What? Another potpourri post? Yes, indeed.

Actually, every moment of my thinking life is a potpourri, with my thoughts going hither and yon, sometimes with a speed that is alarming, at best. Slowing down the jumpiness (is that a word?) of my thoughts, meditating – that sort of thing doesn’t come easily to me, but I work on it.

Anyway, this is a talky post, so hang on.

•  The catmint is at its purple best at the moment. Flowers everywhere, cascading from the garden onto the lawn. What a sturdy plant this is. If only it deterred deer and little scampy groundhogs. By the way, one of the wee ones in the litter was discovered in the big corral yesterday. My jaw dropped open. How did he get in there? I immediately went outside to try to guide him out of the corral, but that little bugger got out on his own.

They climb, you know.

They’re amusing, my little friends, but I’m ready for the kids to leave home. Go on, you guys…pack up. Time to go off to college. Mom needs a rest. I certainly need a rest.

•  Don films a scene in another episode of Mr. Robot today. Actually, tonight. His call is 8:30 pm, which will make for a long night. We went through a bit of a panic yesterday, trying to figure out the best way for him to get there. If he takes the train or bus, he runs the risk of being stranded in the city overnight because he may not finish filming until early in the morning, after the last train/bus has departed. If he drives all the way to the location in Brooklyn, he’s in for some major headaches. Trust me, I looked at the directions on Mapquest and they are insane. Both of us have driven in the city many times, but moving beyond Manhattan into Brooklyn, in this case, the far reaches of Brooklyn, is a recipe for stress.

So, we decided the best thing is for Don to drive into Manhattan, find a parking garage, and let the production company van pick him up in Soho/Tribeca. They’ll drop him off at the end of filming and he can get in the car and drive home. No matter how you look at it, this kind of filming schedule is daunting even if you live in the city, but much more so if you live outside the city, in our case, very far outside the city.

That’s lamium, a ground cover I planted nine years ago. I would call it trustworthy, dependable, and no fuss, because I never have to worry about it surviving the cold or dying back. And now it’s rewarding me with purple flowers.

•  Reader Lottie asked me to share my thoughts on the Tony Awards broadcast this year. Well. The more I think about the broadcast, the angrier I get. I posted a little rant about them on Facebook yesterday. (If you’re not interested in the Tony Awards, you might want to scroll ahead to the next topic!)

Here’s what ticks me off:

1. Almost all, if not all, design awards occur before the show or during commercial breaks. That means that these most important categories – can you imagine a show without lighting, costumes, and sound? – are apparently deemed not important enough to be given anything other than a 10 second mention – if that – afterwards. Are you kidding me? It’s so disrespectful.

2. They eliminated the award for Sound Design this year. When I say eliminated, I don’t mean that the award was presented during a commercial break, I mean it was eliminated. No more. I have worked with countless sound designers over the years and to imply their work is less than worthy of an award makes me very angry. And it makes them even angrier.

3. Though the hosts, Alan Cumming and Kristin Chenoweth, were charming and funny, far too much time was spent on their bits, as well as staged peeks backstage. Who cares? I have no desire to hear frantic plugs for the next segment or see hoards of performers waiting in the wings. And why does every moment have to be filled with a comic bit? The core audience for the Tony Awards is not a young one that needs to be visually stimulated every moment. The core audience is older. And in the case of those who are younger, they’re there because they love theater. Period. You’re not going to lose them. Stop it. You could have used all that time in a better way; for example, including the design and writing awards live.

Oh yes, the writing awards were also relegated to commercial breaks. So when two women won for the words and music for Fun Home – the first time  that has occurred in Tony history – we couldn’t see it as it happened.

4.  I had a problem with the In Memoriam segment last year. It was never aired – you had to go online to see it. I guess the producers and CBS got a lot of flack about it because this year they included it, but spent far too much time on close-ups of Josh Groban, so that when they finally started to project the names of those we lost, they had to go through them so quickly that you couldn’t keep up with them. Here’s an idea (courtesy of Don): why not just do it in silence? And take your time with it, giving those we lost the respect they deserve?

5. When someone is awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award, that person should be lauded and celebrated in front  of the viewing audience, not during a commercial break. I was stunned when Tommy Tune, who has contributed so much to the theater, ended up being the victim of the ill-advised and bone-headed programming decisions of the producers and we only got to hear one sentence of his acceptance speech. After the fact.

I could go on and on, but this is already long. You get the picture. I’m getting more and more disgusted with the awards. Guess what, Tony Award Producers? Your audience is a theater loving audience. You’re not going to pick up a whole new viewing audience when the NBA finals are on and most people just aren’t interested. So stop trying to be something you are not.

Whew! Lottie, I hope you’re not regretting your request!

•  And finally, some good news – at least, to me.

I got an email several weeks ago from the Editor of American Miniaturist magazine. At first, I thought it might be a joke, and I checked the email address and the editor’s name to make sure it was valid. It was.

Anyway, the Editor asked me if I would be interested in having my “beautiful” dollhouse featured in an upcoming issue. What??? I was stunned. When I picked myself up off the ground, I wrote back and said, “Are you kidding me? Yes!”

So I’ve spent the last 3 weeks taking photos of the dollhouse and writing a little article and it looks like My Little Dollhouse That Could will be featured in the August issue. I’m thrilled and honored, of course. I don’t know how many photos there will be or how much of my written text will be in the article. I have no control over that. It will be a surprise.

This magazine isn’t found on newsstands anymore but it sometimes can be found in dollhouse/miniature shops. I’m going to order my copies directly from them. Hopefully, at the end of July, I’ll have them in my hands and I can share the article with you.

Hurrah!

New post up on Just Let Me Finish This Page.

Happy Wednesday.