Claudia — Page 712

Potpourri on Thursday

February 21, 2019 at 9:59 am by Claudia

• In order to find space for my great-grandmother’s china in the cabinet, I had to find a new home for some of my McCoy. I added several pieces to this grouping.

I like it.

• Some housekeeping:

Yesterday’s blog post was written late in the morning and it didn’t go out to those of you who get email versions of the daily post. I wasn’t sure why, but when I investigated, I discovered that the most recent posts have been going out a bit earlier than normal. So I just missed the deadline. Anyway. You should most likely get two posts today: yesterday’s and today’s. Yesterday’s post was all about my great-grandma’s china – with lots of photos.

Also, when I was speaking of losing ad income when I couldn’t post during my illness, some of you commented about clicking on the ads. Bless you. But you don’t need to do that. I get income just from you visiting the blog. I don’t get it when you simply read the email version of the post. Or read the post on another feed. You have to visit the blog. But that’s all you have to do. And you don’t even have to do that if you don’t want to! So don’t worry about clicking on ads. Thank you so much for caring. Only your ‘presence is required.’

• More snow. More ice – about an inch of it. I am so sick of this once-a-week snow/ice combination. My car is stuck on the parking level because we were too sick to shovel that area. But I’m feeling better now and I’d like access to my car. It’s supposed to hit 50 degrees here today and I’m going to try to chop up some of that snow/ice so that it will melt more quickly. The good thing is that the addition of item #4 has eliminated the problems we had last winter with huge areas of ice on the top of the driveway. Remember that? I was out there chopping the ice every day.

• Don had to withdraw from a workshop he was going to do for a new musical. It would have rehearsed every day next week in NYC and he would have had to do a lot of singing. There’s no way he could have done it. I’m in my fourth week of this crap and, though I’m much better, I still cough, I still have chest congestion. And he’s a week behind me. He wasn’t getting paid much – it wasn’t about that – but it would have been a great experience for him. He finally made the decision to withdraw because he didn’t want to leave them in the lurch at the last minute.

February has not been good to us.

I’m thinking of throwing a party to celebrate March. I will be glad to kick February to the curb.

At least it’s sunny today!

Happy Thursday.

The China

February 20, 2019 at 11:35 am by Claudia

I finally managed to unwrap all of my great-grandmother’s china yesterday. It was packed in a big box, but the china itself was in an old crate tucked inside the box. Now, I’ve had all of this for years, but I had never looked at the crate. Nor had I done anything but look at one or two pieces of the china (which turned out to be Haviland Limoges) so I had no idea what was there.

First, the crate.

Amazing right? It’s very old. And it’s sort of wonky. We’re currently trying to figure out where to put it.

Now, the china.

Here are a few pieces that are Haviland Limoges:

And I have a small Haviland Limoges dish that I’ve used to hold jewelry for many years. It’s upstairs in the bedroom.

But that’s it for this pattern. The big surprise is that most of the china – plates, salad plates, cups, saucers and serving dish – is made by a company called O & EG Royal Austria.

The theme that connects all of the china is pink roses. You’ve seen the design on the Haviland. Here’s the design on the O & EG.

I really, really love this pattern – even more than the Haviland. The roses are intertwined with a blue ribbon. And I love the scalloped edges.

There’s one more piece – a candy dish or something like that. It’s a different Haviland pattern.

Along with larger pink roses, there are lavender blooms, as well.

I had a post up on IG yesterday and I said that I couldn’t figure out what the marking said. Reader Linda came through big time with “Hudson Crockery Co.” I compared other marks from that company and they match. The company was based in Syracuse NY. Thank you so much, Linda!

And here’s the mark for the other pieces of Haviland Limoges:

So. What my grandmother told me was a set of Haviland Limoges is not that. It’s a combination of two different china manufacturers – both beautiful, both linked by a pink roses theme. Who knew?

I’m thrilled.

Everything stacked up and ready to go in the china cabinet.

I had to clear the bottom shelf, which involved some shuffling of McCoy pieces.

Here it is. I kept the blue napkins that my grandmother used to protect the plates. I didn’t want to get rid of them. After all, Grandma kept and protected these dishes for decades. And then she passed them on to me.

I’m so glad they’re on permanent display here at the cottage after years of being in storage.

I should clean them and I will, but slowly, over time.

More snow tonight with yet another layer of ice. That’s been the case with every storm we’ve had in February.

Over it.

We’re taking it easy today. I’m slowly getting stronger, thank goodness.

Happy Wednesday.

Temporarily Missing Our Old Neighborhood

February 19, 2019 at 10:29 am by Claudia

Sunlight hitting our Mockingbird Hill Cottage sign in the kitchen. Almost as if there was a spotlight on it.

Feeling rather wiped out today, due, I suspect, to shoveling yesterday. Don and I had to go out and shovel the driveway because we were due for a heating oil delivery. It took every ounce of strength and my muscles are still very weak from this bug. We felt great satisfaction when we did it, but we laid low for the rest of the day, not even going to the grocery store, even though we’re out of almost everything.

Getting my strength back is my new goal.

We watched Wings of Desire last night. Brilliant. Beautiful. Uplifting. Bravo, Wim Wenders. And Bravo to the late, great Bruno Ganz. You will be missed.

Don and I have spent an inordinate amount of time together over the past month. First he was taking care of me, then he came down with the bug, then we were taking care of each other. Long, long days where we feel like we might be slowly losing our minds – as I said in one of my comment replies yesterday, it’s a wonder we haven’t killed each other. Thank goodness we’re here together and that one of us isn’t working away from home. This would be much harder for me on my own. Much, much harder.

We’ve been reminiscing this morning about our old neighborhood in San Diego. It was called Kensington and it had a lot of craftsman homes. We could walk a couple of blocks and be on Adams Avenue, which was the main drag. It had a great movie theater and lots of great restaurants. Our favorites: DeMille’s (Italian), Ponce’s (Mexican), the Kensington Cafe (just around the corner from our house) and further down Adams in Normal Heights, Jhyoti Bihanga – a vegetarian restaurant we loved. They had the best brunches!

We love where we live, but we miss walking on sidewalks and having easy accessibility to local eateries. It was a great walking neighborhood. And, of course, about this time of year, we miss the warmth of the sun. And the beach.

Sigh.

Do you remember when I was talking about sheet music and mentioned a store I used to frequent in San Diego? I mentioned that it was very near to Balboa Park but I couldn’t remember the name. I finally found the name of the music store stamped on one of my pieces of music. McEvoy Music on Fifth Avenue. It was right by my bank. It’s closed now. Mr. McEvoy, the owner, died in 2012. I remember him. He was almost always behind the counter when I stopped by. His wife died in 2015. I imagine that is why the store is now closed. (They were married for 55 years!)

As you can tell, we’re missing San Diego a bit. Happens like clockwork every year. This year, with illness and snow and ice, we really miss it! As soon as spring arrives, however, that feeling will fade away and we’ll be very happy that we live in the Hudson Valley.

Happy Tuesday.

Potpourri on Thursday

The China

Temporarily Missing Our Old Neighborhood

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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