Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Mockingbird Hill Cottage

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Thirteen

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A coolish Sunday morning with swallows circling, landing, and swirling up to the sky. We watched them as we sat on the front porch. Every once in a while we heard the sound of the wind chimes. Lovely.

I completely forgot that August 30th marked our 13th year of living here in Mockingbird Hill Cottage. Don tells me that is the longest he’s lived anywhere. 13 years! It was so hot that day and even hotter on the 31st when we had to drive back to our rental cottage and thoroughly clean it. We were so exhausted by the end of the day that, when we discovered some things that we had forgotten to pack, we were so over it that we put them out by the curb for someone – anyone – to take. We didn’t want to pack one more thing. We just wanted to get back to our new home. I remember it very well.

There were no gardens here then. The big garden bed was there, but it held two plants. There were some hostas – one by the porch, one on the side of the house –  and some sedum Autumn Joy. That’s it. As it was late in the season, we didn’t even try to tackle the garden bed. We cleared out a bed in front of the house and planted four teeny tiny boxwoods there and that was it. Those boxwoods are now huge – in fact, they really need to be pruned because they’re sort of out of control.

We changed out the wood block print that was here for this painting that Don purchased. It’s an interesting story. Someone Don was following on Instagram painted it. Don fell in love with it because it reminded him of road trips and driving out west, his favorite things to do. When he complimented the guy on the painting, he was told that it was the artist’s first attempt at oil painting and a conversation ensued with Don offering to buy it. The artist said that whatever Don wanted to pay was fine because he was just happy someone liked his painting. Don, of course, didn’t stint on the payment. An artist should be paid well for his/her work.

I think it looks stunning with the lamplight on it.

Makes me want to get in the car and drive west.

We watched John McCain’s funeral from start to finish and I can’t remember when I’ve been as moved. Simply beautiful and powerful beyond words. America as it should be and as we hope it will be again. And a stunning rebuke to the Trump administration and the partisan agendas that now characterize Congress. We were shaken and we most definitely cried; in my case, several times.

Happy Sunday.

 

Little and Big Things

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The humidity continues but it is supposed to break sometime today or tonight.

Please?

Since I stayed indoors yesterday, I got a lot done around the house. Remember, I’m always more efficient when Don isn’t here and he was in the city yesterday. Also – my part of the deductions is finished, Don’s in the middle of putting his part together and we will be done on time. Ta dah!

My friend Barbara, a reader of this blog, recently contacted me and asked if I wanted her Arthur dollhouse kit, as she had never used it. If you remember, I need replacement parts for my rescued dollhouse, which is an Arthur. Yes, I said! So she sent them off to me and the other day I went to the post office and there was a big package from Barbara.

All of the Arthur components. Yay!

Being Barbara, she also added a few little gifts.

A beautiful painting that looked kind of familiar. As I turned it over I saw this:

Wallace Nutting! Perfect.

On a side note, if you look to the right, you’ll get an idea of the globs of glue I need to remove from this dollhouse.

A sweet stool with pretty flowers on the seat.

And two charming plates.

Thank you so much, Barbara! For everything!

Yesterday, I started to address the glaringly empty mantel/shelf that is over my desk. It used to hold many of my figural egg cups.

Here’s what I came up with:

The beginning of shelf full of sheep. There are four putz sheep and one little sheep, most likely from a nativity scene. (Putz sheep were also used in nativity scenes.) The one in the middle is the official Lamb With a Party Hat that I bought in California many years ago. I made a hat for her and she became the logo for this blog.

I look forward to collecting more sheep and adding them to the shelf.

Our Big News

Here’s what’s on the docket for October. We celebrate 20 years of marriage on October 12th. Considering we didn’t meet until we were in our forties, 20 years is quite a big deal for us. This year has been both incredible and heartbreaking and we want to finish it off on a positive note.

So…we’re going to London and Paris with a stop in Edinburgh and we’re in the midst of planning it right now. We’re going to make our flight reservations tomorrow. We figure we’ll be gone about 2½ weeks, maybe a bit longer. We’re so excited!!!

We have been discussing this for a long time, trying to pin down where exactly we want to go. Last week we suddenly changed the itinerary to Paris and Venice, which would also be wonderful. But we ended up changing it back to London and Paris. If we can afford another trip in the future, we’d love to do Venice, Budapest, Prague, etc. This morning we firmed up a lot of details, now we just have to sit down tomorrow and figure out travel times, how many days in each city, and book the flights.

It’s a big, big deal for us as we don’t have a lot of discretionary income and this may end up being a one-time-only sort of trip. If so, we figured London and Paris were the places we simply had  to visit. A romantic anniversary in Paris sounds pretty darned wonderful.

Since this is coming out of my inheritance, I thank my mom and dad for this opportunity for Don and I to travel to Europe together.

We’d love to hear where you’ve stayed, what you suggest we see, any tips on reasonable hotels, etc. I haven’t been to London since 2001 and that trip was with my students and it was planned for us. The one thing that Don and I want to do is explore the cities and walk a lot. Yes, we want to see certain well known tourist attractions, but our main focus will be on discovering little side streets and cafes and the architecture and beauty of each city. And we’ll see a couple of plays while we’re in London, as well.

Cannot wait!

Happy Thursday.

 

 

 

Twenty-Four

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I thought you might enjoy seeing this photo of the day I met my husband. It was July 4, 1994 – as you can see on the date stamp – and we were at a party in Ocean Beach thrown our friend Kathy. That, my friends, is a younger version of our new neighbor and old friend, Rick, on the right.

Rick and I had been working at our new jobs for less than a year. We drove out to Kathy’s house (which was tiny and magical and a block from the beach) together. The party was full of fellow employees of the Old Globe and also actors and designers who were working on shows that summer. Don was in town to play Malvolio in Twelfth Night.

A bit of back story: A year earlier, I had flown out to San Diego to interview for a faculty position at The Old Globe/University of San Diego. It was an intense 2 days filled with interviews at the University and at the Globe. I was exhausted. Kathy, who was a wonderful actress that I’d met when she came to teach a class at Boston University, took me under her wing. She was that way, our Kathy. (Sadly, she passed away a few months ago.) She was performing in Morning’s at Seven  at the Globe and got me a ticket for the matinee, which I watched and enjoyed. There was a guy in the cast who played a character named Homer and I thought he was very good. I remember looking at his headshot in the program and thinking that he looked interesting. His name was Don Sparks. Fast forward to a year later and at Company Call – when all the visiting artists gather and are introduced – there he was again, sitting just across the aisle from me. He was called up to the stage that day by Jack O’Brien and awarded the honor of Associate Artist. His acceptance speech was funny and self-deprecating.

So, there he was at Kathy’s party. I wasn’t working on his show, I was coaching an Irish play, and I was hanging out with those actors and with Rick. Every time I walked into the living room, this guy smiled at me. Every time. He made a point of leaning forward to catch my eye. I am usually shy about these things, but I finally bit the bullet and went over to him and introduced myself. We sat down on that sofa you see there and we chatted with each other. Rick eventually joined us.

And so began a conversation that has never stopped.

Look at our body language! We were already smitten.

We talked about – and I’m not kidding – how we couldn’t believe we were 43 and 41, respectively, with comments like, “How did we get so old???”

We were children.

Our friend, Jonathan McMurtry, took this picture and years later, slipped it into my mail slot at the Globe. What a treasure it is; the exact moment when we met.

Check out my red socks! Don still has that shirt and usually wears it on this day, but he’s in Washington, DC and it’s here somewhere. I still have that sweatshirt and wear it often.

It goes without saying that I’d love to be that thin again, but that’s not going to happen. Sigh.

On this exact date, four years later, Don proposed to me. And we got married three months later, in October.

Happy 24th, my love.

 

Lambs Like to Party

Lambs Like to Party

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