Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Zinnias, Books & Baseball

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The zinnias, bless them, are still going strong, with new flowers still emerging. They are my late-in-the-season gift.

I am not a fan of Monday holidays. But here we are. I suppose I don’t like the fact that there’s no mail delivery, more than anything. Also, when I was teaching in an actor training program and coaching theater – and when I was an actress as well – Monday was our day off. Our only day off. So having a holiday on that day made going to the bank and the post office next to impossible. It’s a bit different now in that you can deposit a check with an app, but the post office is still an impossibility.

I finished The Stone Circle  by Elly Griffiths and have ordered The Lantern Men, which is next. Then I’ll be ready to read her latest, which I believe is still in hardcover. I have a stack of books ready to take to Brooklyn with me, including the latest by Louise Penny, John Connolly, Amor Towles, and Anthony Doerr.

Imogen, sitting on the tiny cardboard suitcases I bought on Amazon. I needed some cute way to store the girls’ clothes other than the shoe box I had been using. I told her she could share everything with Sophia and she was delighted. I haven’t yet broken the news that they’re leaving home for six weeks. It’s too soon.

Red Sox again tonight. Last night’s game, for some inexplicable reason, was only carried by MLB TV, and we don’t subscribe to it. So major league baseball, despite their mission to gain a viewing audience, shot themselves in the foot. Most of their viewers rely on accessible cable tv to view the games and yours truly was not about to subscribe for one game. So, the evening turned a bit surreal as I held my phone and followed along with the game on both the Red Sox and MLB sites. Don sat on the sofa with his eyes closed while I announced balls, strikes, who was on base, etc. Since the game lasted 13 innings, this was a long and tedious process. Tonight, thank goodness, it’s available.

We won, by the way.

Okay. Have to coach Ben today.

Stay safe.

Happy Monday.

 

My Need for Play

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It’s a gray day today but I find it beautiful. It’s a Sunday so our normally busy road is quiet. The autumnal colors are just gorgeous and with a cloudy sky they have become muted and almost sepia-like.

I’m going to rest today. Between working on Anastasia, coaching Ben three times via Zoom, and wrestling with blog problems, it’s been an intense week. (By the way, the blog is fixed.) Today? Reading, some laundry and cleaning (but only a little) some list-making and then, later in the afternoon, the Red Sox.

In two weeks I’ll be heading to Brooklyn. It once seemed so far off, but now it’s just around the corner. I’ve never been on a movie set, I have no idea where to go or where I will work on that set but I’m going to ask Jim to show me around.

I’m more and more convinced that I need ‘play’ in my life. Of course, the theater is  play in the purest sense of the word. But in my downtime, I also need to play. Dollhouses, miniatures, stuffed animals, charming little egg cups, and now, Blythe dolls in the form of Sophie and Imogen.

You remember ‘playing dolls.’ That’s what we used to call it in my neighborhood. Not ‘playing with my dolls’, but ‘playing dolls’. “I’m going to go play dolls with Kay, Mom!” Kay, my dear friend of, I think, 65 years or so, lived on the next block. Her parents were my godparents. They also happened to give me my first egg cup. Kay and I would play with Barbies for hours – sometimes at her house, sometimes at mine. Edith, my godmother, had big books of wallpaper samples. I can see them even now. We found patterns we liked and papered the inside of our Barbie cases. I used a dixie cup suspended with a piece of pipe cleaner as a hanging light. We also made houses out of shoeboxes. All of this was the precursor to the fairly recent reappearance of dollhouses and miniatures in my life. And now, dolls are reappearing.

Play. It’s so important to me. It grounds me in a way nothing else can, especially during these tumultuous times.

I was coaching Ben recently. I use our office and I carefully try to position my laptop so that Ben can’t see the Beacon Hill or Don’s collection of Big Boys. But, eagle-eyed Ben has, on two separate occasions, noticed both of those things. And he was fascinated – wanted to see the dollhouse up close. So I gave him a little tour. I briefly wondered if he might think me wildly eccentric. I don’t think he does. It turns out his mom has a dollhouse she wants to work on.

Am I becoming a bit more eccentric as I get older? Most likely. But I hope it’s a pleasant eccentricity – harmless and maybe even a little interesting.

Stay safe.

Happy Sunday.

Imogen

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Yesterday, my server/host was apparently migrating accounts to a new system or something or other (after a bit, my brain shuts down all technical info.) That caused the blog to be down for some of you, which happened west to east through several time zones, which is why some of you saw “This account has been suspended” messages before I did. Not a good choice as it made us all look like we had done something wrong. I was also – and still am – dealing with a problem with the email associated with this blog. I’m not getting any of your comments sent to me, my replies aren’t being sent to you, and I’m not receiving warnings about attempts to hack the blog. That is still a problem and I have to call someone and deal with it today, though the tech I spoke to yesterday suspected it had to do with the migration. But, the blog is back up and running, and the other problem still exists.

The tech aspects of this blog can be exhausting. Anyway. I don’t think you’ll be receiving my replies in the near future until this gets ironed out, so just check back in later in the day to join in the conversation. Thanks for your patience!

I coached Ben yesterday and dealt with all the blog craziness, and in the middle of it all, this package arrived from Minsk, in Belarus. For quite a while, I was worried whether it would actually get here! What do you think was inside?

Meet Imogen! I’m besotted, my friends. I first saw her on Etsy and I fell in love with her gamine look. I couldn’t get her out of my mind. She has the most beautiful eyes, though I’m only showing you one set today. This is exactly how she came to me – in this outfit, with the bunny in her arms. The seller also included another dress, a hat, and a chocolate bar from Belarus with all the text in Russian.

I’ve always loved the name Imogen. She’s a character in Shakespeare’s Cymbeline, which is where I first fell in love with the name. And there are actresses and famous photographers with that name. Truth be told, when I looked at her on Etsy, I knew that would be her name.

I’m so glad she’s here!

Sophie, ever cautious and shy, watched me unwrap her. And then they met.

Sophie seems to be saying “Who IS this?”

But soon enough, I could hear laughter from the den.

Imogen has faint freckles on her forehead.

There’s a whole world of “Blythe” body adaptions out there. Sophie has the standard body and her head doesn’t tilt at all. So that makes photographing her somewhat challenging, as her head tilts down a bit. Imogen came with what is called a neck adapter or neck joint, which is added to the original neck to brace the head and make it possible for the head to tilt forward, back and to the sides.

I have plans to adapt Sophie’s body and neck in the future. That’s a whole other conversation: what bodies to use, what neck adapters. Some of the videos I’ve watched are very helpful, but I’m also a bit wary of trying anything too risky. But, then again, I am used to cutting and building and adapting, so I suspect I’ll be fine.

It’s fun to have two of them to play with. Part of the fun is dressing them in the scads of clothes available out there and posing them for photographs. Some Blythe owners take such inventive photographs.

Okay. I have to coach Ben at one, have to figure out the situation with the email on my blog, blah, blah, blah.

Stay safe.

Happy Saturday.

 

Lambs Like to Party

Lambs Like to Party

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