One of my favorite photos ever – from yesterday’s train ride south on the Hudson River. It was a rainy day and quite foggy. I snapped and snapped (with the iPhone) until I got the shot I wanted; mysterious, fog-shrouded, beautiful.
What is it with the person who gets on a train for a ride that will be approximately 90 minutes long, pull outs her phone, and proceeds to have a loud conversation that lasts the entire length of the train ride, stopping only when we go through the tunnel that will lead us to Grand Central because she lost the call? And the whole conversation was in a different language. It amazes me, the self-absorption of those who think all the other passengers are perfectly willing to put up with a loud conversation. That it’s their right to conduct a loud conversation. It’s so rude. Anyway, at this point, I was tired and I didn’t want to find another seat in another car, I knew this would be my last train trip for a while (thank goodness) and I shoved my ear buds in my ears and listened to one of my playlists.
That’s why I love the bus. The drivers make no bones about the fact that they’ll kick you off the bus if you have a prolonged, loud conversation. And the seats are more comfortable, to boot!
The run through went very well, though everyone seemed a bit tired. Tomorrow, they move into the theater.
Another shot from yesterday’s journey.
Don is feeling a bit better. He has a virus of some sort, though his is different from mine. I’m demanding that he take it easy and rest. There will be a lot to do in the next week. At this point, he’s scheduled to leave a week from today, but that’s fluid. He may stick around a couple of days longer. We’ll see.
I’ve got a week and a half before I go back to the city to work on Anastasia – this time for 6 days, staying in a hotel. I can’t wait to see it on stage.
It’s International Women’s Day. #neverthelessshepersisted.
Let’s just stick this in the post as a reminder to those (temporarily) in power:
Happy Wednesday.
Happy Wednesday back at you. I love reading your blog (you live in such a beautiful area), but seldom comment. I did want to let you know I also have that tee and wear it around the Republican stronghold within which I reside here in Wisconsin when I’m in the mood to do a bit of trolling. That fog on the water picture is hauntingly lovely!
Good for you, Kay! We all need to do a bit of trolling!
Claudia, the fog photo is lovely. I like moody photos myself at times.
#neverthelessshepersisted
Thank you, Linda!
Love the fog photo.
Sorry Claudia but I can’t see you as nasty 😊. I can think of many adjectives that would work though: strong, interesting, agreeable, bright, feisty. The list is long.
Happy international women’s day. X
Well, ‘nasty’ as a response to that comment about Hillary made by Trump. So I’m proudly nasty!
xo
I hadn’t realised that, it makes sense now. To all proudly nasty women of the world I salute you!
Thanks, Fiona!
Love the T shirt!
Thanks, Carolyn Marie!
It is a perfect shirt. In response to all the nonsense going on in this regime, I feel myself personally getting nastier each and every day. Is that a good thing?? I know it is a necessary thing.
Great pictures. Sounds like the next part of your work schedule will be a bit more “relaxed” in the fact that it is a planned stay and a pretty defined time-line. It is really moving along! Was it “on the road” for any length of time before the Broadway run?
We have incredible winds today. They woke me up 2x in the night. They are to continue all day, and it is kind of exhausting (if that makes any sense). Hope you & Don have a wonderful Wednesday.
We’re having high winds as well. Seems like that’s all we’ve had lately. I really don’t like high winds – they make me tense.
Anastasia had a run in Hartford last Spring, remember? They rehearsed for 5 weeks and ran it for five weeks.
I do remember, I just wondered if it went elsewhere for previews. What a treasure to be able to see it from the beginning ~ through to the opening on Broadway!! You are, indeed, so fortunate to be a part of it! It is a fascinating profession!
It will preview for a month in NYC before it officially opens, Chris.
You know I love that t-shirt…you look like a woman to be reckoned with! It’s the perfect pic for today! ;)
It sure is! Thanks, Donnamae!
Claudia, Love your blog and photos! I travel on NJ Transit and they have a ‘quiet’ car no cell phones or conversations at all!
Shirley, there is a quiet car on Metro North, too. If I wasn’t tired, already settled in my seat and armed with ear buds, I probably would have moved.
Imagine that this is what life has come to…that they have to have a designated quiet car.
I know!
Love the t-shirt, Claudia!
Thanks, Sue!
Both moody photos are great; the railroad tracks really appeal to me. We’re going to see Hidden Figures this afternoon, seems appropriate for International Women’s Day. I’m pinning a lot of hope on the 25th Amendment.
It is perfectly appropriate, Margaret. Haven’t seen it yet, but I want to.
Yes, I agree on the 25th Amendment.
For awhile, I noticed whenever I was waiting somewhere, there was silence with others also waiting as they scrolled on their phones rather than talked as in former years. However, if this was, say, in a doctor’s office, there are also increasingly signs tacked to the wall asking people to take their conversations outside out of respect for others sharing the waiting room. (Although last week, in a very small lobby at a specialty doctor’s office, while waiting for my husband’s turn to go in to see the physician, I too had to sit next to a woman who talked very loudly on her phone in a foreign language…a LONG call with no signs of it ending…to where I finally just walked out into the hallway because I couldn’t read or concentrate and I was nervous already due to the nature of the appointment [an upcoming surgery for my husband; not life-threatening although, at that moment, we didn’t know]. It’s just so insensitive when people are THAT rude. You can clearly see in that type of waiting room that there are patients sitting there waiting for their appointments, no doubt suffering/not feeling well, with loss of hair due to cancer treatment, or pale/ill from other serious disease. How could a person not feel self-conscious to be sticking out, talking loudly and making others feel even worse when the room is already very quiet. Such a lack of compassion for anyone else. Such BAD manners. I felt the receptionist should have intervened but, you know, it must become an awkward situation for them, although all they have to do is shut the security window and also shut out the noise when the rest of us patients/families cannot. And it wasn’t the foreign language being used that bothered me at all; it was just the duration of the call and the volume, which filled the whole room. Personally, I’m so the opposite, don’t like to call attention to myself, don’t like to be the center of attention so, obviously, it’s why I have trouble understanding this other kind of behavior.)
A bank tends to be a quieter place; I don’t see so much ‘talking on the phone’ there. However, where I do get it, all the time, is standing in line at the busy post office where the person talking on the phone gets even louder because of the background hubbub with multiple clerks at the counter helping other postal customers. And my p.o. is an old place with high ceilings, tile and brick with no carpet, so the loud conversation just echoes and boomerangs. I think to myself, “Do they realize how stupid they look & sound with that phone, like a grab for attention, trying to prove they have this oh-so-fascinating life and, oh, look at me, I am SO busy, I can only talk while I’m doing something else because my life is SO full and I am SO popular.” Like the rest of us care about this anonymous stranger who is disturbing our space, not caring one bit that they are annoying other people? One thing that really bugs me is self-importance but, you know, it’s just another example of life’s increasing absence of etiquette. No knowledge of, or nod to, the word “polite”.
How many times have I tried to move away from rude people like your fellow train traveler? I’ve actually stepped out of lines when I couldn’t stand it another minute, losing my place in line, delaying my errand or appointment. The thing is, in these uncertain and violent times, confrontation over something as silly/irritating, can mean you might end up with your life threatened. It seems that much of the time, the people with the bad manners are not the kind of people you’d want to tangle with in any sort of circumstance, so I’ve put up with it, kept my mouth shut, gritted my teeth and tried to tell myself, “It’ll end sooner than later.” If I’m at a store shopping, I’ll just leave and find another aisle but, for that, grocery shopping is the worst, at least where I live…and not even people on phones but talking to someone accompanying them, like kids, when maybe the rest of us don’t care about every loudly-spoken detail of their lives. I sound like an old fart when I mention something like that but, gosh, when we were kids, if we were even AT the grocery store with Mom, we were taught from an early age to have decorum, not whine and speak softly when mingled with other people, especially adults, so as to be respectful of shared space/public place. Not to be meek or shut down, but to simply be courteous. I’m glad I was raised properly; it stays with you forever.
Or, it’s like right now, in the continuing saga of my absolutely AWFUL neighbor who probably will be gone for good in less than a month (house sold, so I’m counting the days), he’s doing last-minute painting of the house which I guess was a stipulation of the sale and, of course, it looks bad because he’s just slapping it on but, the dude is OLD yet he’s out there with a blaring radio which I’ve had to listen to for the past three days (even with my windows shut), like that death-metal-metallica hard rocker stuff (I don’t even know the words) from the ’60s or ’70s. Again, he’s clueless to even know how utterly absurd he looks/acts but I expect nothing else from this lizard. It’s this attitude of some people where they are completely self-focused and don’t care at all if they are disturbing anyone else because it’s all about THEM. Again, a clash isn’t worth it; I had one with him once and, make no mistake, I soon realized what I was dealing with and it’s not worth it; my life is too important for me to lose it with a nutcase like this one.
Got too carried away today with my comment; the post touched a nerve with me, Claudia! I’m sorry you had a less-than-enjoyable train ride!
The only saving grace of that phone call was the fact that it was in another language. I wasn’t forced to listen to a personal phone call and had no idea what she was talking about. That helped. But if I hadn’t had my ear buds with me, I probably would have quietly complained. You’re right though – you have to be careful who you confront nowadays.
I feel the same way you do. There are places where it is appropriate to have a phone conversation. Waiting rooms, enclosed train cars or buses (where you really can’t get away) and theaters are but a few of the places where it isn’t appropriate.
Interesting; it seems to be windy all over the place. I ‘m in SoCalif and we had wind all night and it’s much worse right now as we get closer to the noon hour, PST.
On Monday, I was at a big-box store and a woman in the parking lot was lining a shopping cart with a blanket for her small dog (not a service dog, but adorable). I guess she was going to give it a go to see if she could shop with him like that inside the store, or not, saying to me, “I won’t leave him in the car.” (Well, yeah, it happens to be against the law. We still have soaked ground from all the rain out here, but the weather has turned warm and we’ve been in the 80s temps. But she loved her little dog and that was the main thing.) As she adjusted the blanket and faced me, her black tee said, “Not my president.” I congratulated her on her statement and bravery. Amen, sister! (I just learned a cousin of mine marched in Washington with her p-hat in January; she made the trek from Pittsburgh to be able to participate. I congratulated her, too!)
The fog photo is stunning and frameable. Thank you for sharing it with us readers.
I want one of those t-shirts, Vicki!
Yeah, they’re great; I don’t know where to get them. Haven’t looked hard enough, I guess. I shoulda asked her! The white lettering on the black background grabs you immediately. Very crisp-looking with an on-point message. If I ever see any around, I’ll pick one up for you. But I suppose they’re getting them online. Maybe someone would know at your next/local Democratic meetings (you’d mentioned you were going to one or some).
I bet we could find them on Etsy.
Have you or Joe been to the doctor with these illnesses? I am concerned that you may have pneumonia or walking pneumonia. Please consider seeing your doctor or a clinic.
We’re fine. I had a virus – one that’s going around and lasts for about 3 weeks. It’s now been 2 weeks and I’m much better.
Don’s only been sick for a couple of days and his virus is a different strain. As it happens, he had a doctor’s appointment already scheduled and the doctor confirmed that it’s a virus.
What makes a virus better is time and rest. Don’s resting and I’m taking care of him.
Lovely photo but it reminds me of the weather we have 9 or 10 months out of the year. As far as the cell phone thing, what I hate is being in the grocery store and concentrating on what decision I am making, and hear behind you “Oh Hi! How are you!” and you turn around to find it is someone on a phone right behind you! Then there was the time I heard a man chew out his children and threaten to send them to the hospital.
I would not mind living in a place where the weather was like that photo ten months of the year! In general terms, for the sake of privacy on your part, can you give me an idea of where you are (the region/the country)? My ideal temp is lower 60s (F) and I don’t need a lot of sun with it. I’m obsessed with looking for somewhere else to live than where I live…because, to me at this age, where I am in Southern California, it’s become too warm and, opposed to you, we have relentless sun (and drought…even with the recent rain) for most of the year. I know that probably a majority of people would love that kind of sunshine…but, as a rule, January, really, is about the only month where it stays cool enough for me now. Over the course of my lifetime, I’ve seen very hot weather here in Nov, Dec & Feb…and, although we’ve had recent cold mornings, it was 85 degrees at 4:30pm today, so that’s March. And it will only get hotter from this point forward. We’ll get a flash of cold in early November, if we’re lucky. But I totally believe in global warming; something is going on. When I was a kid and young adult, the coastal areas would be fogged in/overcast all summer (May thru August) to where September was the better month to get a beach house.
I live in the Pacific Northwest. In the Seattle/ Tacoma neighborhood. We don’t get summer until after July 4th, if we are lucky. Our summer lasts maybe a couple of months. Fall is my favorite time of the year.Usually sunny but not hot. Rain a lot of the year. And even in summer the nights are cool, downright chilly. Only problem, lots of people and traffic. But lots of nice people.
Lovely conversation to overhear! Yikes.
Yeah, thanks for letting us ‘talk’, Claudia. Thank you, Janet. I could have guessed it might be Pacific Northwest. I’ve been to Washington three or four times; always lovely and green there (I once worked for Weyerhaeuser; Federal Way was the HQ and I spent a week up there in training many years ago; enjoyed some of Seattle’s great music scene while I was there; I also loved how Seattle was the backdrop for the story in one of my fave films, The Fabulous Baker Boys, although the scenes were primarily/weirdly filmed in L.A.; don’t know how they could make L.A. look like Seattle, but they pulled it off). I’ve wanted to go back to see the setting of Debbie Macomber’s books, in Port Orchard. And who wouldn’t fall in love with the San Juan Islands? Love Washington! I always also liked Astoria, in Oregon. Then there’s also Mendocino in Northern California. Aaaahhhhh, take me away from this 90-degree heat at noon on Thursday; it’s ‘way too soon for this here in SoCalif. Major yuck.
Janet, I know Weyerhaeuser made a big change, relocating after all the many years into the city of Seattle now, and I just pray that gorgeous acreage and the buildings in Federal Way don’t change too much with the new development plans. I understand they’re going to break it up (the land) which makes me sort of heartsick. What a beautiful place, surroundings outside and inside. Time marches on…
Your foggy picture is beautiful Claudia. Glad your schedule allows you and Don to be together up until he heads West. As I age (not always so gracefully) I have become far less tolerant of rude behavior and usually ask someone to tone it down…or pretend i think they are talking to me which always confuses them.
Me too. I don’t have much tolerance for that kind of behavior, either.
Yes, indeed nasty women vote ha! Love that t-shirt. Your photo of the fog is beautiful. Yeah, I don’t understand why folks have loud conversations on the phone so everyone can hear. I see it all the time in stores and in grocery lines. That would be really annoying on the long train ride. Good thing you had your ear buds so you could listen to some music. How exciting to be working on a broadway play!
I’m very grateful I had those darned ear buds with me!
Noise pollution adds stress, period! One of the few things I miss from the “good old days” is a much- quieter- in- general life environment. Cell phone bad manners do get on our very last nerves!
Lovely misty picture. Fog really is beautiful unless you have to drive in it. But it does make beautiful romantic pictures.
Nice to have at home time before the final days with Anastasia. Love love that portrait of a determined Claudia!….Dianne
Thank you, Dianne! The fog was lovely. When Don picked me up that night it was getting really foggy around here, so I’m glad I wasn’t too late getting home.