Archive for the ‘Musings’ category
May 12, 2017
Today is a damp, chilly day. It must have rained a bit overnight as the streets were wet. The Globe reported this morning that all parts of the state are no longer in drought -condition, not a surprise given the amount of rain we’ve had. A nor’easter is due on Sunday which will bring a deluge. The sun is only a periodic visitor.
In my memory drawers, May is always a warm month. I remember riding my bike to school. I remember wearing only a light jacket. I rode under trees filled with blossoms and on petals fallen to the sidewalk. My bike flew. Spring and a bike ride brought such joy.
I have been getting up far earlier than usual, earlier than my paper delivery. I bring Gracie to the backyard and wait for her on the deck. I take in the morning while I wait. The air smells fresh, sweet. The only sounds are birds’ songs. I am glad for my sweatshirt in the early morning chill.
Gracie gets a treat when we come inside. I get coffee. I watch the news and listen for the drop of the newspapers. First is the thud from my neighbor’s paper hitting the driveway and a few seconds later my papers are delivered. They never sit long outside. My morning always starts with the papers and coffee.
I toasted an English muffin this morning and shared it with Gracie. What she didn’t know was I had hidden two of her pills in the nooks and crannies of the muffin. She scarfed the pieces down in record time. Gracie loves anything with butter and so do I.
I saw a cardinal through my window. Its red feathers stood out against the bare branches of the oak tree right by the deck making him easy to see. I need to fill the feeders. I hate that the cardinal was disappointed.
I turned off my heat, but the house got so cold last night I turned the heat back on this morning. It is still cranking hot air. I’m comfortable and warm.
Categories: Musings
Tags: bike riding, bird songs, blossoms, Butter, cardinal, cold, damp, deluge, early riser, English muffin, joy, May, rain, sunless, sweet smell, warm month
Comments: 6 Comments
May 11, 2017
Yesterday in the early morning, Gracie and I went to get the papers in the front of the house. I saw a feather on the road and picked it up. It was huge and I knew it belonged to a wild turkey. All of a sudden the gobbling started. The turkeys were on the next street. I could see them from the deck. They were strutting as they walked up the street.
Gracie woke me up at 3. I could hear her panting, a sign she needs to go out. I put on my sweatshirt and my slippers and out we went to the backyard. It was even too early for the birds. Luckily Gracie was quick, and I was back to bed in no time only to awakened again at 6. I put on my sweatshirt and my slippers and out we went to the backyard. This time I could hear the morning songs of the birds. We were back inside quickly, and I surprised myself by falling asleep until 8:30. Gracie slept a bit longer.
During the summer of the Watergate hearings, I stayed glued to the television. I was fascinated. I heard the revelation the president taped everything and the reaction of the committee. I loved Sam Ervin, his sense of humor, his outrage and his dogged hunt for the truth. I remember Howard Baker, a republican, sitting beside Ervin asking, “What did the President know, and when did he know it?” It was a bipartisan committee dedicated to finding the truth. That is no longer possible.
My lawn was mowed for the first time this season yesterday. The air was filled with the sweet aroma of the newly mowed grass. The problem, though, is now you can see the connect the dots game on my lawn. During the early springtime, I took Gracie to the front yard to pee. Now you can see all the dead lawn dots. Sebastian, my neighbor and landscaper, and I spoke this morning. He is going to reseed those spots. He is not happy with my lawn or my front garden. He is going to mulch the garden. The beauty of my grass and yard is a matter of pride for him and me too.
It is still sweatshirt weather during the day and blanket weather at night. My heat goes on for just a bit every morning. The house was cold at 3 when Gracie and I went outside. I was glad to get back under the covers.
We have a couple of errands to do today. Both Gracie and Maddie are out of treats and Maddie keeps making her displeasure known. Gracie, though, is willing to take substitutes. She munched a piece of scali bread with butter and ate a bit of cheese then lowered herself to eat a dog biscuit. Both of them are now sleeping. I am blessed.
Categories: Musings
Tags: 3 am, 6am, animal treats, backyard, bipartisan, cold morning, flower garden, gobbling, Lawn, mowing, Sam Ervin, songs of birds, strutting, turkey feather, turkeys, Watergate
Comments: 6 Comments
May 9, 2017
Gracie woke me up around six this morning. She was panting, a sign she needed out. I put on my sweatshirt and took her out to the back yard. It was so cold I could see my own breath. My heat has gone on a few times. When I went to my early morning library board meeting, I saw people dressed in layers and wearing hats and gloves. Today is spring gone awry.
The sun was shining earlier, but now the clouds have taken over. The sky is a range of grays from dark to light. The prettiest clouds are the darkest of grays so dark as to be almost blue. No rain is predicted, just a cloudy day.
When I go back to my hometown, I pass houses where my childhood friends used to live. I remember them all. I used to envy Kathleen whose house was two houses away from school. She used to go home for lunch every day. My friend Eddie lived right across the street from the church. He also went home every day. Paula and Dennis lived close to each other about a fifteen-minute walk to school. Everyone walked. There were no busses, and very few parents drove kids to school as most families had only one car driven by dads and gone to work early, too early for school. I never gave walking to school a thought except when it rained.
My favorite lunchbox sandwich was bologna with mustard, the yellow kind of mustard. It was always a white bread sandwich. I didn’t even know bread came in a variety of tastes and colors. Friday was tuna fish sandwich day as we couldn’t eat meat. I can’t even remember the number of tuna sandwiches I ate all through elementary school, but I ate my fill. I don’t eat tuna fish anymore. I still eat bologna.
I used to love milk. It was perfect for washing down dinner and even better for dunking Oreos. I stopped drinking milk when I was in the Peace Corps as Ghana had no milk except evaporated in the can. I have milk now but only with my cereal. The best part of that is the flavor of the milk left on the bottom of the bowl after the cereal has been eaten.
Nothing much going on here. Today is a perfect day to stay home, to do nothing. My laundry finally made it upstairs, and I even put it away. That was my yesterday’s accomplishment. I’ll take what I can get and be content, maybe even a bit proud of finally getting that chore done.
Categories: Musings
Tags: bologna, Clouds, cold, dunking, familiar houses, family car, gloves, grays, hometown, Laundry, layers, lunchbox, milk, Mustard, Sandwiches, seeing breath, tuna fish, walking to school, white bread
Comments: 14 Comments
May 8, 2017
This morning is chilly. My heat went on earlier. The sky is peppered with clouds. I’m thinking it’s a day to stay close to home. Luckily I have everything I need and everything Maddie and Gracie need.
When I was a kid, the future was a day or two away. Once in a while, I’d be asked what I wanted to be when I grew up. That always took me aback so I chose saying teacher just to have a ready answer. I actually had no idea. I was still planning what I’d do on Saturday. I always thought that was a silly question. People like my aunt the nun asked it because they had no idea how to talk to a kid. How’s school was their other question. Good, the great non-descriptor, was my answer.
My father used to drag us to Connecticut once a year to visit my aunt the nun. She was my father’s older sister. Getting there was quite a production. We’d wear our play clothes until my father stopped at a brick highway rest stop in Connecticut where my mother cleaned us up and we put on church clothes. My aunt was always a nun to me as she became one before I was born. Those were the days of black and white habits and wimples. My aunt never seemed comfortable with our visits. Mostly she just paid attention to my father whom she called brother. He hated that. I remember how quiet the convent was. A nun would deliver cookies and lemonade almost without making a sound. She just whished. Part of the visit was always a tour of the school where my aunt taught. We’d follow behind her from the convent to the school like ducklings behind their mother. The tour was always boring. We knew what schools looked like and hers was no different, but we were glad to be moving not just sitting in the reception living room. We’d finish the tour and then go back to the convent to say our goodbyes until next year. I swear we all let out sighs of relief, even my father, as we were leaving.
I was never close to that aunt even after she ditched the habit. She used to come from Connecticut every year to spend Christmas with my parents. We were all nice to her in a stilted sort of way knowing my cousins were favored and we were abided.
My father often said you could pick your nose but not your relatives. I always thought that was gross but he was right. I offer up my aunt the nun as proof.
Categories: Musings
Tags: c, Canada, chilly, cloudy, Connecticut, convent, future, growing up, habits, nuns, ookies, school, staying home, whished, wimples
Comments: 2 Comments
May 7, 2017
This morning’s sky is the deepest of blues, a breathtaking blue. Not a cloud can be seen. I figure it is Mother Nature’s way of apologizing to us for all that rain, two days worth. The air is a bit chilly, only 54˚. It will get a little warmer but won’t break 60˚. It’s is after all spring on Cape Cod.
The trees are flowering on my street, some white, some bright pink. Gardens are filling with blooming flowers. The air smells sweet. Small leaves are growing on the scrub oak trees. I walk Gracie to the backyard several times a day. She always stops on the front lawn and sniffs the air. Any noise grabs her attention. At our 4:30 this morning walk to the backyard, she sniffed a bit then hurried to the gate. She ran into the backyard and squatted right away. We both went back inside and we both fell asleep. I woke up around 7:30. Gracie is back to sleep. It is her morning nap time.
My dance card has been really empty for the last few weeks, and the only dance this week is a library board meeting. The laundry is done, the trash has gone to the dump, and the house is clean. My deck still has its winter look, but that will change in the next week or two.
Gracie and I just came inside. The wind is blowing enough so I can hear all the chimes from my backyard trees. It is a chilly wind.
Spring energizes me. A warm day gets me out of the house so I don’t miss it. It is the same feeling I remember having as a kid. I felt free somehow. Gone was the heavy coat. Gone was walking backward into the wind on freezing cold mornings. Spring always made me want to skip.
Categories: Musings
Tags: 4:30, 51˚, backyard, blooming flowers, blossoms, cloudless, deep blue sky, flowering trees, nap time, scrub oak, skipping, spring, squatted, sweet air
Comments: 10 Comments
May 6, 2017
The rain started late yesterday morning. It was torrential at times including when I was driving to the vets. I could barely see the road. Luckily, though, it stopped just as I got to the parking lot. Gracie and I hurried inside. She is not a fan of heavy rain. It is still raining.
Gracie has been incontinent at night. She has been drinking bowls and bowls of water. Yesterday she managed to be sick twice, on my only rugs. I called the vets so we went in for an afternoon appointment. The vet eliminated an infection and figured it was old age. She gave Gracie pills for the incontinence and a few pills for her occasional dizziness. Last night for the first time in a couple of weeks Gracie made it through the night though she hadn’t had any pills yet. Isn’t that the way! I remember my toothaches always went away when my mother made an appointment at the dentist.
Saturday has always been my favorite day of the week. When I was a kid, it meant Saturday morning TV. It was eating a bowl of cereal for breakfast while sitting on the rug in front of the TV set probably going blind from sitting so close. In winter it was the matinee. In the warmer weather, it was the day to ride my bike all over town.
In my whole life, I never worked on a Saturday. I never did homework, and I never corrected papers when I was teaching. All the weekend chores were saved for Sunday. Saturday was for me.
All my days are Saturdays now. Chores get done whenever. I am horrible at getting my laundry washed and put away upstairs. The other day I did finally wash all the clothes, but some of it is sitting on a chair in the living room waiting to be hauled upstairs and the rest of it is still in the dryer wrinkling by the minute. I can’t imagine how my mother managed to do a wash just about every day on a machine with a giant tub and a wringer and then she had to hang it out to dry. Mothers were superhumans.
Today I have nothing needing to be done though I might just bring the laundry upstairs. I’m not going to get dressed. I’m staying in comfy clothes. A nap is a possibility. It’s Saturday.
Categories: Musings
Tags: bike riding, cereal, fun day, hang to dry, incontinence, Laundry, rain, Saturday, Saturday TV, torrential, vets, wash, wringer
Comments: 6 Comments
May 5, 2017
The morning sky is dark and the air is chilly. Rain’s coming, heavy rain. It should be here by early afternoon. I have to go out, but I hope to get home before the rain starts. Given the ominous sky, I’m not optimistic.
I’m watching The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms. The beast is a prehistoric creature awakened by an atomic blast at the North Pole. The film was made in 1953. One line made me chuckle. The radio news reported about a ship sunk by what one survivor described as a giant monster. The radio announcer wanted to know what the guy had been smoking. I’d like to know what the token female scientist was smoking when she went clothes shopping. Her wardrobe is ugly from the hat down. In one scene, people start running. A couple of guys by the river had seen the monster, and they were the first runners. Most of the people running have no idea why. They even knock a blind guy down. A policeman foolishly tried to shoot down the creature with his handgun. He got eaten for his efforts. A woman screamed.
Of late, my world has been small. I’ve mostly stayed home with Gracie. I don’t mind. The house is cozy and warm. I have movies to watch, books to read and plenty of crackers and cheese. The only chore left is that blasted laundry.
I have a pair of black and white saddle shoes. I bought them to go with a 50’s costume which included a poodle skirt. When I was in high school, I wore saddle shoes, lots of us did. Now I’m thinking maybe I ought to wear them again. Maybe I’ll be a trend setter. Now that is funny.
I was always a horrible bowler. Here we play candlepin with the small bowling balls, three to a frame. My mother belonged to a bowling league. The alley where she played is now a shoe store. Every Saturday she and my dad watched Bowling for Dollars. I would have needed to be tied and gagged before I’d watch bowling on TV or anywhere for that matter.
I’m not sure which plague it is, but I am in the midst of one. Moths are all over the house. I kill them on walls and catch them with my hand. Maddie does her bit but they are quicker than she. The last few cold nights have helped as the moths are logy and easy to grab even in the air. There seem to be fewer. It may be the end.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Beast + 20000 Fathoms, books to read, Candlepin bowling, Cheese, cozy house, dark sky, heavy rain, moths, movie, plague, rain, saddle shoes
Comments: 11 Comments
May 4, 2017
Last night was downright cold. I huddled under the afghan wearing my sweatshirt. This morning the sun is shining, even glinting, and the sky is blue. It is still chilly but is, at least, a pretty day.
My back is a bit better. I just can’t walk upright. On the evolutionary chart, I most resemble homo habilis without the hair.
Yesterday morning, Gracie wanted out around 5. Always willing to oblige, I got up and walked her to the gate. The air was filled with the morning songs of birds. What gave me pause and a smile was among the songs I could hear the gobble of turkeys from what sounded like a street away. As the other birds sang, the turkeys kept gobbling. I figure a song is a song.
Yesterday I had Frosted Flakes with a banana for dinner. I used my Animal Cracker’s bowl. I could have been six except my mother would never have allowed just cereal for dinner. It was breakfast. Dinner was meat, potatoes, and a vegetable. Lunch was soup or a sandwich or both.
My father hated breakfast in continental Europe. His complaint was the assorted cold cuts and cheeses were for lunch, not breakfast. He would usually have coffee and some sort of bread and butter and complain between mouthfuls. My mother and I enjoyed breakfast and the different sorts of cheeses and meats. In Ghana, I always had two fried eggs and two pieces of toast. Both were cooked on a small charcoal burner. The bread was leaned against the hot sides and turned so both sides browned. The eggs were fried in peanut oil. Ghanaians ate for breakfast what they had for any meal.
We affectionally called my mother the seagull. She’d eat whatever for breakfast. I can remember her standing one morning at the counter eating a sandwich of a cold but cooked hot dog with cucumber slices washed down with diet coke. If she had eggs, they were scrambled with cheese or whatever else she could scavenge in the fridge. When she visited me, I always had biscotti, a favorite of hers. She didn’t drink coffee but did use it for dipping the biscotti. I still have biscotti. The other day it was anisette.
I have some seagull in me as I am not bound by convention when it comes to meals; however, cold hot dog is out even for me.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Animal Crackers, Banana, birds, biscotti, blue sky, cold, eggs and toast, European breakfast, evolutionary chart, Frosted Flakes, homo habilis, morning songs, seagull, sunny day, turkeys
Comments: 8 Comments
May 2, 2017
It started raining just as I went to get the papers in the front yard and yesterday’s mail from the box across the street. The rain was heavy from the start and continues in a steady drumming. The weather report says sun this afternoon. I’m skeptical.
The laundry still sits waiting to be done. I have a reason, not an excuse. I did something to my back yesterday probably from hauling trash to the trunk. Every time I moved, I moaned or grimaced. Today is the same. I looked a bit like a pretzel when I went out earlier to get the papers. I am not happy.
I just came in from bringing Gracie to the backyard. I could barely get there. The stairs were murder. I’ve decided to take a break today, a back break. I’ll return on Thursday, straight and tall or at least I hope so.
Categories: Musings
Tags: back, Laundry, raining
Comments: 2 Comments
May 1, 2017
My patience is exhausted so I’m putting Mother Nature on notice. Make up your mind. Is it spring or isn’t it? My heat went on for a bit this morning, and I had to add another afghan as I was cold. The gray sky has returned, and it rained earlier this morning. My dance card has a bunch of house stuff to do like the laundry. It overfloweth. I have some trash and recyclables which I need to move to the trunk. Tomorrow will be dump day, but I have to get a new sticker first. Be still my heart!
When I was a kid, I could eat hot dogs every day. The best were barbecued, but that was on the weekends when my father was home. During the week, my mother fried or boiled them. When she fried them, she’d make cuts across the dogs so both inside and outside got browned. I used yellow mustard and piccalilli. Toasted buns were the best.
During the week, my mother served some sort of meat with potatoes and vegetables. The vegetables were frequent flyers, the list of what we liked was limited. We had mashed potatoes, corn, peas, carrots or some sort of squash. Butternut was our favorite.
My mother made great brownies. They were always frosted with chocolate and sprinkled with jimmies (the Boston/New England word for chocolate sprinkles). I liked the harder, outside edges.
Bananas were my favorite fruit. They were the easiest to eat. Just peel. I also liked them on my cereal though they always sank to the bottom. My mother used to peel the apples for us because we didn’t like the peel. I didn’t mind it when I got older. She’d cut the oranges into eighths and take out the seeds. We loved watermelon but ate it only in the summer. I don’t think it was available winters. I didn’t like the seeds in grapes. We used to pick pears off the tree in the next yard. I think they were never as I remember them being hard to bits. Blueberries came in a pie and strawberries in a shortcake. Pineapples and coconut came later. I think coconut is my favorite now.
I think my laziness dictates my meals. I don’t often make dinner. Lunch is a sandwich or hummus, or something equally easy. Cereal is sometimes dinner. I’m into Frosted Flakes, and I still add bananas.
Categories: Musings
Tags: afghan, apples, bananas, blueberriees, brownies, cold, dance card, dump, fruit, heat, hot dogs, house stuff, jimmies, oranges, piccalilli, toasted buns, trash, vegetables, yellow mustard
Comments: 15 Comments
keepthecoffeecoming.blog 