Good morning. Still very, very cold here! It is supposed to get warmer today but Friday and Saturday have nighttime lows in the single digits. We aren’t getting any snow, but we are definitely feeling winter’s frigid temperatures.
It takes a long time for the house to warm up when it’s like this. Both of us are walking around in more than a few layers of clothing!
Don has a self-tape audition this morning. It’s just a routine thing, so don’t get excited. But it’s the first audition since before the holidays, so it’s encouraging. Anyway, right after I finish this post, we’re going to set everything up.
The puzzle is ongoing. It’s taking me longer than I expected but I just popped in a few more pieces while I was waiting for the second cup of coffee to finish dripping – or pouring through, to be more accurate. Morning seems to be my best time for figuring out the puzzle – fresh eyes? Rested? Who knows!
Other than that, there’s nothing new. January is always a hard month for me. I suspect it’s the same for many. The holidays are over. The decorations have been taken down and stored for another year. It’s bleak outside. Add in the low temps and the constant drip we have to run so the pipes don’t freeze and you have what I’ve often called an “Ice Station Zebra” situation here. I tend to get a bit down. So I have to keep myself busy with tasks and puzzles and projects.
I did notice last night that it’s staying lighter longer – quite a bit longer. That’s a positive, right?
Okay my friends. I’m going to make this brief as Don is setting up in the den and I’m currently occupying it.
I can hear a woodpecker in the distance and, even in this cold, I heard a bird sing this morning.
That makes me smile.
Stay safe.
Happy Wednesday.
ENJOY Your puzzle and your day
Florida is so gorgeous that weather is never an issue
I noticed summer no different to me
Than living in other states…
I don’t miss the cold and snow at all and I feel freer and happy and younger and healthier. My cadre of text friends old dear friends loved a simple pic I sent and said younger for sure lol
I said just an old woman cutting her own hair
No makeup glasses and shabby clothes
They laughed
I’m just about ready to cut my own hair again, Brenda. So, I relate!
Stay safe.
Yes, January is — well, January. A let down and knowing there are several months of cold and dark (even though the light WILL come!). I can’t seem to get much mojo in January, apart from taking down Christmas, which is less mojo and more necessity. I’d rather curl with a good book (a combo-reading of a British Crime Libraries classic mystery and a book called “Second Act Trouble.” Have you read it? About the problems with tons of musicals that flopped — or never made it to Broadway. It’s a series of essays by some very good writers, many having appeared before in the Times or New York Magazine or other publications. Fun and fascinating but it’s nice to break it up after four or five flops with a few chapters of murder and mayhem!
All good wishes and broken legs to Don today!
Sounds like a neat book, Jeanie! I worked on a flop that definitely had second act trouble. It’s very real!
Stay safe.
What one, Claudia? I’ll see if it’s in the book!
Dance of the Vampires, starring Michael Crawford, Rene Auberjonois, Mandy Gonzalez (currently in Hamilton) and Max Von Essen.
First act was pretty neat, second act was is if it was written for another show. The songwriter wouldn’t let anyone make any changes to the songs, the producers were many and there were too many fingers in the pie, warring egos: Crawford and Auberjonois…crazy. My friend directed it and in the middle of tech, his mother died. He was devastated.
Rats. It’s not in the book. There are 25 ranging from some I’ve heard of (“Breakfast at Tiffanys,” “Seesaw” (a score I love); “The Act,” “Fade Out, Fade In,” “Mack and Mabel,” “Skyscraper,” “Rex,” “Irene” and lots more. Some, like “Irene” ran for quite awhile but lots tons of money, partly due to the VERY long out of town time trying to get it into shape. And when Debbie Reynolds left, Jane Powell couldn’t bring ’em in. It’s a very good book — worth the time. I seem to remembe rthe name “Dance of the Vampires” but I know nothing about it. I’ve seen those two situations — too many fingers and warring egos — in some of the essays I’ve read. You’d like this one, I think.
Mack and Mabel was pretty popular as well, though I don’t recall how long it ran. Robert Preston and Bernadette Peters, right?
Some of these ran quite a while despite book issues, but lost millions in the process. 65 performances. I was surprised to read that. I used to have the album and enjoyed the score and saw a production at Shaw Festival that was really quite wonderful. It was indeed Preston and Peters — she wasn’t the first choice and it was her first Broadway role after several OB things.
And I adored Robert Preston.
xo
I think we all had love affairs with Robert Preston!
xo
Good morning, Claudia. I hope you can warm up and that your puzzles and books and girls and Don will help you to feel energized and inspired. We have been dealing with days of below freezing temps and ice here in Illinois, so I haven’t been able to go on my normal walks, which is hard. I don’t so much mind January, because after the crazy business of the holiday season, I love the down time. It’s February that gets to me, when I start to really get tired of winter. Anyway, wishing you a good day!
Yes, February is also tricky! I agree.
Stay safe, Jenny.
prayers about feeling down, the cold weather and for don’s audition.
hope you enjoy the puzzle, the re-discovered dollhouse for the girls and take it easy.
we are on a roller-coaster with the temperature here … bitterly cold windchills of minus 30 a couple days ago, now it’s nearly 50 and sunny and we are to get five inches of wet, heavy snow friday afternoon. whee????
hope you have a nice afternoon and night. and stay safe.
kathy in iowa
43 here today and then back to cold and lots of snow on Monday. We seem to be a few days behind you.
Stay safe, Kathy.
We are just coming out of Ice Station Zebra here…it’s a glorious 41degrees today. We took our Christmas lights down today outside. That seems to be the extent of my ambition.
At least you have puzzles, books, and your girls to distract you during this cold spell. I hope the taping for Don’s audition went well this morning. Stay warm! ;)
We are to reach 43 today. Such a change. Then temps plunge and snow on Monday. Crazy ups and downs!
Stay safe, Donnamae.
I really don’t mind the cold as much as the snow. I start to feel claustrophobic as the snow piles up. It helps me to go outside every day or take a little drive somewhere. If I don’t have an errand to do I just take a little drive past Lake Michigan unless the roads are really bad. If I spend too much time in the house I get depressed, lazy, and eat too much!
I hope Don’s audition goes well.
Take care
I went outside to get the mail yesterday and the cold air was really refreshing! It helps to do that.
Stay safe, Marilyn.
I can’t get out of my January slump. I talked to a friend yesterday on the phone, catching up after three months, and we realized we both sounded pretty grumpy.
It’s Covid, all the time. She got exposed as did three other people, one of them age 98. Everybody was vaccinated; even the positive neighbors who’d come to the door. They’re doing the rounds of testing; so far all negative for my friend and her loved ones. But the worry is exhausting. Another neighbor of hers has Covid (says it’s like the worst cold of her life); a mutual friend of ours has Covid although his wife is still negative. (It’s just not the greatest thing when almost everybody of whom I speak here is in the 60s-70s, higher-risk age group. And a lot of this is a wide area of L.A. County and adjoining counties; the virus is just really, really spreading.) My friend’s sister has Covid. I have one maternal cousin out of state who is not great; been sick for weeks with one of the variants; breathing is her problem. A paternal cousin of mine (Gulf Coast) is in her early 30s and otherwise healthy but omicron has really taken her down with stomach issues; she’s an RN who finally got the virus after all this time (and now she’s given it to her husband; they’re in Covid misery at the moment, at least not in the hospital, but also with three little kids who somehow are still negative; and, man, not easy when the parents are sick and the kids need dinner).
Stop-start. Start-stop. We think we can plan, then we can’t. My friend is back to disposable gloves. I was even at the beach this morning wearing a mask outdoors because with everybody jamming the shoreline looking at the thunderous 9-ft waves, they want to talk, come right up into your face so you can hear them over the loud noise of the wave action and the wind. (We were also ogling a Coast Guard helicopter who was hovering over a boat just outside the marina/jetties only to then be CHASING the boat in open sea, so this was causing some measure of excitement for observers as much as wave-watching, whale spotting and ‘dolphin stampede’ we get at this time of year.)
I think I’m just tired. Uncertainty about the virus is affecting everybody. Continual adjustment in the calendar dates; shifts in goal-setting that seemed good for the first few months of the year; hard to know (for my phone friend) if she should cancel her late-March reservations (hotel/resort that shouldn’t be too busy off-season) for a small anniversary getaway with her husband. (Seems the answer to that dilemma is obvious. We’re surging here.)
But we both acknowledged we have no right to be grumbly, not when exhausted healthcare workers can’t catch a break. And even with The Big Quit (“does anybody work anymore?”) in the various job sectors, there’s still plenty of other people who have to get ‘out there’ every day to work at their jobs, brave the virus contagion. (Our curbside trash pickup was delayed four days last week, and they weren’t say’in, but I just read this morning that something like 45 percent of sanitation workers were out with Covid across America last week.)
Alternatively, I’ve got it easy; all I have to do the rest of today is squeeze about 200 oranges we picked off our trees before recent frost. My juice quest will distract me from my January Slump (on Weds at least)!
Vicki thank you for reminding me of all the people who have to go out there to work every day. So many seniors that just can’t make it on Social security only.
Yup I need to be thankful.
Yes, my brother-in-law and nephew have Covid at the moment. Both are vaccinated. It’s everywhere. Broadway shows are closing either temporarily or permanently because so many people involved with the productions are ill.
We are tired of it as well, as is everyone. All I can do is stay positive, thankful that I have shelter and that I don’t have to work and be ‘out there.
Stay safe, Vicki.
As Donnamae said, we were into the 40’s today after horrid below temp days for several in a row. It does make such a difference. The sunshine was especially nice today.
We are recovering from a flu/ Norovirus here. No covid. The wee one brought it home from Day Care where it went thru all of the kids. She started it, went to son & DIL, to us, then our daughter. 3 different households. It was miserable stuff. No fevers at all, but awful awful stomach stuff. Everyone is feeling better. Lasted about 24-48 hrs for each of us.
Hope Don had a good audition. We can get through this weather…we have done it before! Take care.
We are in the 40s today and it was sunny, but now, it’s not.
So sorry to hear about the flu! Had you been given a flu shot, or was this another strain? I’m glad you’re recovering, Chris.
Stay safe!
We both had flu shots. Entire family including the wee one had flu shots. And, hubs & I actuLally received the extra-strength-for-old-people dosage!!
So did we – the extra strength one. This must be another strain. So, so sorry!