“I hope you have an experience that alters the course of your life because, after Africa, nothing has ever been the same.”
Today is a perfectly beautiful fall day in New England. The temperature is already 70°. The sun is bright with a sharpness of light. We had a short rain shower, and the leaves are still wet. The sun glints off them like jewel light. The breeze is strong enough to blow the wind chimes, and the sound sweetens the air.
I spent time in the backyard tracking down my shoe. It is brown so it sank and disappeared into the piles of brown leaves. I happened to have noticed quickly it was gone. I didn’t catch her stealing it, but I caught her with it right away. I chased her. She took off and dropped it.
I had PT this morning. I took the highway there but the long way home on 6A. I rubbernecked. I took my time. I stopped to look at the marsh in its fall colors. I wished I had cash to shop the wagons on the sides of the road selling flowers and vegetables. Next time I thought.
My finger now has a splint to wear at night. It will protect the finger and straighten the tip which bends. By the time I am scheduled to be finished with PT, it will be three months of this finger healing. I didn’t expect that. I have one more visit with the surgeon to schedule in two weeks.
Yesterday was a banner day for me. I finished, folded and brought upstairs three loads of laundry. Only a few bed linens are left. I vacuumed the kitchen, den and hall. I dusted places seldom dusted. I climbed the step ladder to get there. I cleaned Jack’s room. When I finished, there should have been applause.
When I lived in Ghana, Thomas cleaned my house and did my laundry which had to be hand-washed. He used two buckets. One was wash and the other rinse. I had a clothes line strung across the backyard. The air was so hot clothes dried in a short time. Thomas used a charcoal iron on my dresses. My house was small. It had four rooms inside: the living room, the dining room where the fridge and a table with a couple of chairs were, my bedroom and a spare room with a desk. My backyard was concrete. On one side was the toilet room and the shower room. The kitchen, seldom used as we couldn’t get gas for the stove, and Thomas’ room were on another side. A wall on the third side separated my side of the duplex from the other side. My water came from an outside spigot.
I loved my house. It was the last house before the back gate. In the field outside my walls, there were compounds where farmers and their families lived. They grew millet. Beyond the back gate was the pathway to town. On market day I could see women carrying their wares on their heads heading to the market. They were the entrepreneurs.
When I reflect on my life in Ghana, I remember the joy it gave me.
Explore posts in the same categories: Musings
November 7, 2022 at 6:49 pm
Hi Kat,
You should write a novel called, “There are no bad dogs, only mischievous ones, and then there is Nala”. 🙂 Someone will find her antics at torturing you a hoot.
Today began cloudy as well as cool. The high temperature is forecast to reach 81°, but presently I think 71° will be our high temperature for the day. I already miss daylight savings time. I can take darkness in the morning. I like having sunlight later rather than having the darkness at six in the evening.
A couple of weeks ago I was driving home on the freeway going 65 mph. when some idiot left a rubber traffic cone in the middle of my lane. I couldn’t avoid hitting it because of cars in each lane on either side of me. The traffic cone went under my car and made an awful racket. The car didn’t seem worse for the encounter, except a couple of days later I heard a racket going on out my left side door. Unfortunately, the cone took out the left front fender liner. I had to rip it off to continue driving. When I went to the dealer, they discovered that both side’s liners were missing off of the car. My former neighborhood independent mechanic suggested that I replace the liners because of the exposed electrical wiring. The traffic cone did a number on my wallet. This fiasco will only set me back about $600. 🙁 Luckily, I have a reserve fund for such self inflicted stupidity.
Tomorrow, is Election Day and we find out where this country is headed for the next two years. I fear the worst, but hope for the best. The early voting numbers here in the big city counties in Texas show lower turnout than in 2018. This doesn’t bode well for the Democrats ever in a predominantly red state.
I’m glad to hear that your PT went well. We don’t realize how difficult and arduous a task it is for our body to repair itself. Hopefully, you will not get between your two dogs and a dog treat again. Let them fight over it. I don’t think you would have liked the taste anyway. 🙂
November 7, 2022 at 7:27 pm
Hi Bob,
Nala enjoys life to the fullest. She loves the backyard. She does zoomies and runs the entire perimeter of the yard over and over. When she is finally done, her tongue hangs out. She runs from me then stops waiting for me to catch up then she runs again, but today she stopped once and dropped the shoe for me.
I also hate that it gets dark now so early. Daylight savings time only gives us a reprieve. Soon enough the mornings too will be dark.
I hate when silly damn things happen to my car and the added expense to correct them. Luckily, that hasn’t happened in a while. I don’t go out as much as I used to when I was younger. I enjoy being home.
I dread tomorrow. I am fearful the crazy Trump republicans will gain control. We will lose so much of our liberties if that happens. Here, they are not predicting a huge turnout, but it doesn’t matter in this state. We have no heated races. If Maura Healy wins the governorship, the republican party will have pretty much disappeared from Massachusetts. Charley Baker, the lone republican in higher office, chose not to run for governor again. He would have won. Charley is popular, but he is a RINO and has been harassed for that.
I was told fingers take longer than other parts of the body to heal, especially tendon damage. I now give the treats quite carefully. Henry is first as he is impatient. I make sure he has it in his mouth before Nala gets hers. I can’t go through another fight.
When my niece was young, she always loved to eat dog biscuits. My sister tried one to she was the attraction was. She said it was dry and almost tasteless.