Keep the Coffee Comimg

Today is drippy. Today is also muddy. The warmth, all 40+ degrees of it, is melting what’s left of the snow. Last night’s rain turned some of the snow to slush. Right in the middle of my walk is a puddle. I had to choose between the puddle and the slush when I went to get the papers. I chose the slush. My driveway is slush dotted with Henry’s paw prints. My kitchen floor has muddy Henry prints from the back door down the hall to the couch. Even his fur is wet when he comes inside after a run in the yard.

Henry has added licking his chops to his impatient wait for a few sips of my coffee. He stands beside me and stares at the cup. I always leave a little for him.

Today is clean the shelves in the den day. Miss Havisham in her wedding gown would be quite comfortable here.

I’m missing a doll, an old ugly doll which looks a bit like a Pilgrim. This morning, I noticed it was missing. I figure Henry took it sometime during last night and demolished it. I just have to find its remains.

The laundry is finally done. Can I have an amen? Only a couple of towels and some sheets are still in the dryer. The clothes have all been put away. I’m thinking of changing my bed, but I don’t want to get too crazy.

Yesterday I did the one errand I didn’t get done on Tuesday, Agway for dog food and a few treats. I also bought a few cacti, a rosemary plant and a ferny sort of plant. Only one needs repotting. I’ll do that later.

The dump is now the only item on a new list of errands. I figure I’ll go tomorrow. I’m thinking today I’ll just do the dusting then read. I’ll have earned an afternoon of being a sloth.

I can’t imagine what has gotten into me. I’m actually going to dust and no laundry is piled by the cellar door. Maybe it’s the stirrings of spring cleaning. I’m not complaining mind you. I’ll take anything that anticipates spring, even dreaded cleaning.

It’s cold, no surprise here. The sun is bright and sharp. It seems to highlight the stark branches of the pine trees in the backyard. The blue sky is the deepest of blues. The air is clear. It is a beauteous winter’s day.

I always like to wait and clump my errands so I have five stops today. They are close to each other so the route is easy: library to pharmacy to grocery store to Agway to lab.

Henry watches my coffee cup go from the table to my mouth then back to the table every time I take a sip. I always leave a little at the bottom of my second cup of coffee so he impatiently waits for his share. He especially likes if I have toast.

Last night the moon, the super moon, was amazing. The light was so bright tree shadows were cast on the hard packed snow in the yard. It will be clear again tonight so we get to see moonlight one more night. Tomorrow night we’ll have snow flurries then rain on Thursday. The high tonight will be 8˚.

This morning, Henry went gingerly down the back stairs to the yard. I had used the deicer on the deck and the stairs, but there was still icy snow on the bottom steps I couldn’t reach from the doorstep. Henry has gone out around five times so far. He is out so long I worry. Gracie was a runner, and I’m always afraid Henry has gotten out of the yard. He really doesn’t know the neighborhood. Luckily he is chipped and has a tag with my phone and address on it. The only issue is Henry won’t let anyone near him. He’s tired after his romps and is now having his morning nap.

We had game night on Sunday, and I had to wear the proverbial L for loser. I wore it well.

Sometimes I have a hankering for certain food. Right now it’s Thai food. I haven’t had it in a while, and I’m picturing coconut shrimp, mango curry, papaya salad and Pad Thai, a couple of meals worth. Maybe I need to add one more errand. Actually I just did. I am good to myself!!

Snow is on the ground but only a little. It isn’t as high as the tops of my shoes. The snow is heavy and made a crunching sound when I walked on it. I went to get the papers, but I couldn’t find them. I suspect they aren’t there. The papers are usually wrapped in colored plastic which is easy to see so I walked around the front garden and the car expecting to find them. I was disappointed.

Henry likes the snow. He has been out so many times I’m happy he has a dog door. I watched him leap and run when he first got to the yard at the bottom of the steps. He licks the snow.

It has stopped snowing. Where Henry walked is no longer covered by snow. My fronts steps are getting icy. I’ll have to throw down the deicer on both sets of stairs, front and back, to make them safe for me and for Henry.

Today is President’s Day. When I was a kid, Washington and Lincoln had their own days. Now they are just lumped in with all the other presidents. I loved Washington’s birthday since it was always during February vacation. The first president I remember was Eisenhower because of Big Brother Bob Emery who had a kids’ TV program on in the early 50’s. I watched every day. He used to play a ukulele and sing The Grass Is Always Greener, a song whose words I still remember. On his wall was a picture of President Eisenhower to whom we lifted our glasses of milk in tribute. I didn’t really understand the why of it all, what President Eisenhower represented. He was just a picture on the wall.

It was President Kennedy who awakened my interest in politics simply because he was from Massachusetts. I began to understand the political process, the two party system and why I lifted my glass of milk.

Looking out my window I see a sunny day with a dark blue sky and air so perfectly clear I bet I could see for miles. The only drawback to the day is the cold. It is only 31˚. I hurried out and back when I got the papers.

When I was a kid, in the winter, I mostly walked everywhere. My bike was in the cellar for the duration. It was too difficult to get it out of the cellar and then back again every time I wanted to use it . Right outside the cellar door to the left were the stairs. I had to lift the front of my bike out the door, roll it on its back wheel, turn to the stairs then pull it up the stairs. It was a tricky maneuver up and even worse going back. In the summer I could leave the bike outside but never in the winter so I walked in the cold and in the rain.

March 28th is baseball’s opening day, the earliest one in history. I am getting ready by watching Fever Pitch. It is such a great movie about my Red Sox finally winning the World Series in 2004. The Fenway Park scenes make me long for the warmth of summer.

Last night was a weird one. Henry jumped off the couch and went to look in the bathroom. He jumped and took off to the kitchen. The rest of the night he stayed away from me. At bedtime he ran upstairs and was on the bed when I got to my room. He saw me and took off down the stairs. He came back up and stood in the hall and growled. He then ran downstairs. I turned off the light and went to sleep without Henry on the bed, but he was beside when I woke up. I got his usual morning greeting and all was well.

Tonight is game night. My contribution is appetizers, and I have a couple of possibilities, but I’m still languid and haven’t any ambition. I’m toying with ordering Chinese appetizers or ones from my pizza place. I think I’ll flip a coin.

The sky is as deep a blue as I have seen of late. The clouds have disappeared. It is still cold but warmer than yesterday. Henry stays outside a long time. I don’t.

I wish I could hibernate like bears. In late fall I’d get cozy in my cave under lots of down comforters and fall asleep for the winter. I’d wake up to spring.

Whoo Hoo! I saw small green shoots in my front garden. They have a long way to grow, but they are the first signs of spring.

I have to do a bit of shopping today. I am getting some groceries and am also going to buy a few daffodils. The small floral shop in my store always has them about now. I could do with a bit of bright yellow. I am tired of brown.

I am yelling at the movie I’m watching, Age of Ice. Snow storms are covering Egypt and the desert. An American family of four, two parents and two kids, and some Egyptians are trying to get to the Red Sea to an evacuation area. The special effects are the worst. Our intrepid party has no snow blowing around them, but when they look ahead, you can’t see anything for the swirling snow. Their truck gets stuck in snow. Instead of all of them pushing it out, they abandon it. At one point they have to rappel. In the faraway view the mountain is covered in snow. In the closeup, there is no snow. My favorite scene is when they are walking in knee deep snow trying to get through a pass. As they slogged through the snow, I could see the top of a building in between hills, and I expected them to discover it. They didn’t. It wasn’t part of the movie.

It’s Valentine’s Day. My friend brought me flowers, red carnations perfect for the day, and a Valentine’s Day balloon. My sister sent a card and some chocolates, caramel sea salt dark chocolates, my favorite of all. Every time I go into the kitchen, I eat one. They won’t be around for too long.

Today is winter. Yesterday hinted of spring. The sky was mostly cloudy earlier, but the clouds are giving way to blue. The birds are at the feeders. The red spawn of Satan was around yesterday checking out the feeders, but I don’t see him today.

I am watching disaster movies, bad disaster movies, and that’s being complimentary. So far there have been earthquakes, monstrous hurricanes, dinosaurs and giant killer bees. Tubi is the station I’m watching. The films are all imitations of better films. 30,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Independence Wars Insurgence, Snakes on a Train and The Day the Earth Stopped are prime examples, but my favorite bad movie, Iron Sky, is on Amazon Prime. In it, the Nazis fled Earth in 1945 and built a huge fortress on the dark side of the moon where they have waited to return to Earth and to power in the year 2018.

I’m going to do random chores today. I want to make orange cookies and some chocolate chip cookies. My plants need watering. Did I mention my laundry? It’s becoming a dirty word.

Yesterday I got dressed and went out. Today I’m staying close to home and I’m wearing my coziest clothes. They just happen to be red.

Okay, now for the weather: snow is expected late this afternoon then it will turn to sleet and become slippery. The local paper says 1-3 inches while the Boston TV station says 0-2. I don’t mind the snow, but slippery is a bit scary. I am supposed to go to a meeting at 5. I’ll have to see what the weather is doing before I make up my mind as to whether or not I’ll venture outside.

When I was a kid, snow turning to rain was the worst. I loved snow, but I hated winter rain. Walking home from school meant getting soaked and being cold through all the layers. My feet were frozen from soaking wet shoes and socks. I was miserable. When I got home, I changed before I did anything else. I remember the feeling of being warm again in my pajamas and slippers. Sometimes I’d sit by the hissing radiator until I was really warm.

I do love rain but summer rain mostly. Sometimes, when it’s a soft rain, I sit on the deck under the umbrella and listen to the sound of the rain pitter- pattering on the umbrella over my head. I feel surrounded by the rain.

As a going away gift, one of my friends gave me a travel umbrella. We knew only a few things about Ghana, but we knew there was a dry and a rainy season. I remember our stay in Winneba at the beginning of training. On a rainy day I used that umbrella and then sat on steps out of the rain for a while. When I left the steps, I forgot my umbrella. It was gone when I went back. I was upset until I learned how little I needed that umbrella. I stayed out of heavy rains, but I never minded the gentle rains. Getting wet was a relief from the heat.

My favorite rain is a storm with thunder and lightning. I love the crack and rumble of the thunder and the flash of lightning across the dark sky. The best part is I can feel the thunder and am awed by the flashes of lightning. It is almost magical.

It was cloudy when I first woke up, but now the sun is shining, a hazy sun. The breeze is slight, only the tops of trees seem to be moving. It is cold, a wintry blast of cold, a portent of the snow predicted for tomorrow night though here on the cape we will escape most of it. I’m okay with that. On Wednesday we’ll be back to the 40’s during the day, the 20’s at night, a typical cape weather pattern this time of year.

Henry is a barker. That’s all he did for a while this morning. He barked at the noise of a car door shutting at my neighbor’s house across the street. My neighbor had company. He barked when the car left and barked again when it returned. He howled when two doors slammed. He drove me crazy. My father always said to praise a dog for barking as the dog is protecting his territory, but by the time Henry got to baying, I was irritated. I yelled. He didn’t stop until the car left, after more barking when the door shut.

The cold never manifested. I still have a scratchy throat, but I have no idea why.

When I was a kid, I didn’t miss school very often. I didn’t have too many common ailments, colds or coughs, but I did have childhood diseases like measles, chickenpox and mumps. They used to travel like wildfire from kid to kid in my school, and then to my siblings at home. My mother was just fine with us spreading those childhood diseases. She preferred we all get them at the same time so she didn’t have to deal with one kid then another getting them. I remember wearing gloves and taking baking soda baths when I had chickenpox. They kept me from scratching the chicken pox because if I did, I’d cause scars, something my mother said over and over. I don’t have a single scar from my bout with chickenpox thanks to my mother and her constant nagging. That is, after all, what mothers do, all for the best.

Oh no!! I have a cold coming. My throat is raspy, my nose congested, my head aching and I’m coughing a bit. I’m going to lie low today so no game night. I haven’t had a cold since I retired so I’m hoping this is just a random series of symptoms.

Henry slept with his paws and head on my lap, the very first time he’s done that. I was thrilled and amazed.

Today is sunny but cold, around 32˚. Tonight will be even colder. Snow is forecasted for Tuesday, but we will get only and inch or two before it turns to rain. Luckily, after the rain, it will be above freezing so no ice.

When I was buttering my toast this morning, one of my mother’s stories popped into my head. She told us that during the war butter was heavily rationed; instead, they bought oleo margarine. It needed far fewer points than butter. The oleo was white so a packet of yellow food coloring was included to make the oleo look more like butter. My mother said it was awful tasting. That memory meant we always had butter.

The only time I didn’t use butter was in Ghana. I used margarine. It came in a large can with a blue label. I think it came from the Netherlands. The only times I’d buy the very expensive butter was for holidays. The butter came in a can and was from Australia. I used it when I made Christmas cookies.

I am a coffee snob which is probably because of my time in Ghana. I drank Nestlé instant coffee and Carnation canned milk, also made by Nestlé. After a while, I didn’t mind. I think I killed my taste buds.

I love jollof rice, a Ghanaian dish. I think I ate it just about every night I was in Bolga on my last trip. Some Ghanaian foods I really don’t like, kenkey being one of them. It has a sour taste and sour isn’t a favorite palate for me.

Mostly I don’t cook full meals for myself out of pure laziness. If I cook a chicken, it is two nights for dinner, chicken sandwiches for lunch and chicken salad at the end when I tear the chicken apart. For full evening meals, I usually buy already mashed potatoes, but I always cook a fresh vegetable. The last couple of nights I have had cereal for dinner. Now I’m out of cereal and milk. I wonder what’s in my freezer.