Red, White, and Topless

On Tuesday, the waterproofing company
finished installing the French drains in our cellar.

That is a big Yay! but it will be awhile before we'll be able to move things back down to the basement.

Cement has to cure.  Like ham.  Only not as tasty.

Also on Tuesday, our sunroom got the spa treatment.

Power washing the exterior, scrubbing off the mossy bits, and Windex-ing all the glass outside.

Yes, that's the brave window washer up on the glass ceiling, which isn't really glass

but some sort of poly-vinyl-somethingunpronounceable plastic filled with insulating gas,

that flexes when people walk on it, and that's why everything is covered in plastic inside.

Like so:

Because when window washer guy was on the roof, and the roof got all wobbly, this happened:

Yes, that's water, folks.  We had to leave the plastic on for 24 hours to allow the final drips to work their way through to the inside.

But our conservatory is lovely and pure white again, and all the doors and windows adjusted

and working just as they should, and everything ship shape and Bristol fashion.

I'm getting all nautical now, in readiness for my next white picture:

Clams!

Clams, dug right in front of our beach house on eastern Long Island, just this past Monday,

by these squatters, below, who are enjoying linguine with clam sauce, Long Island corn and Long Island tomatoes:

Not in the picture, my sister in law Doris, the family shutterbug.

                              Okay, they are not squatters.

That's my brother Kirby in red, son Matt, daughter Emily, and her husband Mike --

who was bitten by a crab that he was setting free from a trap.

Crabs have no manners.  None.  Ingrates, all of them.

The quaff of choice for a hot summer afternoon at the beach house is my Mom's favorite cocktail,

the Muttini.  Here, what looks to be a lovely batch of them.  Our squatters know how to live.

Kirby and Doris, enjoying a late afternoon break on the deck.

I can't tell you how much joy it gives me and my sister Peggy that our family is enjoying our family  house, and approves of the changes since April.  We've been kind of obsessed with getting it all right, and a little nervous, too!  And thanks also to Kirby and Doris for their contributions to the kitchen out there.  Every beach house needs a toaster, frying pans and -- maybe most importantly! -- a blender!

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Now for the Red and the Topless
 Our study this week is 80% storage unit, with boxes and oddball things like a wallpaper trough
and a pressure cooker, waiting to return to the basement . . . and 20% dressmaker's studio.

Anne is designing another show, another New York premiere, that requires Victorian style clothes.

The study is awash in billows of fabric and straight pins,
and an old auction-find dress form on which Anne is designing elements of the

costumes.  For this one, a solid dark red skirt needs an overskirt that can be a quick change for the actress.

I've been fascinated watching Anne do her work. 

I can sew, but I can't take long swaths of shapeless fabric and within a few hours end up with something beautiful and wearable.

I can make curtains without instructions or patterns, but who wants to wear them?
Other than Scarlet O'Hara maybe . . . .

Only as I recall, she didn't go topless.
(Anne just read what I wrote, and said, "Well, it might have helped her cause!"  Cheeky monkey.)   
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Mr Dion is not interested in any of this girlie stuff.

After all the hub-bub of the past two days, he has spent most of today asleep.

And who can blame him?

I have saved the best picture for last, so I hope you stuck with me!

It's a panoramic view of the cove off Long Island's
Peconic Bay, where our beach house is.

The wounded Mike took the picture from the dock, brave lad.

Our house is second from far left.  Click on the picture -- click twice! -- to enlarge.

 Wednesday Link Parties!  -- Cass



Visit Susan at A Southern Daydreamer for Outdoor Wednesday.  Click here!

For more summer REDS, visit It's A Very Cherry World for Wednesday Is Rednesday.  Click here!
And for heavenly whites, it's White Wednesday at Faded Charm Cottage.  Click here!