Archive for the ‘Musings’ category
December 29, 2016
Cape Cod will get rain and high winds but no snow, but I didn’t need a forecast. One look at the sky was enough. It is a storm sky, dark and foreboding. The wind is starting to pick up a bit, but we won’t feel the brunt of the nor’easter until tonight. Meanwhile, I’m staying home. I’m staying comfy.
I woke up so late this morning I am embarrassed. This weird sleep cycle has to be broken. I stay up until one or two or even three and never wake up until some time after ten. I figure I’ll have to set my alarm for an early time in the morning and then hope to fall asleep before midnight.
I still light my Christmas tree every day although it is getting dryer and will so enough have to come down. The house always looks so empty and dark without the tree. It brightens even the deepest and darkest winter nights.
I always expect the new year to be better than the old. I know nothing around me changes too much but everything I saw, whatever I learned and anybody I met makes me more than I was, makes me a bit better than I was.
The highpoint for me this year was my trip back to Ghana. My friends and I had the most amazing time. We saw elephants walking around our chalets just nonchalantly stopping and stripping trees of their leaves while we stood close but still a safe distance away. We saw our former students almost every night in Bolga. We ate our favorite Ghanaian food. We went shopping on market day which was always my favorite day. It was a trip of highlights.
I don’t need a whole to keep me happy. Summer movies and Sunday game nights are never boring or tiresome. We loved sitting on the deck on a summer night with a small breeze keeping the evening comfortable. We laughed at all the bad black and white B movies we saw. One of my favorite creatures was the giant spider scaling the wall of the skyscraper. On Sunday it is Phase 10 and Sorry. With Sorry, just as you think victory is yours, your man, right next to home, gets knocked off back to start. That’s when someone always says I hate this game.
I’m going to do laundry today, and that’s it. Gracie and I went to the dump yesterday, and there were so many cars, you’d think they were giving something wonderful away. Gracie’s head swiveled.
Now it’s time for lunch and the rest of the lazy day!
Categories: Musings
Tags: Christmas tree, comfy, dark sky, elephants, games, Ghana, lights, movie night, New Year, Nor'easter, Phase 10, rain, winds
Comments: 14 Comments
December 26, 2016
Happy Boxing Day!
Yesterday was a wonderful Christmas Day. We opened presents, played games and had a fantastic dinner and a delicious dessert. I got an amazing present, A David Ortiz commemorative bat. It is beautiful. It is also heavy. David’s stats are etched on the bat as is an outline of David in his characteristic pose: fingers pointing to heaven after a home run. I was totally surprised and totally thrilled. It will be displayed here in the den right near the Fenway Park brick, a replica of the one laid on the concourse at Fenway which says Kathleen Ryan Peace Corps Ghana 1969-1971. It too was a gift from my friends.
I have errands to do today. I guess it’s back to the real world, far too quickly I think.
This is short as I’m taking a mini-vacation of mostly today and all of tomorrow. I’ll be back on Thursday.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Christmas dinner, David Ortiz bat, errands, Fenway Park brick, presents
Comments: 11 Comments
December 25, 2016
Merry Christmas!!
Last night was wonderful fun. We sat, chatted and had a drink or two in the living room bright with colored lights from the tree, the window candles, and some lit branches by the fireplace. We moved to the dining room for food and gingerbread house construction. We noshed on an antipasto, a platter filled with meat and cheese from the Italian cheese shop, dates, cashews and mustard, including a caramelized fig sauce, hot corn dip, and bruschetta. We forgot about dessert so we’ll have it today. I made cookies and a chocolate cream pie.
We started construction on our houses. All conversation ceased. First we put up the walls then the roof then we decorated. I bought houses from a different company, and we were very pleased. The frosting tasted good which was perfect considering how much we had on our hands and how much we had transferred to things like phones and glasses. When we opened the gingerbread package, we could smell the ginger. It was divine, like being in a bakery filled with the aroma of cookies in the oven. The frosting was in a pouch, and it was so easy to be creative by squeezing the pouch to cover the roof with snow. I even squeezed swag designs on the back and front of the house. The candies were all colors. A gingerbread boy and a gingerbread girl were the finishing touches.
This morning I didn’t wake up until 10 given I was up until 3. I turned on the tree lights, made coffee and gathered my gifts from my sisters. The boxes were filled with the best gifts. One sister found the ugliest felt Christmas tree. She knows I love old, ugly decorations. The tree is already on the dining room table. She also gave me a wire bucket with peeling paint I recognized as one for quahogs or oysters and a gift certificate to iTunes. I love all the gifts. Gracie got the most beautiful dog biscuits which look more like frosted cookies than treats for a dog. My other sister too had all sorts of vintage stuff she’d found for me. She also gave me so much more including earrings because I whined that I give them but never get them, a new shirt, a red and white one I’m wearing today, Starbucks Christmas coffee, two pounds of it, and many more gifts including a gift certificate to Rings, the grocery store which gets so much of my money. I am thrilled with my presents.
In a while, I’m going to my friends’ for dinner and more presents. I love getting to watch them open the stocking stuffers I found. Some are quirky, some funny, some a bit strange and some perfectly wonderful.
Christmas is a day to be cherished and celebrated. I wish you all the happiness and joy today brings.
Categories: Musings
Tags: antipasto, aroma of gingerbread, gingerbread houses, icing, lights, Merry Christmas, presents, quahog basket, tasty icing, ugly Christmas tree
Comments: 10 Comments
December 24, 2016
Christmas Eve is the second most popular day of the year. It is the longest day, not by the calendar but for every kid who can hardly wait for Santa. I remember wanting to go to bed around 5 or 6 figuring the night would pass far more quickly if I were sleeping, but the actual bedtime never really mattered. It took forever to fall asleep.
Today is rainy and warm, in the high 40’s. The sky is gray, but it isn’t a gray day as today has sort of a light of its own, the glow of Christmas Eve. The trees and all the Christmas lights in the house are lit. They are so beautiful.
I have some baking to do, but I wanted to finish here first. The TV is on, and I have to admit it isn’t Hallmark. It is the Syfy channel and The Abominable Snowman, the something out there, hardly festive fare.
My parents used to have a party on Christmas Eve. My father was never a fan until everyone came, and the party got going. He always had a great time. The guests were mostly relatives, my aunts and uncles. There was always singing, eating and drinking. The dining room table, groaning from all the food, was pushed to the wall. The kitchen counter served as the bar. The benches at the table in the kitchen were always filled. The living room was mostly empty. People gravitated to the kitchen and just stayed there. That’s always where the singing started. I can still see my dad standing beside the counter singing with wondrous enthusiasm.
My mother and I always cleaned up, but it was a special time for the two of us. We’d chat while cleaning, finish up, pour Irish coffees and sit in the living room. We’d put on a Christmas movie. We’d open one special present. We stayed up late. I loved those Christmas Eves.
Tonight my friends and I will put together our gingerbread houses. We won’t talk. We won’t socialize. We’ll be so intent upon the decorations that the houses will hold our full attention. That always makes me chuckle. We have this great time even without conversation.
Happy Chanukah and Merry Christmas, my friends!
Categories: Musings
Tags: Christmas carols, Christmas Eve, early to bed, fall asleep, Irish coffee, movies, Santa, Singing, The Abominable Snowman
Comments: 19 Comments
December 23, 2016
Today is Christmas Eve Eve, just about the longest day of the year to any kid. It has no significance. Nothing happens. It is the last day until tomorrow.
Last night, actually, sort of early this morning, I watched A Christmas Carol with Alastair Sims, my favorite Scrooge. I’ve also watched George C. Scott, Patrick Stewart and Mickey. My other must-see Christmas movies are The Bishop’s Wife which I watched the other night, A Miracle on 34th Street, the original, White Christmas and Holiday Inn. The only one I haven’t yet seen is White Christmas. I’m saving that for tomorrow night.
Tonight Gracie and I are going to look at lights. It is one of the traditions left over from when I was a kid. Back then, a Saugus neighborhood was our first destination. House after house, bush after bush and tree after tree were covered in lights. It was magnificent. The rest of the ride was hit or miss. We loved the houses decked all over in lights. They drew the oohs and ahs. There were no houses with white lights. All the bulbs were large and multi-colored. We had some on our front bushes, and they’d get so hot they’d almost burn your fingers. We had orange lights in the front windows. Other houses had red or blue, few had green. All the window lights in each house matched. I figured it was an unwritten rule of Christmas decorating.
I have to make cookies this afternoon. I’m thinking my orange cookies. They take a while to make then frost, but they are so worth it!
My living room smells like a forest of fir trees. At night, only the two window lights and the tree lights are lit. Between the aroma and the lights, my living room is the best place to sit.
Categories: Musings
Tags: A Christmas Carol, Alastair Sims, Christmas Eve Eve, decorating, light ride, lights, Saugus, window lights
Comments: 14 Comments
December 22, 2016
I woke up to another dreary day and a very dark sky screaming rain. The weatherman agrees. Snow is predicted in some parts of the state, but we will be too warm, in the 40’s. Yesterday was the Solstice, the longest night of the year. By next week, we will be gaining a minute and a half of light a day then two minutes in February. That sounds so hopeful.
Christmas vacation begins today around here. I remember this last day and how excited the kids were, high school kids wearing Santa hats and sucking on candy canes. They used to sing Christmas carols at lunch, spontaneous outbursts from one table then another then on and on. The halls between classes were filled with cheer, with kids wishing each other a Merry Christmas. At the end of the day, the school emptied quickly. The festivities had begun!
I have errands today then cookie baking. I was out a long time yesterday, but I couldn’t finish my list. One store was closed so I have to go back today. I also have to go to the candy store and the grocery store. I’ll get everything I need so I won’t have to go out again between now and Christmas. (I’m laughing here. That will never happen. I’ll find out I need something else. I always do.)
The excitement started to get palpable around this time when I was a kid. The countdown was at two until Christmas Eve and three until that glorious morning, Christmas day. Every afternoon we watched Santa Claus at his workshop. I remember the channel was WMUR from New Hampshire. Santa talked to us as if he were in the room. He discussed all of the work being done by the elves to get ready to fill the sleigh. I don’t remember what he looked like, whether he had great whiskers or paltry whiskers, or if his voice was jolly. I just remember sitting on the rug and watching Santa.
We didn’t have a fireplace, but I was never in doubt that Santa would find his way to the living room and the tree. He was magical so nothing could stand in his way. I figured he just used the door, probably the front door. That the dog didn’t bark was just more of the magic. I figured Duke wagged his stubby Boxer tail and gave Santa lots of kisses.
It is when the questions appear that believing in Santa gets shaky. The how does he do it in one night is a biggy. It shows a bit of skepticism. I am five and seven years older than my sisters. I told them nothing after I found out and I even became part of the Santa conspiracy and teased them about the good or the naughty list. It was wistful for me.
Categories: Musings
Tags: candy, dark, dreary day, errands, last school day, Light, rainy, Santa, Shopping, singing carols, Solstice
Comments: 10 Comments
December 20, 2016
The sun decided to make an appearance today. I guess it is a bit of a reward for surviving the cold of last night. Today is about 40˚, warm for the depths of winter.
My mother never disappointed us at Christmas. When I was really young, Santa always brought me something from my list. Under the tree, they’d be my big gift, a new game, books, and even clothes. I loved the clothes as they were what everyone was wearing. I remember some of my favorites over the years like the white fluffy sweater, the gold necklace, the ski pants with the loops, the over the head parka with a zippered pocket across the chest, and a wool skirt. The books were classics or mysteries. The games were ones the whole family could play. Santa didn’t take the time to wrap our gifts. They were arranged under the tree. I remember looking over the banister as I walked down the stairs and being thrilled and excited. I might have even squealed with joy.
We had Christmas stockings when we were young, but when we were adults, my mother used all sorts of pseudo stockings like a basket, a really neat shopping bag or something old she’d found like a coal hod. She wrapped every stocking stuffer which heightened the excitement so I always wrapped every stocking stuffer for her and later for my sisters. Now I do the same for my friends. I am a wrapping phenomenon at Christmas.
My dad was never all that excited about Christmas. He would reluctantly open his presents long after the rest of us had finished. When he was a kid, Christmas was not a big deal. It was socks and underwear. My mother, though, loved Christmas and my dad just went with it. He always told my mother not to mention what she’d spent. He had a favorite part of Christmas, the food. He loved all the goodies and would make himself a plate and pour a glass of milk to take into the living room so he could nosh and watch.
Today has no lists. I’m going to hang around the house, maybe do laundry, but the laundry bag is still upstairs. It needs to sit in front of the cellar door for a couple of days before I get to it or I need to run out of underwear, whichever comes first.
Categories: Musings
Tags: baskets, Christmas, clothes, cold, games, list for Santa, parka, ski pants, stocking stuffer, sun, toys under the tree, unexcited, unwrapped gifts, wrapped gifts
Comments: 10 Comments
December 19, 2016
Jack Frost is nipping at my nose. It is cold, 32˚. A flurry of tiny flakes started when I was going to the store. They were wet on my windshield. By the time I got home, the flurry had stopped. The sky is a whitish gray. The sun is somewhere else. The day isn’t all that inviting.
Five days until Santa.
I remember going to Jordan Marsh to see Santa. The line was long, and the store was hot. I had to carry my bulky coat. I kept moving it from arm to arm. The Enchanted Village, windows all along the line’s route, kept our attention so we didn’t whine about waiting. We thought it amazing that all the characters moved. The shoemaking’s hammer went up and down. Children dressed in velvet finery decorated the tree in their living room. They held tinsel or an ornament and moved up and down. Some characters waved moving side to side. It was remarkable.
Where the village ended, we could see Santa just a bit beyond. Every kid pointed him out. He was at the end of the line and worth the long wait. Jordan’s Santa was always the best looking. He wore an embroidered suit like Father Christmas does. His boots were shiny, and his beard was to my eyes real. I told him what I wanted for Christmas then I smiled for the picture, an easy thing to do when you’re on Santa’s lap.
This morning I dropped cookies off for the library’s Christmas open house. It was a tray of Italian cookies from the bakery. I bought myself a cinnamon bun, a bit of Christmas indulgence.
Tonight I’ll wrap my friend’s presents so I can clear out the den. Tomorrow I’ll start baking. All the preliminaries are almost finished. Bring on Christmas!!
Categories: Musings
Tags: 32˚, cold, Enchanted Village, Jack Frost, Jordan Marsh, moving characters, Santa, Snow flurry, velvet, white sky
Comments: 23 Comments
December 18, 2016
No countdown can start until the week before the event. It is a rule. That means the countdown to Christmas begins today. If I were little again, this would be momentous.
The day is damp again. It rained during the night. We are left with warmish temperatures, a bit of a wind and gray skies. I went out on the deck earlier to dump the rain puddles from the table cover. The deck got soaked so did my feet.
I’m staying home again today. I don’t mind at all. My house is cozy, and every room is bright with Christmas lights which shine so lovely on a cloudy, dark day.
We used to string popcorn for the tree. We’d sit at the table with bowls of popcorn in front of us and needles thread with thin string in our hands. They were dangerous weapons. Several times we’d prick our own fingers and break the popcorn. Yelps were common. My mother would join our strands to make one long strand of popcorn which was circled around the tree. Shauna, one of my Boxers, would eat the popcorn and drag a strand off the tree to the floor for better access. My father always chuckled. Later, when we were older, we’d string cranberries with the popcorn. They stayed on the tree.
My sister and I were talking last night about our trees. We all buy live trees every year. My family always did. My father and his sister, my Aunt Mary, had a running joke. My mother bought the tree and never told my father the actual price. He’d have been apoplectic. Instead, she’d give him an amount in the $30’s. When my aunt saw the tree, always big and magnificent, she’d ask how much it cost, and my father would tell her. She never believed him. He’d swear it. It was the truth as far as he knew.
Categories: Musings
Tags: buying the tree, Christmas, Christmas lights, countdown, cranberries, damp, decorating the tree, decorations, popcorn strands
Comments: 12 Comments
December 17, 2016
It was nearly 4 when I fell asleep. Gracie, however, had no problem as she was snoring away as soon as she hit the mattress. It snowed a bit last night, but I missed the best of it. I woke to rain. The snow is now slush, the sort where you leave deep footprints when you walk through it. Both today and tomorrow will be warm which is a good thing as the slush won’t turn to ice. I’m staying home. I’m going to turn on all the Christmas lights, watch Hallmark movies and enjoy a lazy Saturday.
My friends came to dinner last night. It was a wonderful evening. The meal was great says the cook. The conversation was funny. We just sat at the table a while after dinner. I love to do that, just sit and talk. My friend did all the clean-up which I completely appreciated as it takes a while to make the dinner, clean up as you go along then clean everything. Her doing the dishes was a gift. We then played a word game and sat in the living room so we could enjoy the tree. I had a come from behind victory. We also exchanged gifts. Usually we don’t get together for presents until after Christmas so we figured early was due. I was thrilled with my present, an Amazon Echo and a speaker. I’ll play with Alexa today. My friends too loved their presents, and my friend Claire, the dishwasher, especially loved her present from Ghana.
Woolworth’s and the annual parish Christmas fair were my go to places to buy gifts for my parents then my sisters and brother if I had any money left. My mother was the consummate actress. When she opened my gift, she always looked so excited and happy. I was thrilled that I’d found just the right gift at such a bargain, usually about 50¢. My father loved his handkerchiefs, white ones, Woolworth’s best.
My favorite of all the Christmas movies is A Christmas Carol starring Alastair Sims. It hasn’t been on yet so I keep looking. I watched the old Miracle on 34th Street the other night. The book is dated 1947 the same as I am so that makes it special. The old Bishop’s Wife is another favorite. Come to think of it, even the worst of Christmas movies are favorites of mine.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Christmas lights, Christmas tree, Clouds, Echo, exchange gifts, games, great meal, lazy Saturday, pork, slush, snoring dog, Snow, warm, word games
Comments: 2 Comments
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