Mockingbird Hill Cottage

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Flowers, Seasonal Changes & A Gift

August 29, 2019 at 10:14 am by Claudia

One of my hostas – one I planted under the kitchen window last year – is just now blooming. What a lovely late summer surprise! It’s very, very shady back there, so I suppose that might be a reason for the late bloom.

The butterfly bush is blooming. But the flowers are very small. It, I think, needs more sun than it’s getting in the side garden bed, which has become increasingly shady over the past couple of years. I may move it in the spring. I think it would do a lot better in the big garden bed.

The air, the light, the leaves – autumn changes are in the air. Just like that. I’m not quite ready for summer to be over, but I find myself welcoming the golden light and the cooler mornings. Funny how that happens – our bodies and minds start to anticipate and adjust to the change in season and we find ourselves welcoming it.

I see leaves on our roof and on the ground. I hear some birds, but not nearly as many as earlier in the summer. That always makes me sad, as I miss their songs. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen a robin lately. I still hear the mourning doves and the catbirds and the wrens and sparrows and the Canada geese.

For example, right at this moment in the morning, 10 am, there is not a sound in the air.

School starts next week. The University just started classes this week. Change is in the air.

We just finished watching Trapped (an Icelandic mystery series) last week. Now we’re on to Dark, which comes out of Germany. Both are excellent. Trapped  is on Amazon Prime, Dark  is on Netflix. But I have to tell you, the finest series we’ve ever seen is Babylon Berlin  on Netflix. It is beyond anything else, on every level. We’ve watched both seasons twice and are looking forward to the third season which should come around after the first of the year. Oh, and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel  is coming back the first week of December. Can’t wait!

Reader Kathy did it again. I went to the Post Office to send off our monthly bill payments and checked the PO Box. Much to my surprise, a package was waiting for me.

To Kill a Mockingbird  in Latin! Oh my goodness! I had no idea there was such a thing! Needless to say, I screamed a little bit. So did Don when he saw it. Well, maybe not a scream from Don, but a definite “Wow!”

Thank you, dear Kathy. It will now join my other TKAMs on the shelf in the den. What a beautiful addition to my collection!

Happy Thursday.

 

Filed Under: autumn, books, flowers, garden, media, To Kill a Mockingbird 34 Comments

Books, Beautiful Weather, and a Mini-Rant

July 26, 2019 at 9:55 am by Claudia

Another beautiful day here in the Hudson Valley. It’s getting warmer each day and it will hit 90 degrees by Monday, but I’m not complaining. It’s sunny, I hear the occasional bird, Lonesome Dove was sitting on one of the wires this morning singing his song, a noisy crow was out and about, and we just had our second cup of coffee on the porch.

I woke up at 4 am, so there’s that.

But I’m trying to keep on chugging as if I’ve had a good night’s sleep.

I’m awfully close to finishing The Paris Diversion  and then I’ll have to figure out what to read next. Most likely, it will be Knife  by Jo Nesbø. I have an “Uncorrected Bound Proof” that I won in a giveaway on IG. Always nice to win something!

I’m now number 4 in the queue for Big Sky  by Kate Atkinson. Given how the system works, I will most likely see it sometime next week.

I’ve got more weed whacking to do today and I’m going to do a little garden pruning and cleanup, maybe even a little mowing. We’ll see, that depends on my lack-of-sleep-energy-level. I do find that keeping busy when I’m sleep deprived helps. I’m less inclined to feel sorry for myself and I usually get a lot done.

Just one mini-rant: I’m so sick of the media judging everything by ‘the optics.’ They seem to think that hearings on the Hill should have fireworks and gasps from the gallery and that they should be a friggin’ reality show. They helped to create candidate Trump by constantly hyping everything he said, televising every hate-filled rally, giving him more air time than anyone.

You’d think they would have learned their lesson, but no, they haven’t. Mueller’s testimony was just what most informed and judicious analysts thought it would be. He stuck to his report, but he did give us some additional information. And if he seemed a bit tired, can you blame him? He’s worked non-stop for almost two years on the investigation. Instead of concentrating on the substance of the hearing on Wednesday, we got comments from people like Chuck Todd about the optics. He should know better, of course, but he doesn’t, as has been proven over and over again in the past few years. And he’s not the only guilty one. There are whole slew of them out there, including Jeff Zucker, the head of CNN, who thinks of the news they same way he thought of entertainment when he was with NBC.

I am so sick of the need to hype everything. Everything has to be entertainment. What is happening in our country is as serious as it gets. Gravitas is what we should be seeing, both in the hearings and in the media.

Sometimes I hate what we as a society have become: addicted to 30 second sound bites, the attention spans of a gnat as a result of constant screen quick takes. For heaven’s sake, half of the members of Congress haven’t even read the Mueller Report. The head of the FBI said he hadn’t read it. Get it together; it’s your job!

I have learned to avoid most televised media – I no longer watch MSNBC, which was my favorite. If I really need to see something there, I can watch it the next day, which is what I did yesterday. I watched Rachel Maddow’s take on the Mueller hearings. Thank you for some semblance of sanity, Rachel,  something which is sadly lacking of late.

Okay. End of rant. I’m off to do some work outside after I have my bowl of oatmeal.

Happy Friday.

Filed Under: books, flowers, garden, media, reading 34 Comments

Hibernating

January 15, 2019 at 11:01 am by Claudia

Just because I like looking at this cabinet. I pass it countless times a day because it’s at the bottom of the stairs, with the bathroom just to the right. Can’t miss it. It never fails to make me smile.

Now I just need that Sleepy egg cup. Still looking. Still slightly obsessing over it. Regular egg cups are pretty and I like them, but figural egg cups are whimsical and happy-making. They are still my first love, they’re just harder to find nowadays. I think I got into collecting figural egg cups in the nick of time. I managed to scoop them up before they disappeared. I still see them occasionally, but not nearly as much as I did in 2002 – 2005.

It’s friggin’ cold here! The kind of cold that makes you want to hibernate inside the house all day. I didn’t get around to my closet yesterday, as I was washing sheets, cleaning the house and the bathroom, watering all the plants, and doing some research. I think I’ll start on it today.

The weather forecast is saying there’s potential for a big winter storm on Saturday and Sunday, with lots of snow and ice. Let’s hope that ‘potential’ fizzles out. I wouldn’t mind a bit of snow, but snow and ice? No and no and no. Other than that freak snowfall in October, we’ve been pretty lucky so far. Can we just keep it that way, Mother Nature?

We watched part of Bruce Springsteen on Broadway  last night.  We’re going to finish it tonight. I cannot say enough about this show. It’s just Bruce, telling us about his life and career in his poetic words and images, both spoken and sung (accompanied by acoustic guitar.) It’s amazing. I’m not a big Springsteen fan, by the way – I mean, I like and respect him, I just never listened to a lot of his music. But you don’t have to be a fan to enjoy this filmed version of his recently closed Broadway show. I have friends who saw it live and raved about it and now I know why. It’s on Netflix and I recommend it highly. It’s honest and touching and funny and powerful.

I’m reading the newest James Lee Burke – The New Iberia Blues. It was published last week. Excellent, as always. There’s none better.

That’s it, my friends. Winter brings too much time indoors, a sense of hibernation, no flowers in the garden, no critters running around outside. It gets a bit harder for me every year, though I try very hard to find beauty in the stark landscape.

Happy Tuesday.

Filed Under: egg cups, media, Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs egg cups, winter 26 Comments

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Welcome!

Welcome!

I live in a little cottage in the country with my husband. It's a sweet place, sheltered by old trees and surrounded by gardens. The inside is full of the things we love. I love to write, I love my camera, I love creating, I love gardening. My decorating style is eclectic; full of vintage and a bit of whimsy.

I've worked in the theater for more years than I can count. I'm currently a voice, speech, dialect and text coach freelancing on Broadway, off Broadway, and in regional theater.

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