Archive for the ‘Musings’ category
August 28, 2017
I love these cool and sunny mornings. When I take Gracie out, I sit on the shaded back steps for a while until I get cold or until I can smell the coffee.
There is something wonderful about mornings. The whole day is in front of me. I can do what I please and seldom have expectations as to what the day might bring. I take everything as it comes. Sometimes I have lists, but they are more like guidelines. If I don’t want to do anything, I don’t. There’s always tomorrow.
My morning rituals take about 5 minutes to complete before I can sit and drink my coffee, also a ritual I suppose. They are the only parts of the day which never change. I take Gracie out and then feed her and Maddie breakfast. The two patiently wait knowing what’s coming. After breakfast each gets a treat. Maddie’s patience is usually gone by then, and she meows at me while Gracie just sits waiting. Satisfied, the two then take their first naps of the day.
When I was a kid, I was seldom home on a summer day. I’d go to the playground or roam around on my bike. My mother never really knew where I was at any given time, but she didn’t worry. No mothers worried back then. Our world was small, confined mostly to the neighborhood, the school and church and to the main square of our town where the library, the movie theater and the stores were. Nothing bad ever happened when I was a kid.
My mother taught us not to talk to strangers. I figure she was just hedging her bets. My town didn’t have strangers. I think my father knew everybody. He and my mother had lived there since before high school, before they’d met each other. I was simply George’s oldest, and people would stop me and say hello and tell me to say hello to my mother or father or both.
I hitchhiked when I was a senior in high school and when I was in college. I also hitched when I was in Ghana which was a quicker way to get home than to wait for the lorry to fill. Never did I think of my mother and her admonition about strangers. I just wanted to get from one place to another. Nothing ever happened. I never even felt threatened. That’s the way it was back then.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Bowling, coffee, cool and sunny, expectations, feed pats, guidelines, hitching, home neighborhood, joiner, library, lists, mornings, rituals, small wqorld, stores, summer day, town, treats, worry
Comments: 14 Comments
August 27, 2017
I’m not sure the adjectives running through my head are quite descriptive enough to tell you about the morning, but I’ll give it my best shot, the old college try. (Every now and then I do like to pepper my musing with a few idioms.) Today is a delight filled with sunshine, blue skies, cool temperatures and no humidity. It is a quiet day, almost a throwback Sunday from the 50’s when church and Sunday family dinners were the highlights of the day.
I have a couple of errands. I need bird seed and the two things I mentioned yesterday: hot dogs and toilet paper. I also need to plant the flowers I bought the other day and any other perennials I might find today. Those are the only items on my lists, and my dance card is totally empty for the rest of the week. The plays are done, my friends are traveling and my larder is filled. I do have some laundry, as usual, but I haven’t yet run out of underwear. I was thinking a Mad Hatter move and ordering some new ones so I don’t have to do wash quite yet, but even I think that’s might be a bit extreme and massively lazy.
I heard acorns hitting the deck again yesterday. The spawns are at it again. I don’t go barefoot out there anymore, and poor Gracie yelped when she stepped on an acorn. The spawns seeking vengeance against me. I swear I heard cheering when I first stepped on an acorn remnant.
Close Encounters of the Third Kind is celebrating its 40th anniversary. I’m watching it now which I expect explains my delay in posting. I can’t take my eyes off the screen when the UFO’s are on it. They are amazing with their colored lights, just like Barry said when he called them ice cream and toys. I smiled the whole time. It is still a wonder of a movie.
I’m in the camp of those who believe there is intelligent life elsewhere, not just on Earth, though I admit I sometimes wonder about Earth. It seems a bit of a conceit to think we are it.
Categories: Musings
Tags: adjectives, beautiful morning, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, dance card, delight, errands, ice cream, intelligent life, Laundry, lights, Mad Hatter, planets, plants, quiet day, Sunday, to do list, toys', underwear, wash
Comments: 19 Comments
August 26, 2017
Today is a carbon copy of yesterday. Carbon copy? Where did that come from? I haven’t seen a carbon copy for years. It has gone the way of the phone booth.
Last night got really chilly. I grabbed the afghan, snuggled under it and fell right back to sleep. When I woke up, the morning still had a chill, especially the backyard as the sun doesn’t get there until the afternoon. The first cup of coffee was especially inviting this morning,
Peapod came this morning, and all the groceries are already put away. I noticed I bought hot dog buns but no hot dogs. I also forgot toilet paper. I swear I looked and chose the paper I wanted, but obviously I didn’t; however, I did remember the Twizzlers. I do have priorities. I’ll just have to hit the grocery store later.
Artichokes are ugly. They are also too much work to eat. I sometimes wonder who was brave enough to taste one for the first time, and how long did it take to figure out how to eat it?
When I first started eating brie, I didn’t like the brie mold. I’d dig around underneath it and leave a gaping hole, sort of like eating the pie filling and leaving the top crust. It took a while before I realized the mold was tasty.
The world knows I hate beans. Where that came from I have no idea. Even as a kid I didn’t like beans. Our Saturday night baked beans never touched my plate. I look with distain at most beans, but one type makes me grimace, makes me crinkle my face in disgust. That would be refried beans. I can never get pass how they look. They are gross.
I love kitchen tools. My favorite is my juicer. It is orange metal and is the easiest way ever to get lemon or lime juice. I also love my avocado skinner, parer and my corn cutter which takes the kernels off the cob. I have this amazing little wheel which you roll and it minces garlic as it goes. I bought onion glasses but they didn’t really help all that much. Now I buy chopped onion to save myself. I have a mandolin, but the first time I used it I cut my finger so I don’t use it so much. I have knife sharpeners, but I can never seem to get them to work. Most off my knives are depressingly dull. On my sometime in the future to do list is to bring a few knives at a time to be sharpened. Lord only knows if my fingers will be safe.
Last night I was standing outside the Cape Playhouse before going inside. It was only 7:30, and it was already getting dark. I wanted to scream. Summer is too quickly coming to an end. Labor Day, the traditional end of summer, is next weekend. It’s time to accept the seasons are changing and it’s time to bring the sweatshirts out of the guest room closet.
Categories: Musings
Tags: afghan, artichokes, beans, Brie, carbon copy, chilly, chopped onions, copy machine, Grocery store, hot dogs, kitchen tools, knives, mandolin, summer's end, Toilet paper, Twizzlers
Comments: 16 Comments
August 25, 2017
Some mornings all the elements converge just right and the most gorgeous day dawns. Today is one of those mornings. The breeze is from the north, and I could smell the ocean when I was out with Gracie. Both of us stayed on the deck, not wanting to come inside. The smell of the salt water flooded my mind’s eye with familiar images. I saw the ocean with its tiny whitecaps hitting the sand. I saw the grasses atop the dunes dancing, blown by the slight breeze.
The morning air is cool today. Sharp sunlight glints through the trees hanging over the deck and leaves shadows of armlike branches. The small round mirrors hanging from the pine branches send a reflection of white circles bouncing around the side yard. The birds fly in and out, and I was glad I filled the feeders yesterday.
Today in all its glory needs to be savored.
I’m watching the news about Hurricane Harvey. I know what it’s like to dread the coming wind, rain and high water. I remember Hurricane Bob. It left trees across roads, wires hanging from split telephone poles and branches all over streets and yards. I lost a fir tree in my front yard, my second Christmas tree, but I still felt lucky because the tree fell away from the house. Stores were closed. I was without electricity for days. I cooked all of the freezer meat on the grill trying to save it. I drove all over to find ice. I couldn’t believe the damage I saw. It took a long while for the clean-up and for everything to get back to normal.
On August 25th 1954, two amazing events occurred. Hurricane Carol developed near the Bahamas and started its way toward New England. It would reach the coast days later, at the end of the month. Carol was devastating and deadly. Cape Cod was evacuated. More than 10,000 homes across New England were damaged including 1,545 that were completely destroyed. 3,000 boats and 3,500 automobiles were wrecked. Even Boston wasn’t spared. The wind sheared off the steeple of the Old North Church. Though I was only seven, I have memories of this storm. The giant, old elm tree across from my house went down and fell on the street making the road impassable. My father brought my brother and me outside during the eye of the hurricane to see the tree, and we climbed among the branches. I remember how still it was and how quiet.
The second amazing event was my sister Moe was born. Today she turns 63. She was under 5 pounds at birth so the hospital kept her until she gained more weight. That was the practice back then. She was still in the hospital when we lost electricity so we glad she was. By the time she came home, our house was back to normal.
My sister and Carol are forever joined in my memory. That’s not to say they have anything in common except both were born on the same day.
Categories: Musings
Tags: August 25th, cool, dune grass, elements, fallen trees, games, gorgeous day, hurricane carol, hurricane Harvey, mirrors, refelctiuons, reflections, shadows, smell of the ocean, sunny, white caps
Comments: 18 Comments
August 24, 2017
Okay, we’re starting with the gross part of my day’s musings. Maddie, my cat, now 17, has surprisingly shown the prowess of her youth, her long ago hunting days. Last night I heard a thud, a loud thud, and knew it had to be Maddie as she wasn’t with me. Being both worried and curious, I got up to investigate but Maddie came into the room before I could. She was on the other side of the table, out of my sight, when I heard crunching (here’s where it gets gross so if you want to leave, please do so). I checked and saw she was eating the remains of a baby mouse, actually only half a mouse, the top half. I made suitable sounds of being grossed out, shooed Maddie away and used two catalogues to pick up the remains which I then tossed outside. My big takeaway from this is there are mice again even though I paid my own Pied Piper. I’m putting a trap down in case there are more.
The day is beautiful. It will be 79˚ or so, but the humidity seems to have disappeared. I have a few things on my list to keep me busy, and I have to drive friends to the Boston bus, but that’s it for the planned part of my day.
Less tomorrow is a Ghananism, my identifier for English adaptations Ghanaians have coined. Less tomorrow was used when something was promised for a certain day but wasn’t ready. For example, when I was told a dress from the seamstress would be ready on Tuesday, I’d go to pick it up, but it was never ready. The seamstress would tell me less tomorrow which didn’t necessarily mean Wednesday. It just meant sometime in the future. I came to believe Ghanaians used less tomorrow for Europeans, white people, who seemed to need a specific day. Ghanaians are more casual with time.
It wasn’t long before I embraced loose time, before I accepted Ghanaian time, which really meant anytime, instead of European time. If I tell my friends to arrive here at 5:30 for a soirée, I expect them around 5:30. Were I to tell my Ghanaians friends the same, they could arrive at 7 or even 8 and still be considered on time.
My training college worked on clock time, a necessity to keep the day on task. Planes left Kotoka Airport in Accra pretty much on time, but the rest of Ghana had its own pace, and I, after a while, also fell into that pace. If I hadn’t, I would have been driven crazy.
In my retirement, I have gone back to whenever time, to Ghanaian time, with some exceptions like doctors or plays or dinner reservations. I figure what I don’t get done today will get done less tomorrow.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Cat, clock time, eating mouse, European time, Ghanaian time, Ghananism, less tomorrow, mouse, Pied Piper, remains, to do list
Comments: 6 Comments
August 22, 2017
My neighbor came by with eclipse glasses so I got to see the partial eclipse we had here. It was so very cool to watch the moon move across the sun and darken the day just a bit. Two things jumped into my head from my memory drawers. I was reminded of when I was young, and we used negatives to look through at the eclipse. I have no idea if they were all that safe but figure they must have been as I didn’t go blind. I don’t even remember if there were warnings. Now, of course, there are no negatives. The second memory was of reading A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. Our Yankee is sentenced to be burned at the stake but is saved by magic, or at least what King Arthur thinks is magic but is really an eclipse. He, the Yankee, said he’d blot out the sun, and it happened as he’d predicted because our hero had remembered the eclipse. I would have been burned at the stake.
Today is supposed to be hot and humid. When I went to get the papers and take Gracie to the backyard, I could feel the humidity, and it was still early, usually a cooler time. Right now it’s cloudy and breezy, but that humidity is hanging in there.
When I was waiting for my coffee to brew, I saw a feeder moving back and forth and knew it was a spawn of Satan. I could see its tail and knew it was the worst off them all, a red spawn. It was inside the keep the spawn away wire and was dining on seed. I sneaked over to the feeder. The spawn saw me and jumped to the rail, but I was there so it fell to the ground, two floors away. The spawn’s fall scared the doves feeding from the ground, and they flew into the air. The birds at the feeders were spooked so they too took off. The whole thing was a comedy of errors with birds flying everywhere.
I have to go out in a bit, and the sun just made a quick in and out entrance. Right now it’s among the missing. I’m glad. I figure the humidity is enough to make for a dismal day without adding more heat.
Categories: Musings
Tags: A Yankee in Kind Arthur's Court, comedy of errors, doves, eclipse, going blind, hot humid, memory drawer, picture negatives, red spawn, spawn of satan
Comments: 4 Comments
August 21, 2017
The house is still chilly from the air conditioning being on all last night even though some windows and the two doors are now opened; however, it will be a hot day so I expect to be behind closed doors and shut windows for most of the afternoon. The sun was around earlier but has since disappeared behind grey clouds. We are going to have a partial eclipse, but it seems unless things change, we won’t even see that.
Last night the temperature was in the high 60’s so movie night was pleasant, even a bit chilly because of the high humidity. We watched Monster on the Campus. Oops, I’m really sorry. I should have warned you that was a spoiler. I just gave the whole plot away. The movie was released in 1958 so we did chuckle quite a few times at the special effects and the plot twists. The cars were as big as boats. The women all wore dresses, kind of ugly dresses, and accessorized with white gloves. The men, of course, wore their suits and fedoras. Troy Donahue had a small role. We applauded at the end not because it was over but because the monster had engineered its own demise. Such is the lot of monster in 50’s science fiction movies.
Gracie had a really bad night. She was sleeping in her crate. I was on the couch. It was around 4:00 when I was awakened by the sound of her paws frantically scraping over and over against the mat in her crate. I guessed she was trying to stand up but couldn’t. I raced to the kitchen. Gracie was lying on her side, her eyes huge, and she was scared. She tried again to get up but couldn’t. I grabbed her halter and lifted and pulled her out of the crate. I was scared that her back legs had given out, but when I pulled her upright, she stood. She was also wet. I figured that had been triggered by her fear. I dried her and we went to the couch. She jumped on it but sat upright for a while before she finally fell asleep. This morning everything is fine with her, but not with me. When I walk, I resemble a question mark because of the pain in my back. Poor Gracie and me!
Categories: Musings
Tags: AC, cool house, cool night, crate, fedoras, frightening, Gracie, hot day, humidity, legs, Monster on the Campus, scared, women's fashions
Comments: 4 Comments
August 20, 2017
The morning is just so beautiful with a bright, bright sun, the bluest of skies and a slight breeze, deck weather for sure. It is already getting hot, an August heat, but the deck has branches hanging over it and an umbrella to keep the sun at bay. Tonight is movie night.
My next door neighbors barbecue every Sunday. He cooks, and it is always chicken wings, just plain chicken wings, no sauce, no sides. I can usually smell the wings cooking so I go outside to yell hello from my deck to theirs. They always invite me over.
As soon as I wake up, I look forward to my first sip of coffee. I can hear it dripping into the carafe, and the house fills with the aroma of that coffee brewing. My sense of smell works overtime. I impatiently wait and sometimes even stand in the kitchen to watch. I could take it mid-brew, but I choose to wait, to heighten the expectation.
Recently I’ve been drinking African blend which is a bit funny as I never had real coffee in Ghana, only instant. I got used to it but was never a fan. On my last trip, my friends brought coffee bags, and they tasted far better than the instant, but we had had real coffee at Zania Lodge which spoiled me a bit; however, I adjusted to the instant though my taste buds were severely disappointed.
My house is a full cape which means it has two front windows on each side of the door. In the back, there is a dormer which gives my house three floors in the back but only one floor in the front. My deck is off the second floor in the back. I like being suspended above the ground.
I have to go out to get the fixings for tonight’s movie food. We’re having a jalapeño dip with blue corn chips and maybe a Stromboli. I have the ingredients for that on my shopping list, but oftentimes my trip to the store means seeing something already made which looks delicious so I change the menu right then and there. I’m nothing if not flexible.
Categories: Musings
Tags: African blend, blue, breeze, chicken wings, coffee, deck, first sip, instant coffee, invitation, movie night, sun, suspended above the ground, third floor
Comments: 8 Comments
August 19, 2017
Last night we had the best rainstorm complete with thunder right over my house and lightning bolts striking in the sky above my backyard. One clap of thunder made Gracie and me jump as it was both unexpected and close. The rain pelted the roof and windows. It was so loud I had to turn up the sound on the TV. At one point, around 10:30, the rain stopped so I raced to take Gracie outside. The rain started again only minutes after we had gotten back inside. The drops were so heavy and loud they were the only sounds I could hear. I figured it was serendipity the rain stopped for just that small while. Gracie lasted the rest of the night and into the morning.
I’ve nothing on my to-do list for today. The roads will be filled as Saturday is turn-over day at cottages, and tourists will be looking for something to keep kids busy on a dark day, on a no beach day. Board games can only work for so long.
The remnants of the storm are a gray sky and high humidity, the sort of humidity my father used to say you can cut with a knife. The small breeze does nothing to change the close, damp air. We won’t see the sun until tomorrow.
I remember when I was a kid and the thunder and lightning kept me inside. I’d take a book and find a quiet place to read. Sometimes it was in my room because everyone else was downstairs watching TV. It was dark enough I needed a light to read by, the light on the headboard behind me. It seemed to shine only on me and the pages of my book. I felt safe and cozy.
Thunder never scared me even when I was a kid. I remember being told thunder was angels bowling in heaven. I also remember reading Rip Van Winkle’s thunder was the men in the mountains, Henry Hudson’s crew, playing nine-pins. Either way, it was just bowling.
I love lightning, jagged and bright in the sky. One lightning bolt hit the ground right in front of my house in Ghana. It was magnificent. I’ve never seen the like.
Categories: Musings
Tags: board games, bolts, breeze, cozy, grey sky, headboard, headboard light, humidity, lightning, loud rain, rain drops, rain storm, reading, Rip Van Winkle, safe, serendipity, thunder
Comments: 4 Comments
August 18, 2017
Yesterday was a perfect day. The weather was warm but breezy enough to keep the heat at bay, the sun shined all day and we even found a table by the water at lunch. My sisters arrived with cake and presents. We went to lunch at one of my favorite places. As a surprise my sisters had invited my friends, and I was definitely surprised. My lobster roll was filled with huge chunks of lobster and the fries and onion rings were perfect. Just ask the gulls who snapped up the French fries we threw on the rocks. After lunch we came back to my house for cake and ice cream and presents. My sisters had chosen the best cake, mocha, and my favorite ice cream, coconut. After that, I opened my presents and was overwhelmed by the generosity of my sisters and my friends. We then sat on the deck a while chatting and laughing. I can’t imagine a better day, a better birthday.
Today is cloudy and a bit humid. The breeze is blowing the top branches of the oak trees. Rain is predicted for later. I do have to go out but not far and off the main roads. The bird feeders need to be filled again, and the fountain is empty of water. Gracie drinks much of the water away. The fountain is the perfect height for her. I fill it, she drinks it and we do this several times a day. She has a water dish on the deck but she ignores it. Dogs aren’t logical.
Quiet seems to be the order of the day after the excitement of yesterday. I don’t hear a sound: not a kid, not a car and not even a bird. I had Alexa play sixties rock, but I kept singing with the music instead of writing so I turned on the TV to MSMBC. It is still reacting to Trump’s latest diatribe so I turned that off. Instead, I watched the Food Channel with Giada who was making a Peruvian chicken dish and showing pictures of her trip to Peru. I suppose I could just turn off the TV, but I’m not in the mood for quiet, for silence. I have stuff I could do, but I don’t want to do them. I’m just fine with being a sloth, napping on the couch, wearing my comfiest clothes and going barefoot.
Categories: Musings
Tags: alexa, breezy, Cake, coconut, errand, fountain, Giada, ice cream, lobster, on the water, perfect day, Peru, presents, quiet, seafood, warm weather
Comments: 6 Comments
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