On The Road — Page 50

Cold, Wind, Shopping & The Laundry Story

January 19, 2016 at 8:42 am by Claudia

Crap, it’s cold out there!

Yesterday was frigid, with a wind that was relentless. It pounded on my car as I drove to do some shopping. It nearly knocked me off my feet as I tried to navigate the shopping cart and put the bags in the trunk of the car. As I said on IG, I thought I might turn into an icicle.

After I unloaded all the bags from the car, trooped across the parking lot, and brought them up to the apartment, I made myself French Toast for lunch.

Because I deserved it.

And it was good!

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More unbelievably inexpensive flowers from Trader Joe’s, in a vase I found in the cupboard over the refrigerator. Actors’ apartments usually accumulate a number of vases, as they are often sent flowers for opening night and don’t want or need to take the vase home with them. (I found another one, as well.)

From what I’ve read and/or heard directly from the employees, working for Trader Joe’s is a good thing. Everyone always seems happy to be there and I think the benefits and pay are good enough to keep employees working there for a long time. Heck, if there was one nearer to my home, I’d apply. I also like that they hire workers of all ages.

I won’t go into what I feel about Walmart, on the other hand, except to say I will not shop there.

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How did these get in my bag?

You have to love Trader Joe’s packaging and graphics. How could I not bring these home with me?

I do have a complaint. TJ’s sells basmati rice. They sell jasmine rice. They sell wild rice. They do not sell brown rice, except in re-heatable form, which is dreadful and tasteless and soggy. Neither, apparently, does Target. The Target I go to here is much larger than the one I frequent back home and it has an extensive grocery section. No brown rice. Jasmine rice? Yes. Basmati rice? Yes. White rice? Yes. NO BROWN RICE. (Except for Minute Rice and I don’t want to go there.) I just want brown rice that I can cook for 45 minutes in a big old pot.

What the heck?

The Laundry Story: This apartment building has a washer and dryer on every floor. Every floor, that is, except for the one where my apartment is. We are given a laundry card when we arrive and there’s a machine on the 7th floor where we can add money to the card in order to operate the machines.

I wanted to do laundry on Sunday night, but I only had singles and the machine takes only 5, 10, or 20 dollar bills.

So yesterday, I got some cash and after all the shopping, decided to do my laundry. I went up a floor and put a load in the washer. Then I went up two floors and put my other load in the washer there.

I figured I’d combine both loads in one dryer. Since the dryer on the floor above me wasn’t working, I grabbed that load when it was finished and walked it up two floors to where the other load was just finishing. Both loads went in that dryer.

After the 60 minutes or so allotted to drying, I went up there to take the load out of the dryer.

It wasn’t dry. (This has happened to me before when staying here.) I inserted the card (more money, of course) to get more drying time. The dryer stopped working. It took the money, but nothing happened. At this point, another tenant came in with a load to wash and she tried to get it to work, but couldn’t.

I gathered everything up, went up two more floors to the ninth floor and stuck everything in that dryer. More money.

After sixty minutes, I went up there only to discover that one of my t-shirts had caught on something and the dryer door had opened and nothing had dried.

Insert many curses here. Many.

More money, as I fixed the t-shirt problem and re-inserted the card for another 60 minutes of drying.

What should have taken about 90 minutes, took three hours.

I did get a lot of exercise out of it.

Reward: Hot chocolate.

I was watching the local news last night and, much to my horror, the weather guy talked about a Nor’easter that might come in this weekend.

This weekend, as in the time I would like to go home for a visit.

I quickly grabbed my phone and checked out the weather app and what they are predicting isn’t pretty: 5-8 inches of snow during the day Saturday, with another 5 inches later that night. And more the next day.

Maybe they’re wrong? Maybe it will track further out to sea and we’ll be fine?

All I know is that our previously mild winter has taken a turn for the worse. It’s definitely January, my friends.

Sad, very sad, about the untimely death of Glenn Frey. Too young. I am a big Eagles fan and it’s impossible to imagine them without him. What a talent he was!

Too many losses in January.

I have one-on-one coaching sessions this afternoon. It’s still windy out there, in fact, there’s a wind advisory throughout the day. I’ll be bundled up as I make my way to the rehearsal studio.

Courtesy of Shelf Awareness, a quote from the late, great David Bowie on books and reading – on today’s Just Let Me Finish This Page.

Happy Monday.

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Field of Dreams

January 18, 2016 at 8:15 am by Claudia

As I was headed back to the apartment yesterday, I stopped at the park. I remember these lovely twinkly lights from a previous wintertime visit.

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This is the way I walk to the library – on the other side of these apartment buildings is the Athenaeum – a wonderful museum – and the Hartford Public Library. It takes me all of five minutes to walk there from the apartment building.

What’s just beyond these trees to the right, out of picture range?

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A skating rink! The city of Hartford makes an ice skating rink every year in this particular area. Free skating for all. You can even rent skates here.

Looks like someone took a tumble.

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And there’s a staff member, checking to make sure the skater is okay.

I grew up in Michigan, as you know, and for many, many years of my youth, there was a big open field across from my house. Every year, the city would flood a certain area of the field and create an ice rink. I’d put on my skates, walk across the street, and skate to my heart’s content. My brother would play ice hockey. In fact, he lost a front tooth playing hockey! A wayward puck, I believe.

I haven’t skated for years, but this sure brings back memories and I couldn’t help smiling as I watched all the skaters. Don, a Southern California boy, is always fascinated by the fact that I ice skated. Every time it comes up – which isn’t that often – he quizzes me about the whole thing. But it was simply what we did in Michigan. We went sledding, we went tobaggoning, we went ice skating.

Of course, I always ended up getting cold and I’d troop back home for some hot chocolate.

That was the same field where I would gallop, pretending I was a horse.

And the same field where I played in the dirt with my pals.

And the same field I cut across on my homeward walk from high school.

And the same field where there were fireworks on the Fourth of July, which we’d watch from our porch.

A field of dreams.

Eventually, the city sold the land and a bunch of new houses were built there. I never got over that. They didn’t suit our neighborhood of very modest bungalows and ranch houses. They stuck out like a sore thumb. They took away my field.

Now, my hometown has been built up so much that it barely resembles the city I knew. Oh, it’s recognizable, but suburban sprawl and the endless ‘need’ to build, build, build has taken its toll.

Sigh.

I have a day off today so I’m going to be running errands and doing laundry. Exciting, right?

Happy Monday,

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Checked Out for My Reading Pleasure

January 17, 2016 at 8:03 am by Claudia

Today is the last day of our first week of rehearsal. Tomorrow is the day off, and then we’re back at it on Tuesday. We finish up table work on Act Five, then Darko has another commitment, so I will do some one-on-one coaching. It will be a long day, but a good one.

I’m not going home this week. I knew this would be an intense week for me and driving home would take a chunk of time that I don’t want to give up on my only day off. I have to go grocery shopping tomorrow and run some errands, as well as just plain take it easy.

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I made it to the library yesterday morning. After getting a new library card, I checked out the new releases, which are housed on a series of curving shelves just inside the front door.

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They have everything, including many books I’ve recently read as eGalleys. They’ve just been published and they’re already on the shelves. It’s a treasure trove for an avid reader. Careful to not let my reading eyes get too big for my stomach, as it were, I checked out four books.

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Starting at the bottom:

• Home by Nightfall – The newest Charles Finch. I’ve read most of the Charles Lenox series that takes place in London in the 1870’s. There’s one waiting to be read on my shelves at home, but I thought I’d grab this one and read it while I’m here. Wonderful series, by the way.

• The Fifth House of the Heart by Ben Tripp – Ben lives in Los Angeles and is married to a former student of mine – both of them work in the entertainment industry. I’ve been reading about his latest book via Corinne’s FB posts. It’s not my usual genre, but it sounds fascinating, so I’m going to give it a read.

• In the Dark Places by Peter Robinson – This is a mystery and an author I’m not familiar with but Louise Penny’s blurb on the cover: “Thrilling – brilliantly plotted, beautifully paced” was all I needed. Part of the Inspector Banks series.

• Murder on the Champs de Mars by Cara Black – I’ve read several books in this Aimee Leduc series. This is the most recent, which will screw up my determination to read them in the order they were written, but heck – I’m saving money by checking it out of the library. Right?

I have two weeks in which to read all of these. And I have to finish my current read. Hmmm.

Don and Scout are doing well. I miss them terribly – the hardest time is in the evening, I think. That’s when I really feel it. But, we’re used to it. We adjust. And I’ll see them soon.

Happy Sunday.

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Cold, Wind, Shopping & The Laundry Story

Field of Dreams

Checked Out for My Reading Pleasure

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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