Don — Page 55

Out With the Old, In With the New

May 23, 2019 at 9:35 am by Claudia

Sorry I didn’t respond to comments yesterday, but we were working outside most of the day, and when we weren’t working outside we were figuring out the logistics of the new sofa arrival/old loveseat removal. It was a day of a lot of talking and a lot of physical labor. A good day, but we were tuckered out by dinnertime.

The Star of Bethlehem’s blossoms only appear after the leaves have withered. I tend to forget about that, so I am surprised and delighted when I see them.

As to the old sofa: it’s in pretty bad shape. It’s usable, but I don’t know for how long. It’s over 30 years old and it wasn’t all that well made to begin with.

Placing anything out there with a free sign only works for us if the piece is on the small side. We don’t have a curb. We don’t have a strip of grass between the street and the sidewalk. We live in the country, but on a very busy county road. And between the street and our property is a deep culvert. You can see why leaving anything out there for any length of time is problematic. It would have to be on the driveway. And then we wouldn’t be able to get in and out.

Don spoke to the guy who runs our recycling transfer station, aka The Dump. He knows a guy who has very little money and needs some basic pieces to furnish an apartment. He might give it to him. That would work out perfectly. At any rate, it’s too big to fit in our CR-V, so Don’s friend is coming Saturday in his pickup truck and they’ll take it to the transfer station.

Speaking of ‘free’ signs, Don was driving down a local road yesterday and saw both this and a red wagon. He brought them home. This rooster frieze is made out of Plaster of Paris, so I don’t know how long it will last out there in the elements, but I like it. The red wagon will eventually be planted with flowers.

I have to say: Don’s pretty darned cool.

I have to get going. I’m taking the car in for an oil change – something I had to delay when my back was troubling me. We’re in for a stormy day, as well.

Happy Thursday.

Saturday Rambling

May 4, 2019 at 10:38 am by Claudia

Sick of the endless gray and rainy days, I headed off to our local nursery to buy some plants. Weather: You’re not going to stop me any longer! I need to pretty up my porch!

You can see just how gray the skies were, but the plants on display everywhere are lovely! This is my favorite nursery and it’s a straight shot down the road from us. Ten minutes at the most.

I bought coleus and vines for the vintage pots out in the Secret Garden, two hanging plants (not the usual three – trying to save a bit of money,) impatiens, some calibrachoa, and a hollyhock. I’ve no idea where I’m going to plant the hollyhock as we’ve dismantled the raised bed that was just outside our kitchen door. That area gets a lot of sun, so hollyhocks do well there. I have to find some sort of planter.

But it was cold and rainy, so I held off planting anything until today. It rained all last night here but the day itself will be rain free. Cloudy, but no rain.

We watched the end of the movie version of Our Town as we were eating dinner last night. It brought forth groans from both of us. Our Town (one of my favorite plays) was – more than most any play I can think of – written for the stage. Not film. The sets are suggested with a chair or a table. The Stage Manager breaks the Fourth Wall to tell us the story. None of that transmits well to the screen, so filling out the story with real sets just looks silly.

Both of us know this play well, as Don has been in it and I’ve coached it.

And…our mouths dropped open as we gasped in disbelief when we realized they had changed the ending of the play so that Emily lives, rather than dies. Are you kidding me? That’s the most important and heartbreaking scene in the play! Unbelievable!

I’m sure the producers decided the audience needed a happy ending. Oh, for heaven’s sake, give the audience some credit! Plus, Martha Scott and an almost unrecognizable William Holden are too old to play George and Emily. When we watch whatever is playing on TCM while we eat dinner, we get a glimpse of movies that we might not watch otherwise and sometimes we make sure to watch the entire movie after that. This one? No. Way.

This is the month in which our new sofa will be delivered. We’re excited. It probably won’t be here until the end of the month, but it’s coming. And every time I sit on the loveseat and feel it sinking a bit more (broken wood brace in the front) I cross my fingers, willing it to hang in there until the new loveseat arrives.

Don’s been working on his guitar playing, teaching himself via a well-known guitarist’s videos. I am fortunate to have Don playing in the background as I write this. Beautiful.

Four of the actors nominated for a Tony Award are actors I have worked with and coached. All of them are incredibly talented. I’m so happy for them. And for everyone else, including some designers I have worked alongside on various productions. And Terrence McNally, the writer of Anastasia as well as many other plays, is getting a special Tony this year.

Okay. Have to get a move on!

Happy Saturday.

Egg Cups, Photography & Plants

April 13, 2019 at 9:39 am by Claudia

The theme here is Getting Ready to Dine.

The pig on the left is sitting at a table, utensils at the ready – he’s just waiting for his egg. (Made for Tiffany.) The chick on the right – given to me by Linda, a blogging friend – is adorable and those tail feathers function as a salter. Pull out the tail and salt your egg.

It’s fun doing this yearly egg cup roundup. Now that I have the cubby, I open the doors, look at all the egg cups, and then I try to put together some sort of theme. The challenge is to remember to include the egg cups that I have displayed in other areas of the house.

Looking at them makes me happy.

I cleaned the bathroom yesterday, vacuumed the house, that sort of thing. Then I sat down and worked on the dollhouse for a bit. I’m using wood putty to fill in some openings. While I was there, I listened to a music app on my bluetooth speaker. Yesterday, my mood was “All Antonio Carlos Jobim.”

Do you remember when I had to put the Boston fern outside and the wind knocked it to the ground? A few days later, in yet another insane wind, it happened again. I ended up putting a heavy rock in the base, but those two falls damaged the fern. Lots of broken fronds. A couple of days ago, I was sweeping the porch and stopped to examine it more closely. It didn’t look good. So I brought it back inside. It’s now up in the office. I think putting it out in weather that was just too cold was a shock to the plant. The falls didn’t help. So I’m nurturing it up there until the weather is warm enough to safely put it outside again. And it had been looking so beautiful right before I put it outside! All that work to keep it healthy only to have so many fronds broken during those godawful winds.

But it’s already improving.

You wouldn’t know it to look outside at the moment (it rained all night long) but it’s supposed to reach 74 degrees here today! It that holds true, Don may be able to get out and start taking polaroid portraits again. He’s really missed doing that. Our friend Jean Andre Antoine – another Crown Graphic Press Camera photographer – was profiled in the New York Times on Thursday. I follow JAA on Instagram, so I saw his link to the story early on Thursday. It’s a terrific profile of a lovely man. He’s one of many former students of Louis Mendes – although you’re never a former student of Louis. The mentoring is ongoing. In fact, Louis wants to come up here for a day in the next month or two and take some portraits with Don.

We have portraits by Jean Andre and they’re beautiful.

More dollhouse work on the docket today.

Happy Saturday.

Out With the Old, In With the New

Saturday Rambling

Egg Cups, Photography & Plants

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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