Here he is.
Sitting on my lap, barely keeping still long enough for me to take a quick picture. Obsessed with my phone.
I’m in love with this little boy.
Just saw my dad and I’m going over to spend some time with him later today.
Happy Thursday.
In the Mail & A Trip to Hartford
This is supposed to be a McCoy-free post, as the series continues tomorrow, but I had to share something with you.
My godparents lived on the next block over from us when I was growing up. I called them by their first names: Edith and Nick. You might remember that they gave me my very first egg cup, the second one from the left in the picture below.
Luckily, I held onto that egg cup for years and eventually it sparked the desire to start a collection.
Edith and Nick had three children and all of us grew up together. Kay, their daughter, was just a few years younger than me. We played together all the time. I call her my godsister – is there such a word? She’s also my friend.
Kay and her husband lived in Maine for many years but when Edith and Nick, now living in Florida, grew ill, they moved down there to watch over them. Sadly, Edith and Nick are gone now, as is my mom. Kay reads this blog, much to my delight. When I started the McCoy series, Kay sent me an email with a photo of a piece of McCoy pottery – a pitcher – attached. Did I want the pitcher? It had been her mother’s and Kay remembered it being around for years. Of course, I said yes. Having something of Edith’s here at the cottage, something sent to me by Kay, would be a wonderful thing indeed. It arrived yesterday.
This pitcher is from the 1940s and its simple lines are lovely. The design reminds me of the Strap Vase I showed you in an earlier post.
Thank you, Kay (and Edith)! Kay wrote me a few days later to say that she saw the basketweave jardiniere pictured in a post and recognized it as an aqua pot she had stowed away in her shed. She ran out to the shed to retrieve it. Needless to say, it’s all cleaned up now and Kay has a beautiful piece of McCoy.
I’m headed to Hartford this afternoon to spend the night. I am working a few days here and there on their new production of Kiss Me Kate, directed by my pal Darko Tresnjak, the Tony Award-winning director of the musical A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder. Kiss Me Kate is based on The Taming of the Shrew, so it includes text from Shakespeare, which is where I come in. I’m supposed to put in a total of five days work on the show, so I imagine that will include a few rehearsals and a Preview performance. I’m excited, because musical theater is my first love and Darko knows how to stage and direct a musical like nobody’s business.
Since the rehearsal day is 8 hours long and the drive there is 2 hours, the result would be a 12 or 13 hour day, so the theater is putting me up for the night. That makes things much easier!
But I have to leave these two.
And I have to take our only car. Don will be hanging out at the cottage with his little girl, no doubt playing his guitar and watching the Red Sox.
I’ll be back here tomorrow night. In the meantime, I’m writing the next McCoy post ahead of time so that I have access to all my reference books.
The winner of a copy of Threshold, by G.M. Ford, is Debbie Price. Congratulations, Debbie. I’ll send you an email right away.
Happy Tuesday.
Thursday Thoughts: On Family & Flowers
My late brother’s eldest child, my parents’ first grandchild, turns forty today. She’s a simply wonderful person with three children of her own now. I remember the day my brother and sister-in-law told me they were expecting like it was yesterday. How can so much time have passed? I now have nieces and nephews – and I’m not talking great-nieces or great-nephews, that’s a whole other story – ranging in age from 40 to 3. Little Z, the boy my sister and brother-in-law adopted this year, is the 3 year old.
Of course, I have to acknowledge that there are five of them that I have no contact with, courtesy of my estranged and very troubled sister. That’s a loss that both Meredith and I mourn every day.
It’s a strange feeling. I grew up with an older brother and two younger sisters. My brother passed away much too young in 1991. My sister pulled away from most of the family, except for phone calls to my parents, at least ten years ago, maybe eleven. I’ve lost two siblings, even though one of them is very much alive.
Thank heaven for my beloved sister, Meredith, who is simply the best sister ever. I don’t know what I would do without her. We’ve helped each other get through the loss of our sister, through the stages of grief and anger and resentment and pain. I’ll be honest with you. I still feel a lot of anger about the situation. And if I ever have to confront her, and I hope I don’t, I’m afraid it will erupt. It won’t be pretty.
Ah well.
So far, so good with overwintering the impatiens. I must admit, I like the dash of sweetness and color they add to the cottage. I have them everywhere; in the kitchen, in the living room, in the den, in my studio and in the bedroom.
Impatiens sometimes get a bad rap from garden designers. I beg to differ. I find them enchanting. There’s a gentleness, for lack of a better word, about them that I love.
No Christmas decorating yet here at the cottage. My rule holds fast: the second week of December. Not before. We’ll get our tree next week. We keep it up through New Year’s Day, so I don’t want it drying out too quickly. I find I’m using far less of my Christmas decorations than I used to. There’s already quite a bit of visual stimulation here in the cottage so I’ve learned to use less.
Are you watching Peter Pan tonight? I’m so excited about it. We watched a special on the rehearsal process that aired last week and were suitably impressed by all the work that has to be done to go live with a production like this one. I remember watching the Mary Martin Peter Pan when I was little girl. It’s still very, very vivid in my memory. I can remember sitting on the bed in my parents’ bedroom after it aired, crying inconsolably because Wendy wouldn’t go back with Peter. It broke my little heart. Still does.
Linda, here’s a photo of your eggcup tray in the dollhouse kitchen:
Of course, I’m sure I’ll move it to another position at some point. That’s the fun of having a dollhouse!
Happy Thursday.
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