Archive for the ‘Musings’ category

“The most serious charge which can be brought against New England is not Puritanism but February.”

February 19, 2017

Today is a bit of a gift from Mother Nature, and considering how many times I cursed her this winter, I am surprised by her generosity. It is sunny and warm, even springlike. A few puffy clouds add texture to the blue sky. A breeze ruffles the brown leaves. It is a day to be outside. I’m working on getting there.

My neighbor put my newspaper on the front steps for me this morning. I saw it and one other paper when I opened the door. The other paper is the Cape Times from February 13th. I have no idea where he found it. I didn’t  miss a paper. I figure it must be my neighbor’s, and it got tossed here with the snow when her driveway was shoveled.

Small mounds of snow are still visible but only on the corners of the streets. Between the rain and the above freezing temperatures, the snow had no chance. I’m glad it’s mostly gone.

My front lawn, mostly on one side, is a total mess. It is covered with branches and needles from the tree sized branch which fell. There are long gashes on the grass. I’m thinking that whole side of the lawn may need a reboot.

This is school vacation week. I used to like traveling to one place for the whole week. My mother and I spent this week in Rome on our last vacation together. We saw it all. One of my favorites was the catacombs, a couple of bus rides and a long walk away.

Each night we’d have a drink in the bar before going to our room. My mother had cognac. That was a shock. My mother was a whiskey and coke drinker. When I mentioned my shock, my mother said it was vacation mode when anything goes. I loved that.

My week will be quiet. Actually, the rest of February will be quiet. I have an empty dance card until March.

Gracie needs to be fed, and I need to get dressed in my outside the house clothes. We are going out to enjoy the day.

“The best bridge between despair and hope is a good night’s sleep.”

February 18, 2017

My neighbors didn’t try to break-in with their mirrors to test my breathing. I don’t know why they didn’t check or at least call as my newspaper was sitting in the driveway until noon. Maybe there needs to be a stack of papers before the neighbors notice.

I slept so late to make up for the interrupted sleep on Thursday when Gracie was shaking enough to wake me up three or so times. I took her out each time then gave up the bed to sleep downstairs on the couch.

I think I’ve figured out the shaking. It has nothing to do with going out. When I turned the bedroom light on to get ready to go downstairs to take her out, Gracie was always by the edge of the bed looking nervously at the floor. I’m now thinking she might have fallen off the bed, but I can’t imagine when. She is always with me upstairs so maybe it was when I was gone; anyway, last night I decided to switch sides of the bed. It was easy, and it worked. Gracie and I both slept the whole night and the whole morning. We didn’t wake up until noon. She didn’t shake once all night. Solution found though the question still lingers.

Today is a beautiful, warm sunny day. There is a breeze and sometimes even a wind which makes the pine trees sway. The oaks still have brown leaves at the ends of branches. I know spring is coming, it always does, but I get impatient around this time of year. I figure winter has held sway for far too long. The snow last week was the final straw.

My front garden has green shoots. I think they’re daffodils. I also think they’re brave and I do hope they survive. February isn’t finished yet, and March can be snowy.

Baseball spring training is in full swing.

“My knowledge of computers begins and ends with hit power switch, magic box comes on.”

February 17, 2017

When I start to mutter and it morphs into cursing, you know I have reached the end of my patience. Sometimes it takes a long while t other times it doesn’t take so long. It happened this morning, the cursing out loud and the long while. My computer is not cooperating. It has frozen a couple of times. I restarted once then gave up for a while and just left it on. I watched a bit of TV, ate some toast and had another cup of coffee.

I’m watching a really bad movie filled with actors who never became stars and are now relegated to movies like this and unknown actors just glad for the chance. The movie is called Awaken. Avoid it at any cost, even if it’s free. Oops, Michael Pare just bit the dust.

The morning was cold, mid 30’s, but sunny. Since then the day has gotten warmer and is in the mid-40s’. The sun has stayed around for the first time in days.

My house is a giant dustbowl especially here in the den. It’s where the cat, dog and I spend most of our time. The cat sleeps on the chair while the dog and I share the couch. She gets two cushions because she stretches out when she naps, like now, and I get one.

I can’t take it anymore.  I watched the end of that horrible movie and for the last hour I have been sitting here waiting for my computer. It has returned, but I am done.

 

“Shut the door not that it lets in the cold but that it lets out the coziness.”

February 16, 2017

Last night we had a sprinkling of snow, less than an inch. The sun was out when I woke up but has since given way to clouds. The melting has stopped. Cold is creeping in, and it is down to 32˚. We’ll have flurries today.

Yesterday it poured most of the day. Gracie and I went to the dump, and, of course, it started to rain just then. I got wet.

I’m ignoring my lists. The last few days I have been lazy and have crossed off nothing, except the trash and the dump from Saturday’s list.

Winter is a time for hibernation, and I think I’m hibernating in my own way. My days are routine. I mostly stay inside. I find ways to keep myself occupied. I watch TV. I read, and every now and then I randomly clean. I live in my comfy clothes. Afternoon naps are common. The phone rings and strange phone numbers from all over the country appear in the corner of my TV. I don’t ever answer, and they don’t ever leave a message. They interrupt my naps.

Spring training has started. The Globe is filled with baseball stories. I read them all. Thoughts of baseball conjure green grass, warm days and steamed hot dogs.

I hate commercials, but I don’t hate them all equally. Some I hate more than others. The Dole fruit cup commercial where the haughty woman says to her husband, “Oh, they are drainers,” is the worst. She looks at the other couple as if they are plague carriers instead of drinkers of sweetened fruit juice. I change the station.

The catalogs stopped for a while, after the Christmas sales were over, but now they’re back. Some I toss right away into the recycle bag. Others I thumb through hoping to find a treasure.

It’s time for lunch: chicken noodle soup from one of my favorite places, Spinners. The soup is perfect for a cold winter’s day. It warms the innards.

“Love is a sweet aroma, it fills the room with a wonderful atmosphere. Happy Valentines Day.”

February 14, 2017

Valentine’s Day was a special day when I was a kid. The preparations started early. In school, during art, we transformed shoe boxes into decorated valentine’s boxes. They stayed in school until the big day. My mother and I would walk uptown to Woolworth’s where I’d take my time choosing the right valentine. Back then the valentines had a picture on the front with a funny saying, sometimes even a pun, and a blank back for signing. When I was really young, I used the whole back to sign my name so it snaked all the way around.

On the night before Valentine’s Day, my mother made the cookies for the class party. I signed my valentines, slid them into envelopes, wrote my classmates names on the front and put them in my school bag.

My friends and I chatted the whole walk to school about who would give us valentines and even who wouldn’t. We had hopes.

At school, the cookies and all the other goodies were covered and put away until the afternoon. Our decorated boxes stayed on the floor beside our desks. The valentines were safe in my school bag. I was supposed to pay attention to geography or English, or even worse, arithmetic, but I was too excited and so were many of my classmates, mostly the girls.

Finally, the time came and we put our boxes on our desks. When the nuns called us, we’d walk from row to row putting valentines in boxes. In those days the nicety of giving everyone a valentine had yet to come into play.

After all the valentines had been given out, the party started. We took turns going to the front to pick sweets. Mostly there were cookies, sugar cookies in the shape of a heart. We’d eat and we’d open all the valentines.

I carried my box on the way home as if it were gold. Once home and out of my school clothes, I’d look over my valentines again and show a few to my mother. She’d laugh at the puns, but I think she was just being nice. They were awful.

“The snow itself is lonely or, if you prefer, self-sufficient. There is no other time when the whole world seems composed of one thing and one thing only.”

February 13, 2017

Last night was warm and clear. I took Gracie out front before bed, and she was far more interested in the night so we came back inside. That was our regimen. She’d wake me up and she’d be panting and shaking. We’d go back down the stairs and back outside. That happened three more times. Finally, I decided to sleep on the couch and so did Gracie. We slept the rest of the night. Wouldn’t you know it?

We got a couple of inches of snow during the early morning, and it is still snowing. The wind is blowing the flakes sideways, and the pine trees are swaying back and forth. My car and walkway are covered again. Gracie had been going down the back steps again, but I won’t have her go down when the stairs are slippery.

The classroom I remember the best was my very first school room. It had a cloakroom right outside accessible by two different doors in the front of the room. We were on the first floor. Our side windows looked out over a driveway, a border fence and some houses. The back windows looked over the school yard, which became the parking lot on Sundays. We were all subdued on days like today. We’d keep looking out the windows at the falling snow. It was mesmerizing. It still is.

No cars are on the road. It is not a day to be out and about so I’m staying home today. I’ll take the dog out when necessary, but I won’t like it. It’s an ugly day with little to commend it. I’m glad I have heat and electricity, a fairly full larder and Netflix. I’m thinking popcorn and a good movie are perfect to while away a snowy day.

“Happiness is a hot bath on a Sunday afternoon.”

February 12, 2017

The clouds are storm clouds, maybe carrying a couple of inches of snow, but I wouldn’t mind. The new flakes will cover the dirty snow left on the sides of the roads and the sawdust and small branches covering the snow on my lawn.

Gracie went down the back steps this morning. I was going to lead her down, but she left without me and made it down safely. On the inside steps, though, Gracie’s back leg slides so I stand beside her as she goes from step to step.

The house is getting dark, but I like the feel of today. It is a comfortable day, a day to stay warm and cozy. The cat and dog are sleeping. The dog is snoring, not unusual.

When I was a kid, days like today sometimes made us quiet. We could sit and watch TV and say very little, just watch the shows. We never fought about what to watch. There weren’t many choices. We had a schedule we kept to every night. Mostly I remember the years of the westerns. I swear we watched at least two every night. I remember watching The Adventures of Rin, Tin, Tin, of Wild Bill Hickock, Kit Carson, and Jim Bowie. Rin, Tin, Tin was my favorite Adventure. I watched Annie Oakley and Bat Masterson and so many more. I think that’s why I’m not a fan of westerns. I’ve had my fill already.

I used to like to lie in bed under the covers with my headboard lamp shining on my book. It was always quiet. The noise was downstairs. Sometimes I’d take a nap but not on purpose. I just fell asleep.

We usually had a 1 or 2 o’clock Sunday dinner because it was also the day of eggs and bacon for breakfast so we weren’t hungry until later. My favorite was roast beef, but we had roast chicken more which I never really minded. Always mashed potatoes, LeSoeur peas and one other vegetable.

My mother used to use the school night argument to get us to go to bed early. We’d argue and got a bit more time. My little sisters went first then a half hour or so later my brother and I went to bed. I don’t remember much after that. I easily fell asleep.

Sunday can be the best day of the week sometimes.

 

“You can’t get too much winter in the winter.”

February 11, 2017

The tree is gone, reduced to its smaller pieces and stacked on the side of my yard. The lawn is covered in snow, sawdust, small sticks and pine needles. The only victim of that tree is one section of my front fence. It is standing only because it is propped by a pine branch. Come spring, it will be replaced.

Last night it snowed another inch or so. This morning, the car was covered as was the path from the house, around the tree to the car. The walkway got shoveled after the tree was gone so I can now use it to get to the car. As I have to go out today, that’s a good thing.

The day is in the high 30’s so some melting is happening. The roof line of my house has icicles hanging from it. They look pretty, almost like a postcard: Welcome to Winter in New England. Speaking of ice, I’ll have to remember to spread the meltaway on the front steps. It will get below freezing tonight.

The sky is gray and looks to be threatening rain. The snow always gets ugly when it rains. It becomes pock-marked then disappears from all but the huge piles left by the plows. The best day is the day after the snowstorm when the snow is still beautiful and clean and sparkles in the sun. That was yesterday.

My Christmas lights still come on every night. The centerpiece is the star with trails of lights. It shines from the top of my driveway fence. Last night my neighbor called to thank me for leaving the lights. She was surprised to see they had made it through the storm, but, if she had looked, she’d have seen them covered with snow but still shining through on the night of the storm. I love the lights. I just can’t take them down. They are my defense. They keep the darkness of the winter’s nights at bay.

“Genius is an African who dreams up snow.”

February 10, 2017

It is 1:30. The wind is still raging, but the snow has stopped. Most of the snow was wet and heavy, and in the late afternoon a downed wire cut off my electricity. I sat for a while reading, but because the house was getting a bit cooler, Gracie and I headed upstairs to take a nap. I was thinking warm down comforter. I don’t know what Gracie was thinking. I could hear the branches brushing against the house, against the wall in my bedroom. Then I heard a crash. I ran downstairs, opened the front door and saw nothing but branches. They extended from a giant branch, half of a pine tree, now lying across my front yard. It was torn off the tree by the wind. Its branches are near the front door and have cut me off from the outside world. Poor Gracie had to go out among the branches. It took three times before she decided it was branches or nothing.

I went to bed around 2:30. Gracie woke me up around 4. She was shaking. She was also panting: signs that Gracie needed to go outside. She wouldn’t get off the bed so I had to help her. We got down the stairs to the door and she went outside and did her business just this side of the branches.

I’m hoping my landscape guy comes today to free me. I know Skip will be here to plow and shovel as soon as he can. Right now the day is beautiful to look at, all sunny and bright, but that’s deceiving. It is only 20˚. I guess I’m okay for now with being stuck in the house, the warm house.

This was a terrific snow storm. It even had thunder. We probably got near a foot of snow. It covers everything. I couldn’t see out the back windows until a little while ago, but the sun is still the sun so the windows are clear again.

Looks like we have to postpone dump day.

“The very fact of snow is such an amazement.”

February 9, 2017

The Cape is under a blizzard watch. The winds could get as high as 55-65 MPH. The snow in Boston is already accumulating, but it hasn’t started here yet. It is still a bit warm, a holdover from yesterday’s 50+ degrees. The amount of snow we are now expecting is down a few inches from the earlier prediction, down to 8-12 inches.

They announced today’s school closings last night. My sister and I remembered waiting to hear the fire horn and jumping up and down when it sounded. I don’t remember my mother’s reaction, but I suspect she silently groaned.

The wind is picking up here. The tops of my trees, especially the pine trees, are being blown and are tipping almost sideways. I imagine the ocean is furious with white capped waves hitting the shore. The sea walls won’t keep the water back.

I almost got dressed to go outside this morning. I wanted Oreo cookies, double-stuffed, but I didn’t go, and now I’m regretting it.

The house is dark. The sky is dark clouds, snow clouds. Outside looks different when it’s going to snow. The air looks hazy. It lacks the sharpness of the winter’s sun.

Gracie has gone down the back stairs to the yard but only with me facing her and touching her as she goes down a step at a time. Her back legs slide. She is still afraid, but she trusts me to help her and keep her safe.

I’m thinking this is a day for hot cocoa with marshmallows melting and spreading over the top. I wonder if I have the ingredients to make chocolate chip cookies.

The weather has gotten fiercer. The wind is stronger. It has started to snow, with big wet flakes. The day has little to commend it. I’m happy to be home even without the Oreos.