And all was silent as before, —All silent save the dripping rain.”
It rained all night, a whole inch of it, and it was still raining when I woke up. All in all it is an ugly day, a warm ugly day at 41°. I have no plans, nothing on my dance card until Sunday when I get to go to the dump, be still my heart, and perform at a uke concert at the mall.
My world is quiet. The rain has stopped except for the few drops which fall from the roof when the wind blows. The dogs, on the couch, stretch and moan. Nala is behind me. Henry is beside me. Both are curled into balls. I love the warmth from Nala leaning against me.
When I was a kid, we had an encyclopedia my mother bought one book at a time when she grocery shopped every week. The books had red covers. They were always kept in a bookcase in the living room. I used to pick one book randomly, open it then read the page where I landed. It was one of my favorite ways to spend time when I was stuck inside the house on a rainy day.
My grandmother, my father’s mother, was born in 1898. I always found that unbelievable, a whole different century. She never worked outside the home. She raised three kids. My father was the middle. We didn’t see her often even though she and my grandfather lived in the same town, just across town. After my grandfather’s death, my father used to visit er every Saturday. Once in a while I’d go with him. My grandmother always gave my father a couple of gifts like candy fruit slices, Circus Peanuts and a carton of cigarettes, Paul Mall’s.
While I was growing up, we mostly ate meat and potatoes, my father’s idea of a perfect meal, but, when we kids were older, my mother served us more exotic foods like her ground beef with bamboo shoots and chow mein. My father, however, seldom deviated from his meat, canned veggies and mashed potatoes. He was an easy man to feed.
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January 20, 2023 at 4:21 pm
Hi Kat,
Today is partly cloudy and cooler. It’s 61° right now.
My grand parents were all born in the 19th century. They didn’t know their exact birthdays because no one kept records back in Russia in those days. My maternal grandmother came to visit us in Dallas in the mid 1950s. She was amazed that our house had central air conditioning. She told me that they had air conditioning back in Russia when she was a girl. During the hottest days of summer they would close all the windows, turn up the heat, put on their winter coats and sit for about a half hour. Then, they would take off the coats, turn off the heat, open the windows, and exclaim how wonderfully cool it felt compared to the previous half hour. 🙂 When they died we estimated that they were in their late 70s or early 80s.
My paternal grandfather would not eat a salad or raw vegetables. If my grandmother tried to serve them he would exclaim, “What’s this, do you think I’m a horse?”
January 20, 2023 at 8:22 pm
Hi Bob,
We never did get sun today, and it has dropped to 37°. It has been the best day to do nothing.
Both my father’s parents were born in this country while his grandparents were born in Ireland. I really don’t know much about that part of the family. For years and years, none of us knew my grandfather had a brother.
That AC story sounds like just the sort of tale grandparents tell, similar to walking miles in the snow.
We were never a green salad family. I think it was an aversion handed down.
January 20, 2023 at 5:44 pm
My grandfather was about the same age as your grandmother. Two wars, alcohol, yelling and a miner’s lung, a typical life and slow painful death of a man of his age here. Not a good place for a kid to grow up. I remember his funeral when everyone was glad that he was gone.
January 20, 2023 at 8:26 pm
Hi Birgit,
My grandfather was too young for WWI and too old for WWII, but my father, his son, did serve during the war. He wasn’t a warm man nor much of a happy man.