Life in our little cottage in the country
Just a quick post this morning as I have to leave early for the city. I’m truly exhausted. This has been a tough week, both physically and mentally. I’d like nothing more than to stay home today and rest, but that isn’t in the cards!
I’ll be back with more tomorrow, but in the meantime, I’ll leave you with this, which I have recreated this year:
I’m going to make a Christmas tree for the inside this weekend.
And then I’ll decorate the other houses.
Happy Thursday.
After two days of hard work outside, averaging 3 – 4 hours of shoveling and chopping ice, we are sore! Truly exhausting. But it had to be done. And we have to re-salt every morning as the slush and snow freeze again overnight. Next week it’s supposed to rain, so this snow might be short-lived.
Tomorrow, I go into the city to do one more day of work on the show on which I’ve been consulting. Today, I have to sit down and figure out how to hook up our new printer. Our old one stopped scanning clearly and was a pain in the tush. (I’m the tech person in this household.)
Our good friend, Richard Easton, died on Monday. He was born in Canada and trained in England. He worked with everyone over the years, including John Gielgud. He was in Kenneth Branagh’s movie version of Henry V. I met him when I moved to San Diego. He and Jack O’Brien, who was the Artistic Director of The Old Globe at the time, had known each other for years. Richard moved to San Diego to be a part of the Globe as an Associate Artist, actor, and teacher. He was an extraordinary actor. As well as coaching him in countless productions during my 8 years there, he also served as an actor/mentor to our students, so he was my colleague. The remembrances that are springing up on Facebook from our former students are heartwarming and filled with love. He was rigorous in his approach to a role and in his approach to acting. And every one of our students benefitted from that rigor. What a role model he was!
As a coach, I’ve never seen someone so willing to take my notes, indeed, he asked for them after every run-through. He wanted correction, guidance, whatever I could offer. Truth be told, he was so good – especially with Shakespeare – that I hardly ever needed to note him. Dialects? Yes. Shakespeare? No.
I loved working with him, knowing him, socializing with him. What an honor it was. And a joy.
Eventually, he moved back to NYC, where he promptly won a Tony Award for his performance as A.E. Housman in The Invention of Love, directed by Jack O’Brien. When Don and I moved East, he called me and asked me to coach him on a period sound for his portrayal of Benjamin Franklin on PBS. I was just starting to freelance and was feeling adrift after working full-time as a professor. But he, bless him, was a generous and loyal friend and reached out to me for help. I treasure that last experience of working one-on-one with him.
His health declined in recent years. I hadn’t seen him in quite a long time. But he was cared for and watched over by two actor friends who were committed to his well-being.
He will be sorely missed. In the past few years, we have lost our friends, Kathy McGrath, Jonathan McMurtry, and now Richard. All brilliant actors. All Associate Artists at the Old Globe who lived in San Diego for several years in order to work with Jack. It’s the end of an era.
Rest in Peace, my friend.
Happy Wednesday.
After an exhausting stretch yesterday with the snow blower and the shovel – trying to get through layers of sleet, snow, and more sleet – we figured we were all done.
But then we got about 5 more inches last night. This time, the snow is quite light and powdery. So we’ll be back out there today, shoveling, snow blowing, and salting. The sun is out, as so often happens after a storm. We went outside early this morning to take some pictures because it was so beautiful.
You can see the mountains in this shot. No pristine shed shot, however, as we moved our cars over there so we can shovel. School has been cancelled for the past two days, many businesses were closed; it was a very long snow ‘event.’
Since we were housebound for most of the day yesterday, we did this:
We’re very pleased with this tree; the shape, height, and scent. I would say 98% of the ornaments are vintage, many of them Shiny Brites. There are also some ornaments that I’ve had since I was quite young. And then there are the large creamy bottlebrush ornaments that I purchased when I was working at my friend Heidi’s shop. I have nine of them and I love them. I think that large pop of off-white adds definition to the tree.
Here it is from inside the den:
I love being able to see it from both rooms. Why didn’t we think of this long ago? Probably because of the dogs and the paths they took from room to room. We used to have our real tree nestled back into the corner of the den where the dollhouse now sits. It was the safest place at the time.
We don’t plan to have a big ‘gift’ Christmas. We had our Paris trip (a huge gift!) and we decided the frame (framing is never cheap) of our Paris lithograph is our gift to each other. There will be a few little gifts under the tree, but mostly this Christmas is about the tree and being together here in our cottage. About being grateful.
Happy Tuesday.
