The Bunny Bungalow

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Classy Chassis Update: 2008 Best of Show

Bugatti

The 1939 Bugatti Type 57C Van Vooren Cabriolet, above, owned by the Peterson Automotive Museum Los Angeles, California, won 2008 Best of Show at the 5th Annual Classy Chassis Concours d'Elegance, June 8, 2008 in Houston, Texas.

The show was covered in my previous post.

Saturday, June 14, 2008

New Bunny on the Block

Terracotta Bunny, Thompson+Hanson, Houston, Texas

All right, the last thing The Bunny Bungalow needed was another bunny but I couldn't resist this big terracotta guy. While shopping for bunnies, I met a delightful woman, Mary from San Antonio, Texas who was visiting Houston to find an architect to design her house. She lives on a ranch and is a self-described "bunny person." She told me about the many varieties of wild rabbits living on her land. She also advised me on my bunny selection, assuring me that this one is quite wonderful.

In exchange for her wonderful bunny story, you know how I love stories, I gave her the name of the architect who designed Thompson+Hanson's buildings, Allan Bianchi.

Have a Happy weekend!

Friday, June 13, 2008

Chinchón, Spain

Chinchón

Fifteenth Century Castillo de Chinchón, destroyed 1520, later reconstructed. Anyone want a fixer-upper? Daughter reading a sign in Spanish that said, "Do not stand on this bridge." You can only read the sign if you are on the bridge. The mote beneath is dry, deep and deadly.

French motorcycle gang

Medieval buildings with swaying photo facade, with reconstruction behind.

Hermitage of San Anton. I had to stick my camera through a hole in the door to get the interior shot, as the Hermitage was locked and dark inside.

Beautiful doors and windows of Chinchón

Last summer, Tall Husband and I flew to Madrid to meet my daughter and her family in Chinchón, as visiting them in Moscow, where they now live, is too tedious for our tastes. Chinchón is a beautiful little medieval village that is about a forty-five minute drive from Madrid. On the drive from the Madrid airport we saw twenty-five rainbows that were so vivid they colored the sandy soil where they touched the earth. We also noticed gigantic nests in the trees. Our son-in-law told us they were made by storks. Sure enough we saw large storks come in for a landing. When we got to Chinchón, the air was full of the fragrance of lavender. French lavender grew everywhere (yes, French, not Spanish.)

The Spanish people are wonderful and live up to their reputation of loving children but the food is horrible. I was quite squeamish about discovering a baby hoof and later a tiny tail on my pork. I am ashamed to say but when we took a trip into Madrid, Tall Husband and I sneaked into an American fast-food place and had hamburgers and fries. Now we will probably get mad cow disease.

My first day in Chinchón, standing in the center of Plaza Mayor (where they have the running of the bulls and all other public events), I felt dizzy. My vision seemed to be playing tricks on me. On closer inspection, though, I discovered that the entire facade of the three-story medieval buildings surrounding the plaza was hidden by a realistic giant cloth photo that was gently waving in the breeze, giving the appearance of swaying buildings. The gigantic, panoramic shot was their after photo of the plaza.

It seemed the entire town was under construction. We all were sharing a wonderful medieval (updated of course) apartment on the Plaza Mayor but the constant rat-a-tat-tat of the jack hammers against the apartments stone wall frazzled our nerves. Tall Husband and I moved to the much quieter Hotel Condesa de Chinchón, just down the street.

If you stood in Chinchón's Plaza Mayor long enough, you would meet just about everyone in the world. We met people from all over the planet. An Italian bicycle team came through, as did a middle-aged French motorcycle gang.

Sorry Kids. This summer we are staying put and eating our own wonderful cooking in The Bunny Bungalow. There's room for everyone and we promise not to jack hammer the walls. Of course, we'll miss those Italian guys in their tight little bicycle pants and those French women in their high heels on their Harley bikes.

Thursday, June 12, 2008

French Tea For Me

"A cup of tea is a joy forever," Deborah Rose Sills, from The Light Within, by Lois M. Ramondetta, M.D. and Deborah Rose Sills, PhD, 2008, William Morrow, an Imprint of Harper Collins Publishers.

We agree! At The Bunny Bungalow, we prefer teas by Mariage Freres. We stock up when we are in Paris, buying their 100g, dark brown cans of loose tea from their shop on rue du Bourg-Tibourg. Our favorite is Abricot (Apricot, a mild and refined black tea), although I also like Earl Grey Silver Tips.

I cannot bring myself to discard those beautiful cans, so I have Mariage Freres pencil cans, Mariage Freres coin cans, on and on.

Well, I must drink my tea from the photo shoot before it gets cold.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

The Light Within

Brazos Bookstore, Houston, Texas

Nuri A. Nuri listening to the reading, after having introduced the Author (his wife).

Dr. Ramondetta, reading a selection

Author: Lois M. Ramondetta, M.D.

At the Brazos Bookstore last night, Lois Ramondetta, M.D. presented the riveting book, The Light Within, which she and Deborah Rose Sills, PhD, completed prior to Dr. Sills’ death. The Light Within is the poignant story of the remarkable friendship of these two remarkable women, one a gynecologic oncologist and the other a patient with ovarian cancer.

On display some years ago at Contemporary Arts Museum Houston was a wall-sized figurative painting of a man in physician’s garb and a middle aged woman wearing hat and gloves. Large, black words on the painting declared, “I am the real person, you are the patient.” That stereotype of the doctor/patient relationship is blown away by these two women who refused to abide by stereotypes and had, what Dr. Sills would call, the grit and the courage to conduct work, life and death on their own terms.

Their friendship grew out of words; not about dying, but about living the Big Life as they referred to a life driven by intellectual curiosity and adventure. Throughout their odyssey, these two friends teach us that honest, thoughtful, stimulating conversations build good relationships.

Ramondetta and Sills write in their own distinctive voices but the visual clue to the reader is the use of a different font for each writer. This technique is effective and carries the story smoothly along.

This morning I began reading the copy of The Light Within which I purchased last night at the Brazos Bookstore. I couldn't put the book down until I had finished it this evening. I knew that Deb (Dr. Sills) would die at the conclusion but I had to know how her remarkable friend, Dr. Lois (to her patients); her wonderful husband, Giles; her son, Adam; and her daughter, Abby would cope with her illness and her death. I’ll leave you to find that out on your own.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Ouch!

Wooden Puzzle Left on a Table

Oops!

Note from Maid

There hasn't been a maid in my home for years, not since I arrived home one day to find that my..."You knocked my what off!?"

Monday, June 9, 2008

The Fifth Annual Classy Chassis™

Bugatti

Here in Houston yesterday, Tall Husband and I attended the 2008 Classy Chassis Concourse Automotive Event, benefiting United Cerebral Palsy.

These people really know how to put on a show. The magic began as we drove through the gates of the Reliant Stadium: Tall Husband was driving his silver BMW Z4 and headed toward a distant parking area when a Classy Chassis volunteer waved us over and directed us to a parking spot just steps from the exhibit hall entrance. We were confused and asked if we could really park there, "Yes, you're driving a BMW!" came the answer.

This event was Bugatti heaven as Bugatti was selected to be the featured marque this year. There was a world-class collection of more than twenty vintage Bugattis on display, one of the largest ever assembled in the United States.

Here are photos of some of the Bugattis and other vintage beauties. Enjoy the ride!