On The Road — Page 16

Heading Out

January 10, 2019 at 9:35 am by Claudia

Sometimes, since I don’t always take pictures the day before, I realize I have nothing on hand and I have to grab my phone and take a picture right before I’m about to write the day’s post.

That’s what this is.

A slice of life.

I have to drive to Hartford this afternoon. I’m spending the night in one of the apartments – actually, I think it’s the one I used to stay in – and that means I have to take some coffee, filters, filter holder, and half and half with me. The amount of stuff I have to pack for just one night is mind-boggling.

It will be strange staying in that apartment, yet not immediately hanging quilts and/or rearranging the furniture. Though there might be a wee bit of that, just because I can’t help myself. In some ways, it’s easier if you’re traveling to be there for a longer period of time.

Anyway.

I’ll see the first preview this evening and then I’ll work with the actor tomorrow afternoon. Then I’ll head home in Friday rush hour traffic – oh, goodie! I’m grateful for the work, of course, and the chance to see Darko again, as well as the company manager and stage manager, who are old friends of mine. Grateful to be earning a little more money as times are tight again for us. I was just saying to Don this morning that it was nice not to have to worry about money when he was earning an ETM paycheck. We got more than a little spoiled by that, even though we weren’t doing anything extravagant. Now, it’s back to reality, with my brain constantly calculating and re-calculating what we have, what bills need to be paid, what has already been spent – basically the things that most everyone has to do on a daily basis.

I’m grateful I’m not a government worker who has been furloughed and is worried about paying the mortgage, all because a petulant child wants to get his way. I can’t imagine the stress they are going through right now.

The winds kept up for over 24 hours and even my husband, who is not bothered by wind, had had enough. The gusts were so loud last night that they rattled our bedroom windows. Now we’re headed for some very cold weather over the next four days.

I’m thinking of taking my iPad with me and not my laptop. Writing a post is way too frustrating on the iPad and I have no idea what my schedule will be tomorrow morning, so I won’t post on Friday. I’ll be back again on Saturday.

Happy Thursday.

Booking Stress and a Little Rant

September 5, 2018 at 8:38 am by Claudia

What a day yesterday! I was exhausted at the end of it. I don’t know about you, but we live a very modest lifestyle and have been through many lean years, where paying the bills and the mortgage seemed impossible. Somehow, we have always done it, but the stress was constant.

We still have very little money, but we are getting social security and pensions, so we know we can cover our basic costs every month.

So when I had to pay a chunk of money for plane fare last week and, yesterday, for a hotel in London and plane fare from Edinburgh to Paris, yours truly got very stressed. Of course, I’d already set aside those funds for the trip, but paying out what to me is a lot of money for our trip made me tense. That, coupled with the Kavanaugh hearings in Washington, was a stress-tsunami!

We’ve decided that we’ll fly into Edinburgh, go through customs, grab a bite to eat and then board a plane for Paris, where – presumably – we’ll collapse that night in our lodgings. We’re spending a week in Paris (our anniversary falls during that week) and then we’ll travel to London, spend a week there, take the train to Edinburgh, spend 2 days there, and fly home.

It all costs a whole heck of a lot more money than we are used to shelling out.

We’ve booked the hotel in London, the flights are booked, we’re waiting to hear about an apartment in Paris (Linda, we used your link) but they haven’t got back to us yet which is making us nervous. Don even called them this morning and left a message.

We haven’t booked a hotel in Edinburgh yet, or the train to London. We’ll get to that.

It’s all too much for yours truly!

The zinnias are looking lovely even in this horrible heat wave. Next week looks much better.

Hopefully, we can wrap up the Paris reservations today. The trip is in just about a month, which will be here before you know it.

In the meantime, I have been dealing with professional disappointments, jobs I thought I would have, courtesy that I expected but didn’t get, long waiting periods without any communication, all while I was waiting to book this trip, keeping a certain chunk of time open for work, trying not to conflict with any rehearsal dates, only to finally say “Screw It!” and book the trip anyway. I can’t go into any more detail than that but I’ve been hurt and disappointed. I’d even throw in ‘disillusioned.’

So we’re going when we’re going and that’s that. After 18 years of freelancing out here in the east, much of which has been lovely, by the way, I’m tired of always being the last person contacted, the one who has to constantly email or call to get someone to commit to a contract and then waiting and waiting for a response. In this world of quick emails and texts, how hard can it be to answer someone in a timely manner? I am pretty scrupulous about doing that myself and I expect others to be as well. But, they’re not. Actors have agents, directors have agents, as do designers and choreographers. There are not agents for what I do. It’s just me.

And I’m over it.

Thanks for letting me rant a little.

Happy Wednesday.

Little and Big Things

August 30, 2018 at 10:40 am by Claudia

The humidity continues but it is supposed to break sometime today or tonight.

Please?

Since I stayed indoors yesterday, I got a lot done around the house. Remember, I’m always more efficient when Don isn’t here and he was in the city yesterday. Also – my part of the deductions is finished, Don’s in the middle of putting his part together and we will be done on time. Ta dah!

My friend Barbara, a reader of this blog, recently contacted me and asked if I wanted her Arthur dollhouse kit, as she had never used it. If you remember, I need replacement parts for my rescued dollhouse, which is an Arthur. Yes, I said! So she sent them off to me and the other day I went to the post office and there was a big package from Barbara.

All of the Arthur components. Yay!

Being Barbara, she also added a few little gifts.

A beautiful painting that looked kind of familiar. As I turned it over I saw this:

Wallace Nutting! Perfect.

On a side note, if you look to the right, you’ll get an idea of the globs of glue I need to remove from this dollhouse.

A sweet stool with pretty flowers on the seat.

And two charming plates.

Thank you so much, Barbara! For everything!

Yesterday, I started to address the glaringly empty mantel/shelf that is over my desk. It used to hold many of my figural egg cups.

Here’s what I came up with:

The beginning of shelf full of sheep. There are four putz sheep and one little sheep, most likely from a nativity scene. (Putz sheep were also used in nativity scenes.) The one in the middle is the official Lamb With a Party Hat that I bought in California many years ago. I made a hat for her and she became the logo for this blog.

I look forward to collecting more sheep and adding them to the shelf.

Our Big News

Here’s what’s on the docket for October. We celebrate 20 years of marriage on October 12th. Considering we didn’t meet until we were in our forties, 20 years is quite a big deal for us. This year has been both incredible and heartbreaking and we want to finish it off on a positive note.

So…we’re going to London and Paris with a stop in Edinburgh and we’re in the midst of planning it right now. We’re going to make our flight reservations tomorrow. We figure we’ll be gone about 2½ weeks, maybe a bit longer. We’re so excited!!!

We have been discussing this for a long time, trying to pin down where exactly we want to go. Last week we suddenly changed the itinerary to Paris and Venice, which would also be wonderful. But we ended up changing it back to London and Paris. If we can afford another trip in the future, we’d love to do Venice, Budapest, Prague, etc. This morning we firmed up a lot of details, now we just have to sit down tomorrow and figure out travel times, how many days in each city, and book the flights.

It’s a big, big deal for us as we don’t have a lot of discretionary income and this may end up being a one-time-only sort of trip. If so, we figured London and Paris were the places we simply had to visit. A romantic anniversary in Paris sounds pretty darned wonderful.

Since this is coming out of my inheritance, I thank my mom and dad for this opportunity for Don and I to travel to Europe together.

We’d love to hear where you’ve stayed, what you suggest we see, any tips on reasonable hotels, etc. I haven’t been to London since 2001 and that trip was with my students and it was planned for us. The one thing that Don and I want to do is explore the cities and walk a lot. Yes, we want to see certain well known tourist attractions, but our main focus will be on discovering little side streets and cafes and the architecture and beauty of each city. And we’ll see a couple of plays while we’re in London, as well.

Cannot wait!

Happy Thursday.

Heading Out

Booking Stress and a Little Rant

Little and Big Things

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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