Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Life in our little cottage in the country

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Elevators and Little Z

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Yesterday was beautiful and I spent a fair amount of time on the porch until the breeze became a bit more intense and pollen flew everywhere. The rain is supposed to hold off until sometime this afternoon and right now it’s sunny.

I’ll take it.

We had a FaceTime chat with Little Z yesterday. He is obsessed with elevators and knows pretty much everything about them. He’s smart as a whip, you know, and listening to him rattle off his knowledge is pretty darned amazing.

Don and I were telling him about the elevators that were around when we were kids, the kind that had actual elevator operators. We told him all about their uniforms and the little seat that came out from the wall of the elevator so the operator could sit if needed. We talked about the J.L. Hudson department store in downtown Detroit (and department stores across the country,) where the operator would announce the departments that were on a particular floor, so you knew what floor to go to for a certain item. Don talked about the famous outdoor elevator which was on the El Cortez building in San Diego.

This morning Don sent Z lots of photos and a newsreel about the El Cortez elevator. Z loved it,

As expected, Don and I chatted about it during this morning’s second cup of coffee. Everything is so impersonal these days. No more elevator operators (you just felt safer on an elevator when they were in charge,) no more gas stations where your gas was pumped, your oil was checked, your windows were cleaned and your tires were checked. I know they still pump gas in New Jersey, but I don’t think they do the other stuff. (Correct me if I’m wrong!) Robots doing jobs that real people used to do. And we all know how frustrating it is to get any sort of customer service on the phone. I could go on and on, but it’s a very different world nowadays. And a great deal has been lost because of it.

Don is off to take some portraits today. He did that yesterday, as well. Last week he took a photo of Chris Hayes (of MSNBC) and his family and friends. He has a house in our area.

The porch is looking good. The potted flowers are filling out and growing by leaps and bounds. It’s our summertime haven.

Happy June. May we have less rain please? And Happy Anniversary to my parents, who were married on June 1, 1946. What I wouldn’t give to call them up and wish them a happy anniversary!

Happy Saturday.

 

Simply Beautiful

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Yesterday was, to put it simply, the most beautiful Memorial Day I can remember. The skies were brilliantly sunny, the temps were in the mid-seventies with no humidity, and the gentlest of breezes was accompanied by the faint sounds of the wind chimes.

It was so, so lovely.

We sat out on the porch much of the day, trying our best to be in the present moment, relaxing together, reading, Don occasionally playing his guitar. We felt tremendous gratitude for our house (a seemingly impossible goal for many, many years,) our gardens, our porch, our relationship and marriage, for the bird song which was unceasing all day long – for everything.

And we blessed those who were lost to the unspeakable tragedy of war.

We took a walk on the rail trail later in the day.

I suppose I need not say that we stop and stare at our new sofa countless times each day. Because we do. More gratitude.

Don had expected to spend the afternoon taking portraits, just as he did on Sunday. But at the last minute, he decided he needed to rest. We’ve been awfully busy this past week and, on top of that, Don has spent several hours in the sun over the course of a few days, camped out with his table display, hoping to get some customers. And he has. But the hours spent waiting are tedious and he was just plain exhausted yesterday. I’m glad he took the day off.

I hope you had a lovely day yesterday.

From the Memorial Garden, this teeny tiny little bee on a geranium. These flowers are about an inch wide, so you can imagine how tiny the bee was. I cropped the original photo.

It’s my favorite time of the year. Speaking of that, I’ve noticed the peony buds are getting larger, which means they’ll bloom – like clockwork, it never fails – during the first week of June.

Happy Tuesday.

Wouldn’t You Know It?

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Well, my friends, despite all the work I’ve done outdoors, pushing, pulling, bending over, mowing, yanking, carrying heavy bags – I found myself throwing out my back by the simplest of movements; reaching for the toilet paper.

Yep. Nothing outside, nothing brought on by physical extremes, just the mundane. How un-glamorous!

It happened yesterday morning as I was getting ready to spend time on the porch. Not to be deterred, I did spend a couple of hours on the glider, sitting on two pillows, with two pillows behind my back. It was such an extraordinarily beautiful day, with sunshine and bird song all day long, that I had to be out there. The kind of day that was fairly frequent last year, but extremely rare this year.

To be sure, today it’s raining and twenty degrees colder.

Anyway, ain’t that the pits? I find that whenever my back really becomes a problem it’s most often because of some everyday movement that suddenly becomes a betrayal. Sleeping last night was not easy, but thankfully, I did sleep. We had to cancel brunch at Rick and Doug’s this morning, even though I urged Don to go without me. He won’t, darn it.

So. I’m taking it easy – I have no choice – using the heating pad, walking around fairly frequently to stay somewhat limber, you know, the usual. This too, shall pass.

I finally moved the pillows from the living room sofa to the glider and replaced them with other throw pillows. The replacements will only be there for a short while as our new sofa will be here within about 10 – 14 days.

I finished Ex Libris  yesterday afternoon and now I’m reading David Coggins’ book about the winter visits to Paris he and his family have made for years, named, appropriately, Paris in Winter. Coggins is an artist and his watercolors are sprinkled throughout the book. It’s really quite lovely.

Mother’s Day has become a not-very-good-day for me.  So I tend to ignore it. But I don’t want to ignore all of you, or my sister, who is the best mother in the world. So I wish all of you who are mothers – whether to human children or furry children, farmyard animals, nieces and nephews, students, foster children, grandchildren, neighborhood children, or to green, living things – a Happy Mothers Day.

Happy Sunday.

Lambs Like to Party

Lambs Like to Party

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