flowers — Page 135

Restless

August 4, 2018 at 10:12 am by Claudia

I had to search for some recent photos for you; we’re on our 4th or 5th day of rain, so it’s been almost impossible to find any pockets in the day where I could take my camera outside. Don and I let out a big old primal scream this morning. We’re sick of rain.

(I hope I don’t have to say that of course we know there are many of you who long for rain. Just as we long for a bit of dry weather. We feel for everyone but we can only react to our current reality.)

Anyway. Yesterday was rather a blue day. I’m not sure exactly why, but rain and gray skies and being stuck in the house and feeling not at all able to concentrate on anything played a part. Restless and blue. There are days I really feel the absence of Escape to Margaritaville and all it meant to us, emotionally, spiritually and financially. Yesterday was one of those days and today is, as well. There’s nothing we can do about it and we’re doing our best to move forward but it is a huge loss and there’s no other way to put it.

Let’s look at some bees.

I’m heartened to know there are so many bees around here. We need them. I try to plant flowers that attract pollinators. When the big blue morning glories start to bloom, the bees will be hanging out over there, crawling inside, spending the night, getting drunk on pollen.

Happy Saturday.

Reconnecting

August 3, 2018 at 9:02 am by Claudia

There are times I am amazed at what appear to be coincidences, but are – I think – something larger, something that comes from the power and energy of thoughts focused on another person. Case in point, this story.

I have a framed costume rendering in my upstairs bathroom from my days in graduate school. Impossible to get a good photo because it’s dark outside and the bathroom is teeny-tiny, but here it is.

I played a character named Kleopatra in Diary of a Scoundrel, a play by Alexander Ostrovsky. She was an older woman who was, how do I put it…..? Oversexed. It was a comedy and a lot of fun and at one point I chased a younger man around a pouf (a round settee that would be placed in the middle of a room) until I collapsed, skirt hiked, bloomers showing. That white satin material was used for the bloomers.

These bloomers, which I have passed on to Letitia, my vintage dress form and which I could never hope to get into again. I was very skinny in those days.

My friend, Richard, who was studying costume design at Temple, designed the dress, the bloomers, all of my costumes. He somehow managed to misplace those bloomers and strangely enough they ended up in my possession. Sort of like Don’s hat and eye patch ended up here with us in the cottage.

Richard and I were close friends during our time at Temple and for several years afterward. When I graduated, I was doing temp office work to pay my rent. I had very little money. Richard began working for the Opera Company of Philadelphia and he got me in there as a makeup artist. When an opera was being staged and produced, I did the makeup for the chorus. That’s where I got to see Pavarotti sing, watch him direct and, secretly, look at the huge mum-muu like costume pieces he wore. (One incident might have involved both of us donning one of his shirts with room to spare.) The extra money I earned was a blessing.

There was a publication called ArtSearch (still is) that listed job openings in the performing arts, with a focus on universities. I wanted to teach at a university, but one had to subscribe to ArtSearch and receive it in the mail in order to have any idea what jobs were being listed. I was so poor that I couldn’t afford it. So how would I ever know about job openings?

Richard surprised me and gave me a subscription as a gift and that subscription led to my first job at Boston University and the rest of my career. I am ever grateful to him.

After I moved to Boston and then on to San Diego, we touched base occasionally but, as happens, our lives were on different tracks and many years went by without contact. Two weeks ago, I was in that bathroom and looked at the rendering, thought of Richard, and decided I had to Google him and find out where he was so that I could write him. For various reasons, a few days went by and I hadn’t followed through.

I opened my email the next week and saw a message that had come to me via my professional website.

It was from Richard. He had tracked me down. We had been thinking of each other at the same time. It was such a delightful surprise that our thoughts had reached out to each other across and through the ether. We have now reconnected and I was able to thank him again for all he did for me many, many years ago. He’s well. He’s married. He’s happy. He’s still working and teaching.

I’m very happy about that.

I thought you might like that story.

The limelight hydrangeas are in bloom.

As is the liatris.

And that’s a teeny tiny little bug on that coneflower.

Happy Friday.

A Delivery

August 2, 2018 at 8:56 am by Claudia

We ran errands yesterday: recycling; stopping by our local farm stand to get some fresh veggies, including the best sweet corn I have ever had or will ever have and I’m from the Midwest where corn is king; running into the supermarket in the rain.

When we got home, I checked the mailbox and there was nothing in there. We sighed and chalked it up to a slow mail day. Not until I happened to open the front door around 5 pm did I see a stack of boxes and mail. Whoops! Lori must have brought it all up to the porch, stashing everything on the far side of the steps leading to the front door to keep it out of the rain.

Anyway, most everything was for Don. One box contained new business cards he designed which are really cool – you can see them on his IG account. But the biggie was a box that came all the way from South Korea. Inside it was another vintage camera that Jean André had recommended. It’s a press camera called the Mamiya Universal Press and it’s much lighter than the Crown Graphic. They stopped production of the Mamiyas in 1969. After a couple of conversations with Jean André, who said his is the workhorse of his street-polaroid-portrait-photography, Don found one on eBay.

It took forever to unwrap it – the seller had done a great job of packing.

Don amazes me. He has grasped so much about the workings of the Crown Graphic and he immediately applied that knowledge to the Mamiya, so he had the whole thing figured out pretty quickly.

Yours truly was put to work as test model in the sweltering humidity.

You can see that it’s much smaller. The Crown Graphic is the star, of course. It never fails to stop people in their tracks and countless conversations with strangers ensue. But the Mamiya is great for the times that the Crown Graphic becomes a bit too heavy or you just want to change it up a bit.

Yes, those are leaves on the roof of the porch.

I’m not ready.

Don’s new endeavor is the perfect thing for him. He’s passionate about photography. Loves vintage. Loves people. And it’s flexible and can work around and with any future acting jobs.

He’s in the living room right now, researching something about the Crown Graphic.

Meanwhile, between shots I wandered around the property with my camera.

Hello, zinnia.

Variations of purple.

Tried to capture this little bug on camera, but he was too fast for me!

What has turned out to be my favorite flower/plant combination this year.

We watched The Man with the Golden Arm last night on TCM. It’s another of those movies that I’ve always known about but had never seen. Wow. Frank Sinatra is simply stunning in the role of a guy fighting heroin addiction. Kim Novak and Eleanor Parker are also excellent. It was directed by Otto Preminger. We were riveted.

I know that Frank Sinatra was a good actor, but we usually think of him – understandably – as a great singer. But he made a lot of films, among them, From Here to Eternity (he won the Oscar and he breaks your heart), The Manchurian Candidate (one of my all-time favorites and all too similar to the puppet residing in the White House) and this one. Countless musicals, as well, but the movies I’ve listed really show his acting chops. The scenes with him going through heroin withdrawal are harrowing.

So here we are, trying to find things in the day that take us away from the toxicity in Washington and the country, doing whatever we can to keep some semblance of sanity, trying to find moments of peace amidst increasing despair. So we take pictures, read, clean, water flowers, watch movies, watch bunnies and birds and laugh whenever we can.

Happy Thursday.

Restless

Reconnecting

A Delivery

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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