Archive for the ‘Musings’ category
February 7, 2017
I am watching the Patriots and their duck boat rolling rally ride through the streets of Boston. Earlier it was snowing, and now it is raining, but the crowds don’t care. The fans are standing along the sides of the streets 20 or more deep. The players are having a wonderful time yelling, clapping and dancing. The confetti blowing all over makes it difficult to see but Tom Brady stands out. He is in the front boat holding the Lombardi trophy and waving, a huge smile on his face. The crowd loves him. Lots of school desks are empty today. Kids will remember this parade the whole of their lives.
Gracie is less reluctant to go down the back steps into the yard. She knows I’m there. I stand in front of her as she goes down front paws first one step at a time. She runs all over the yard glad to be off the leash.
When I was a kid, I followed the Red Sox and the Celtics. The poor Sox were hapless, and it was easy to get a good seat even an hour before the game. I remember sitting in a box seat behind the dugout, empty seats around me. The Sox, perennial losers, were not a great draw. I did see a moment in history when Bob Tillman, the catcher, tried to cut off Al Kaline stealing second and hit Johnny Wyatt, relief pitcher, in the head.
I listened to Celtics games on the radio. Johnny Most was the best announcer of them all. I used to hide my transistor radio under the covers so I could listen to the Celts play the L.A. Lakers, perennial foes. Even when the Celts were on TV we listened to Johnny Most. I still remember him screaming, “Havlicek stole the ball,” in the 1965 Eastern Conference Finals when the Sox were only a point ahead and Philly had the ball. I went to Celtics games as I could take the bus and the subway to North Station. They were often sold out. The Celts were perennial winners.
I have never seen the Pats live, but I have watched every game on TV. I’m okay with that. I get to stay warm and comfy. The kitchen and bathroom are both down the hall. I do love to go to Fenway especially for night games. It is a magical place with the green grass and all the lights.
My mother was not into sports and didn’t understand the rules of any game, but if we watched, she watched. I remember her cheering for the wrong football team, an easy mistake. We didn’t say anything. It was great to see her be a fan.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Boston, Celtics, Duck Boat, Fenway Park, Gracie, John Wyatt, Johnny Most, parade, Patriots, Red Sox, steps, Super Bowl, Tom Brady
Comments: 17 Comments
February 6, 2017
Sorry for the lateness of the hour. I slept in as I was up late watching the hoopla after my Pats won the Super Bowl in spectacular fashion. They overcame the biggest scoring deficit in history and won in the very first overtime. At the start of the second half, I was despondent at the score: 21-3.
I was able to coax Gracie down the back steps by holding her as she went from step to step. As soon as she hit the bottom, she ran around the yard happy to be off the leash I’d been using to take her out into the front yard. I will take her into the back yard one step at a time from now.
When I was a kid, there was no leash law and dogs roamed freely. Duke, my boxer, was all over town. Sometimes he was with his son Sam who was my aunt’s dog. My father had given Sam to my aunt as she had given us Duke when I was 5. Sam and Duke were notorious. People complained all the time. The dogs would stand outside a house howling if there was a female in heat. Boxers look fierce so people were afraid to leave their houses. We knew how silly that was as both of those dogs were wonderful. Sam was funny, even silly at times. He even seemed to smile. When Sam got into a fight, Duke watched until Sam was pinned then he’d step in and save Sam. Duke was also super-protective of us. He’d growl to warn people not to mess with us. That’s what boxers do for their families.
I love hot dogs. We ate them every Saturday night when I was a kid, and I never tired of hot dogs and brown bread. Baked beans were also part of the meal, but I passed on those. Just about every friend I had ate that same Saturday supper. It was a New England universal.
Marshmallow Fluff is 100 this year. Between 5-7 million pounds of it are sold each year. If you know how light Fluff is, this number is mind boggling. Half the supply is bought by New Englanders and people in upstate New York.
I loved fluffernutters. On Wonder bread we’d slather one side with peanut butter and the other side with Fluff. The mixture would sometimes ooze out of the side of the bread or one or the other would tear the bread when it was spread across a slice. Eating that sandwich was seldom neat, and it was usually the Fluff which was left on my face or fingers. I still kept Fluff in the house, and I have been known to make a fluffernutter. I have also been known to lick the Fluff off my fingers.
Categories: Musings
Tags: backyard, biggest deficit, Boxers, brown bread, leash law, Marshmallow Fluff, overtime, roaming dogs, Saturday night supper, scary steps, Super Bowl
Comments: 10 Comments
February 5, 2017
If the morning is a prognosticator, today will not be a good day. Gracie is herself but refuses to go down the back stairs. I totally understand as she fell down some of those stairs the other day so yesterday I had a solution. I opened the back gate so she could get into the yard, but she went right up the stairs into the house. I then started taking her out front, and that was fine until this morning. We have been out six times, and she has yet to go. The outside world grabs her attention and she is far more interested in the smell of the air and the grass and what might just happen down the street. I stand there begging her to go, but she doesn’t hear me, which I prefer to the idea I’m being ignored.
Today is the big day, Super Bowl Sunday. My friends and I are getting together to watch the game. We are making two appetizers each. I am falling back on the traditional queso but adding sausage and jalapenos. My next appetizer is a naan pizza with honey-caramelized red onion, feta, ricotta and blueberries. We are, of course, rooting for our Pats.
Maddie is among the missing. She isn’t on her chair and doesn’t come when I call. Now I have to go hunting for her. She was down earlier, had a snack then I lost track. These animals will be the death of me. They rule the roost (perfect animal metaphor).
My mind belies my body, mostly. I do forget some things, but they always pop up later when I don’t need them. My body doesn’t rebound. My back is till complaining about my having lifted Gracie. I haven’t even been able to bring her dry food from the car to the house. The 14 pounds seems daunting.
Maddie is back and sleeping on the chair. Gracie finally went the bathroom on trip number eight and is now asleep on the couch. I am the only one awake. I am about to immerse myself in Warbirds, a science fiction movie, and from the sound of it, a bad science fiction movie. “During World War II, an all-female flying squad and a platoon of male American soldiers land on an island and battle dinosaurs.” By the start of it, I suspect they will also be battling Japanese soldiers who have unearthed the dinosaur. Can it get worse? Yes, it can. As the flight commander leaves the plane to check in at Pearl she has some parting words for her crew. “If the brass drops by, Girls, remember, chest out because that’s what Uncle Sam wants to see.”
Categories: Musings
Tags: bad morning, Dog, naan pizza, outside, Patriots, queso, smelling the air, Super Bowl
Comments: 18 Comments
February 4, 2017
Today is a cold, clear winter’s day, the sort of winter’s day when the chill takes your breath away. The sky is an amazing blue with not even a cloud in sight.
I took a ride back in time this morning. First, I happened on Lassie, my Lassie with Jeff and Porky. I watched it without a critical eye. Ellen, his mother, wore the same outfit every 50’s mom wore, the same outfits Donna Reed and June Cleaver wore: dresses, high heels and some sort of jewelry, mostly pearls. The wall phone in the kitchen was one of those with a mouthpiece, a piece you hold to your ear and a crank you keep turning until the operator answers. I remember one vacation when we stayed in a huge, old house in Vermont. It had one of those wall phones, but when I tried it, I got a shock. I have no idea why that stuck with me. Anyway, back to Lassie. Ellen kept cranking. Jeff and Porky needed saving from drowning so Lassie came to the rescue and showed Gramps where the boys were.
If I were sitting on the floor in front of the TV and eating Rice Krispies, I’d swear I had been transported for a time back to the Saturday mornings of my youth as The Lone Ranger was on next. Right away I knew the voice of the Ranger wasn’t Clayton Moore’s. This episode was dated May 28, 1953 and was Season 3, Episode 38. I looked it up. It was John Hart who played the Ranger for 54 episodes from 1950-1953 because of a contract dispute. The narrator set the time, “In the raw, crude early days of the west.” Some of the scenes, especially the beginning and the end, were filmed outside but most were just a set with lots of rocks, bushes and a painted backdrop of more rocks and trees. I never noticed when I was young. I guess being a kid means a major suspension of disbelief.
Every Lone Ranger episode had a couple of common lines. “Don’t let this mask fool you. It is on the side of the law,” and, at the end, one character aways asked, “Who was that masked man?”
Hi Ho, Silver, Away!
Categories: Musings
Tags: clear, cold, crank phone, dresses and heels, ear piece, Ellen Miller, Jeff, Lassie, Lone Ranger, Masked Man, Tonto, Vermont
Comments: 20 Comments
February 3, 2017
Gracie is home. A multitude of tests gave me nothing new. She has a heart flutter, but she has been taking meds for that. That she was dehydrated was the only concrete diagnosis. She is still skittish about the backstairs and wouldn’t go down them this morning so I took her out front. I’m going to try and get her down the other outside stairs which aren’t as steep.
I have decided not to lift 68 pounds again.
We are at the midpoint of winter. Behind us is only a little snow and too warm for winter temperatures. Ahead of us is February with the reputation of often being the snowiest month. It has already started out a cold month. My windshield has been covered with ice every morning. I notice it when I get the papers. In the old days, I would have been out scraping, but not anymore. It just melts.
I used to like to color. I always got a new box of Crayola crayons to start school and another new box in my Christmas stocking and sometimes one in my Easter basket. Crayons almost never got thrown away. I used to keep mine in a cigar box. The crayons were all sizes from almost brand new to stubs with barely enough room for fingers and no paper left to identify the crayon color. They became just blue or green or red and lost fancy names like Venetian Red, Cerulean Blue or Pine Tree. We didn’t have sharpeners for our crayons back then so the tips would blunt and could only be used in big areas. I never used the white. You couldn’t see it, only feel it. Faces got left uncolored. My finished works got more sophisticated as I got older. My young stuff was mostly in the lines and I used basic colors, nothing fancy. My older coloring, when I was 9 or 10, was shaded, nuanced. I’d spent time choosing just the right colors as if my pictures were works of art. My mother always put them on the fridge.
When I was in Ghana, in one of my Christmas boxes, was a paint by number. It was one of my favorite gifts. I took time finishing it as I wanted the fun of it to last. When it was done, I hung it on the wall. It was a vase and flowers, a still life masterpiece.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Cerulean blue, CNN, cold, coloring, crayon colors, CSNBC, dog medicine, icy windshield, midpoint of winter, paint by number, scraping, Snow, works of art
Comments: 10 Comments
February 2, 2017
Gracie news is first. Yesterday morning around 5 she stood up on the bed and that movement woke me. All of a sudden I saw Gracie start to fall over so I grabbed her before she fell. She then collapsed on the bed. I held her around the neck and talked to her as her eyes were wide in fear. I then helped her stand up. She did but just stood not moving then threw up. I cleaned the bed and tried to get her off of it, but because my bed is an old one and quite high, she wouldn’t get off it. I finally lifted all 68 pounds of her to the floor. She walked to the stairs but wouldn’t go down. I went in front of her and she went down one step at a time. I decided to take her right away to C.A.R.E., the emergency vets. We got there around 5:30 and waited a bit. Finally we went into the treatment room. The vet listened to what had happened then took her for some tests. They were all fine except Gracie was a bit dehydrated. She has a heart flutter but is on meds for that. The decision was to leave her overnight so she could be rehydrated and given some X-rays. The vet called in the afternoon and Gracie was doing well, no aftereffects. I called this morning and she is staying there until the afternoon when she is going to have a cardiac echo. My poor baby! I just hope everything is okay.
My house feels cold and is quiet.
Punxsutawney Phil has predicted six more weeks of winter. It is cold today so he might just be right, but that would unusual. Poor Phil is correct only 39% of the time, but considering the three coldest months of the year are December, January and February, this might be one of those times.
The sun is shining with the sharpness of a winter’s day. The breeze is slight. I’m hanging around the all day house though I have stuff I need to do including going to the dump, but I’ll save that for Gracie and me tomorrow. She’ll love it.
Categories: Musings
Tags: emergency, falling, Gracie, Punxsutawney Phil, shadow or no shadow, sharp sunlight, vets, winter, x-rays
Comments: 22 Comments
January 31, 2017
I walked out of the house to get the papers and was totally taken aback at how cold it was. It was sunny then but the sun was just a backdrop providing some light but no heat. Since then the sun has been replaced by whitish clouds. Snow will be coming later but only an inch or two. I’m staying home today where I’ll be warm and comfortable.
When I was a kid, winter usually meant staying inside after school. I’d do my homework and then watch TV. The only exercise I had was walking to and from school. We, the four of us, must have driven my mother crazy. My brother and I would tease our younger sisters. He and I would sit on the couch on each side of one sister and point at her. That drove her crazy and she’d yell to my mother about us. We’d yell back and say we weren’t even touching her, but my mother knew. She’d tell us to stop.
I didn’t my bike out much in the winter. Mostly I walked everywhere. Some Saturdays I’d ride with my father when he did his errands. My favorite stop was at the Chinaman’s as everyone in town called it. The shop was where my dad left his white shirts each week to be cleaned. Behind the counter on shelves were bundles of cleaned shirts wrapped in brown paper tied with string. The laundry was always steamy from the big ironing machine by the window. I used to watch the Chinaman iron.
On Sunday, if I was up and dressed early enough I could ride with my father to church. He was an usher at the eight o’clock mass. He’d give me a dime to put in the basket. I always sat in a pew where he collected the money. The ushers never sat. They just stood in the back entryway and talked in whispers until it was time for the money offerings.
One of the best parts of being retired is staying home on the coldest of days, a day like to day.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Chinaman's, church', cloudy, cold morning, Laundry, Snow, staying inside, sun, teasing, white clouds, white shirts, winter
Comments: 10 Comments
January 30, 2017
I woke up in the darkness of this cold early morning. I believe winter is most defined by cold darkness. I can hear the heat trying to blow away the coldness of the house. I am sleeping on the couch: actually, we are sleeping on the couch. Gracie is better, but this is the easiest way to keep an eye on her. I heard Maddie running up and down the stairs and across the floor. I wondered why, but cats aren’t easily explained.
When I went to get the papers, I gasped from the cold. I saw my windshield was coated in ice. I think that’s the first time this winter or maybe I missed the other frosty mornings by sleeping in late. The brown grass on my front lawn also had a coat of frost. Winter has made a grand appearance.
In Ghana, in the Upper Regions, this time of year is the harmattan. The days are hot and dry. The wind blows sand which obscures the sun. Day after day is the same. The nights, though, are wonderful. The temperature drops to the low 70’s which doesn’t sound cold, but the days are over 100˚ so 70˚ is chilly. I had a wool blanket on my bed to keep me warm. My students wore layers in the morning. My lips chapped and my heels cracked from the dryness, but feeling cold for a while was worth all of that. I just have to remember that feeling, that love of the cold, when the frost has to be scraped off the windshield, the house heat is blasting, I’m wearing a sweatshirt and socks to stay warm and an afghan on my knees is comforting.
Gracie and I are going out today. She will wear her coat for the first time this winter. I’ll just wear my hoodie.
Categories: Musings
Tags: cold night, cold nights, cracked lips, dark and cold, darkness, frost on the windshield, Ghana, harmattan, hot winds, rime
Comments: 10 Comments
January 29, 2017
Snow flurries just passing through are predicted then a rise in temperature to 44˚. That’s a wild weather day. Is it winter? Not this month it hasn’t been, but chills are on the way. Daytime will be in the 30’s starting tomorrow and nights will be even colder.
My first watch had Cinderella on its face. I was seven years old, and it was a First Communion present from my aunt who had taught me to tell time. When I turned 50, my mother gave me a beautiful watch with silver decorations around its face. That watch I still have.
I grew up in the days of analog, not digital time. Back then learning to tell time meant understanding things like quarter past the hour, half past and quarter to. Now it is simply 8:15, 8:30 or 8:45.
We had rabbit ears. I remember it was brown and had a dial with two choices on the front. That rabbit earred antenna sat on the wide top of our wooden TV console. Sometimes my dad wrapped aluminum foil around the ears to get us a better picture. Mostly he was trying to get rid of snow. He’d move one ear then the other then the whole antenna. He was never patient.
When we moved to the cape, we had to have an antenna on the roof or you could only get one channel, Channel 6. I remember coming home from school, turning on the TV and watching The Lloyd Thaxton Show on that channel. It was a sort of Bandstand show only it was more. There wasn’t just dancing or rating records or singers lip-syncing to their hit records. Sometimes they’d be skits and a bit of comedy. I remember Lloyd. He always wore a suit, the wardrobe of the day for men. His ties were skinny ties.
When I was a kid, TV was still wondrous. I watched it every afternoon and loved Saturday mornings with the cartoons and kid shows like Andy’s Gang, Kit Carson and Kukla, Fran and Ollie. I was a Hopalong fan, and I loved The Cisco Kid. “Cisco, wait for me,” was his sidekick Pancho’s line in the opening. For some reason that has always stuck with me. It is one of those close my eyes and see it all sort of things.
Gracie and I didn’t have a great night. She didn’t feel good, and I slept intermittently because I was worried. I kept checking to hear if was breathing. I fed her some spider plant fronds, and she felt better for it. Now she is just fine and sleeping on the couch; however, I am exhausted. I see a nap coming.
Categories: Musings
Tags: 40˚, analog time, Andy's Gang, Cinderella watch, cold, digital time, Hopalong Cassidy, S, Saturday morning TV, snow flurries, telling time, The Cisco Kid, TV console
Comments: 12 Comments
January 28, 2017
Winter is back, and my heat is blasting to keep the cold at bay. I am wearing my winter around the house clothes: flannel pants, a sweatshirt and cozy slippers. Much to my chagrin, I have to leave the comforts of home to do errands because I didn’t do them yesterday. I just didn’t have the ambition; instead, I watched the last season of Star Trek Voyager. It is sort of sad to know there no more episodes for me to watch. I’ll just have to find another Netflix diversion to keep me away from TV news.
For get-togethers, my mother used to make a couple of dips. We’d have onion dip, the king of dips, and shrimp dip. The onion dip hasn’t changed in millennia: sour cream and dry onion soup mix, Lipton soup mix. For the shrimp dip, my mother would buy the small shrimp already cooked and floating in cocktail sauce. It came in small fluted glasses. Her cupboard had several of those small glasses, evidence of the popularity of that dip. She’d put the shrimp and sauce and some cream cheese in her blender, no food processor back then, and whip. That was it. Party on!
We were never a green salad family. For cook-outs, never called barbecues, my mother always made potato salad, and if we begged enough, Italian pepper and egg salad, my favorite. It was my aunt’s recipe: peppers, onions and eggs and a bit of tomato sauce. My aunt had married an Italian, and she learned the recipe from her mother-in-law. I am so glad she did. I still love pepper and egg salad.
My mother made the best meatloaf. My favorite was when she frosted the meatloaf with mashed potatoes and baked it a bit in the oven so the potatoes sort of looked like meringue. My meatloaves are always different tasting. They depend on what I have in the fridge. I’ve used salsa a few times, and it added a great flavor. What’s great about meatloaf is the leftover makes a fantastic sandwich.
The sky is grim, but I have to go out anyway. I can’t remain a sloth. Gracie will expect to eat tomorrow.
Categories: Musings
Tags: cold, cook-out, dips, heater, Lipton onion soup mix, Netflix, onion dips, pepper and egg salad, shrimp cocktail, shrimp dip, slippers, Star Trek Voyager, TV news
Comments: 14 Comments
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