Archive for the ‘Musings’ category
July 30, 2016
I apologize for the lateness of the hour, but my computer is acting up, and it wouldn’t load. I am using my iPad in the interim.
The day is a pretty one with sunshine, blue skies and only a little humidity. My windows are open. It is getting hotter so I’m thinking the air will be back on shortly. Gracie is panting, a sure sign of heat.
I actually have an entry in my date book. Tonight I’m going to my friends’ house for burgers. I figure it will also be a game night.
I’m back on my computer. It finally loaded.
It has been a while since I’ve been to the movies. I watch TV or Netflix or Infinity, but the new Star Trek movie is tempting me to the theater. I’ll have to pick a beach day so there will be very few people willing to give up the sun for a dark theater and expensive popcorn. I sneak in my own candy. I’m a Thin Mints fan and sometimes Good and Plenty. The last time I went to the theater I also sneaked in cheddar popcorn. I did buy a drink.
I’ve been watching the shark movies on Syfy. I’ve also kept track of the sightings of the Great Whites off Chatham. The pictures of the real sharks from aerial cameras are the scariest of all. The sharks look huge. If they were the stars of a science fiction movie, they’d have leapt up and eaten the plane. Today I got to watch The Three Headed Shark. It needed a huge suspension of disbelief.
Staying inside in the air conditioning leaves me with no adventures to enthrall my readers. Will I or will I not take a nap is the big dilemma. I’m leaning toward taking one.
Categories: Musings
Tags: blue sky, Great Whites, heat, pretty day, Science fiction, sharks, Suspension of disbelief
Comments: 12 Comments
July 29, 2016
Rain! Finally we have rain, a gentle but persistent rain.
I shut off the air conditioning and opened the windows so I could hear the rain falling on the leaves. The day is extremely dark. I needed a light when I read the papers. The only light now is from my computer. The day is quiet. Rain does that, mutes most other sounds. According to the weather report, it will rain most of the day, and the Cape is under a flash flood warning.
It is only 72˚, the coolest day in a few weeks. I like having the doors and windows opened connecting me with outside. I was happy to turn off the air conditioner.
In the paper this morning I learned a new word for a grouping. The reporter wrote, “A flock of purple, white and red balloons was released.” Who knew many balloons were designated a flock?
I can’t imagine being on the road today. Tourists will be out and about trying to find something to while away the hours. Movie theaters and their parking lots will be filled so some cars will be parked outside the lots on grass and beside all the roads leading to the theaters. Souvenir shop owners love a rainy day.
During college summers I worked in Hyannis. It was crowded with people even on rainy days. Tourists didn’t seem to mind the weather. Cars crawled on Main Street in what looked like rush hour traffic. All on street parking spaces were taken. The store with the most customers sold penny candy, now a nickel or a dime. The Planter’s Peanut store also had a line of customers. I think they were drawn by the aroma. Every restaurant had lines. My favorite was the deli.
I’ll find enough around the house to keep me busy. I do need to make a dump run, but I’m not anxious to fight with the traffic. The dump is a few streets and three long lights away and one of them means waiting a few cycles before I get the green light.
A nap actually sounds good for today. I always think falling asleep to the sound of rain drops is the best nap of all.
Categories: Musings
Tags: 72˚, a flock of balloons, crowded roads, dark, deli, Hyannis, movies, penny candy, quiet, rain, souvenirs
Comments: 6 Comments
July 28, 2016
The weather has turned me into a hermit. I stay in my cool house and have limited human interactions. The phone doesn’t even ring, and I don’t care. I am quite content as my house has plenty to keep me amused. There are books, TV, the computer, Netflix and a growing pile of magazines and catalogues. I won’t even get dressed today. I will change my bed and consider the day well spent.
I don’t get bored all that often, but I do get restless. Sometimes I need to go somewhere. I need to do something. Often I just take a ride, and that is usually enough. I try to find roads new to me. Lately I have been riding up-cape towards the bridge. I hardly know that area other than the main road. I don’t shop, but I do stop at farm stands. Buying fresh vegetables doesn’t count as shopping.
When I was a kid, about the only fresh vegetable I ate was corn. I wasn’t a fan of tomatoes or cucumbers, zucchini or any sort of bean. Now I love fresh tomatoes and cucumbers. I always stop at little tables outside houses to buy the tomatoes on the honor system. Their taste is sweet, like no other tomato. When I visited my parents, I always brought my dad a bag of local tomatoes. He’d slice them on the plate, add a spoonful of mayonnaise and sit by the TV and eat them. That was his favorite summer snack.
Every day in Ghana, I basically had the same meals. For breakfast I had two eggs over easy and two pieces of toast. They were cooked on a small, round charcoal burner. I drank coffee with canned milk. For lunch I had a bowl of cut fruit. Depending on the time of year they’d be bananas, oranges, mangoes, pineapple and papaya (paw paw in Ghana). Dinner was a starch like rice or yams and some meat. In September and October it was FraFra potatoes, a locally grown small potato. The meat was usually beef and was always cooked in a sauce, a tomato sauce with onions. It had to be cooked that way as the meat was always tough. We’d sometimes have chicken for dinner, one we’d buy live at the market.
One year the rains were late. We ate rice every night. It was stuffed peppers with rice. I had brought Bell pepper seeds from home, and they were grown in the school garden. No Ghanaian liked them. They weren’t hot. We, my two friends and I, bought all of them and had them for dinner over and over again during that extended dry season. I got so sick of rice I didn’t eat it for the longest time after I got home. I still don’t eat it much unless it’s fried rice.
Categories: Musings
Tags: beef chicken, busy, change the bed, cool house, corn, cucumbers, farm stands, FraFra potatoes, fresh fruit, fresh vegetables, Ghanaian meals, hermit, paw paw, route 6A, stuff to do, tomatoes, up-Cape, yam
Comments: 6 Comments
July 26, 2016
I’m close to screaming in frustration. Today will be hot yet again. That the humidity will be less is small consolation. I have the AC off for a while, but the temperature in the house has risen three degrees already so soon enough I’ll be stuck behind closed doors and windows. I did finish one of my errands yesterday, but that still leaves one more for today.
The kitchen in the house where I lived the longest was tiny. When the oven was lit, the kitchen quickly got hot and stayed that way long after dinner was finished. My mother, during the summer, cooked on the stove top. She made stuff like pasta, hamburgers, fried dough and even hot dogs. She never grilled. Her dinner sides were sometimes potato salad or pasta salad. She never made a green salad. Dessert was always a maybe dependent on what was in the house. It could have been cookies, Oreos of course, or ice cream or a popsicle. My favorite popsicle was root beer followed by a close second, cherry. If neither was available, an orange would do just fine.
Some people I know don’t ever eat leftovers. I don’t get that. Some food tastes better the next day. My chili is always best the day after I make it so I usually make it the day before I need it. That way any fat gets skimmed. I like leftover pasta. Add fresh garlic bread, some cheese and you have a perfect meal.
Winter has comfort food. It keeps us warm and brings back memories. Summer has hot dogs and hamburgers best cooked on a grill. You have to toast the buns.
My mother used to make piccalilli every fall when there were green tomatoes. She made New England style piccalilli with those green tomatoes, red peppers, onions, brown sugar, cider vinegar and some spices like mustard powder and a few others I don’t remember. She’d give us all a couple of jars. I’d use it sparingly so it would last longer. I swear a hot dog with my mother’s piccalilli was perfection in a bun.
Categories: Musings
Tags: AC, Air conditioner, cherry, comfort food, errands, hamburgers, hot, hot dogs, hot kitchen, ice cream, leftovers, oreos, oven, pasta, popsicle, Potato salad, root beer, stove top
Comments: 14 Comments
July 25, 2016
It is change the air day so the AC is off for a bit, a short bit as the house is getting hot too quickly. There is a breeze, but it is doing little good. It might thunder shower this afternoon. That would be a most welcomed storm.
I have a couple of errands I can do today or I can wait until cooler weather. That might be Friday or Saturday. My friend Peg, one half of my Ghana travel mates, reminded me I need to get used to the heat. I remember the last time I was there every time I did anything I was soaked from sweat. The dry season is easier to get used to as the rainy season brings the humidity. We’ll be there at the tail end of rain.
It seems the older I get the less tolerant I am of weather. I hate the heat in summer and the cold in winter. The AC is now on days at a time. In my earlier life, I didn’t even have a fan, and I was always comfortable. All winter I now wear a sweatshirt even though the heat is on 68˚. I used to need only a long-sleeve shirt. My mother always kept her house far too hot in the winter. My sister and I wore tee shirts and complained. Now we both understand.
I have stuff to do on the deck like check lights, put the adapter on the umbrella and water plants. These are wonderful intentions but that’s what they’ll stay, intentions. I use the heat as my reason, not my excuse.
Across the top of one chair was a spider’s web. When I was going to clean it, I noticed many tiny spiders were attached to the web. In August my house is inundated with baby spiders. Now I understand why. In that one web were about twenty not ready to be born babies. I left them there. I’ll complain about all the spiders, but I just could’t bring myself to swipe away that web. It was sort of neat to see.
Categories: Musings
Tags: 68˚, AC, baby spider, change the air day, cold, Consumer Cellular, hot, humidity, spiders, sweating, thunder shower, web, winter
Comments: 18 Comments
July 24, 2016
Last night, the first movie night of the season, got started with appetizers and dinner but then lightning brightened the sky, and it started to rain. We hustled inside with the movie equipment, chair pillows and the food. Even though it didn’t rain for too long the lightning hung around so we were glad to be inside the house. We sat at the dining room table, munched movie candy, and chatted. It was a wonderful evening despite no movie.
I was late in getting up this morning. All the hauling of movie equipment from the cellar and the preparations for dinner caused horrible back pain. I could barely move when I went to bed, but, luckily, right now, there is barely any pain. As I have no plans for today my back should be fine.
Right now it is sunny, 80˚, with 54% humidity. That is far better than it has been; however, I’m staying inside cooled by the AC.
Summer invites laziness, and I am happily lazy. Some days I sit on the deck and read. I don’t even bother to get dressed. I talk to a few people on the phone, and that is the extent of my human contact. I eat random foods instead of a real meal and eat when I’m hungry. Some days it’s cheese and crackers. One day it was caramel popcorn for lunch. I cooked Chinese sausages the other day and ate them for three meals in a row. I don’t get bored with leftovers. I aways think many foods taste better the next day.
The TV is on, and I’m being entertained by a movie called Dinoshark. I figure I don’t need to explain the plot as the title is enough to give it away. It is a low budget film so the effects are cheesy. The dinoshark looks a bit rubbery. Why am I watching? I can’t resist a B movie. Besides, I’m getting ready for next Sunday’s Sharknado 4.
Categories: Musings
Tags: B movies, bad back, dinner, Dinoshark, lightning, movie candy, movie night, rain, Sharknado
Comments: 4 Comments
July 23, 2016
The doors and windows are open just to change the air. It is already hot, and the house is up to 73˚. When it hits 74˚, the air conditioner will be back on to keep the house cool. Nothing is stirring not even a leaf. It is a quiet Saturday morning. I do hear bird calls but no cars and no kids.
In a bit I have to start getting ready for movie night. I have to bring up the projector, the table and the screen. They are in the cellar but will be stored under the dining room table for the season. Already, on the counter, are some ingredients I need for dinner. I’m using my lazy Susan for the condiments. I’ll cook the peppers and onions ahead of time then reheat them for dinner. There are three different kinds of sausages. There’s also cole slaw as a side. I do have to go out for a single errand. I need blue curacao for tonight’s signature drink. It’s a new one. I was drawn by the glasses rimmed in coconut.
The barbecues we had as kids were always hot dogs and hamburgers or cheeseburgers. There was always a bowl of potato chips. My father, like every other man in the neighborhood, was the cook. He always had a charcoal grill. He always used the fluid to start the coals. We used to hear the whoosh of the fire from the lit fuel. We also sometimes heard my dad putting out the flame on his shoes or the cuffs of his pants. Mishaps aside, my dad always cooked the food perfectly. When we were older, the menu took a decided turn. The meat changed. My mother bought chicken, sausages, steak tips, ribs or pork. The potato chips disappeared and were replaced by my mother’s potato salad. My father still cooked, but he used a hibachi because his grill had bitten the dust, had rotted away, but it didn’t matter. He still cooked dinner to perfection.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Chicken, cole slaw, hamburgers, hot, hot dogs, movie night, peppers and onions, perfect dinner, Potato salad, quiet, ribs pork, sausages, steak tips, windless
Comments: 14 Comments
July 22, 2016
Last night I went to bed early, around 10:30, but couldn’t fall asleep so I decided to check out Netflix as my iPad is beside my bed. That was a huge mistake. I started watching Stranger Things and was hooked. It was close to 4 o’clock before I put down my iPad and went to sleep. Episodes remain, and I’m thinking I’ll watch them this afternoon. I won’t do that late night binging again. Okay, I admit I probably will.
As of late yesterday afternoon, the house was closed again, and the air conditioner became a necessity. All of a sudden it was very humid, and the breeze did nothing to cool the day. Poor Gracie was panting, a sure sign the house was too warm. Today is also hot and somewhat humid. Boston is officially in the middle of a heat wave. We are not though heat wave or no heat wave it is still a really hot day.
I don’t remember when the weather started to bother me enough I complained. When I was a kid, the weather never mattered. Summer was for being outside as long as I could be. I always dreaded my mother yelling out the back door for us to come inside the house. Snow was always fun. It was for sledding, making snowmen and building forts. Sometimes snow even gave us a free day from school. Where I lived in Ghana was the hottest part of the country. It was savannah grassland with few trees. I could look across the fields to the horizon. Nothing stood in the way. I was hot in the 100 plus degree heat, but I found ways to be cool. At night I’d take my cold shower and not dry off. The air cooled and dried me and I easily fell asleep. After every snow storm, I used to shovel my walk and driveway. Now I pay someone and wait patiently inside until he comes. My house has central air conditioning. I used to have a fan I carted from den to bedroom at night, and I was cooled enough to sleep. Maybe this intolerance is because I am getting older or maybe it is because I no longer want to abide too hot or too cold. I aim for comfortable.
Tomorrow is our first deck movie night. I have several from which my friends can choose including Charade, The original Thomas Crown Affair, Cabaret, the Equalizer, Three Days of the Condor and Beginning of the End, our awful science fiction B movie for the summer, a movie where giant grasshoppers wreak devastation wherever they go. I’m serving grilled sausages and sauteed peppers and onions and fresh bread for sandwiches. I’m making a couple of appetizers and a new drink, a blue drink. I have my shopping list ready.
Gracie is sleeping and is snoring. I envy her the nap, not the snoring.
Categories: Musings
Tags: air-conditioning, forts, Ghana, hot and humid, liking heat, liking snow, movie night, Netflix, panting dog, Peace Corps Ghana, Sledding, snowmen, Stranger Things, weather
Comments: 11 Comments
July 21, 2016
Yesterday was the perfect day: sunny, warm and dry. A breeze from the south kept my house cool. It will be warmer today, but this room, in the back of the house, is still dark and cool. I’m going to be out on the deck today with a good book and a cold drink. My outside table is perfectly shaded by branches from the scrub oak. Gracie lies in the shade at the right angle formed by two sides of the deck. She sleeps deeply and sometimes even snores.
When I was teaching, I was usually traveling in July and August. I was one of those backpackers who slept in hostels, on overnight buses and sometimes in parks. I bought bread, peanut butter and jam and ate sandwiches to save money. Sometimes I bought a cooked chicken and tomatoes for a fancy dinner sandwich. I had a Go Europe guidebook which listed free food at happy hours. I’d nurse a drink and eat my fill. Overnight train travel was my favorite route between two places. Sometimes I’d just buy a seat and try to get comfortable enough to sleep, but a couple of times I bought a couchette and was able to stretch out on a mattress and sleep.
Traveling in Europe was a huge adventure for me. I got to see all the places I’d only read or dreamed about. One summer it was five weeks in England, Scotland and Ireland. Another summer it was six weeks traveling in Finland, Russia, Denmark, The Netherlands and England. The big trip was eight weeks in South America. I landed in Caracas and left from Rio. In between, I traveled from country to country by bus, car and planes. The best plane ride was over the Andes from Lima to Cusco. I saw the shadow of my plane on the mountain tops covered in snow. In those days few Americans traveled in South America. We met only one other in Paraguay who asked to join us at an outdoor cafe. He had heard us speaking English. He was the head of Pan American Airlines in South America and was on his farewell tour of Pan Am offices before his retirement. He told some great stories including one about Eisenhower visiting South American and having to extend runways for his plane. I think that trip was my all-time favorite.
Eight weeks from now I’ll be in Ghana.
Categories: Musings
Tags: backpacking, Cusco, Europe, hostels, Lima, overnight buses, overnight trains, Pan Am, peanut butter and jam, south america, sunny, teaching, train travel, warm and dry
Comments: 12 Comments
July 19, 2016
The windows and doors were opened for about a half an hour. Gracie was restless and started panting. I decided it was time to turn on the air conditioner. Tonight is supposed to be cool so I’ll try to open the house then.
The laundry pile was getting higher and higher so I decide it was time to bring it down the cellar and throw it in the washing machine. The machine didn’t have a setting for mountainous so I went with heavy load.
My friend said she was divebombed by moths when she left the house. There are more flitting around than there were yesterday. My backyard has so many I dare not go on the deck. That B movie plot about Attack of the Gypsy Moths still sticks in my head.
When I was an English teacher, I bought all the guides to the books my kids were reading in class. When I assigned essays about theme or character, I found some students had copied directly from the guide books. I’d give those students an F and cite the page from which they lifted the material. I’d write plagiarized as the reason for the F. Enough said!
There is a nuisance of tourists. I haven’t seen so many in a long while. The license plates from all over are indicators that the economy is doing well. A long while back, when gas was rationed, the cape was almost clear of tourists. Now, trying to find a parking space takes patience, circling around and following people headed to their cars.
The rain missed us last night. There was a torrential rain and hail storm north of Boston. Trees fell and knocked down poles and electrical lines. Roads were closed. The wind took off roofs. I do not want such a dangerous storm, but I do want rain.
Fern goes for a follow-up at the vets today. I hate putting that poor kitty in the carry crate. She gets terrified. I’ll just have to talk to her and soothe her the whole trip. I do think the vet will be pleased with her progress.
Mac and cheese is on the menu for lunch. It is one of my all time favorite comfort foods, right behind meatloaf. Last night I had a crab and clam cake for dinner. I bought it at the fish market. I also bought some crab cakes for tonight. I’m loving my menus!
Categories: Musings
Tags: AC, Attack of the moths, B-movie, gypsy moths, hot day, Laundry, no rain, nuisance of tourists, panting dog, plagiarized, vets
Comments: 16 Comments
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