On The Road — Page 17

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.

The Art Institute

November 14, 2017 at 10:39 am by Claudia

Yesterday was Don’s one day off, so we went to Lou Mitchell’s again for breakfast (I had French Toast this time) and then walked to the Art Institute.

The day started out sunny but quickly turned gray. (Today is sunny…fingers crossed!)

I hadn’t been to the Art Institute for many years. The very first time I went there was for the King Tut exhibition and that’s a long, long time ago. Don had never been there. Not surprisingly, he fell in love with it. There’s so much to see and far too much to cover in one visit, so we’ll be going back again. Yesterday, we concentrated on the Impressionists and some of the sculpture and the Thorne Rooms, but I had to go through those rather quickly, so more on another day.

A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of the Grand Jatte by Georges Seurat.

This is one of my favorite paintings. It is painted in the pointillist style – all of the paint strokes are dots. It’s truly incredible. That’s Don, contemplating this magnificent creation. He kept going back to it.

So many artists represented: Monet, Manet, Gaugin, Seurat, Toulouse-Lautrec, Degas, Cézanne, Morisot. This time I was struck by the works of Renoir. Perhaps because I love color so much, his paintings really moved me. Instead of the more muted tones of many impressionist paintings, his works used vivid colors. I couldn’t take my eyes off them.

We also visited the famous Thorne Rooms, composed of miniature scenes of different periods of design. They are incredible. I’d seen them in the past, but that was before I grew to love miniatures later in life. This time, I was stunned by their detail. But Don was getting tired (we’d done a lot of walking and he is constantly on the move in rehearsals and performances) so we decided that we’d return another day. We need to see the Chagall windows and American Gothic and Edward Hopper and Picasso and a whole lot more.

One of the Thorne Miniature Rooms. If you’re curious, Google “Thorne Miniatures” and you’ll find out the history of these incredible creations.

One of my favorites: a miniature Pullman car.

We stopped by the gift shop, where we bought some T-shirts (because you know we love our T-shirts) and a few other things, among them, a book on the Thorne Miniatures.

Then we came back to the apartment, ordered Thai food, and took it easy for the rest of the night.

Taken on our walk to the museum.

And I thought you’d like to see a picture of the proud uncle and his adorable nephew, taken by another adorable nephew.

If that doesn’t warm the cockles of your heart, nothing will!

Today: a more low-key day. Don has rehearsal this afternoon. I’m feeling stuffed up. I’ll probably walk to Whole Foods to buy a few more essentials. By the way, there is an opening night, it’s tomorrow. So, since Don gets a free ticket, I’m going. This will be my third opening for this musical, Don’s fourth. Will Jimmy be there? Who knows?

Happy Tuesday.

Family

November 13, 2017 at 10:04 am by Claudia

Yesterday was all about family. We had breakfast with Mere, John and my nephews. I’m so proud of those boys. My two older nephews are really lovely young men and all-around good guys. Having the luxury of time to talk with them – on Saturday night and yesterday morning – was a gift. After breakfast, John and the older boys took off for the Bears/Packers game and Mere, Don, Little Z and I chatted a bit longer. Then Don left for his matinee and, since Little Z was really under the weather, we went up to the hotel room and hung out there.

Poor boy.

That’s all the energy he could summon up.

Mere texted me this morning from the airport – Little Z is feeling a bit better, thank goodness. I’m sad that they’re gone. In a perfect world, we’d all be living in the same community, but in my family, we all live far away from each other.

The lower lip.

He’s so much taller! He’s still a bit of a peanut, but his legs are longer. Still has the best eyebrows I’ve ever seen. And the most expressive. Oh, and the most beautiful thick fringe of black eyelashes.

Let’s face it. He’s a beautiful boy.

I downloaded the Uber app so I could grab a ride from the hotel to our apartment and I told Mere that I’d better get going so that I could beat the crowd at the end of the football game. Too late. When I got downstairs, I saw scores of fans streaming out of the park, so I had to wait about 20 minutes for my ride. But my driver was great and I had a great time talking with him. I love Uber, but there’s not a big call for it back home in our little town. NYC? Yes.

Around about Don’s dinner break, I walked over to the theater and met him at the stage door and we grabbed a bite to eat.

My view walking back across the Chicago River.

Chicago is a gorgeous town. I’m enjoying my time here. I’ve been here a lot over the years but this two-week opportunity to explore the city is a gift. I’m grateful.

Today is Don’s day off. Yay!

Happy Monday.

Little and Big Things

The Art Institute

Family

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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