California by train! The House on the Rock! August is almost over!
Although I haven't posted in quite a long while, I'm still here. I got a job May 2 and work half time for WI Coalition Against Domestic Violence, WCADV. I like it. I also like my work-day starting at 12:30 p.m. It seems to fit with my sleep schedule. I work as an administrative assistant and the work varies quite a great deal. The people I work with are good people and the atmosphere is quite relaxed. All days are jeans days, or sandal days, or dress-up days. It is a creative and open enviornment.
We have a garden this year! Tomatoes are as tall as I am and they have set some fruit. I have to keep water on them so they don't have problems. It is a big job. Still, they don't seem to be drying off. Maybe they are living on humidity. We have enough of that. There are also peppers and pole-beans, lots of herbs. Big bushes of basil needing to be harvested. I guess it is time for pesto. I also have a few lovely lemon verbena plants. As I find that to be a great tea ingredient I am glad it is growing so well.
The above was written quite awhile ago, in July, although still mostly stands. We are getting way too many tomatoes now. The garden is impressive and lately self-watering as we have had more regular rains.
Jim and I went to California at the beginning of August taking the Southwest Chief to Fullerton which is right next to La Habra where his brother lives. We went to their wedding and stayed in their large lovely house on a hill. Had great sea breezes through our bedroom windows. I was impressed with the climate of Orange County and with all the amazing things that can be grown in it. They had a loquat tree that was really a tree, not a stretched sparcely leafed skeleton like the one I have in a pot. Made me so sad for mine. They actually get lots of fruit from it as well. We got to the ocean to paddle in the waves. We went to Fullerton Arboretum which was beautiful but they forgot to identify the trees so my ignorance is still profound. Took lots of pictures. Wedding was very nice. Semi-formal outdoors at a golf course (Cherokee Hills.) Good music, lovely weather, lots of photographs, lovely buffet, a bit of dancing to DJ. There was a sort of open mike where Tom and Janet's barbershop friends performed. Tom and Janet put together a small group that sang Tom's arrangement and lyrics to The Pink Panther theme which was great.
The train ride went really well. I actually was able to sleep. Jim and I enjoy looking out the windows and taking lots of so-so pictures and entertaining our table companions in the dining car with our oh-so-sparkly wit. Lots of fun.
Joe Linzmeier who has been visiting since July took Jim, Alex, and me to the House on the Rock yesterday for a good-bye treat. None of us had ever been there so were more than a little intrigued. Alex read the appropriate chapter from American Gods while we drove. It was great refreshing ourselves with Neil Gaiman's story even though his visit took place in the middle of winter and ours was on a blissful summer day.
We did all three tours and walked for nearly 5 hours. It turned out to be as expected and then something else. It really is set in an amazing countryside. Green, hilly, with rock outcroppings. The house itself was horrid. The joke is right when they say it was designed by Frank Lloyd Wrong. It is dark and claustrophobic as if it had been designed as a cave. Benches and low rock walls, built in furniture, all covered with icky beige or red (I think sometimes blue) carpeting or plush. Ceiling covered with padded carpet as well. And the ceilings are very low-just over 6 foot. Alex, at 6'2" didn’t hit his head though. There are slopes indoors, no open spaces. Everything is an aisle with walls or benches. It might work well for a blind person although they would have to remember not to try to go straight to a sound but to feel for the path. A maze. I liked the stained glass lamps much better than Neil Gaiman did, but really hungered for some actual light. Any windows were about 8 inches square set in wood. Many were covered by carved wooden shutters. The few skylights illuminated collections or little fountains with pools, a few plants. Lots of bookcases, in dark places with doors over them. Nothing looked really clean. How could it be? (Another purpose for the dim light.) The Infinity room, again, had those tiny windows, one in 100 replaced with screen for ventilation. Imagine having to wash those windows. The housewife in me shudders. Healthy ferns and other plants were anywhere they could get a bit of light.
Two of the tours brought us back to the same place to get our tickets stamped. I swear that I don’t remember what was in which. They say that the guy who built the place loved music but it is hard to imagine. You’d think that if you loved music you would build a platform for musicians and invite them in, or have a huge collection of recordings. I think the guy loved mechanical gimmick. Each gimmick was a one song wonder except for the player pianos or two but they weren't in use. The first mechanical orchestra with its attempt at Bolero was horrible. The drums were always out of time which seemed to be the problem of many of them. We decided, eventually that much of the music was simply a recording and the only parts of the mechanical bands that were actually doing anything were some of the percussion which wasn’t working all that well. It would take a great deal of money and effort for someone to actually keep a mechanical band in working order, so this makes sense, but like many other things there it seemed overdone and underwhelming.
The best of the musical items was run on a mechanical spool like a music box. It was huge and impressive and actually played a piece of music (medley) that was in tune and in time. It had Hayden as part of its name and was really worth the two tokens we put in. Sometimes, however, it was just fun to watch the mechanical creations move about however bad they sounded.
We found a dying drunkard’s dream machine but it wasn’t like the one described in American Gods. This drunkard was lying in a bed, there was no graveyard. The ghosts and skeletons appeared at doors and windows and from under the bed. I managed to get two fortunes from fortune teller machines, which I still have to read through. They didn't tell me that my special color was dead, though. I put a coin in a machine to see what kind of lover I was and got the answer “exotic.” Ha!
By the time we got to the pizza place I was starving. We all had a slice of pizza and soda and visited the minimalistic, clean but bar-standard washroom there. The washroom at the beginning of the trip was oversized and glittering with Japanese dolls at the entrance, marble countertops, a huge Father Christmas display at the back and large model airplanes hanging from the ceiling. One halfway through that I just walked into to take a picture had a lighted wall fronted by shelves of blue and yellow glassware. Very spectacular.
The carousel was huge although I had imagined that it sat in the middle of a vast room instead of at one side where you could stand and watched. I was disappointed that the animals didn’t go up and down but I really enjoyed looking at all the strange creatures that were there. If you stood still right in front of it, it took no time to get the illusion that the carousel was standing still and that you were moving around it. Almost as good as being on it. The chandeliers it was covered with were disappointingly made of tinsel and cheap glass or plastic beads. Angels flew all over the ceiling area made, unfortunately, from female manikins with ordinary manikin faces, draperies of cloth mostly covering them although there were some “titties” showing (in full detail.)
It was like a big museum except for the fact that there was little effort to inform. Nautical area for example. A display of shipwreck clippings and pictures was the closest to that, but the fantastic (enormous squid attacking equally enormous whale) was mixed with scale model ships with
sadly wrinkled sails. The Octopus Garden display with its singing fish was whimsical and we enjoyed it.
Dolls. Our author was correct. The dolls were creepy. I finally decided what I hate the most about china dolls and that is their faces. Clothing can be interesting; the idea of dolls is cool, but why do they all have to have the same face: glassy eyes, fat cheeks and tiny mouths. Creepy as heck to see so many thousands of those, big and little. There were two doll carousels and they were huge, many tiered and 3 stories tall. Full of big dolls and small dolls, little horses, other creatures including a kangaroo with a doll in its pouch, one topped by a circle of fully nude carved women-way too close to the horsemen of the apocalypse.
My favorite part was the seemingly endless dollhouse collection. Joe and I wandered about looking at the way the homes were arranged (they mostly seemed Victorian-was that the heyday of dollhouses?) Loved the little bathrooms and kitchens. None of the fifties/sixties dollhouses with the furniture printed on the walls. Brought out the miniature-loving little girl in me. Joe claimed to be mostly interested in the architecture. Right.
Alex hated that section and ran on ahead. I’m not sure what he liked best. We all enjoyed the musical stuff (even if we groaned a lot at the dismalness of it.) Jim and I had fun pushing the buttons and watching the mechanical toys go through their tricks. That was really some of the most interesting of all. Little scenes with people who danced-a wedding cake with little male and female bakers trundling wheelbarrows of frosting around the layers-hula dancers with waves in the background. The circus area with all the miniature circus tents and performers wasn’t interesting to any of us so we rushed through that. We all enjoyed any chance we got to be outside. The day was lovely, the scenery was beautiful there were decks to wander out on. The Japanese garden was especially fine. Had a pool and waterfall that made that golf course one in La Habra seem pathetic.
Mostly, I was impressed by the gardens and the outdoors. They must have an incredible gardening staff. Not a single plant in the place that had any wilting or dead areas. Quite impressive.
So that was House on the Rock. On the way there I took 151 with its competitive freeway driving-I took it under 70 in the right lane-and on the way back we took 14. We stopped at Hubbard Av. Grill for supper and sat outdoors. Truly enjoyed the meal. Saturday special was fried chicken which was pretty good. I had beans and carrots with it and mashed potatoes. I drank a pot of decaf coffee and had lemon cream pie with it.
All in all a lovely day. Got plenty of exercise and finished it by reading the last of The Villa of Mysteries before going to bed at 1:30.
We have a garden this year! Tomatoes are as tall as I am and they have set some fruit. I have to keep water on them so they don't have problems. It is a big job. Still, they don't seem to be drying off. Maybe they are living on humidity. We have enough of that. There are also peppers and pole-beans, lots of herbs. Big bushes of basil needing to be harvested. I guess it is time for pesto. I also have a few lovely lemon verbena plants. As I find that to be a great tea ingredient I am glad it is growing so well.
The above was written quite awhile ago, in July, although still mostly stands. We are getting way too many tomatoes now. The garden is impressive and lately self-watering as we have had more regular rains.
Jim and I went to California at the beginning of August taking the Southwest Chief to Fullerton which is right next to La Habra where his brother lives. We went to their wedding and stayed in their large lovely house on a hill. Had great sea breezes through our bedroom windows. I was impressed with the climate of Orange County and with all the amazing things that can be grown in it. They had a loquat tree that was really a tree, not a stretched sparcely leafed skeleton like the one I have in a pot. Made me so sad for mine. They actually get lots of fruit from it as well. We got to the ocean to paddle in the waves. We went to Fullerton Arboretum which was beautiful but they forgot to identify the trees so my ignorance is still profound. Took lots of pictures. Wedding was very nice. Semi-formal outdoors at a golf course (Cherokee Hills.) Good music, lovely weather, lots of photographs, lovely buffet, a bit of dancing to DJ. There was a sort of open mike where Tom and Janet's barbershop friends performed. Tom and Janet put together a small group that sang Tom's arrangement and lyrics to The Pink Panther theme which was great.
The train ride went really well. I actually was able to sleep. Jim and I enjoy looking out the windows and taking lots of so-so pictures and entertaining our table companions in the dining car with our oh-so-sparkly wit. Lots of fun.
Joe Linzmeier who has been visiting since July took Jim, Alex, and me to the House on the Rock yesterday for a good-bye treat. None of us had ever been there so were more than a little intrigued. Alex read the appropriate chapter from American Gods while we drove. It was great refreshing ourselves with Neil Gaiman's story even though his visit took place in the middle of winter and ours was on a blissful summer day.
We did all three tours and walked for nearly 5 hours. It turned out to be as expected and then something else. It really is set in an amazing countryside. Green, hilly, with rock outcroppings. The house itself was horrid. The joke is right when they say it was designed by Frank Lloyd Wrong. It is dark and claustrophobic as if it had been designed as a cave. Benches and low rock walls, built in furniture, all covered with icky beige or red (I think sometimes blue) carpeting or plush. Ceiling covered with padded carpet as well. And the ceilings are very low-just over 6 foot. Alex, at 6'2" didn’t hit his head though. There are slopes indoors, no open spaces. Everything is an aisle with walls or benches. It might work well for a blind person although they would have to remember not to try to go straight to a sound but to feel for the path. A maze. I liked the stained glass lamps much better than Neil Gaiman did, but really hungered for some actual light. Any windows were about 8 inches square set in wood. Many were covered by carved wooden shutters. The few skylights illuminated collections or little fountains with pools, a few plants. Lots of bookcases, in dark places with doors over them. Nothing looked really clean. How could it be? (Another purpose for the dim light.) The Infinity room, again, had those tiny windows, one in 100 replaced with screen for ventilation. Imagine having to wash those windows. The housewife in me shudders. Healthy ferns and other plants were anywhere they could get a bit of light.
Two of the tours brought us back to the same place to get our tickets stamped. I swear that I don’t remember what was in which. They say that the guy who built the place loved music but it is hard to imagine. You’d think that if you loved music you would build a platform for musicians and invite them in, or have a huge collection of recordings. I think the guy loved mechanical gimmick. Each gimmick was a one song wonder except for the player pianos or two but they weren't in use. The first mechanical orchestra with its attempt at Bolero was horrible. The drums were always out of time which seemed to be the problem of many of them. We decided, eventually that much of the music was simply a recording and the only parts of the mechanical bands that were actually doing anything were some of the percussion which wasn’t working all that well. It would take a great deal of money and effort for someone to actually keep a mechanical band in working order, so this makes sense, but like many other things there it seemed overdone and underwhelming.
The best of the musical items was run on a mechanical spool like a music box. It was huge and impressive and actually played a piece of music (medley) that was in tune and in time. It had Hayden as part of its name and was really worth the two tokens we put in. Sometimes, however, it was just fun to watch the mechanical creations move about however bad they sounded.
We found a dying drunkard’s dream machine but it wasn’t like the one described in American Gods. This drunkard was lying in a bed, there was no graveyard. The ghosts and skeletons appeared at doors and windows and from under the bed. I managed to get two fortunes from fortune teller machines, which I still have to read through. They didn't tell me that my special color was dead, though. I put a coin in a machine to see what kind of lover I was and got the answer “exotic.” Ha!
By the time we got to the pizza place I was starving. We all had a slice of pizza and soda and visited the minimalistic, clean but bar-standard washroom there. The washroom at the beginning of the trip was oversized and glittering with Japanese dolls at the entrance, marble countertops, a huge Father Christmas display at the back and large model airplanes hanging from the ceiling. One halfway through that I just walked into to take a picture had a lighted wall fronted by shelves of blue and yellow glassware. Very spectacular.
The carousel was huge although I had imagined that it sat in the middle of a vast room instead of at one side where you could stand and watched. I was disappointed that the animals didn’t go up and down but I really enjoyed looking at all the strange creatures that were there. If you stood still right in front of it, it took no time to get the illusion that the carousel was standing still and that you were moving around it. Almost as good as being on it. The chandeliers it was covered with were disappointingly made of tinsel and cheap glass or plastic beads. Angels flew all over the ceiling area made, unfortunately, from female manikins with ordinary manikin faces, draperies of cloth mostly covering them although there were some “titties” showing (in full detail.)
It was like a big museum except for the fact that there was little effort to inform. Nautical area for example. A display of shipwreck clippings and pictures was the closest to that, but the fantastic (enormous squid attacking equally enormous whale) was mixed with scale model ships with
sadly wrinkled sails. The Octopus Garden display with its singing fish was whimsical and we enjoyed it.
Dolls. Our author was correct. The dolls were creepy. I finally decided what I hate the most about china dolls and that is their faces. Clothing can be interesting; the idea of dolls is cool, but why do they all have to have the same face: glassy eyes, fat cheeks and tiny mouths. Creepy as heck to see so many thousands of those, big and little. There were two doll carousels and they were huge, many tiered and 3 stories tall. Full of big dolls and small dolls, little horses, other creatures including a kangaroo with a doll in its pouch, one topped by a circle of fully nude carved women-way too close to the horsemen of the apocalypse.
My favorite part was the seemingly endless dollhouse collection. Joe and I wandered about looking at the way the homes were arranged (they mostly seemed Victorian-was that the heyday of dollhouses?) Loved the little bathrooms and kitchens. None of the fifties/sixties dollhouses with the furniture printed on the walls. Brought out the miniature-loving little girl in me. Joe claimed to be mostly interested in the architecture. Right.
Alex hated that section and ran on ahead. I’m not sure what he liked best. We all enjoyed the musical stuff (even if we groaned a lot at the dismalness of it.) Jim and I had fun pushing the buttons and watching the mechanical toys go through their tricks. That was really some of the most interesting of all. Little scenes with people who danced-a wedding cake with little male and female bakers trundling wheelbarrows of frosting around the layers-hula dancers with waves in the background. The circus area with all the miniature circus tents and performers wasn’t interesting to any of us so we rushed through that. We all enjoyed any chance we got to be outside. The day was lovely, the scenery was beautiful there were decks to wander out on. The Japanese garden was especially fine. Had a pool and waterfall that made that golf course one in La Habra seem pathetic.
Mostly, I was impressed by the gardens and the outdoors. They must have an incredible gardening staff. Not a single plant in the place that had any wilting or dead areas. Quite impressive.
So that was House on the Rock. On the way there I took 151 with its competitive freeway driving-I took it under 70 in the right lane-and on the way back we took 14. We stopped at Hubbard Av. Grill for supper and sat outdoors. Truly enjoyed the meal. Saturday special was fried chicken which was pretty good. I had beans and carrots with it and mashed potatoes. I drank a pot of decaf coffee and had lemon cream pie with it.
All in all a lovely day. Got plenty of exercise and finished it by reading the last of The Villa of Mysteries before going to bed at 1:30.