Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Life in our little cottage in the country

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Zinnias

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saturday-zinnia with aphid

Don has decided that zinnias are his favorite flower. He loves to wander over to the Chicken Wire Fence Garden to see the new blooms. He’s fascinated by all the different colors and designs. He asks me a lot of questions about them.

tuesday zinnia 1

The other day, I found him researching them online.

He knows a lot about them now. More than me.

tuesday zinnia 2

Truth be told, zinnias fascinate me. The endless variety, the never knowing what color or shape is going to come out of the ground. The tall sturdiness of them. This one, with its candy cane petals, took me completely by surprise.

tuesday zinnia 3

They are immensely cheery flowers. And here in the Northeast they bloom later in the summer, which makes for a welcome sight in an otherwise tired garden.

I can hear the Canada Geese honking as they fly over the house. Another sign of Fall. Leaves are on the ground. The light is more golden.

Hold off a bit will you? I’m not ready for Fall. Morning glories are blooming, roses are blooming, zinnias are opening daily. The temps today are going to be just shy of 90 degrees. We’re still in the midst of summer, thank you very much.

I’m off to Manhattan today. I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow.

Happy Tuesday.

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A Favorite Movie and Newly Favorite Author

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This is what I saw when I let Scout out this morning:

saturday-fivecrowsinthetree

Five crows hanging out in our dead tree. At first, I thought they might be turkey vultures because I saw one up in the tree the other day. But their noisy calls soon told me they were crows.

We watched It Happened One Night yesterday. It has to be one of my favorite movies ever. It makes me happy. It’s funny and sad and wise and happy and it’s directed by the great Frank Capra, with a cast of wonderful character actors and, of course, Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable (in what I personally think is his best performance ever.) It was the perfect way to end a bit of a tough day. Thank goodness for TCM On Demand. We almost went with Roman Holiday, which was airing live on TCM, but I own that movie and we knew we could see it anytime.

Have you seen It Happened One Night? I have so many favorite scenes, but the scene on the bus with everyone singing “The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze” has to be one of them, along with every scene taking place in an ‘Auto Park,’ little groups of cottages where you could spend the night as you journeyed across America in your car. Don and I watch the scene inside the little cottage as the rain falls outside and wish we were back in that time, when traveling in a car was new and exciting and full of adventure.

(I just took a break from writing this because Don got up and we immediately started talking about how much we love that movie.)

In the past week or so, we’ve watched three of our favorite movies: Ball of Fire, His Girl Friday and It Happened One Night. I could watch them again and again.

saturday-morning glory bud

I also just finished a beautifully written mystery by a new author – Invisible City by Julia Dahl. Brilliant! It centers on a reporter who investigates a murder in the enclave in Brooklyn that is home to the Orthodox community of Hasidic Jews. Absolutely riveting, fascinating and so well plotted. I can’t decide whether to officially review it on the book blog or just talk about it. But I will say that I recommend it highly. An absolutely stellar debut novel and the first in what will be a series about reporter Rebekah Roberts. (Yay!) I am not exaggerating one bit when I say I couldn’t put it down.

Now I’m starting The Marco Effect by Jussi Adler-Olsen. I read four of his mysteries in succession earlier this year. He’s a wonderful writer. I’ll write about Adler-Olsen and his books in an upcoming post on Just Let Me Finish This Page.

Happy Saturday.

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The Sweetness of Home

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Gosh, Don and I are homebodies. We find that the older we get, the more we love hanging around our cottage. We don’t need a lot of outside stimulation, though we get plenty of that when we’re working away from home. Maybe that’s what makes life here all the more precious, our work in theater, television and film always involves lots of people so it is, by nature, very social. There’s also a lot of visual and sensory stimulation. It’s wonderful, but returning to the cottage and our quiet life here always calms us and grounds us.

Yesterday, we went to a friend’s restaurant for brunch and to listen to some music. Afterward, we checked out a few antique shops – sort of disappointing, except for one incredible antique lighting and vintage bathroom fittings shop – and checked out a great used bookstore. For more about that, read today’s post on Just Let Me Finish This Page.

While it was fun, about two hours into it all we could say was that we couldn’t wait to get home.

Crazy. I like seeing new places and all of that, but I love being in my little cottage. Actually, I’ve always been that way. I’m a nester and after I’ve created my nest, wherever that is, I like nothing more than hanging out there. The big surprise is that Don, the guy who was on the road for years and had very few possessions when I met him, now feels the same way. We love our life here at the cottage.

But, all of that is balanced by a strong yearning to travel. We both have that urge. We’d love to have an RV and travel all around the country. We want to go to Europe together (we’ve both been there separately.) And we will do that someday, that’s for sure.

We are fortunate that our work takes us to different cities, even countries, and that when we’re working, we make lots of new friends and connections. All of that enables us to really appreciate our time here at home. We sure don’t take it for granted.

The obligatory flower photo of the day:

sunlit morning glory

Happy Monday.

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Lambs Like to Party

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