Mockingbird Hill Cottage — Page 1491 — Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Volunteers Welcome

July 12, 2012 at 9:28 am by Claudia

Could these little volunteer impatiens be any more charming? They have flourished in the shade provided by the little wooden bench.

But they’re popping up in other little nooks and crannies, as well.

It’s as if Mother Earth has decided a delightful surprise is in order. (And believe me, I can use a delightful surprise.)

Every time I look out the kitchen door (which is often since it leads to the dog corral) I get to feast my eyes on these little pretties.

Oh lord, it’s been so HOT here. Endless blazing sun. Everywhere we go, we see huge patches of brown grass, the rivers are really low – we desperately need some rain. Late yesterday afternoon, while the sun was still shining, there was one of those impromptu summer rains. It didn’t last all that long, but any moisture is welcome at this point.

Thanks for all the responses to my “Meticulous Housekeeper” post. For me, it’s the dusting that I neglect. I swiffer and vacuum every day, the kitchen is always picked up, especially since the kitchen and the living room are really one big space. But dusting? I avoid it until I have to. And I’m allergic to house dust, so what’s preferable? Leaving the house dust alone or stirring it up with a duster? Hmmm.

Yesterday I was scheduled for two posts: a TLC book review and a post about beautiful Connecticut in conjunction with BlogHer and Connecticut Tourism. Make sure you visit both of these posts. I’m giving away a copy of the book I reviewed. And if you leave a comment on the Connecticut Tourism post, you win a chance to win $1000 to help plan your trip to that lovely state!

Have a lovely Thursday.

The Arts are Alive and Well in Connecticut!

July 11, 2012 at 8:00 am by Claudia

I’ve been to Connecticut many times in my life. It’s a beautiful state, full of thriving cities, picturesque small towns, a beautiful shoreline and lovely countryside. Now that I live in New York state, I have the opportunity to visit Connecticut more often. And this year, through my work as a Voice, Speech & Dialect coach, I have been privileged to work at two of Connecticut’s premiere regional theaters. Through working in Hartford and New Haven, I was able to see and experience the thriving arts communities in both these cities.

I just got back from spending 5 weeks in Hartford working at the Tony Award winning Hartford Stage. The Hartford Stage was founded in 1963 by Jacques Cartier (who I was privileged to work with years later at Boston University) in a former grocery store warehouse. It has grown to become one of the leading regional theaters in the country. The productions are consistently excellent, the staff is wonderful and the new Artistic Director, Darko Tresnjak, is someone I’m proud to call a friend.

One of the great things about working out of town is the chance I get to explore the city I’m in. Hartford is a wonderful mixture of modern office buildings and beautifully restored historic buildings. It has a gorgeous park – Bushnell Park – right in the middle of the city.

It’s a great walking city. I was able to get to most of my destinations quite easily. And if I couldn’t walk, I could hop on a bus – the bus system is great. If you don’t have a car, a quick bus ride will take you to the Mark Twain House, where Samuel Clemens lived from 1874 -1891 and where he wrote The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Prince and the Pauper, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Right next door is the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center. Imagine, Stowe (the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which was a ground-breaking abolitionist novel) and Samuel Clemens were next door neighbors! She lived in this residence for the last years of her life.

I spent a lovely afternoon at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, founded in 1842, a gorgeous museum filled with art, sculpture, antiquities and decorative arts. This is the perfect-sized museum, not so big that it becomes overwhelming, but big enough to make the visit more than worthwhile. The museum has an incredible collection of Hudson River School landscapes. While I was there, there was an Andrew Wyeth exhibition going on as well as an exhibition on the Civil War.

This is a museum that I will go back to again and again. Their collection is vast. The gift shop is wonderful and there is a lovely cafe that is open for lunch Wednesday through Sunday.

Last January found me in New Haven working at the Tony Award winning Long Wharf Theatre. This amazing theater, founded in 1965 in a food terminal building by the New Haven harbor, has long been a leader in regional theater, presenting classic and contemporary theater. Over 30 of the Long Wharf’s productions have transferred to Broadway and off-Broadway. When I was just out of college, one of my first regional theater experiences as an audience member was at the Long Wharf. My husband, an actor, worked there a few years ago and loved the experience. My experience this past January was equally rewarding.

New Haven has a long history of exciting theater; for many, many years plays and musicals heading to Broadway had an out-of-town tryout in New Haven. If you go to New Haven, try to schedule a visit to the Long Wharf. You’ll see cutting edge, exciting theater. There’s also the famous Yale Repertory Theatre – another Tony Award winning theater – that is linked to the well-known Yale School of Drama. That’s two Tony Award winning theaters in one town!

Yale University’s beautiful campus is in New Haven, and a host of museums, as well. There is the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, the Yale Center for British Art, and the Connecticut Children’s Museum.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the famous Goodspeed Opera House in East Haddam, the home of Goodspeed Musicals. This wonderful theater’s mission is to “preserve and produce musical theatre of the highest quality.” And they do.

There’s so much more! Connecticut is a beautiful state and I know you’ll love exploring it.

Which Connecticut destination would you like to visit? Leave a comment below and you will be entered into a sweepstakes from BlogHer to win $1,000 to help you plan your trip!
For travel information and inspiration, visit CTVisit.com!
Visit BlogHer.com to read other Connecticut travel stories.
Sweepstakes Rules:
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You may receive (2) total entries by selecting from the following entry methods:
a) Leave a comment in response to the sweepstakes prompt on this post
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c) Blog about this promotion and leave the URL to that post in a comment on this post
d) For those with no Twitter or blog, read the official rules to learn about an alternate form of entry.
This giveaway is open to US Residents age 18 or older. Winners will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail. You have 72 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected.
The Official Rules are available here.
This sweepstakes runs from 6/14 to 8/8.

Book Review: Night Watch by Linda Fairstein

July 11, 2012 at 1:00 am by Claudia

Today’s review for TLC Book Tours is Night Watch by Linda Fairstein. As always, I am provided with a copy of the book in exchange for my honest review.

Night Watch is part of a series of mysteries written by Linda Fairstein, a former New York City prosecutor. The protagonist is Alexandra Cooper who is an attorney who heads the Sex Crimes Unit and works under the District Attorney of New York City. In this book, Alexandra is visiting her boyfriend Luc, a well-known restauranteur who lives in France, when a woman’s body is found. The woman is found to have ties to Luc’s restaurant. With the woman’s murder still unresolved, Alex is called back to Manhattan to investigate an accusation of rape made by a hotel chambermaid. The accused rapist is a famous figure, Mohammed Gil-Darsin – obviously modeled after the recent real-life case involving Dominique Strauss-Kahn, former head of the International Monetary Fund. Meanwhile another body is found in New York City that also has a connection to Luc and his new restaurant venture in Manhattan.

If you like watching Law and Order SVU and are drawn to that kind of police/prosecutor/courtroom procedural, you’ll most likely enjoy this mystery. Fairstein’s years of experience create a very real, detailed account of the prosecutorial process and the ways in which prosecutors and detectives in the Sex Crimes Unit work together to solve a crime and bring the perpetrator to justice. All of that detail rings true.

I read one of Fairstein’s mysteries several years ago and haven’t read one since. This time, however, I encountered the same problems I had with the previous book. Purely on a personal level, I had trouble connecting to Alex Cooper. She’s written with a slightly detached quality, not unlike Kay Scarpetta in the Patricia Cornwell books, that makes it difficult for me to care about her. Both protagonists are good at what they do and that slight sense of cool detachment serves them in their work. And maybe the sheer amount of procedural detail that the protagonist has to tell us about keeps her character from being fully realized. For whatever reason, I can’t quite jump in the pool with Alexandra.

Also, there’s too much time spent on the history of a famous restaurant or stories of prohibition or any number of historial references uttered by some of the characters. They serve to stop the flow of the story line and I suspect we really don’t need to know all that information. It could have been condensed into one or two sentences, making the dialogue much more believable. Instead, it sticks out as a device used by the author to tell us the history of things and it doesn’t ring true. To be honest, I got tired of these long winded digressions and started to skip over them.

The plot itself is woven together pretty neatly. However, I find it distracting to read about a character based on a recent real-life incident. I can never fully lose myself in the story because I’m constantly comparing what I know about the true story to what’s being written on the page. It serves as another distancing element.

Having said all that, there’s much in this mystery that will entertain the reader. I know that Fairstein’s mysteries are very popular and I’m sure some of you have read some, if not all, of the books in the series. The detail about what it’s like to be a prosecutor in Manhattan is fascinating and very believable. And the characters in the Sex Crimes Unit who work with Alex are very interesting. Add a dash of the politics that go along with the job and Fairstein creates a realistic environment and a compelling mystery.

About the Author:

Linda Fairstein was chief of the Sex Crimes Unit of the district attorney’s office in Manhattan for more than two decades and is America’s foremost legal expert on sexual assault and domestic violence. Her Alexandra Cooper novels are international best sellers and have been translated into more than a dozen languages. She lives in Manhattan and on Martha’s Vineyard.

If you’d like to win a copy of Night Watch, please leave a comment on this post. You have until Friday evening, when I will pick the winner. Good luck!

Volunteers Welcome

The Arts are Alive and Well in Connecticut!

Book Review: Night Watch by Linda Fairstein

Lambs Like to Party

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