end up paying far more than you wanted to!

I just finished X by Sue Grafton this morning. I forgot how much I like the Kinsey Millhone series. I’ll write a review tomorrow. Now I have to decide what to read next.

Oh, reading…you keep me sane. You really do.

What are you reading at the moment, dear friends?

Happy Tuesday.

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Day Two in the City

October 5, 2015 at 7:32 am by Claudia

10-5 piano top

It’s early morning and I’m doing my best to get this post up and head on into the city for another day of coaching. This will be a long one, as I have to have individual sessions with all ten actors in the show. It’s the kind of thing I can’t think about too much or it will be overwhelming. I just have to breathe and take one session at a time. I’m grateful, of course, for the chance to do some work and get paid for it and for the chance to be of service.

It’s a talented group of actors. The musical is called Songbird and it’s an adaptation of Chekhov’s The Seagull set in modern-day Nashville. The idea is an interesting one and it really works well. It has great country music sung by very talented performers. They also play their own instruments. I really liked it. As is almost always the case, I walked in the door and recognized someone I knew. The musical director worked on Kiss Me Kate, the show I did earlier this year.

I’m tempted, but only tempted, to go to John Connolly’s book signing at The Mysterious Bookshop tonight. Since the day off in theater is usually a Monday, I never even entertained the possibility that I might be in the city. But I will be.

We’ll see. I might be too tired at that point in the day. When you add in 3+ hours of travel, it makes for a long, long day. But I’ll keep it rolling around in my brain as a possibility.

Don’s box of shiny new CDs should arrive today. He is very excited. Hopefully, he should have them available and on a web site by sometime next week. (I wish I could be here when he opens the box!)

How are you? What are you up to today?

Quick little post up on Just Let Me Finish This Page.

Happy Monday.

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Chatty on Wednesday

Back at the Ranch

Day Two in the City

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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