Slab update: Whatever had melted or was in the process of melting froze again last night because the temperatures went down to the teens. Oh joy. So I’m going to get this post up quickly because I have to go outside and salt that damned thing.
And the extended forecast, which I realize could well change, is not very comforting on the snow front, starting with this coming Monday. I have to figure out what would be optimal in terms of a trip into the city. But not now because my brain is a bit too foggy.
Winter just seems to involve more: shoveling, salting, hacking away at ice, making sure the faucets drip if it gets too cold out there, hauling the humidifier from room to room, refilling it, putting on layers just to get the mail, boots on, boots off. It’s an energy sapper.
Okay. Enough kvetching.
The studios where Don is rehearsing are the same studios where I have worked many, many times. It’s fascinating to travel up and down in the elevator and have the doors open on another floor to find Hamilton in rehearsal, or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, or Anastasia, or Hello, Dolly. You often share the elevator with famous people in the theater world; directors, actors, designers, composers. Elevators are the great equalizer. Everyone smiles and nods or says hello and then it’s silence until the lobby doors open. Last time I was there, Kevin Kline and I shared an elevator. Yesterday, Don shared an elevator with Glenda Jackson! I love that. Everyone is there for the same reason; to work, to rehearse and to create. And they all have to take the elevator, famous or not famous.
Rehearsals are going well; there are some changes to the script, which is to be expected, and the cast and creatives are all happy to be back together.
Now in a Guy Wolff pot.
Okay. I have to get out there and salt the darned ice slab.
Happy Thursday.
Glenda Jackson! Wow.. New York…sigh 😊
Carefully salting and chopping ice!
Just about to go out and salt, Debbie!
Salt that slab! I am most thankful I don’t live up North during the winter. I love to hear the stories of theater life. Elevators, the great equalizer! I’m doing better today and got a shower! Yay but boy did it wear me out!
It’s beautiful – at times – but it’s a pain! So glad you got a shower! That must feel good!
I was hoping your new plant would get a Guy Wolff pot and it did (surprise ending). Salt. Wait. Salt etc. Ice slabs are mean and dangerous. Thanks Claudia for every post you write. I read them all first thing every morning. Hugs.
Joy
They sure are dangerous! Thank you for your kind words, Joy!
not the kind of “salt! salt! salt!” i’d want to do, either! be careful out there.
my elevator claim-to-fame story happened a long time ago when I was 15. my brother, sister and i were on a choir tour in england. over ten days, we sometimes stayed in people’s homes, other times in a hotel. one evening we were going to our hotel rooms, along with some other members of our group, and the elevator doors opened and there was buddy ebsen! having grown up watching “the beverly hillbillies”, we were a little star-struck and giggled and whispered. i don’t recall it, but hopefully someone in our group thanked him for his work (and tolerance of our giggles and whispers). :)
kathy in iowa
How neat! I always liked Buddy Ebsen. Such a long and honorable career!
am sure it’s from the roles he portrayed, but he’s always seemed like he would be a kind man and a nice neighbor to have. kind of like jimmy stewart or john hiatt.
kathy in iowa
Yes.
Good luck on the dreaded ice slab! One of your commenters was telling of using table salt on ice a while back. So, hubby tried it on our deck, to help protect Bowser’s paws. Well…it works! So thank you to whoever suggested it. And to you…salt away, and don’t slip! ;)
I’d have to use a ton of table salt! Not practical for us, but I’m glad it worked for you!
How exciting – having Kevin Kline as an elevator companion! He’s one of my all-time favorites – SO versatile. He moves between heavy drama to comedies to musicals with [seemingly] no effort at all. That’s talent [in my opinion at least]. My own celebrity encounters are few. I met William Shatner when he did a one-man show at my college [in the mid-70s when he was in his mid-40s I’m guessing – and gorgeous]. I had a mad crush – for at least a week! And I met Jay Leno when he did a terrific 2-hour show at the university where I worked. That was the early 90s I think – definitely pre-Tonight Show. He was awesome – 2 solid hours with just a 10-min break. And, as my Mom said who went along as well, “Not a nasty word in the whole 2 hours!” I think that’s the full extent of my celebrity encounters. Some of my favorites I don’t think I’d ever want to actually meet, or even see in person. Weird I know, but to me I think it would take all the magic out of things. If I ever met Meryl Streep or Barbra Streisand, for example. They’d become ordinary human beings to me, I think. Better not risk it [not that there’s any danger of me meeting either one of course – LOL!]. Good luck with The Slab. Does NOT sound like fun. Try thinking of it as some good “exercise and fresh air time” maybe? Peace.
#Resist
#ProtectMueller
Well, I’ve met a lot of famous people over the years – it just comes with the territory. Mostly, they’re very nice. Rarely, they’re not. I’m not easily impressed anymore because I know they’re just people like us.
Oh I bet that’s TOTALLY true. I think that’s why I don’t want to meet my own personal “heroes.” Then I’ll know they really are just ordinary goobers like all the rest of us! LOL.
xo
Kvetch all you want! You know we all do the same. I was just out salting a bit on our walks. It has been pretty nice during the day, but every night it re-freezes all that melted during the day. Surely don’t want the mail lady to fall as she goes about her appointed rounds! So, as Don, we are all seemingly keeping tabs on the lost shaker of salt!!!!
Hope the remainder of your Thursday goes well. My daughter is flying off to Iceland today. She is hoping to see some wonderful Northern Lights. Hope the weather cooperates for her and for you as you plan your next journey.
Exactly. I had to stay home to wait for the FedEx guy because I wanted to guide him across the lawn rather than the driveway area right outside our patio. He would surely have fallen.
I’ve seen the Northern Lights only once, but I well remember how awe inspiring it was. I can’t imagine how cool it would be in Iceland!
Careful with the salting, Claudia. What is Glenda Jackson in? I haven’t heard or seen her in a long time. I’m guessing she’s as active in her profession as Maggie Smith or Judi Dench, they are all around the same age, but the latter two take on roles that are more visible in the US.
Glenda served in the British Parliament for 20 years. She left acting to go into politics. She’s recently left Parliament and is just now acting again. She played King Lear in Britain and she’s now rehearsing for Three Tall Women by Edward Albee (also starring Laurie Metcalf.)
Fun to hear of this! I always liked her and she has such an impressive resume as an actor. Gosh, isn’t she like 80 now or something? One of my fave movies back in the day was from the 70s with her and actor George Segal, called “A Touch of Class.”
She’s in her early eighties. Such an incredible actress!
It seems like the only place I’m gonna get away from California wildfire is the Great Lakes/Northeast but then there’s the tradeoff of the cold, snowy winters which my husband wants no part of – – so, a conundrum, for me. I’d like to get away from California earthquakes, too. (I live on a fault line.) Not to mention neverending drought. Have you read about this situation in Cape Town, South Africa, to where the city is actually forecasted to run out of water by April, such that (as of 2/1/18) the populace is under mandatory order to not use more than 13 litres of water per day? I had to look that up; it’s just over 3 gallons of water. And that includes water for pets. They have completely dried-up reservoirs there. Anyone who can leave the city (indefinitely) is advised to do so.
I keep coming up with the conclusion that there’s nowhere really optimal to live! I’ve read that Ohio could be good. Has fewer natural disasters. But I was there in June of a year (Columbus) and it was a humid/hot mess. And a cousin of mine lived temporarily in Cleveland with a very severe winter.
Today marks the 7th week I have been nonstop coughing, since the smoke got to me about a week after the December fires here. I’m so over it. And back to the doctor tomorrow because I just can’t get well. I’m really run down; exhausted. I can’t go through a wildfire like this ever again. And we will always have wildfire here (apparently even more of it, due to climate change; I’ve done extensive reading on the subject).
Sorry about your ice slab; it’s hard for me to visualize what it actually is, and what your life is out there, in winter, in the country. I know virtually nothing about your weather (living in it, with it!). If the ice isn’t broken up, does it undermine the integrity of your driveway? It must be immense weight. So the salt does something to help melt the ice, right?
It’s a huge piece of ice that formed from snow melting onto the driveway where I park and then freezing suddenly when we had a drastic drop in temperature. It’s about two to three inches thick and it covers an area about 6 feet by 5 feet.
We live in the country where no one has cement driveways and very few have asphalt driveways. Our driveways are dirt covered with gravel, so it has no effect on the driveway.
Okay, I understand better now. Out here, it’s mostly cement or brick/tile driveways; very few asphalt ones left. And of course we never have snow/ice. Your country driveway in wintery January sounds intimidating; it’s a good-sized piece for you to be working on all by your lonesome! I guess you don’t need one more concerned reader to say, “Be careful out there, Claudia!”
I’m already so over winter – and it’s still January!
You and Don live such a different life than I, so it is interesting to hear little tidbits of what it is like. Many, many years ago I volunteered for the PGA Golf tournament held in the Hartford area, and my job was to drive to the air port and pick up the celebrities who where flying in for the pro-am and bring them to their hotel. My assignment was Greg Morris from the old Mission Impossible series. When I arrived at the baggage area to meet him there was Andy Williams and he asked if I was there to pick him up, and I had to tell him I could not take him to the hotel, someone else would be along. The things we remember!
Too bad! It would have been fun to talk to Andy Williams! (and Greg Morris, as well!)
Hope your ice slab removal goes well. It is 5 degrees centigrade in Chicacgo and all of the snow is melting, it feels so warm in the sun I hardly know what to do with myself and my little hairless Mexican dog is very happy. Although I know it won’t last.
It’s supposed to warm up here on the weekend. Then it’s supposed to snow on Monday and Tuesday. The problem is that it warms up for two days and then freezes again, which is what happened last night. It had greatly improved but the temp went down to the teens so everything that was melting froze again.
I think the only thing that is getting me through this winter is that we have a warm up every few days before another cold snap hits. It’s almost February and then before we know it March will be here. I can’t wait. xo Laura
I love the warmups, but I don’t love that it’s not enough to thaw the ice completely! Next thing I know, it’s freezing again!
Be careful with that ice. A few years ago I slipped in my driveway and fell face down and received a bloody nose,black eye and a bump on my forehead. I was not a pretty sight.
Marilyn
I’m always careful, Marilyn! Thank you.
That ice slab just refuses to give up the ghost doesn’t it? lol…Glenda Jackson is acting again…how wonderful!…The closest encounter I had with a celebrity would be talking with Davy Jones of the Monkees when he lived a little way down the road from me…the last time was shortly before he died while at his home in Florida…
Loved Davy Jones!