You’ve seen the lights, now here’s some of the flock!
Can You Hear the Ocean?
Flamingo Poseur
Two Flamingos
water color, flamingos, sea
Pink and Coral Still Life
Florida Tip Trays
Posted in Peter Coddles | Tagged Flamingo hand painted tin, radio, retro | 2 Comments »
Apparently there was a mass exodus of flamingos from the Florida Keys. Luckily I had the bathroom window open a crack and LOTS of them flew in. Read COLLECTION! I tried to photograph the room where they have roosted but it wasn’t quite possible so instead I took photographs of these beautiful pink and coral specimens wherever they happened to land. In the midst of the flock there are Three Florida Kitsch Lights. This one’s for you, Heide!! Take note, there are only three, not six!!!
Large Shell and Coral Light
The Starfish Kitschy Light
Posted in Peter Coddles | Tagged flamingos, Florida kitsch, night light, plastic flamingos, sea shell | Leave a Comment »
Apparently a Mennonite code to live by or so we are led to believe in one hilarious instance and anecdote after another during the new to Broadway one woman show Everyday Rapture. Quite a week of ups and downs – from Teary Tuesday at the movies to Whoop it up Wednesday at the American Airlines theater on Broadway. I went to see Everyday Rapture on Wednesday evening, the one woman show by Sherie Rene Scott. Well not exactly one woman since she has two bodacious girls singing backup and a small band and one wild and crazy guy who appears towards the end of this 90 minute monologue marathon.
Sheri grew up as a half-Mennonite which is a living dichotomy and possibly explains her erratic, ecstatic, somber and solemn soliloquies, her energizer bunny hopping around the stage and her part Bollywood, part Saturday Night Fever dance routines. She is SO HIGH ENERGY! And funny!!! The audience was laughing and applauding the parodies and the autobiographical flashbacks into her life. As a youth struggling with the rigorous restrictions imposed by the Mennonite faith, Sheri was truly torn between two lovers! She refers to Jesus as her one true love but then admits to Judy Garland idolatry. She sang heavenly hymns in the choir and lip synced heavenly songs in Judy style. She and her favorite cousin, Jerome both loved Judy Garland, she because she always wanted to sing and he, well because we begin to suspect early on what is and what was not said but what was heavily implied. Poor Jerome, his lifestyle did not fit into the Mennonite world not even if he had been half-Mennonite.
Rumspringa is that special time in the adolescent life of a young Mennonite when he or she is allowed a little more freedom, a time to experiment with the English (as the outside world is known to them) and a time to sow a few oats before as an adult you will have chosen to be baptized into the community. You must do so with free will because they don’t want you if you don’t want them and just to prove that point, should a young Mennonite decide to leave their community, that person will be shunned by everyone even their family. Rumspringa is usually not more than a year but as in Sheri’s case, an extension has been granted and she figures she has had about 20 years of extensions and has been celebrating Rumspringa ever since!!
Prepare for the Rapture! Are you ready for the Rapture? If you can take an evening off from preparing or if you are all packed and ready to ascend into heaven leaving the rest of us behind, why not toodle over to Broadway and witness Everyday Rapture for yourself.
Everyday Rapture is the story of a young woman’s psycho-sexual-spiritual journey on the rocky path that separates her mostly Mennonite past from her mostly Manhattan future. With a cast led by Sherie Rene Scott, Everyday Rapture also features songs made famous by David Byrne, Roberta Flack, Mister Rogers, The Supremes, and Judy Garland.
April 19 – July 11, 2010
Packed My Trunk for Rumspringa
Posted in BY THE WAY, New York Speaks, Only in New York | Tagged broadway, everyday rapture, Mennonite, prepare for the rapture, Sheri Rene Scott, shunning | Leave a Comment »
Happy Spring Day!
Posted in Finley Ray | Tagged Finley Ray Clark, Finny | 4 Comments »
Mother and Child
How do you feel after a movie when you realize your emotions have been manipulated for the last 2 hours and 10 minutes? This is a tough question; it’s a movie after all! The intent is to draw you into the story, for you to relate to the characters. BUT, sometimes I get the feeling that the director has inserted so many ploys to tug at your heartstrings, to evoke an emotional knee jerk reaction that even though you know you’re being manipulated it’s just too much!
Movie example – many people I know will NEVER watch Sophie’s Choice again because it so rigorously and consistently plied you with the emotional equivalent of alcohol that when you leave the theater you are either high on heart-wrenching emotion or are ready to pass out from just tone too many gut-wrenching scene!
So Tuesday night we went to see Mother and Child and…… here’s my take on it. First of all I think you always have to be somewhat suspicious of a star-studded cast because some of these stars have agreed to play minor roles – it’s as if the Director called in all his markers. This movie features Naomi Watts, Jimmy Smitts, Annette Benning, Samuel L. Jackson, David Morse and Cherry Jones.
I’m going to come right out and be up front with the fact that from the onset, I think I may be not quite the right person to critique the movie based on the fact that I personally have Mother and abandonment issues. Having said that, my problem with the movie was that I was upset during most of it and distracted by my feelings and often found myself trying to figure out why I kept coming back to myself when clearly my life in no way paralleled the main characters of the movie.
This is a story told a few times over with slightly different twists to each incarnation of the same plot; girl gets pregnant, decides to give child up for adoption (or not) and with that decision comes lifelong fall out. How each character handles the decision (or not) and how the people around them are affected by the decision is certainly not a new or fresh concept. In fact I know I have reminded my children at different times that some of their decisions are like a stone thrown in a pond – watch the ripples and see how far they reach and how long it takes for them to dissipate. Just a fact of life, and unfortunately one that is not learned early enough in life by most of us. Ah but you might consider this a digression…. So what was my problem? Did I identify with the Naomi Watts character? God, I hope not, she was such a man-hater! No! There are universal emotions which affect all of us; abandonment, loss, death, guilt, despair – love seemingly was NOT one of the movie’s intentional ploys. Perhaps that not entirely fair since over the course of the movie, Annette Benning has a couple of epiphanies and learns to love a man, a child (although not her own) and even Naomi has an epiphany of sorts ( I missed it obviously since I went to the Ladie’s Room) and truly evolved into a persona not even remotely recognizable as the former man-hating promiscuous, aggressive bitch that she was. And really I was hardly gone 4 minutes, oh well that’s the m0vies for you.
There was hardly a dry eye in the theater – I could hear people all around me sniffling and snuffling. My eyes filled up, my throat tightened, I kept wiping the corners of my eyes. It was a teary Tuesday evening.
On the way home the four of us reviewed the movie and the performances as we are wont to do -out of the four, I am the only non-SAG member but still feel qualified to comment – after all I have seen A LOT of movies. The consensus went like this; Naomi is always good, Annette Benning looked old and then better, it was a good role for Samuel L. Jackson, there were a few directorial decisions that were too manipulative, parts of the movie were soooo predictable. You know a SAG audience is a tough room.
Anyway, I have tried very carefully not to reveal too much about the movie and it is 2 hours plus – do I think you should go see it? If you need a good cry and most of us do benefit from a cathartic cry, you should go see it!
Posted in BY THE WAY, Smooth or Crunchy | Tagged Annette Benning, Mother and Child, Naomi Watts, Samuel L Jackson | Leave a Comment »
The week hasn’t been going the way you want it to; annoyed with your boss, one of your friends has been thoughtless, an unexpected bill arrives, you have to go to the dentist, your child has not called in two weeks, you haven’t seen your grandchildren in months, spring sprung and then it got cold again, the cat knocked over the new plant just after you watered it and now wet mud is on the carpet, you went to get a bottle of red wine from the cupboard and there is ONLY room temperature white left, you’re making dinner when you realize you’re missing a necessary ingredient, your husband didn’t leave you enough milk for your breakfast, the green paint you bought to spray paint one of the wicker chairs is definitely NOT the same shade as the cap, you cut your finger while slicing onions and you’re crying aleady, he forget to set the DVR to record Grey’s Anatomy, your accountant charged you more for preparing your taxes than you thought he would, one of the cats threw up a hairball in the hallway and you stepped on it, your computer screen keeps jumping around like it has the jitters, you put dry cat food out at night for the cats and in the morning there are ants in the dish, after you insisted that your husband put some of the screens up, the weather turned cold, your husband tells you he lost his wedding band, the renter for whom you spent 2 days researching pied a terres shows up and tells you his wife has a dog she always travels with, you show up at an estate sale that has been cancelled, you actually knit an inch longer on the sweater sleeve than you were supposed to, your husband left the steel wool he was working with in the sink and now it has rusted, the lawn service guy mowed your lawn after you told him not to, oh no! there’s no toilet paper in the bathroom, you realize your husband forgot to get the oil changed on the SUV, the landlord promised to get you a new sink 3 months ago and so you buy the damn thing yourself and now have to haul it back to NYC, you discover that the DVD’s are overdue at the video store, you filled the bird feeder hoping the pair of cardinals would show up and instead three pigeons arrive, you open the door on Sunday morning and the New York Times is NOT there and when you arrive at Starbucks for your morning fix of a Grande Americano and you have no money left on your Starbucks card.
WHAT DO YOU DO?
A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words
Posted in BY THE WAY, Ha-P 2 B in OG | Tagged 1958 Metro, Metropolitan, Peter Press, SO CUTE, the Met | 1 Comment »
Inevitably anyone who visits me in our New York City apartment poses this question within moments of coming through the door. Our bedroom is just off the foyer and with door open it is only natural to glance in that direction and this is what they see…
What's Up with the Monkeys
Sock Monkeys!! I just love them – they are Soooo cute! I mean look at those faces. Each one is smiling a silly smile with big red lips and they all have attitude. Every morning when I put them back on the bed, I never know where they’ll land, which two might be entwined, who is going to be lounging and who will be sitting up straight and alert to what goes on around them. These monkeys are special because if you look closely they are all wearing hats. That gives them the right to be on the bed otherwise they must sit in the chair…
We Only Get to Sit in the Chair
Actually there is ONE VERY SPECIAL tiny monkey sitting on the chair. NOT because she doesn’t have a hat BUT because she is soooooo tiny, she would get crushed or lost on the bed. Meet Molly, she comes from Wisconsin. I know that seems strange since mostly they have cows and cheese there, not monkeys!
- Meet Molly
- Cheesehead – They Start Them Young
Molly was a gift from my friend, Joan. Joan discovered Molly among her mother’s belongings after she had passed away. It was such a loving gesture to fly Molly to New York from Wisconsin just so she (Molly) could have a home amongst her own here in NYC. And I’m happy to report that Molly is very happy to be here. I have no real idea as to why I started collecting Sock Monkeys (or anything else for that matter!). I didn’t have one as a child. I would see them from time to time at Flea Markets and in Antique shops. I bought one and was sort of hooked on them right off the bat. I don’t need to tell you how the others arrived do I? Hey it’s a collection! AND I am not alone – they’re everywhere. How did it all come about? Glad you asked…
John Nelson, an immigrant from Sweden arrived in the United States about 1860 and he patented a sock kitting machine in 1869 and began producing work socks in 1890. In 1932 the Nelson Knitting Company introduced the red heeled work sock which became their logo and gave birth to the iconic Sock Monkey. Through innovation, the company had been able to produce a sock that did not have a seam in the heel and became instantly popular. The popularity of the seamless sock was such that the market became flooded with imitators and all were known generically as Rockfords.
The country was in a Depression and many a mother, aunt and grandmother took creating homemade stuffed animals as toys for their children and that red heeled sock was just perfect for making a monkey and stuffing it with rags. The early sock monkeys were made with worn out socks Around 1951 the Nelson Knitting Company became aware of the Sock Monkey craze and the use of their socks, so they applied for a design patent for the pattern and won the suit in 1955. At that point, the company began including an instruction sheet on how to make the monkey with every pair of RockfordsSock Monkey started appearing in the company’s promotional marketing. ! The Rockford Knitting Company was sold to Fox River Mills in 1992 and the brown heather red heeled sock is still being produced, sold and made into Sock Monkeys!
Posted in Friends, Peter Coddles | Tagged cheesehead, Joan, John Nelson, Nelson Knitting Company, Red heel socks, Rockfords, sock monkey, Wisconsin, work socks | 3 Comments »
The Parade Looks Great from Up Here
I'm Queen of the World
Wearing the Easter Hat - Not Thrilled About
Posted in Finley Ray, New York Speaks, Only in New York | Tagged Easter hat, Easter Parade, Easter Sunday, Fifth Avenue, Tom Clark | 2 Comments »
LOTTO The Old Fashioned Way
Before the days of Scratch Off, Quik-Pik numbers and Mega Millions, there was LOTTO. This is a vintage game with graphics typical of the 50’s.
Posted in Peter Coddles | Tagged lottery, Lotto game | Leave a Comment »
Some people who have a cottage at the shore actually go to the beach. Why, when we didn’t have a cottage and we spent weekends at the Lilligaard Hotel, we used to go the beach, soak up the sunshine, read a book, totally relax and end the day on the big porch with a martini!!
That was then and this is now – There was no buffet for breakfast this morning with a bottomless cup of coffee. Instead, Peter made his own eggs while I toodled around with the computer and watched Sunday Morning. That was just my way of procrastinating, there were so many things on my To Do List and a good many I had put on Peter’s list.
I showered and ate and set out for my first stop which was to Susan’s BECAUSE once again, those damn knitting needles screwed up the sleeve of Finley’s sweater. And on my way over, I spotted balloons down the street, a sure sign of Spring in the Grove – YARD SALE! Not a lot to choose from BUT of course I found a few treasures; 2 DVDs, 2 books for the Grandbabies (I think the books are part of a fantasy of having the grandkids here and reading to them) and a very strange looking tool for Peter which I thought maybe he would clean up and sell at the Flea Market (that may be yet another fantasy). Susan fixed the sleeve in no time and I was off to Starbucks for my morning FIX of a Grande Americano with a lite splash of steamed brevi. Whenever I place that order I feel like I’m a DP from LA. A while ago I bought a travel mug at Starbucks for the car and so if you give it to the staff to fill instead of taking a paper cup and transferring in a moving car which is always a treat, lol, you actually receive a 10 cent discount. So I hand over my mug with my order and the barista hands it to me with the top not on. As I screwed on the top, very hot steamed espresso and half and half streamed out through the top making puddles on the counter and a mess all down the sides of the mug. FIRST I had to bring to her attention that I needed something to clean it up. She said “Oh I’ll clean it up, it happens all the time”. She wiped up the counter BUT I’m holding a mug that literally has foamy milk running down all of the sides and on my hand. NO OFFER to give me something to wipe it or me ,clean. I literally must have used 25 napkins to get all of the foam off the mug. It sounds silly, easy and stupid right? WELL, the mugs are covered in various spots with a rubberized and textured coating – all the better for the hot cream to adhere to! Wipe, wipe, wipe and wipe again. I tried sipping some of the brew so it would be below the screw top and still it came out. THIS IS RIDICULOUS! Wouldn’t you think the people who work for the company that sells the mug would know how high you can fill it? Why I felt funny about taking a photograph of it right then and there I don’t know – I had my camera with me and I should have snapped a shot of the total oozing mess. I wanted a picture for the blog BUT was embarrassed about taking a photo lest they think I was planning on sending it to corporate.
You can still see specks of foam on the mug
Finally I snapped a quick photo surreptitiously at the very end of the clean up. BUT I am going to write to Starbucks because a few weeks ago this very same girl was on the counter and when I asked her for the discount that she didn’t give me, she shrugged her shoulders and took a dime out of the tip container. I guess that was to make me feel foolish and petty when in fact she made the error. This same staff person on that same day looked at me blankly when I ordered a Tall black Pike’s and proceeded to give the robust coffee of the day.
Listen I know anyone can make a mistake, it’s not about that, it’s the attitude! Wouldn’t you think she would be concerned and apologetic that hot coffee was all over a Guest? Wouldn’t you think she would have glanced over and saw me ripping napkins out of the holders to wipe up the continuous puddling on the counter where the sugar and milks are? Wouldn’t you think she might have said something while I was frantically trying to clean up the mug – this while other guests were trying to add milk or sugar to their own drinks and I am standing there looking like the slob who spilled her coffee everywhere?
Once out the door I headed to Harmon Discount because all week long I had been waiting to buy two new eyebrow pencils and two blue eyeliners. THAT’S ALL I was going to get. Part of the spring cleaning of my make-up kit times two because as you know any lady worth her Oil of Olay has cosmetics and stuff at both of her dwellings. At least 3o minutes later I emerged from Harmon with just a few other items. You know when you go to the grocery store and you’re hungry, you come home with all kinds of snacks and goodies, well somehow the same phenomena struck me when I was in Harmon’s. For those of you who are not familiar with this store (it is a chain)-it sells discount cosmetics and toiletries, hair dryers, hair care products as well as brushes, clips etc. In other words it’s a fun place to browse through especially if you’re a girl even a girl of a certain age. So, 2 blue eyeliners – two different brands and two different colors, a water spray bottle to keep my forced curls curly, an eye shadow palette for hazel eyes because I am sure my brown eyes are fading, another eye shadow combo with some greens in it to replace the one I dropped on the bathroom tile floor, you know what that mess was like. Of course I needed two eyebrow pencils too and again two different shades, two different brands – I mention this only because you can imagine how much time was spent while I desperately tried to determine which product and shade was right. I think my Gemini side was in full force yesterday morning. – maybe my moon was rising. Then there was the replacement of a lip stain by Cover Girl that I really like and am almost out of, so I got one of those too. Just as I thought I was done (really) I spotted this eye brightener – now that is a ridiculous come on if I ever heard one because other than putting some magic drops in your eyes, what could this mere pencil do? Well we’ll find out!!! Leaving the store at the checkout counter, I thought to myself, I should never come in this store again when I’m hungry!!
Guiltily and quickly I headed home, picked up Peter and off we went to the storage area where we needed to drop off some New York street furniture find of his, return the Easter hats to their year long home and find a bank that we sold on Ebay which was supposed to be in a bin and was NOT. We are hoping it is somewhere in New York because it has been paid for and the buyer is awaiting shipment.
“What a great day to paint, don’t you think, Peter?” He promised to paint the trim around the windows in the bow window to match the front of the house. Last year we had picked out a beautiful shade of a green that is somewhere between sea glass and aquamarine and at the time we only painted the two front windows and the front door frame…I really wanted the windows on the ocean side of the house painted too.
Bay Window on La Vie en Rose
So after he painted the bow window frames, I drove past the house and sure enough the remaining two side windows stood out like the proverbial sore thumb! Thankfully it didn’t take much convincing to have him paint those also. So now our little cottage, La Vie en Rose has some color on the side. It’s hard to convince anyone it’s a little Victorian when it has white vinyl siding on it. Very bland, but I am adding color wherever I can and making it into a Confection of a Cottage inside and out!
Lest you think I was reading, knitting or writing this blog while he was working I was not! We had bought a huge bag of mulch two weeks ago and so I spread it among our bushes in the back, the daffodils on the side and cleaned up the front landscaping and put some there too. I know that doesn’t sound like a lot of work, but I had to fill a pail with the mulch, spread it, fill the pail again and again and again. Still, that was a lot easier than washing the mildew and moss off of the porch spindles and the edge of the porch floor. I scrubbed and scrubbed and it still doesn’t look great and I am trying to convince my painter that mildew will just eat its way through new paint and also some of the spindles and the lower balustrade need to be replaced, AND the porch floor could use some minor repair and a repainting and thank God our other home is an apartment with a Superintendent, handymen who clean the hallway carpeting and wash the floors, a trash room, a laundry room, a doorman and a garage.
All work, no play? NO WAY – as Sunday afternoon faded away, look how much fun we had doing our favorite Shore thing: Drinks and appetizers on the porch with friends! Doncha just love it?
Chilling on the porch
Savoring the evening's martini
Hors D'ouevres on the Front Porch
Posted in Everyday Food, Friends | Tagged beach, Gemini, Grande Americano, Harmon Discount, lilligaard Hotel, martini, Ocean Grove, Oil of Olay, sea glass, Starbucks, Susan, yard sale | 2 Comments »
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