Archive for the ‘Musings’ category
July 8, 2016
I have emerged. The windows and doors are open. Today is much cooler and the AC is unnecessary. Earlier it sprinkled for a bit and the rain has left a chilly dampness. The day is dark, another leftover from the rain.
My usual quiet is disturbed as my bushes are getting trimmed. I guess my neighbor noticed I have been bending down the branches of the wild roses so I can get to my car without the thorns attacking me.
Yesterday I was organizing my little library when I saw a piece of paper on the lawn right near the library. I picked it up thinking it was trash. It wasn’t. It was a check for landscaping and was close to $1700.00. I looked up the company and gave the owner a call. He just called and is on his way over to pick up the check. Come to find out my neighbor across the street found another of his checks. It was in the amount of $1200.00. How does that happen?
When I was a kid, people did their own landscaping. Mowing was a Saturday event. All the fathers in the neighborhood were out with their push mowers. I remember all the clicks from those mowers. My father mowed his lawn in a certain pattern which was why he never trusted us to mow. We were just fine with that. He mowed every Saturday unless it rained. He made it a ritual.
When I was growing up, some things were always men things while other things belonged only to women. Men never cooked in the kitchen, but they were the only ones who barbecued. I figure outside cooking harkened back to caveman times when the hunters rotisseried their game over an open flame. Women cleaned up. Men never did.
Once when my mother was away and my father was left to his own devices he had to a wash. He had no idea how the washing machine worked. He used the sink to wash his clothes, and because he also did not know how the dryer worked, he put the wet clothes on a line he strung in the kitchen.
Later on in life my father would help clean up in the kitchen. He was happy to help. He’d fill the dishwasher and scrub the pans. After he was finished and had gone in to watch TV, we’d rewash the pans. He always left residue he never noticed. We never told him.
In the summer, whenever I visited my parents for the weekend, I was certain of three things about my father. He would take me outside to admire his lawn, he would barbecue on Saturday night and he’d always cook Sunday breakfast. He’d even take orders on the eggs.
Categories: Musings
Tags: chillier day, dark day, landscaping company, lawn mowing, lost check, men things, mowing, noisy day, outside cooking, push mowers, Saturday barbecue, sprinkled rain, Sunday breakfast, women things
Comments: 12 Comments
July 7, 2016
I am behind closed doors and shut windows. My house is a fortress against the heat and humidity. If I happen to step outside, I feel overwhelmed by the heat, but mostly by comparison to the wonderfully cool house. The breeze is stirring the oak tree leaves, but it isn’t strong enough to keep the house cool as the day becomes afternoon. The afternoons are pure misery.
Last night was a delight. I went to the Payomet Performing Arts Center, a small, perfect venue. We sat in the cheap seats, but the tent is so small you can see the stage from anywhere, and we were mostly outside so there was a lovely breeze. We saw Ladysmith Black Mambazo. I don’t think I stopped smiling during the whole performance. It was wonderful. Their voices mingled in the most amazing harmony as they sang a cappella. Their hand gestures helped translate the words of their native language. They danced and kicked their legs as high as their heads. They sometimes did it over and over. I figured they must be exhausted at the end of each performance. The first time I had heard them was on Paul Simon’s Graceland album. Last night they sang Diamonds on the Souls of Her Shoes and Homeless, songs from that album. My friends were a bit hesitant to come because they had never heard of Ladysmith Black Mambazo, but they were fans by the end and thanked me for suggesting they come, but I figured the ice coffee and the blueberry dessert they brought were thanks enough.
It seemed a bit strange for me to be coming home at eleven. Usually I am watching the news or a movie and thinking about going to bed but last night was different. I was glad for an evening spent listening to great music and being with my friends who made the everything even better.
Today is a quiet day.
Categories: Musings
Tags: heat and humidity, hot afternoons, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, miserable heat, Payomet Performing Center, quiet day, small breeze
Comments: 14 Comments
July 5, 2016
Yesterday was a perfect July 4th. The weather was wonderful with a breeze strong enough to blow plates and napkins off the table. We had a barbecue which started with appetizers I had brought. One is a favorite, muhammara, which I learned how to make when I was in Marrakech. The other was brand new: a feta dip. It bumped the muhammara as the favorite. We played games, and I was the only one not to win a game. I got pegged the loser. Dinner was wonderful. We had chicken and sausage and pasta salad. A blueberry dessert topped off the meal. During dessert, we watched the Pops at the Hatch Shell. I think John Adams would have loved our celebration.
I woke up to the sound of rain. It was welcomed as it hasn’t rained in so long. At first it was just a few drops then it became a real rainstorm. The house was dark. My papers in double plastic got a bit wet and so did I when fetching those papers from the front yard.
Since then the rain has stopped and it is beginning to get lighter. It is supposed to be humid today. The heat wave starts tomorrow. Here on the cape we’ll be cooler thanks to the ocean surrounding us.
This is a busy week for me. I actually have a few events on my usually empty dance card. First up is a concert to hear Ladysmith Black Mambazo. On Friday I have another play at the Cape Playhouse. It is The Music Man. I think I’m going to need a few naps!
My first play was at a theater in the round at the Melody Tent in Hyannis. It was The Unsinkable Molly Brown with Debby Reynolds. I was hooked. I found plays amazing. This led to a long time subscription seat at the Playhouse. I think it’s been twenty or twenty- five years.
I remember a Saturday entertainment night at my school in Ghana. The USAID guy had left a projector and a cartoon about food and germs. My students were so amazed by the cartoon they missed the message. They oohed and ahed that the fly looked so real. They didn’t notice it flew from the outhouse to the food on the table. They were as delighted with that cartoon as I had been with my first play. I learned that everything is indeed relative.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Barbecue, Cape Playhouse, cartoons, Chicken, full dance card, games, July 4th, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Pasta salad, rainstorm, the Boston Pops, The Music Man
Comments: 12 Comments
July 4, 2016
It seems I can’t really top last year’s thoughts about July 4th.
I just love birthdays and today is the grandest of them all. Happy Birthday, America.
On July 3rd 1776, John Adams wrote a letter to his wife Abigail. In it, he predicted the celebrations for American Independence Day, including the parties:
“It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other.”
The problem was he expected July 2nd to be Independence Day as that was the day the Second Continental Congress voted for independence, but the signing ceremony for the Declaration of Independence didn’t happen until two days later so because July 4th appears on the Declaration, it became the date we celebrate Independence.
I know some people complain that the meaning of the day is lost in the barbecues and the fireworks, but they have forgotten John Adams’ hope. We are celebrating exactly as he wished. Flags are waving everywhere. Families get together to celebrate and to break bread, albeit hot dog rolls. Fireworks illuminate the sky. Baseball is played on small town fields and in huge stadiums. Drums beat the cadence in parades. We sing rousing songs celebrating America and our freedom. We also sing heartfelt songs about what America means to us. We are many sorts of people, we Americans. We don’t all look the same, eat the same foods or dress in the same way, but we all celebrate today and we share a love of country. Happy Birthday, America, from all of us Americans.
Categories: Musings
Comments: 13 Comments
July 3, 2016
The morning is just perfect, sunny and cool. This room is even a bit chilly. I woke up at six, an abominable hour. Hoping to fall back to sleep, I stayed in bed until 6:30 when I decided to get up and start my day.
At 5: 30 what I thought was moaning woke me up. I looked for Gracie at the foot of the bed, but she wasn’t there. I panicked, figured she fell and went to look under the bed. That’s when I noticed her. She was staring at me from the top of the bed near my other pillow. She would have been sleeping right beside my head. What I took as moaning was probably her deep breathing and maybe a bit of a snore. I swear I saw pity in her eyes.
The Cape is filled this weekend. On Friday the back-up was three or four miles to get over the Sagamore Bridge. With July 4th a Monday, the long weekend has enticed people to travel. Some have gone north to New Hampshire and beyond while others have come to the Cape, a perfect weekend destination. The lure of beaches and seafood is not easy to ignore. Before I lived here, I never came down the cape. We stayed closer to home. When I was really young, it was Revere Beach with aunts and uncles and cousins. That was when there were still rides and lots of places for fried dough, burgers, pizza slices and Italian ice. When I got older, we’d go to the beach in Gloucester, the cold water beaches. My father didn’t care and he went swimming anyway. My mother always stayed on the blanket. If she went in the water, it was along the shore and only her feet got wet. I found out later my mother had never learned to swim. I found that amazing considering how much time we’d spent at the beaches each summer. Both my mother and dad grew up in the city, but my dad was a great swimmer. I loved to watch him body surf in the waves. He taught us to swim. I wondered how he learned and my mother didn’t. Come to find out my dad went to summer camps where he learned to swim.
I don’t go to the beaches. I did when I was younger, but now I’m not so keen on crowds, sand and itchy skin from the salt. I think the best time for the beaches is the fall and the winter. Each season looks different but no less beautiful. The winter beach looks cold and even desolate. The wind blows so hard it is sometimes difficult to walk. I think that’s my favorite time for beaches.
Categories: Musings
Tags: beaches, cold water, Gloucester, lovely morning, moaning, pity, Revere Beach, sunny and cool, the dog, three day weekend, winter beaches
Comments: 18 Comments
July 2, 2016
My wish was granted. Last night it was a mighty storm. The thunder started way off with small rumblings then it got closer and louder. The lightning lit up the room. One thunder clap was right over my house. All three animals looked up as if the roof was falling. Mother Nature celebrated the 4th just a bit early, and her display was spectacular.
The air is cool this morning with a slight breeze, but the humidity will return later. I have opened all the windows. This room, my den, is always wonderfully dark and cool in the morning as the sun doesn’t hit it until the afternoon.
My mother always put the shades down all summer. She said it kept the house cool. She also made a pitcher of Zarex most days and left it in the fridge, but she hated it when we opened the fridge door as we generally stood there by the door to check out the fridge. She said we were letting the cold out.
Weekdays in the summer we entertained ourselves. We’d bike ride totally mindless of the heat or we’d spend the day at the park on the field across from the bottom of my street. On those days we’d go home for lunch which was always a sandwich, usually bologna. I don’t even remember what other cold cuts my mother bought. To my sandwich I’d add hot peppers which I had cut in half. Mustard was my condiment of choice; of course, it was always yellow mustard. The bread was always white. I don’t remember any specific dessert, but my guess is it was Oreos, a wonderfully portable dessert. I still love my Oreos, but once I went crazy and bought peanut butter Oreos. They were pretty good though really what’s not to like about peanut butter, but I’m a traditionalist prone to buy the original though double-stuffed is always tempting.
Categories: Musings
Tags: biking, bologna, cool morning, humidity, mighty storm, oreos, park, shades, summer weekdays, thunder and lightning
Comments: 17 Comments
June 28, 2016
Today is overcast and humid. We never got any rain. I was disappointed. Yesterday I needed the air conditioner. Gracie was panting the whole afternoon, and I started to get sweaty from the humidity. Such a lovely visual! The house cooled down nicely, and I slept well.
Fern is feeling better. She is back to her favorite spots for sleeping and hasn’t hidden in a few days. This morning she woke me up at 6 by meowing in my face. She has taken to doing that the last few days. I pat her and try to go back to sleep. In my world 6 is far too early. Today I made it to 6:45. Fern is back to sleep. Somehow that’s just wrong!
I wear my cozy clothes around the house. Getting dressed is only for errands. My pants are cotton with weird designs which would cause staring in public. I wear teeshirts and go barefoot. The deck is as far as I go outside clad as I am. I always hope no one rings the bell.
With July 4th coming I have to choose my movie. Independence Day, Jaws and 1776 are the choices. I like Jaws the most. It takes place on Cape Cod though Amity Island doesn’t exist. The film was shot on Martha’s Vineyard. I can’t think of a movie with a better opening or better music. The girl in the water, the first victim, swims to ballet music then she is thrashed back and forth. We never see what has hold of her. We just know because we are the shark in that scene. Ask anyone the sound of the shark music, and I suspect most people can tell you by sort of singing it: duunnn dunnn… duuuunnnn duun… duuunnnnnnnn dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun …
I consider that about the scariest music because we all know what’s coming and it is terrifying. That shark kept people out of the water the summer it was released. Now we have several Great Whites off the coast of Chatham. They already have a soundtrack.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Air conditioner, Cat, cozy clothes, early riser, humid, Jaws, meowing, overcast, shark music, the buoy
Comments: 17 Comments
June 27, 2016
I love my den in the mornings. The cool night air lingers, and I can see the beauty of the day through my window. I hear birds singing and my chimes sweetly ringing. The three pets take their morning naps on their usual spots: Maddie on the chair and Fern and Gracie each sleeping on a couch pillow.
Every Monday I spend an hour or more with my neighbor. I was helping her learn the booklet for her citizenship test, and she passed that and has been sworn in as an American citizen. Now we just chat as we are concentrating on her verbal English. We are working mostly on has or have. Sometimes I have no idea what she is trying to tell me so we go slowly word by word. I help her pronounce words. English isn’t easy is what she tells me all the time.
The Fern crisis has put me behind. I haven’t yet connected the adaptor to the umbrella nor have I started the fountain. The rail lights stopped working, and I haven’t replaced. This is my deck week. Today I need clay pots and flowers to replace the ones the spawn broke. I sometimes wish I were Granny Clampett happy to have a squirrel for stew. I’d be in the kitchen chopping vegetables right now.
In Iceland I had Icelandic game for dinner at a really lovely small restaurant. I always like to try food native to any country I’m visiting. The meat was wonderful, perfectly spiced and cooked. I remember puffin and goose, but there was one more meat I don’t remember. My neighbors are Brazilian. In the summer I can smell their dinner cooking. It is not an aroma I know. Come to find out it is a meat stew served with a side of rice and plantain. One night I was there for a barbecue. They served linguica which was a very different linguica than the sort I usually buy. This was Brazilian, not Portuguese. It looked like any sausage, not the reddish color I buy. You buy this by the pound and it’s one long strand of meat. It reminded me of what they use for intestines on The Walking Dead. That may sound gross, but it didn’t prevent me from digging right in. The meat was so delicious I decided right then and there I would make the trek to Hyannis and the Brazilian butcher.
The only food which made me think twice was grasscutter in Ghana. It was a giant rodent. I think if I had seen it before eating it I would have been hesitant, but I had been eating it for year or more so I just didn’t care. Bring on the rodent.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Brazilian food, cool air, goose, Icelandic game, linguica, morning naps, mornings, pets, puffin, singing birds
Comments: 12 Comments
June 26, 2016
Right now I’m watching Superman, the series from my childhood. I’d forgotten how high Superman’s boots are and how many places Clark Kent disrobes. I love the cars, the fedoras and Lois Lane’s many hats. She goes off to work in suits, matching hats, high heels, pearls, gloves and a leather bag. The operating table scenes were wonderful. I saw a worried doctor, a concerned nurse and a watchful Superman. I never did see the patient.
The end of this spectacular weather is tomorrow when the humidity will be back to join with the temperature to produce a hot, muggy day. I’m figuring it will the first day of air conditioning.
Fern is downstairs already. She even slept on my bed for a bit, and today is the first day she didn’t hide under the bed. It is still difficult to get her to eat the pills she needs so I’m going to try crushing them in food I’ll only give to her.
Today is tend to my deck plants day. I have been lax in getting out there, and the plants are screaming for water. I forgot to buy a new pot to replace the ones the spawns broke when they were running up and down the deck rail so I’ll have to find something to use as a planter. This morning I caught one standing on his hind legs grabbing seeds from the feeder. It was a grey spawn. They haven’t been around for a year or two. It was the red spawns who drove me crazy.
I have been watching a variety of stations, not the major networks. Most of the movies and programs have been old and fun to watch for that reason. Right now I am watching Decades and last night it was MeTv. The commercials are horrible with poor acting and weird products, and they tend to be repeated over and over. Pans and knives seem to be popular.
I have Chinese food in mind. I’m thinking about lo mein and chicken wings. Every now and then I get a craving for something. A week or two ago it was chocolate. I went to Nancy’s candies and bought six chocolates and a piece of fudge. They were delicious. I’ll just have to fit in Chinese food. I can already taste it, hot mustard and all.
Categories: Musings
Tags: air-conditioning, chinese food, Chocolate, Decades, deck plants, Fern, late night TV, Lois Lane, Superman, the cat, watering
Comments: 18 Comments
June 25, 2016
The weather is still perfect. The days are warm, even hot, and the nights chilly. Even upstairs, on the third floor, I need a light blanket at night. What a delight to feel chilly!
Yesterday was major errand day as I haven’t been out so I can keep an eye on Fern. Animal food was the priority then my food. I bought wonderful food: a cooked tenderloin, orzo salad, Caesar salad, barbecued shrimp, watermelon, kebobs, chicken salad, a Clark bar and honey wheat bread. I have a feast in my fridge.
Last night I was trying to find a movie to watch from On Demand. I told my remote to find science fiction movies. I went through all of them and read the information on the ones which interested me. Come to find out many of them had something in common. The destruction of the human race was a prime theme. Aliens seem hell bent on eliminating us. They want our planet or our water. Et was the last friendly alien.
Fern is doing better. This morning she woke me up by lying on my hip and purring in my ear. She waited around until I’d patted her several times. I have given her only one medication so far, three more to go. She caught on to the pill pockets so I have to be inventive. She can jump on my bed and on the couch where she is sleeping right beside Gracie.
My neighborhood is quiet except for the birds. It is as if only I exist here in my house. I haven’t even heard a car. It is a sense of aloneness. Out my window I can see the sun through the branches, the birds at the feeder and the leaves slightly blowing. The view is almost magical in its perfection.
I have the urge to cook. I keep saving recipes from magazines and newspapers. Usually I cook a dish for the first time and invite friends. I just hope for the best. I’m thinking I might do an international dinner. On the menu will be kelewele. I am so looking forward to Ghana when I can eat it every day.
Categories: Musings
Tags: aliens, aloneness, beautiful weather, chilly nights, Cooking, destruction of the human race, grocery shopping, hot days, movies, quiet, Science fiction
Comments: 31 Comments
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