Archive for the ‘Musings’ category
November 13, 2017
Drab is the perfect description for the today. It rained during the night, and the clouds and the dampness have hung around, but the day is warm enough to keep the cold at bay, at least for today when the high will be 54˚. Starting tomorrow the cold weather is moving in mostly at night. The days will be in the 40’s while the nights will dip to the 30’s. The sun will make an appearance on Wednesday.
I was up until after 3 this morning so I slept in and Gracie joined me. When I woke up, my legs were off the couch as Gracie had moved to the middle, and I had no room so I compensated. The vet called this morning and will keep Gracie on pain pills as they seem to help. I scheduled Gracie for her first acupuncture session. The vet explained it is mostly exploratory to see if Gracie will co-operative. Good luck to the both of us on that one.
Okay, I have dropped to a new low. I am watching Killdozer. The machinery is possessed by an alien presence. It starts itself and chases its victims, a crew building an airstrip on an uninhabited island. First, it destroyed the only way of communicating off island, a two-way radio. After that, the killing rampage began. So far we have two down and four to go. The movie has familiar faces. The big star is Clint Walker who was Cheyenne Bodie in the western series Cheyenne during the heyday of TV westerns. Carl Betz, Donna Reed’s husband, is still alive as is James Wainwright, the sort of actor whose face you recognize but not his name. Robert Urich was the first to die. The dozer does stuff like hide in the bushes at night, bulldoze tents and supplies, chase a man to death and follow the crew riding in their jeeps. It is a canny opponent.
I already can tell today will be a nothing day, a day when I hang around in my cozy clothes, eat whatever I don’t have to cook, watch comically bad science fiction and probably join the animals in taking an afternoon nap. To me that sounds glorious.
I love that I have the option of doing nothing. Before I retired I was a bit nervous about filling my days. Since then I have come to realize that filling the day has all sorts of meanings, including doing nothing. Time passes no matter what.
Categories: Musings
Tags: 54˚, acupuncture, bulldozer, canny opponent, Clint Walker, damp, Dog, drab, Killdozer, pain pills, sun, vets
Comments: 10 Comments
November 12, 2017
The sky is cloudy again, and it’s chilly, low 40’s chilly. My heat is on almost constantly. Nothing is moving. I can see the backyard through my den window and not a branch, even the smallest, is moving. I’m glad for the stillness. It helps to keep the cold at bay. There is a chance of rain later.
Gracie and I have to go to Agway. I am out of canned dog food, and that’s a calamity. I also need to buy biscuits, dog and cat treats, cat food and bird seed. Shopping at Agway is, for me, never an inexpensive stop. My animals expect and do get the best. Gracie is pickier than the cat and drives me crazy when she turns her face away from the treat I’m offering and holds out for something better which she usually gets. It is too late now to alter the behavior I have fostered in Gracie, the spoiled dog.
This morning I enjoyed biscotti with my coffee. It was, of course, chocolate biscotti. My mother wasn’t a coffee drinker except with biscotti which she loved. When she came to visit, I’d give her a half cup of coffee purely for dunking purposes. One Christmas she even made her own biscotti, and it was delicious. She kept a few but sent most of it home with me as the rest of the family didn’t eat biscotti. What fools they were!!
The cloudy days make me feel languid. I need a bit of sunlight, a natural pick-me-up. It is so easy to love a sunny day and feel like conquering the world; instead, I just sit here hoping for a sudden jolt of energy.
Having lived here for so long, I am familiar with all the quirks of my house. I can identify the sounds. That’s the ice maker adding water or dropping cubes in the tray. I can hear the clicks of the furnace before the heat blasts. The thump is Maddie jumping off the couch or from one step to another. I used to hear the scurry off the mice in the eaves, but the exterminator took care of that. Just a few minutes ago, I heard an unfamiliar sound. I stopped typing to listen. The sound had a rhythm, a rat-tat. I knew it had to be a woodpecker. I banged the wall, but the sound stopped for only a minute. I had to go out to the deck to scare the bird away. The sound has stopped.
Tonight is game night and football night as the Pats are playing the Broncos. We’ll all be watching. My sister in Colorado is working on her football game menu. The Pats never do well in Denver, but this year Denver is not doing well. They are last in their conference with a 3 and 5 record. The Pats are first in theirs with a 6 and 2 record. The Pats are favored. I hope that comes to fruition.
My dance card is not empty for a change thanks to game night.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Agway, biscotti, Broncos, canned dog food, chilly, cloudy, coffee, Denver, dunking, house sounds, languid, Patriots, still, Sunlight, woodpecker
Comments: 8 Comments
November 11, 2017
Last night was bitingly cold. When I took Gracie out around 1:30, the cold took my breath away. Gracie didn’t like it any more than I so she peed as she walked. It was not squatting weather. Today is much warmer in comparison. I went into the yard with Gracie and didn’t mind waiting. She roamed a while then picked her spots. She squatted just fine.
I have all these patterns of movement every morning. I take Gracie out and fetch my papers then we both go to the backyard. Once Gracie’s finished in the yard and we’re back inside the house, I make the coffee then get Gracie’s dish. That’s kitchen to hall to den. On the way back from leaving Gracie’s dish, kitchen to den, I get the cat’s dish. That’s den to living room to kitchen. I fill the cat food dish then pour my first cup and head back to the den. That’s kitchen to living room to den. I read the Globe first then it’s back to the kitchen where I put the toast in the toaster oven and wait. Once it’s done, I fill my cup for the second time and walk back down the hall to the den to read my second paper, the Cape Cod Times. That’s where the usual pattern ends. The rest of my day is free form.
I didn’t make it to the dump yesterday. Even on warmer winter days the wind rips across the recycle center, and it’s cold. Yesterday the dump would have been freezing, frozen tundra like. I won’t be able to go until tomorrow as it is closed for Veteran’s Day.
Today I have an empty dance card. I’ll go through my recipes to find appetizers for game night tomorrow. I expect to get the laundry done. I’ve hit my breaking point. The pile is high enough to have my full attention and merits a sign: beware of falling laundry.
Categories: Musings
Tags: bitingly cold, Boston Globe, Cape Cod Times, dance cards, feed cat, feed dog, kitchen to hall to den, Laundry, patterns of movement, squatting dog, Toast, warmer, \exploring
Comments: 6 Comments
November 10, 2017
Last night was a strange one. Around 3, Gracie woke me with her loud panting. Because she doesn’t use the dog door anymore, panting is her way of communicating. I understand Gracie’s panting and knew I had a few options. I mentioned food, no response. I mentioned out and she perked so out we went. It was cold and windy. She was quick. I was glad.
A pelting sound against the window jolted me awake. I’m not sure if it was before or after Gracie. I just remember it was loud. I knew it had to be rain, heavy rain, though I did venture and quickly discard the notion that hundreds of BB’s were being throw at the window at the exact same time. I figure we can chalk that absurd idea up to my drowsiness and the sound of the rain and the window.
Today is chilly, in the high 40’s, and windy but sunny. There is a freeze warning starting tonight at seven through 8 am tomorrow. Already, the heat keeps cranking. This is our first freeze.
I have laundry to do. Of all the household chores, this is the one I dislike the most. I think it has to do with the two sets of stairs and carrying the clean laundry up both of them. I keep putting it off and the pile just is getting bigger and compounding the problem.
My mail box is overflowing with catalogues, tis’ the season. I actually look through most of them and have had some great finds, some odd finds and some perfect Christmas presents. Yesterday, I finished my gift shopping for two people on my list.
Right now I’m watching a scientist freeze to death in the movie Gog. The woman scientist found him, and guess what, she raised her hands in front of her mouth and screamed. The door to the freeze chamber just mysteriously closed and locked with her in it. She’s next. Who will scream for her?
A note: I got notified that two of my posts, one from 2012 and the other from 2013, violate copywrite laws, both are Procol Harum. The links no longer worked, but that didn’t seem to matter. I wrote an answer to WordPress explaining that the songs in question could be heard only, but I think that too may be a violation. I further explained that any posted videos came from youTube. I don’t know what might happen. In case I am shut down, you can find me at a familiar place, Blogger. I have taken possession of the old blog destroyed by Blogger. The URL is different than it was. Here it is in case: https://keepthecoffeecoming.wordpress.comspot.com
Today is dump day!
Categories: Musings
Tags: 4 am, BB's, freezer, Gog, Laundry, locked door, outside, panting dog, pellets, pelting sound, rain, Science fiction, screaming woman, Window
Comments: 22 Comments
November 9, 2017
Last night was cold, not quite wintry cold but close enough. Saturday night will be in the 30’s. That’s winter to me. The sun is resting elsewhere so the sky is all over cloudy, not a single break of blue. It is a still day.
I was out yesterday and am going out again today. I can’t remember the last time I was out two days in a row. Maddie and Gracie are my incentives today. They both need canned food, and Gracie is almost out of treats. I also need sunflower seeds. That’s the first stop, Agway. As for me, I’m out of bread and butter. It is a two stop day.
When I was a kid, my parents always went grocery shopping on Friday nights. My father had to take my mother as she didn’t have a driver’s license and wouldn’t have one until after we had moved to the cape. Saturday was my father’s day for errands and chores. When I go by the Chinese laundry still in my home town, I think of my dad. He’d go to the “Chinaman” every Saturday with his long sleeve white shirts. He wore one every day to work and liked them starched. He wouldn’t start wearing colors until much later. I gave him a button down collar yellow shirt for Christmas one year, and that was the start of colors and buttoned down collars. My father surprised me when he abandoned white.
My father seldom deviated from his usual anything. He didn’t easily try new foods and wouldn’t eat familiar foods if they were changed even in the smallest way. The key to my dad was to work around him. When he was here visiting, he ate a pork roast to which I had added garlic in slits around the meat. My dad loved the meal. When my mother was making the same dish, he caught her adding the garlic. He told my mother no way would he eat it. Only shrimp scampi had garlic. He wouldn’t eat hummus because he said it looked like wallpaper paste. Chinese food was exotic to him, a man who loved Spam, sardines and instant coffee.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Agway, animal food, Chinese laundry, cloudy, cold, dog treats, Friday nights, Garlic, going out, grocery shopping, habits, Laundry, pork, starch, still, white shirts, wintry, work shirts, yellow shirt
Comments: 10 Comments
November 7, 2017
The sun is hiding. It was here earlier but it’s gone now. Today is chillier than it has been, but not chilly enough for the heat to be triggered. The clouds are white, and there is barely a breeze, but I’ll take the clouds rather than the usual cold of November.
When I was a kid, I rode my bike all year. Only the snow stopped me. The roads were seldom plowed all the way down to street so it was too slippery for bike wheels. It was sort of the same when I was walking to and from school. The sidewalks were shoveled by the people who lived beside them, not the town, so we’d hit parts which had never seen a shovel. Rather than get all snowy and wet, we’d move to the road and walk in the ruts. Sometimes we’d have to walk toe to heel because the ruts were so narrow. Sometimes we’d fall into the snow. We always laughed.
I really didn’t mind school all that much in the winter, but I really minded it in late spring and fall when the days were still warm and bright. All I could think of was I should be outside playing or riding my bike; instead, the best weather was being wasted, and a taste of the day at recess only made it worse. All I could do each school day was watch through my classroom windows as warm days withered away. We played when we got home from school but darkness came early, and the street lights were on by four. My mother didn’t care what time it was. She went with the street light curfew.
My town had so many trees bordering the streets and sidewalks that fallen leaves were everywhere. The ones on lawns were cleared and burned, but the rest sat in gutters or around tree trunks. Yellow and orange are the colors of fall to me.
Sometimes I still think of all the other seasons in colors. Spring is green, all different, varied greens. Summer is all colors especially reds and yellows, pinks and purples as the gardens come to life. Winter is white when it snows, and red and green at Christmas, but the rest of winter is mostly brown and grey. We’re almost there now.
Categories: Musings
Tags: bike, chilly, Clouds, colors of the seasons, curfew, early darkness, falling in the snow, narrow ruts, no wind, recess, ruts, school, snowstorm, street lights, sun
Comments: 10 Comments
November 6, 2017
By now you’re probably wondering what happened to me. Well, it is nothing catastrophic. First, I made up for my lack of sleep the other night by sleeping this morning until 11:30. I decided to stick to my usual routine and read the papers. After I’d read one, my irrigation guy came and wanted to shut down the system as well as my outside shower. I turned on lights and opened doors then got back to my second paper and another cup of coffee. It was nearing two when I finished. I turned my computer on, checked my mail then tried to open WordPress. It wouldn’t open. I shut down Safari but that did nothing. I opened Chrome but still couldn’t get WordPress to load. I tried sneaking into WordPress when viewing another blog, but I couldn’t get any blogs to load. My cheeks hurt from grinding my teeth so I turned off my computer and turned on the television. TCM is having a festival of Falcon movies. I am happy.
When I went to get the papers, I was surprised by how warm the day is. It’s in the mid-60’s, more like late September than November. It was sunny then but now it’s getting dark and cloudy. Rain is forecast for later this afternoon.
When I was watching The Falcon and The Coeds, I recognized a scene from The Lone Ranger. Tom Conway, the Falcon, was riding a horse in the hills trying to catch whoever shot at him. He rode up hill between rock formations. Right away I recognized it as a scene from the Lone Ranger where Silver rears, and we hear the narrator say High Ho Silver Away. I always thought the opening of The Lone Ranger was one of the best. There he is riding Silver at top speed and shooting as he rides all to the March of the Swiss Soldiers, the finale of Gioachino Rossini’s Willian Tell’s Overture which I always thought was just The Lone Ranger’s introduction.
This is going to be a slow week. The only entry on my dance card is dinner with friends on Wednesday. I haven’t any errands though I expect we’ll do a dump run toward the end of the week. My social life seems to be winterizing early.
Categories: Musings
Tags: blog posts, Chrome, dance card, Gioachino Rossini's Willian Tell's Overture, irrigation, rain, safari, Silver, sleeping in, TCM, The Falcon, The Lone Ranger, warm, Wordpress
Comments: 2 Comments
November 5, 2017
Outside is dark, damp and cloudy. A wind blows every now and then and adds to the misery of the day. My heat went on during the night. It must have been really cold as the thermostat is set at 65˚. Before I had pets, I used to keep it set at 62˚ at night, but that’s too cold for Gracie and Maddie. I found that out when I patted them. Their ears and their body fur were cold. That’s why the heat is higher.
Last night, Gracie was panting so much I kept waking up. I did the food, treat, water thing, and she still was panting and moving around. I finally fell asleep around four. When I woke up, Gracie was in the middle of the couch lying right beside me, and my legs were bent to accommodate her. It was another bad back this morning. She, of course, is now sleeping soundly. I am tempted to keep waking her up, but that’s a human response she wouldn’t understand. Besides, she’d just go to her crate and sleep, probably snore too just to drive me crazy.
Even though all the stores are now opened on Sunday just like every other day, I still have a bit of solemnity for the day probably leftover from when I was a kid. I don’t big time shop on Sundays, and I tend to stay close to home. I watch a little TV, usually football, and I often nap. I honor Sunday as a day of rest.
I was browsing through youtube the other night looking for something to watch. I noticed the film choice of Thousand Plane Raid. Seeing that zoomed me right back to Africa but to Niamey, Niger this time, not Ghana. It was Christmas vacation, and I was traveling with a couple of friends. The trip didn’t go as planned, but trips seldom do in Africa. The bus broke down twice. Each time, we had to wait for the driver’s assistant to hitch back to Ougadougou for parts. That put us way behind time so we had to stop for the night at a post office for which the bus carried mail. The night was freezing. It was harmattan time and we were closer to the desert than in Ghana. I had only a piece of cloth to keep me warm, and it didn’t. Anyway, by the time we got to Niamey, I had defrosted. We stayed at the Peace Corps hostel. In those days U.S. embassies showed movies on Saturday nights. We found out where and went to the screening. Yup, it was Thousand Plane Raid. You don’t need to know any more about the movie. The title is the whole plot. That night was the worst. The movie was shown in an open room of sorts with 4 low concrete walls and no screens. I was eaten alive by mosquitos bigger than my hand. They mimicked the movie and dive bombed in groups to attack me. I think I left before the end of the movie, but I was so woozy from loss of blood my memories just blurred. I only remember the name of the move and the hordes of mosquitos.
Categories: Musings
Tags: bad back, Bell's seasoning, cloudy, damp, dark, day of rest, dessert break down, eaten alive, furnace, heat, miserable night, mosquitos, Niamey, Niger, panting dog, Stuffing, Sunday, Thousand Plane Raid., US Embassy
Comments: 6 Comments
November 4, 2017
The morning was chilly. I took Gracie out into the backyard and sat and waited for her. I smelled a wood fire and all of a sudden my memory jumped back to Ghana and mornings during the harmattan. Those mornings were cold, as cold as I ever felt in Bolga where daytime temperatures often reached over 100˚. The morning air was filled with the aroma of wood fires burning in the compounds behind my house. I could hear muted voices and the sound of water from the tap filling my students’ buckets for their morning baths. Roosters still crowed. Those mornings were a delight.
Gracie has muscular degeneration. Signals aren’t getting to her back legs. The vet said it will get worse, but she is hoping we can slow the progress. Gracie is now getting a pain pill every day. In two weeks the vet will assess the value of her continuing to take them. After that two week mark, Gracie is going to start acupuncture. She’ll have two sessions and then an evaluation to see if it has helped.
I could barely walk this morning and my back pain was horrific. Yesterday I had to lift Gracie three times: twice to the car and once to the backseat of the car after she had lost her footing and couldn’t get back on the seat; consequently, I have ordered a back dog lift. I wish I had it yesterday.
Every time I look out at the deck, I feel a bit of sadness. All the furniture is covered. The flowers have been moved off the rails. The candles hanging off the branches are gone. Only the bird feeders remain.
When I was a kid, the preparations for winter were my father’s jobs. He took down the screens and replaced them with the storm windows. He removed the screens from the two doors and put in the storm doors. He went to the gas station and had the snow tires put on his car. Every weekend he’d rake the lawn, move the pile of leaves to the gutter by the sidewalk and then burn them. The smell of burning leaves is one of my all time favorites, and it carries memories of my dad. I can see him standing there by the flaming leaves while smoke billowed into the air. He held on to his rake and used it periodically to move more leaves into the fire. I stayed until the leaves were gone.
Categories: Musings
Tags: acupuncture, aroma of wood burning, back dog life, Bolgatanga Ghana, bucket baths, buckets, burning leaves, chilly mornings, deck, harmattan, muscular degeneration, pain pills, Peace Corps, snow tires, storm windows, wood fires
Comments: 10 Comments
November 3, 2017
Today is cloudy but still quite warm. It is 64˚ without the sun and will get warmer by the afternoon. I have given up on fall despite the wonderful weather. Skip, my factotum, is readying the deck for winter. He is putting the decorations and candles in boxes, taking up the rug and covering the furniture and umbrellas. He has done it for so many years he just moseys along from one task to another. He’s already cleared the backyard of branches including a couple big enough to be called limbs. He has removed the fallen post from my front fence which had been broken this winter when the huge pine limb fell on the lawn. He’ll replace it. He has some inside stuff as well. Yesterday my house cleaners came and today I have Skip. Life is good.
Gracie and I will be going to the vet’s today. She has a one o’clock appointment. My friend reminded me to ask if acupuncture will help. Last night was not a good night for either of us. Gracie started panting and woke me up several times. At 3, I took her outside hoping that’s what she wanted. It wasn’t though she did take the opportunity to squat. At 4, I fed her some treats. That didn’t work so I helped her off the couch to the bathroom where the water dish is kept. She ignored it and wanted back on the couch where she continued to pant. I finally got up and brought the water dish to her. She drank and drank then settled down to sleep. We were both exhausted. I’m beginning to think she has decided our roles need to be reversed. She will be pampered. I will respond to wishes and commands. She’ll find I am good with Sit!
When I woke up last night, I thought I’d left outside lights lit. Through the back window, I could see so much light the trees had shadows. It was the moon, big and bright and gorgeous on its way to being a full moon tomorrow night. This full moon is called the beaver moon by some as at this time of year beavers are building their winter dams in preparation for the cold season. Because beavers are mainly nocturnal, they will keep working under the light of the full moon. I suppose busy as a beaver would work here but would be just cause for groans.
I lament the closing of my deck.
Categories: Musings
Tags: beaver moon, branches, busy as a beaver, clearing the deck, clearing the yard, cloudy, deck furniture, Dog, fixing the fence, limbs, moonlight, panting, Sleep, vet's acupuncture, warm, water dish, winter, winter dams
Comments: 11 Comments
keepthecoffeecoming.blog 