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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.

Monday Thoughts

February 18, 2019 at 10:23 am by Claudia

Yet more snow. And we haven’t been able to shovel the top of the driveway (the parking area) because we’ve been too sick to do it. Looks like my car will remain in place for a while.

February has been a nightmarish month and I will be glad to say goodbye to it.

I’m starting to feel better. I’m still pretty weak and I get tired easily, but I’ve been doing a few things around the house. I just have to pace myself. Still have chest congestion. But I’ve finished my antibiotics. Don is not feeling at all well. He’s about one week behind me in this process, so I’m urging him to stay in and just rest. I’m pleased to say that he did just that yesterday. All day long.

I don’t know when – if ever – I’ve been through something like this. I’m into the start of my fourth week and I’m still not entirely well.

We lost two great actors recently: Albert Finney and Bruno Ganz. You may not have heard of Bruno Ganz – he was Swiss by birth and worked primarily in German film, though he did do English language films as well. He starred in one of my favorite films, Wings of Desire, directed by Wim Wenders. I don’t know whether you’ve ever seen it, but Ganz plays an angel, part of a group of angels who watch out for human beings. But he falls for a beautiful trapeze artist and finds he wants to be human. It’s a beautiful film; profound and moving and simply lovely. It’s on Amazon Prime, should you want to see it. Bruno Ganz gives a hauntingly beautiful performance.

Rest in Peace.

Albert Finney you know, of course. My favorite Albert Finney film is The Dresser, where he and the amazing Tom Courtenay play opposite each other – both actors brilliant and at the top of their game.

Last night, however, we were looking at viewing options on Amazon Prime and we came across a Finney movie we had never heard of, let alone seen: A Man of No Importance – made in 1994. It’s an Irish film, and filled with wonderful character actors, including the gifted Brenda Fricker and Michael Gambon.

But Finney. Oh my god. He is simply brilliant.

I cannot get it out of my mind this morning. Neither can Don. I don’t want to give away too much of the story, but it takes place in 1963 Dublin and Finney plays a bus conductor.

Watch it if you can. You’ll see an actor who is simply one of the best there ever was. Fearless, stunning, and heartbreaking – what a gift he was. What an incredible legacy he left us.

Rest in Peace.

I’m just going to say it: February has sucked. Lots of snow, lots of sickness. And every snow event has involved ice. Enough already.

I would say I’m yearning for spring, but I don’t quite have the energy for that! I know March can be a pain in the tush, but it is also that much closer to April and the beginning of green. Bring it on.

Don has fallen asleep in the living room. I can hear him snoring, bless him.

Starting my 12th year of blogging today.

Happy Monday.

Color

February 9, 2019 at 9:25 am by Claudia

I’ve been so bored with all my downtime lately that I’ve taken to adding color to my laptop screen. There’s a new color combination on the WordPress dashboard (purple and green!), I’m using dark mode on my MacOS, which eliminates the ever-present boring gray of Safari and the dock and provides a dramatic black background. And my ‘desktop’ is a photo from the NY Times with vivid colors.

Too much down time. Too many days with gray skies and bare branches and wind and coughing and blowing my nose. I needed some color!

I am slowly getting better. Mornings are hard. Evenings, as are often the case, bring on coughing. But in the middle? Longer stretches with something close to normalcy. It’s definitely heading on out, but not as quickly as I’d like.

I finished the latest Lee Child yesterday morning and now I’ve started Less by Andrew Sean Greer, which won the Pulitzer Prize last year.

Thank you for all your lovely messages on the anniversary of Scout’s death. She was a big part of this blog and her absence is felt here, as well as in our home. I once said that she would have had her own Instagram account, had she lived. She was a star.

Don’s going to run some errands today – he’s still under the weather, but he’s restless. He also tends to recover from these things more quickly than I do. We need to recycle and replenish our larder. I’m going to bag up the remaining items that I’m throwing out and then I should be officially finished with the office. And I’m going to return the Lee Child to the library – maybe I’ll find something interesting to check out.

Boring. I know.

I need and want spring. But, Tuesday’s forecast calls for 3 – 5 inches of snow and ice.

Oh, goody.

Happy Saturday.

Potpourri on Thursday

Monday Thoughts

Color

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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