Don — Page 98

Back On The Job

August 22, 2017 at 9:30 am by Claudia

And in the blink of an eye, I’m back in Hartford.

Well, not exactly the blink of an eye…when I realized that I had to make a few stops on my way back to Hartford, I decided to leave a bit earlier. I’d even considered driving back this morning, and I could have done that, but I knew I had to stop at Whole Foods and buy groceries and I have a 12:00 rehearsal call and, with the traffic on I-84, I knew I’d be pushing my luck.

So, I arrived here around 4:30. Too soon, considering I’d been happily ensconced at the cottage. But, duty calls. And I’ll be back there on Sunday night.

Sigh.

I think coming back to Hartford resonates more this time around since Don will be headed off to NYC before my time here ends and we’ve spent a fair amount of time apart this year. With the tour and next year’s extended time in NYC, we’ll be apart a great deal of the time. We’re grateful for our blessings but they don’t override the hardship of being separated.

Sigh again.

Anyway. That’s the way it is now and will be for a while. We’re working – both of us – and that’s always exciting and rewarding.

We were sitting on the porch yesterday, having coffee, and we started to talk about the fact that both the eclipse and our stove were starting their journey across the country at the same time. So, we grabbed our phones and started googling ‘goddess of the sun’ and ‘goddess of the moon’ and the word for ‘eclipse’ in other languages. Don reeled off more than a few but I interjected that if the name is so difficult for us to pronounce that we can’t remember it, it’s a no-go.

Finally, after about 10 minutes of this stuff, Don came up with Stella. We looked at each other and said “Yes, that’s it!” So, Stella, it is.

I bought these shoes in LaJolla and I haven’t worn them yet! The fabric looks rather like satin, so I’m not about to wear them when I’m slogging around our property. I tossed them in the car when I was packing up to return to Hartford. Today? Rain. But I’m going to wear them soon.

They make me happy.

Happy Tuesday.

Forty-Eight Hours

August 20, 2017 at 10:44 am by Claudia

I’m home for 48 hours. I got home in time for one of Don’s great dinners (how I’ve missed his cooking!) and The Manchurian Candidate on TCM. I’ve seen it many times, but I’ve watched it twice since Trump took office and its chilling premise is not far off from our current political climate. What seemed only faintly possible at the time it was released is happening in its own way now. Frank Sinatra had to hold the release of the film at the time as the assassination of President Kennedy by Lee Harvey Oswald, who had Russian connections, was so devastating that the subject matter of the film would have been too much.

It’s always been chilling. It’s even more so now.

Don found some treasures in our ongoing archaeological dig in the corral:

Another portion of a plate with gold edging and blue flowers, another piece of the plate, and a white marble. Pretty soon I’ll be hiding these in a tree just like Boo Radley did in To Kill a Mockingbird.

The hollyhock that I planted this year has new growth near the base of the plant with flower buds. By the way, everything needs to be weeded here. There’s been a lot of rain in the last week and I can tell! Some of it was so heavy that it beat down some of the phlox and coneflowers. And a nest fell out of a tree.

Morning glories – this morning.

And zinnias.

Lots to do here today. Work on the sticky floor, laundry, weeding and weed whacking.

Finished the Michael Connelly on rehearsal break yesterday – it’s excellent! I started Karin Slaughter’s newest but it’s a bit slow going at the present. I’ve learned to trust her writing, though, because she knows what she’s doing.

Happy Sunday.

Great Reads & The Cottage

August 19, 2017 at 9:37 am by Claudia

The weather was quite strange yesterday with threatening skies most of the day and, by the time I left rehearsal, very heavy, oppressive and humid air. It rained more than a few times back home but it didn’t rain here until after I went to bed. I know this because I was reading the latest Michael Connelly – The Late Show – in bed and was so engrossed that I read too late and couldn’t sleep for a while.

Anyway, sunny skies today.

I have an afternoon rehearsal to attend and then…I’m headed home for two days! I’m taking advantage of having both Sunday and Monday free, a rarity when I’m working out of town, and I’m headed home to the cottage.

We want to put down some pavers next to the shed, I have to work on that sticky floor, and I want to clean our current stove.

Mostly, I want to spend time with my husband.

By the way, The Late Show is great. Connelly introduces a new character in this series – Renée Ballard, a Los Angeles cop – and I really like her. As always, Connelly is a master of this genre and he writes seamlessly. He can build tension like nobody’s business.

Louise Penny’s newest Inspector Gamache novel, Glass Houses, is being published on August 29th. That’s a Tuesday, so yours truly is hoping she has the morning free to get to the bookstore and purchase her copy. Yes, I know I can order it online, but with her books, I like my little ritual of walking in the bookstore, looking for it on display, picking one with a dust jacket that is pristine and holding it in my hand as I walk to the check-out counter.

Okay, my friends. I’m off to hit publish, drink my second cup of coffee and finish The Late Show.

Happy Saturday.

Back On The Job

Forty-Eight Hours

Great Reads & The Cottage

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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