miniatures — Page 35

Day Seventy-Three

May 25, 2020 at 9:44 am by Claudia

“Day Seventy-Three” also means seventy-three days without a speck of makeup. Normally, I only wear makeup these days when I’m going out to see friends or work and sometimes when I go out shopping. Since I’m not doing any of these things nowadays and when I shop, I have a mask on – no makeup required.

I took this just after the rain ended on Saturday. It’s so green out there!

Much more work has been done on the puzzle:

As you can see, I’m in the final stretch. This part is the most difficult because it consists of blobs of paint indicating the stones/cobblestones/tiles. Don said to me yesterday “You’ll get it.” And I will. I have another one ready to start after I finish the Van Gogh.

You might remember me saying I went to the post office the other day. I went there to pick up two packages that were waiting for me. They had been sitting there for a while but I’m sure you understand that our very small post office is not conducive to crowd control. Anyway, I waited until yesterday to open them.

The white boxes are furniture kits from the now-defunct House of Miniatures. I have several of these and I can always use more. Plus, there are a few that I’ve not seen before. These are a generous gift from a reader of the blog, Anne. Thank you so, so much, Anne! They will be put to good use.

On the bottom are five 1000-piece puzzles, courtesy of reader Terri. Having already put these together, she asked if I would like her to pass them on to me! YES! Several of them are book covers – for Pulitzer Prize winners, children’s books, C.S. Lewis, etc. That makes me happy! And the other is a New Yorker cover about books. I now have six puzzles at the ready. Thank you so much, Terri. As I wrote her this morning, she’s helping maintain my sanity!

As always, I am humbled by the generosity of my readers. Thank you for being there for me. It means more than I can say.

Today we celebrate Memorial Day; which, to my mind, should be a somewhat solemn occasion. After all, we’re honoring those who made the ultimate sacrifice for this country – which serves as a stark contrast to the pictures I’ve seen of people partying on barges and at the beach with no social distance whatsoever. Sacrifice? They don’t seem to understand the meaning of that word. Coupled with the contrast of yesterday’s front page of The New York Times, listing many of the names of those who have lost their lives in the pandemic, while That Man golfed and once again, expressed no regret or sadness or one iota of compassion, it is a sad day indeed.

I hope you find some peace and beauty today.

Stay safe.

Happy Monday.

Day Twelve

March 25, 2020 at 10:54 am by Claudia

I thought you might enjoy this shot that Don took of his studio. It gives the impression of a very tall window and the view outside. I love this picture.

• Yesterday, I witnessed a car pulling into my neighbor’s driveway. Two young people – teens – emerged from it and walked to the front door. There was no social distancing. They knocked on the door and someone, I assume it was one of our neighbor’s kids, opened the door, whereupon all involved hugged each other and went inside.

Are you kidding me? I was dumbfounded by this apparent lack of concern for any of the rules put into place by our Governor, by the government, or, for that matter, science and facts. I told Don and he was stunned. What is with people?

• I didn’t do any work on the dollhouse yesterday. I needed a break. Using the trim or not using the trim was discussed in some of the comments yesterday. In the case of almost every dollhouse I’ve ever seen, we’re talking gingerbread trim. Remember that my intention for this house is not that. It isn’t a Victorian house. It’s meant to be my version of a Cotswold cottage, which is why I am spending hours upon hours making stones for the exterior. I’ve done a lot of research and I rarely, if ever, see a Cotswold cottage with any decorative trim. The beauty of those cottages lies in their simplicity. Truth be told, I eliminated much of the decorative gingerbready trim on Hummingbird Cottage – my first dollhouse rehab. There is one section of the remaining trim that I’ve never been happy with but removal was too complicated and potentially damaging, so I left it.

I’m not a dollhouse historian – some builders out there make everything to period and the intricacy of their designs is incredible. I so admire them. But I do like to make my houses more real than are the standard dollhouses I see out there, which are designed, remember, for children. It’s also why I’m a stickler for scale.

Now, if I was going to do a Chautauqua-like house, and I loved those Victorian cottages and took scads of pictures of them when I was working there, then I would wholeheartedly embrace gingerbread. But it would have to be to scale and often, the trim included with a kit is not.

Anyway, I think some more stone making is in order today. Back at it!

• Reading Eight Perfect Murders by Peter Swanson and last night’s feel-good watch was Field of Dreams. I love that movie.

• Heads up: I have a book review scheduled for tomorrow.

• Yesterday, we lost the great playwright Terrence McNally due to complications from the coronavirus.

Terrence wrote the books for Ragtime, Master Class, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Love! Valor! Compassion!, The Ritz, Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune, Lips Together, Teeth Apart, The Full Monty, and many others, including the book for Anastasia, which is why I have this photo of us together. He wrote about the AIDS crisis, he championed plays with gay characters. He wrote beautifully and from the heart. He won multiple Tony Awards for his work.

I am honored I had the chance to work with him, both in Hartford and on Broadway. We chatted about food, about becoming vegetarians, about when we quit smoking and about our mutual friend, Jim Parsons. In fact, he had someone take this picture of us so he could send it to Jim. He was a kind and good man.

He was a lung cancer survivor living with COPD and that he was taken by the coronavirus is so breathtakingly sad. He was 81.

Don was in a production of Lips Together, Teeth Apart right before I met him and it remains one of his favorite experiences in the theater. Terrence had a way with words that was unmatchable and his death is a tremendous loss to the American Theater.

And they can’t even dim the lights for him on Broadway.

Happy Wednesday.

Day Eleven

March 24, 2020 at 10:20 am by Claudia

Such a bizarre day yesterday; snow, sleet, rain, more snow, more rain. There’s snow on the ground today – about an inch – but it should melt during the course of the day.

On top of that, we had quite the experience yesterday! I was upstairs working on the dollhouse and I kept hearing sirens off and on. Eventually, I heard an amplified voice in front of our house so I got up to look out the window. There was a car parked in front of the house with about 4 or 5 State Police and County Sheriff’s vehicles behind it. Lights were flashing. Two or three members of the police were out on the road, weapons drawn, asking the occupant of the car to put his hands against the window, then to get out of the car. He took a long time. He was maybe in his twenties or thirties? He had long scraggily hair. As they told him to put his hands up, he was saying – loudly – “F you!” Couldn’t believe it.

They patted him down, took some stuff, more cops arrived, and eventually he was handcuffed and put in one of the vehicles. The vehicles hung around for a long time. Two of the cops knocked on my neighbor’s door to see if they could park this guy’s car in her driveway until someone came for it. Lots of conferring, talking on phones, etc. (Don took this picture from the kitchen.)

I don’t know what he did, but it was sure more than speeding. The sheer amount of police officers, guns, and all of the sirens, which were wailing for quite a while, shows it was something big. I’m going to see if I can see a list of the County arrests that happened yesterday.

Quite the exciting event and it all took place in front of our house! Afterward, we thought, “What if there had been gunfire?” Yikes.

I worked on the dollhouse like a maniac yesterday afternoon because I was determined to finish the front facade. I did, but I was really tired afterwards. A reminder of what it looked like when I found it at the dump:

One of the things I don’t like about many dollhouse kits is the trim provided, like the stuff on the roof. It’s fine if it’s for a child, but not so fine for an adult. Also, though a bit better, the trim attached to the roofline in the front. I debated on that, and I still might add some modified trim to that part of the house. We’ll see.

Anyway, here it is:

I’m pretty pleased with it. Now, of course, I have to do the two sides of the house. It’s incredibly tedious work. Incredibly. And it’s messy; paint everywhere, glue on fingers, etc. But I am determined to finish the exterior before I start on the interior and this seems the time to do it.

However, I might take today off.

Another view of the Folk Art dollhouse in its new spot in the kitchen.

Hoping that you’re all doing well and that you are self-isolating.

Happy Tuesday.

Day Twelve

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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