Siege - Days 43 and 44

The last couple days have been enlivened (en-gloomed?) by sickness in the house.  Not (we hope, we're pretty sure) the virus, but the recurrence of something from over a year ago.  Good timing, huh?

So the last couple days and nights - long nights - have been in Gatorade Land.  You've visited there, you know.  Tell you what, tele-medicine is a bit weird.  It seemed to work okay.  Well, no, the teleconference had those inevitable teleconference problems, in this case picture but no sound, so that doctor and patient ended up seeing each other via internet, but talking via phone.  But the essentials were fine.  Crude but effective.

Set design book progress has halted temporarily... simply because I can't concentrate.  Instead I've been hand sewing more face masks from old scenic fabric scraps.  I've found a pleated pattern that seems easier when sewing by hand.  

And I've starting painting the front door.  

Thank goodness for projects!

Siege - Days 40, 41, and 42

It suddenly occurs to me that we have been doing this for longer than Noah's cruise.

Slightly less damp is all.

It's been a weekend of heads-down projects: beach house drawings, stripping paint off of the front door in order to repaint it, and adding paint to the new flower pot that was the best thing I could find.  (In olden days of 6 weeks ago - I'd have visited 3-4 other stores to find exactly what I wanted.  Now I say, "Close enough.")  Today was planting in that newly painted pot.  I'm also sewing several fabric face masks... this time with a classy pineapple print fabric.

It's cool.

public domain image

Siege - Days 38 and 39

Yesterday was interesting.

We staged a bit of a jail break here... at least as far as our favorite pizza place for take-out.  (Well and my car got its battery charged, because it's been a week and a half since last used.)  

So we got take-out and then very daringly ate it while still hot in the nearby park.  All the while expecting Authority to tell us to go home.  It was delicious.  And then we went home.  We were careful not to throw the box away there but to take it home, not to get our pizza joint in trouble.  

Wild excitement!  The pizza crew were so glad to see us - recognized us, which I didn't expect - and gave us a free salad and the tip to ask for the "locals discount" in future.

Grimaldi's.  Best pizza.  Coal fired and worth the drive from here.  (Besides, the car needed charging.)  Our next restaurant take-out, like our very first, will have to be from our Momo's Italian Kitchen on Forest Lane.  So far, for obvious reasons, we've been strictly limiting trips out of the house, so when we do go, we make sure it's to places we love.

public domain image

The other excitement-ish yesterday was a tele-vid interview for WaterTower Theater.  Not quite sure what they're going to do with it.  It continues to amaze me how long it takes to set up lighting, clean up the background etc. etc. to get ready for these things and still the app jambs up in some way (choice of sound / no picture or picture / no sound this time).   

Today so far is new-routine: breakfast, newspaper, greet the plants (the mint shivers when it sees me now - I've taken up mint julips), email, blog, write on the book  (rewriting "Chapter 7 - Documentation" because who knew computer drafting would remain a thing?).  Later, lunch.  (Meals have become big 'round here.) More writing.  Dinner  (See?)  A walk.  Read.  Bed.

Not a bad new routine.  

Siege - Days 36 and 37

It's come to this - not only do I only know what day of the week this is because yesterday was Garbage Day, but I can't find my calendar.  When did I even look at it last?

(Walking in the neighborhood across the street I saw a whole row of recliner / movie chairs set out on the curb.  Either to be hauled away as trash... or to comfortably watch The Trash Truck Show, the biggest excitement in our stuck-at-home lives right now.)

Projects in progress are progressing... 

I finally escaped from rewriting Chapters 5 and 6 of the second edition of Alice Through the Proscenium (I'd been trapped there for days, adding material, but mostly trying to impose order and logic.)  Chapter 7 is not fighting back as hard... so far.

The imaginary beach house is spawning imaginary additions and gardens.  Feel very satisfied to have located the imaginary rain collection tank (for imaginary rain) so neatly.  Next, I will imagine imaginary decorative and Rube Goldbergian downspouts, gargoyles, gutters, strainers, water-dumpers, and completely unnecessary spinny, twirly, wind-socky, weathervane-y, rain-gage-y accoutrements  for it.  I want a crazy water contraption / sculpture!  With a side of sea food, please.

Basically, a marine life version of these crazy birds at Houston's The Orange Show.

The Orange Show - photos by G. DeVries

Aren't they great?

No imaginary castles to map at the moment, but a friend's very real garden needs mapping.  That'll be fun!  (Almost as much fun as those wild birds.)

Siege - Day 35

Oh man! I wish I had the imagination/patience/washable floor to do this!

Remember "Pass the Salt" on Day 25?  HERE

Well, here's "Pass the Pepper: Social Distancing is Nothing to Sneeze At."

Madness! Crazy imagination!  These guys are the best kinda nuts!

Siege - Days 31, 32, 33, and 34

Boy

This thing just keeps on going, doesn't it?  It's the Energizer Bunny of Home Alone(ish) Pandemics.

So what's been going on here at Studio Seclusion?  

Continuing work on the second edition of my Alice set design book.  My momentum is increasing...  Several new illustrations, including this one, for a section talking about theater soft goods like this cut-drop:

(I like that I managed to work into that sketch both Tenniel's famous image of Alice pulling back a curtain AND his rose-painting card.  (Five of Spades was always literally painting scenery - roses - so he was always a scenic painter.)

Currently hacking at a study model of a beach house.  Still doing worksheets of various Social Security filing strategies.  Still cooking, eating, watching tomatoes grow.  Watching - Friday Night - Kitchen Dog Theater's online production of 62 coronavirus 1-minute plays.  Very interesting.  The plays varied, some sad or angry, many worried, some funny.  Most striking to me were the plays about the late mother's recipe... what soup did it use?  Never thought someone saying "Cream of Celery Soup" would tear me up.  The one played by two roaches (played with glee by two of KD's best actors) was very funny.  Most memorable line of the night was, "I never thought the apocalypse would be so domesticated."

Me neither.

We did have one out-of-house experience, a trip to officially observe a fire station under construction (gloves, masks, hard hats) and a trip to the fancy grocery store (where the hard hat might have been a comfort - shopping is so weird now).  At the construction site there were huge bilingual signs commanding you to have your temperature taken and to wear masks etc. - plus a clever hand-washing station - but only a few of the sparse Saturday work crew seemed to be bothering with all that.  At the fancy grocery store the metered line for entry was a block long, masks were mandatory, and grocery staff saw to it that rules were followed.  We bought a bag of mussels, so dinner was those mussels with a yellow curry sauce and good bread and possibly the perfect wine.  Very tasty.

On the reading front, I just got a copy through the mail of Sarah Ruhl's 100 Essays I Don't Have Time to Write.  Just started dipping into them, but so far it's both thoughtful and funny.  I got to design a couple of her plays:  In the Next Room (or the Vibrator Play) and Stage Kiss.  Both turned out well, but Vibrator is the one I'm most happy with.

In the Other Room (or the Vibrator Play) at Kitchen Dog Theater

Here's a close up of the inglenook area:

In the Other Room... I sure do like details...

I like detail.  On the how-to side, those bricks were all carved by hand (by me) with a flexible snap-blade knife into sheets of stiff, fine-grained foam (not that expanded polystyrene beer cooler stuff). 

On into the week ahead... 

Siege - Day 30

Mostly recovered from my funk of yesterday.

It is no coincidence that today I am wearing my happiest yellow socks!

(Okay, okay, but yellow socks can't hurt.  Sometimes any mood enhancing measures that can be used should be used, whether that's pizza for dinner, favorite shirts, or upbeat music. 29 days of this weird hermit-life is a loooong time.)  Thank goodness the sun is out today.

Public domain image, modified... he's probably wearing yellow socks too

  Another hour of professional continuing education - this time on Building Envelopes.  Plus several productive hours updating my set design book, Alice Through the Proscenium.

I guess Today's Lesson Is:  Keep Going...

I should embroider it on a sampler.

Siege - Days 28 and 29

In a funny mood here...

Pretty much sick of my own cooking, but can't muster the energy to go out for or send out for someone else's... it'll get cold and unappealing... it doesn't even sound appealing...and don't know what I want anyway...

Yet the last couple days of quarantine have been just fine: fighting an epic and successful battle against aphids to save my little eggplants (soapy water rules!); coming up with a possible elevation for an imaginary beach house (and after I swore never to use a rain screen too); surviving on Minecraft in a hostile world; surviving yet another struggle with the growing bamboo (if it quit raining it would quit growing); and battling successfully with the Social Security website until they were forced to let me sign in!!!

If that's not success, what is?

Still I feel... 

....How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable

seem to me all the uses of this world!

Fie on't!  O fie! 'tis an unweeded garden,

That grows to seed...

Public domain weed

Tomorrow I'll see the the beauty in it again - just this minute I just see the weeds.

I would love to just go out to dinner, you know?