Archive for the ‘Musings’ category
March 31, 2017
The day is dark and cloudy, as usual. It rained earlier, after my paper was delivered because underneath it was dry. It will rain again according to the weatherman. I have a to-do list with three or four stops, including Gracie’s favorite, the dump. I also have a chore list with mostly outside, get done before the rain stuff.
When I was a kid, I hated rainy days in the winter. The walk home was pure misery. My shoes, my jacket, and my bare head would get soaked, and I’d freeze from the combination of wet and cold. Usually about half-way home, at the train tracks, I’d be so soaked I was akin to an ice cube.
Rainy afternoons have always been favorites of mine. I like the darkness clouds bring. The lights are off except for the window lights in the front rooms. Theirs is a cozy glow.
The weekend will be quiet. I haven’t anything scheduled. I could tackle a couple of cabinets which do need cleaning, but, if history repeats itself, I won’t though I do want the cabinet formerly the home of the obese, now departed, mouse, cleaned. Yup, the wee beastie didn’t make it. I knew it wouldn’t.
Boston may get a couple of inches of snow from today’s storm. Groundskeepers may have to shovel Fenway for opening day on Monday. I saw a Red Sox game in Cleveland once, and the temperature was in the high 30’s with a wind. That is football weather. I froze though I did last the whole game with frequent trips to the ladies room to sit on its giant radiator to get warm. The Sox won in the top of the ninth with a three-run homer by Manny.
Well, there’s not much going on in my part of the world so I’ll get dressed and go out to finish the errand list.
Categories: Musings
Tags: chores, cleaning cabinets, cloudy, dark, dead mouse, dump, errands, opening day, rain, rainy afternoons, Snow
Comments: 12 Comments
March 30, 2017
Today is a New England spring day. The sun is bright, the sky is blue, and it’s in the mid-40’s. The weatherman calls this seasonable. I call it chilly.
Yesterday was a busy day for me. I was out and about early. I had a doctor’s appointment at 9:30 so I slept on the downstairs couch and set an Alexa alarm to wake me up. She did just fine. The doctor has decided my back needs to be looked at again. He used his knee hammer on my right leg five or six times before it reacted with that quick kick. “Something’s wrong with this knee,” was his professional opinion based on years of schooling followed by years of doctoring. I tell him about that knee every year, and every year he schedules tests which show nothing. This year we’ll do another MRI on my back.
When I was a kid, we never had regularly scheduled visits to doctors or dentists. We went only for apparent pain or injury. I remember seeing the doctor a day or two after I fell down the stairs when I was ten. I remember that doctor well. Pain sometimes does that: etches an event into a memory which dims but never disappears. That doctor, the one with no bedside manner, cleaned my chin gash quickly and painfully.
I remember sitting with my mother and then being called into the doctor’s office. It was huge with high ceilings and lots of wood around doors and windows. The office was in the front downstairs room of his house. The doctor was huge with the sort of big belly some old men seem to get. He always wore a vest with suspenders underneath. The desk was wooden and befitting a huge man. He had a skeleton hanging near his desk. That fascinated me. He checked the gash then cleaned it as if he were cleaning tile grout and then put a butterfly bandage on it. He told my mother it needed stitches, but the cut had become infected in the day or two since the fall so he couldn’t close it. I was thrilled. I didn’t care if that cut stayed opened forever. All I cared about was no stitches.
I loved my first dentist. He always used gas so I never felt any pain, but my father made me switch from that painless, expensive, dentist to a really old, cheap, dentist who didn’t even use novocaine. I swear his drill was a pedal model like the old sewing machines. I remember gripping the chair arms so hard I must have left finger impressions. He soured me on dentists for a long time, but I had to have all dental work finished before I went to Peace Corps staging in Philadelphia. I faced my bête noire and was triumphant. At the dental check in Philadelphia, I was perfect, good to go.
I figure if my back is my only complaint, I can manage. I can still be good to go.
Categories: Musings
Tags: 44K, bad back, cut, dentist, dentists, doctor, doctor's appointments, Doctor's office, huge belly bedside manner, infirmities of getting old, knee, knee hammer, knee jerk, MRI, pain, PCGhana, Peace Corps staging, seasonable, skeleton, stitches
Comments: 6 Comments
March 28, 2017
The morning has been a strange one. First off is the scary part. Halfway down from upstairs, Gracie started sliding on the steps. She panicked and started scrambling on all fours for a paw hold. She was five steps from the bottom of the stairs. I grabbed her halter and held on then lifted her to a step where she was able to gain control. The whole time I held her my back was screaming. She weighs 62 pounds. I felt every one of them, but Gracie was able to stand and make it down the stairs without falling. She was even eager to go down the outside stairs.
The second weird event was the finding of a mouse, not dead but wounded. I was on my way into the dining room which I saw it. It was the fattest field mouse I’ve ever seen. It couldn’t have run away so I’m thinking it waddled, which makes me believe Maddie got it. This must be the mouse which has been living in my cabinet, my pots and pans cabinet, where I occasionally store packages of food or crackers. Last week I went to get the bag of potato chips I had put there a few days earlier. It had a couple of chewed holes. The Equal box which had had about 30 or so packets was empty. The corn flakes were gone. There hadn’t been many, but now there were none. That cabinet is due to be cleaned, and I was going to put a trap inside it. Now I wonder. Kudos to Maddie who is seventeen. As for that mouse, it is outside where I tossed it, still alive at least for the meantime.
I haven’t ever been afraid of bugs or snakes. I know a few people who squeal at the sight of a spider. That makes me want to slap them and say get a grip. In Ghana, I was introduced to scorpions and centipedes. Both took me a bit aback, scorpions because they bite and centipedes because of their appearance and the possibility of a bite. They are not really bugs, but that’s for another time. My favorite looking insect is the praying mantis. It, of course, had its own movie: The Deadly Mantis. The giant mantis had been frozen in the Arctic ice cap but was dislodged by a volcano’s eruption. Terror ensues.
Today is cloudy. What a surprise! Rain is predicted, another surprise, but it will be warmish at 44˚. I have some inside chores today, enough to keep me busy for maybe twenty minutes then I’ll need a nap.
Categories: Musings
Tags: bugs, cat and mouse, centipedes, chewed food, falling down stairs, fat mouse, obese mouse, paw hold, praying mantis, saving the dog, scorpion, scrambling, snakes, spiders, squealing, The Deadly Mantis, wounded
Comments: 6 Comments
March 27, 2017
Today is chilly, damp and cloudy. Last night it rained, and the ground is still wet. More rain is expected today. My dance card is empty so I’m staying close to hearth and home. I’m declaring today a sloth day. It’s a sit on the couch, watch TV, and snack day. It is comfy clothes including a sweatshirt that has seen better days. It is not fit for public viewing.
It has been a quiet news day. The front page of the Globe had only a single Trump article, and it was at the bottom of the page: “Trump girds for tax fight and Prepares to reverse Obama climate plan.”
When I’d visit my mother, she and I had rituals. We’d sit for hours at the kitchen table playing Big Boggle. We’d order take out for dinner. She paid and I picked up. On Saturday, we did some shopping. Both she and I liked off-beat places, never a mall. Sometimes we’d venture afar. One Saturday we went as far as North Conway, and we shopped and had lunch. We were gone so long my father figured we were lost, wandering aimlessly from backroad to backroad. Little did he realize that my mother and I loved backroads, even when we had no idea where we’d end up. On Saturday night, depending on the season, my father barbecued. It was always a couple of different meats, chips, a potato salad or pepper and egg. Chinese sausage was the favorite meat one year, but my mother’s marinated steak tips were perennial favorites. On Sunday morning my dad went out early for donuts. He was a plain donut guy, and he spread butter on it. He’d then start cooking breakfast. It was always eggs, bacon and toast. The eggs were easy over and the bacon crispy. I’d sit at the kitchen table to keep him company Sometimes I was on toast duty. Sunday afternoons were for cribbage. When I won, it was the luck of the draw. When my dad won, it was expertise. I lived to skunk him.
Categories: Musings
Tags: bacon and eggs, Barbecue, Big Boggle, breakfast, Chinese sausage, cloudy, Cribbage, damp, donuts, North Conway, pepper and egg, pond, quiet news day, rainy, sloth day, Toast
Comments: 9 Comments
March 26, 2017
Okay, I am confessing that I watched shark movies yesterday. The worst, by far, was Avalanche Sharks. Supernatural sharks materialized in the snow after an avalanche. Their fins skimmed the snow as if they were in water. The victims knew what was coming. The sharks were drawn, I suppose, to the Bikini Snow Day contest. Even sharks couldn’t resist those bikini-clad coeds. The sharks, from under the snow, fed on the skiers. Many shots were of skiers screaming as the shark munched on the lower parts of their bodies. I was rooting for the sharks. One line was so horrific I wrote it down. The speaker was describing the death of his former girlfriend, “There wasn’t enough of her to make a sloppy Joe.”
The morning was sunny and warmish at 44˚, but since then clouds have covered the sky. Rain is predicted for tomorrow; of course, it is. Tomorrow looks to be the warmest day in a while.
I’m so eager for baseball to start, I’ve been watching Red Sox spring training games. Yesterday I was thrilled to hear Jerry Remy back in the booth. He and Don Orsillo, the former play by play announcer, were amazing together. They called a great game though they did tend to go off topic if the Sox were winning in a rout or losing by the same. The pizza slice video was my favorite. I don’t remember why the two men in the stands started at each other, but it culminated in a pizza slice being thrown. Don and Jerry were laughing so hard they could barely talk. They showed that video several times. They always laughed. Don left the Red Sox as his contract wasn’t renewed. He went to San Diego. I still miss him.
Tonight is game night. We always have something easy to hold for dinner as we play through. This week I am the dessert bringer or rather the dessert buyer.
The first fly of the season is in the house. It is probably enjoying the heat. I usually chase flies with a rolled-up magazine, hoping to swat them to oblivion. This fly looks little, a small target. I’ll have to hope my skills didn’t rust over the winter. That fly is mine!!
Categories: Musings
Tags: 44˚, Avalanche Shark, bad movie, Baseball, Bikini snow day, dessert, eaten by sharks, Ecuator, fins and snow, fly, Pizza slice video, rain, Red Sox, spring training, sunny, warm
Comments: 8 Comments
March 25, 2017
It rained last night leaving today cloudy and dark. It’s warmer than it has been. All my chores and errands got finished, scratched out. Today is a stay at home day. Right now Boris Karloff as The Mummy is on TV. I have seen this movie several times, but that doesn’t ever matter. A propeller plane circles the world, the eerie music starts, and we see Egypt and the desert. We’re at a dig: it’s 1931, and the mummified remains of Imhotep, who had been buried alive, have just been found. A warning on the top of the chest buried with the mummy warns that whoever opens the chest will die. Despite the warning the chest is opened, the sacred words are said and the mummy comes back to life. There’s more but not here.
In winter, cloudy days sometimes make me feel subdued, and, after several in a row, even melancholic while other cloudy days, like today, make me feel cozy in my warm house. Life doesn’t get much better than being in my comfy clothes and watching one of my favorites, a black and white science fiction movie from the 30’s. I’m even having Chinese for lunch. It’s one of those perfect days.
When I was in Ghana, I lived alone for the first time. My house, one side of a duplex, was brand new and on school grounds right by the back gate, which I had to climb a few times as the watchman chose not to hear me yelling for the gate to be opened. (Sorry for the digression. Back to the story.) I was really lonely the first few months. I hated the quiet of my house. I played music especially at night to ward off the silence, but, by Christmas, I relished the night-time quiet because every day was busy and filled with sounds. In the morning it was the swishing of the hand- held brooms as the students cleaned the compound. After that, I could hear buckets being filled with water for bathing and the conversations of my students in a variety of languages. From that morning time on, the day was only quiet after the students had lights out.
It is always a marvel to me that life in Ghana took on a routine, became every day. Here I was living on a school compound in Bolgatanga. It was eggs and toast and coffee, horrible coffee, for breakfast, fruit for lunch and chicken or beef with a sauce and yams on the side, sometimes fried but mostly mashed, for dinner. I went to the market every third day and filled my basket with vegetables and fruit. The amazement of living in Africa was replaced by familiarity. It was home.
I think the memory of living in Ghana surfaces on days like today. I recognize the comfort in the quiet I felt then and I’m feeling now. It is contentment!
Categories: Musings
Tags: 1930's science fiction, Bors Karloff, chinese food, clothes, cloudy dark, cloudy day, comfy, Egypt, living alone, melancholic, noisy, Peace Corps Ghana, perfect day, school compound, silence, sunny, The Mummy, winter
Comments: 4 Comments
March 24, 2017
Snow flurries this morning dashed my hopes for a spring-like day; instead, it’s still winter, cloudy and cold. Rain is expected later. Right now it is 37˚. The sound of big wheels woke me up this morning. The boys from down the street were out riding early, before the bus. I cursed their mother. I tried to get back to sleep, but the buzz of saws kept me awake. I cursed them too. When I got downstairs, I realized the saws were in my backyard. My landscaper and his guys were cutting down dead pine trees and lopping dead branches from other trees. Because my back gate was open, I took Gracie out front. She was quick. I was grateful.
All of my errands got finished yesterday. I expected crowds at my house clapping and dancing for me and my achievements. I have no to-do list. I do have an appointment to get my eyes checked. This is the month for doctor’s appointments for me.
I am watching 12 Days of terror, a low budget Jaws-like movie with similar plot details, like a great white shark menacing the shoreline. So far one victim was screaming as he was being pulled back and forth in the water. His dog kept barking. The swimmer had a huge bite wound and did not survive the attack. The lifeguard, who pulled the swimmer from the water, said it was a shark bite and wanted the beaches closed. The mayor didn’t agree. A state commissioner thought it was a torpedo from a u-boat. Now that’s a strange new twist. I’m watching and hoping for Quint to scratch the blackboard.
Fin and humpback whales come to Cape waters every summer. Whale watching boats out of Provincetown take tourists out to sea hoping they’ll find the whales. They are seldom disappointed. Further down cape, great white sharks are the attraction. Last summer some beaches were closed after as many as six great whites were spotted feeding on a whale carcass. Scientists agree it’s not a matter of if, but when, there will be a fatal attack on Cape Cod.
Jaws is one of my July 4th movies on the deck. It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve seen it. The shark music is all I need to hear to get the adrenalin pumping.
Categories: Musings
Tags: 12 Days of Terror, adulation, cold, dead trees, errands, Jaws, lifeguards, Quint, Shark attack, snowy, trimming trees, u-boat, whales
Comments: 8 Comments
March 23, 2017
Cold, it’s bone chilling cold! Last night I took Gracie out and she just walked around. I kept exhorting her to pee, but she preferred to sniff the ground and check out the house next door. I got so cold I couldn’t take it anymore so we went inside to the warm house. She got up on the couch and went to sleep. A couple of hours later I took her down the back stairs to the yard. I have to lead her down any stairs as she is afraid ever since her fall. I face her and go down the stairs backward holding her halter. That works just fine, and it only takes a couple of minutes. I figure that’s a small price to pay for a loving, funny member of the family who happens to be a dog.
I’m looking for adulation accompanied by a drum roll. I have finished all my inside chores. The laundry is put away, the bed has clean sheets and the litter is changed. I even went to Agway this morning for all my pet supplies. My to-do list is much smaller and only has a couple of errands left.
Mothers bend the truth. Think back to all those warnings our mothers gave us. I never swallowed gum fearful of that giant gumball forming in my stomach. A certain look could make my face freeze and going outside with a wet head could cause a cold.
Some things my mother said were downright silly. I didn’t ever think money grew on trees, and I didn’t at all believe huge potatoes could grow in my dirty ears. After she said that once, I laughed. Big mistake! I ended up in my room. She, after all, was the boss.
I don’t remember what the warning was but my sister told her grandsons they had to be potty trained by the time they turned three. They were. One was even earlier than three. My sister is following in my mother’s footsteps.
Categories: Musings
Tags: adulation, bending the truth, change the bed, chores, cold, Dog, down stairs, drum roll, gum swallowing, Laundry, litter, money growing on trees, mothers, pee outside, to do list, wet haeds
Comments: 12 Comments
March 21, 2017
Today is a wonder. It is bright and warmish, almost springlike. I stood outside on the deck for a while watching Gracie, but I got a bit chilly so I came back inside. She stayed outside. Both doors are open. The sun is streaming through the front door working its way to the back, to the south. A day like today recharges my batteries. I have a long to-do list, but I have already crossed off two chores. Granted, they were quick and easy, but I still feel accomplished.
I figure my energy is a reflection of the warmth and the sunlight. Winter days make it easy to do nothing but lie on the couch under something cozy and read or watch television, but I’d feel guilty wasting a day like today.
When I was a kid, I loved to go miniature golfing. It was at Hago Harrington’s where the windmill was my nemesis. It had three lanes at the bottom leading from under the mill to the green. I don’t know how many times I missed them all. I still remember the thud sound of the ball hitting the wooden windmill, not the lanes. It was frustrating. My favorite had a slope which, if played right, dropped the ball right into the hole. On the last hole, a hole in one got you a free play. Hago Harrington’s is still there.
On the way to the beach yesterday, I saw a couple of houses still lit with Christmas lights. The colors lit up the darkness. I have new lights, all white bulbs, I need to put on the gate trailing the new star I bought. I also have a multi-colored set for the deck rail. They are on my to-do list. My neighbor will be glad. She called me a while back to say how much she loved my lights.
I’ve been watching CSI: New York on Netflix. They have a plethora of dead bodies, a necessity for the crime lab. After watching murder after murder, I’ve decided that being a murder victim would be the perfect role. There are no lines to learn so all I’d have to do is lie down and try not to breathe or blink. Sounds easy to me.
Categories: Musings
Tags: a bit chilly, Christmas lights, CSI: New York, dead body, deck, energy, hole in one, Miniature golf, recharge batteries, springlike, sun, to do list, warmish, windmill
Comments: 6 Comments
March 20, 2017
Happy Spring!
Good reasons are responsible for the lateness of my musings today. First off is Miss Gracie. I grabbed her as she started to fall going up the stairs. I was filling Maddie’s dish on the stairs so Gracie tried to go by me but lost her footing. We went up the stairs, got to my room, and she was hesitant to jump to the bed. I helped. She tried to settle down but just couldn’t. Finally, I grabbed my pillow and a blanket, took Gracie downstairs, and we both slept on the couch. She snored so I knew she felt better. On the first day of spring every year, my friends and I go the beach to welcome the sun. We sing Here Comes the Sun and Rockin’ Robin. We recite a poem by Frost, Two Tramps in Mudtime.
The sunrise was at 6:28. It was a cold, windy early morning. We sat in the car facing the east and waited. When we realized clouds were hiding the sun, we stayed in the car to sing our welcome. We watched seagull after seagull carrying breakfast then dropping it on the parking lot. We figured they were opening small crabs. We saw geese along the shoreline and ducks in the marshes. It was an amazingly high tide. The water in the marsh was all the way to the edge of the road. We didn’t get the sun, but the clouds were jaw-droppingly colorful. Red and orange spread across the sky in all directions strikingly set against the white of the puffy clouds. My friend Clare braved the wind and cold to get our shells, a first day of spring tradition. We stayed a while then went to breakfast, another tradition.
When I got home, I took Gracie out then settled on the couch and slept over two hours. When I woke up, I put on MSNBC to watch the hearing questioning James Comey and Admiral Mike Rogers. That is still holding my attention., makes me hopeful
Today will have a high of 44˚. I’m thinking that’s hardly spring, but I am hopeful. Spring does that to me. It makes me hopeful.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Beach, breakfast, Clouds, cold and windy, dusks, geese, MSNBC, seagulls, Singing, spring, stairs, sunrise
Comments: 4 Comments
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