Archive for the ‘Musings’ category
May 2, 2016
All I can say is ditto about the weather. May has not had a glorious start. Usually by this time we’ve had a few warmish days, but this year the weather is slow to change. We seem to be stuck in the rain belt, but I’ll play Pollyanna’s glad game and say at least it’s not snow.
My dour mood is gone. I feel lighter somehow. I even started the laundry. Last week I went a total of 14 miles. Today I have stuff I want to do so the 14 miles will quickly be eclipsed.
My flamingo and my gnome are getting anxious. They are still here in their winter quarters and wonder when they can take up residence on the deck, their summer retreat. I wonder the same thing. The deck has to be stained, but the weather just doesn’t cooperate. I’m leaning toward staining in the fall. I’ll have to talk to Sebastian, my neighbor and landscaper, about the possibility of waiting.
I don’t have an electric can opener. I don’t want one. Mine died a few years back, and I chose not to replace it. When I lived in Ghana, I realized how easy it was to get used to not having. Everything was done by hand. I had no machines to make life easier. After a short while, I didn’t care. It was there I learned to cook and bake. I also learned how to pick a really meaty chicken, good eggs, fresh tomatoes and recently cut meat. They were necessary skills for market shopping in Bolga.
Fast forward 40+ years, and my kitchen is a marvel of appliances and machinery. I have two food processors of different sizes, a blender, an electric mixer, coffee grinder, toaster and one of those immersion type things you put in soup to puree the ingredients. All of them have been put to good use. They are time and energy savers, but sometimes I don’t choose to use them.
I grab my cutting board, a good knife for chopping and bags for finished vegetables. I sit in the den, with the TV on and cut and chop. It helps my back not to be standing, and I’m reminded that I can do without. I enjoy the cutting and chopping in the same way I enjoy washing the dishes rather than using the dish washer. I ponder the world when doing what are essentially mindless tasks though I am careful with the knife. I let my mind wander anywhere and just follow along. I’ve never forgotten the value of washing dishes by hand. It is one of the best lessons I learned in Ghana.
Categories: Musings
Tags: appliances, deck staining, dour mood, electric can opener., flamingo and gnome, food processors, grey day, immersion blenders, Laundry, rainy, taking a drive
Comments: 4 Comments
May 1, 2016
The grey day is in anticipation for the rain coming tonight. It feels cold to me, a bit raw. My sister has snow. She says it has been snowing a while but not much has accumulated on the roads, and the grass is barely covered. Her weatherman says a big storm will hit them next week, could be as many as 8″. She can’t see the mountains. They are socked in. Happy May Day, Moe!
In the Globe this morning I read some college had its graduation yesterday thus ushering in the season of graduations. That brought back a jumble of memories. I remember my mother telling me that she and my father had never imagined they would have a child go to college. No one in the family had ever gone. I also remember my father telling me I’d have to transfer from my college to a state school if my brother wanted to go to a private college as I had. He told me my brother would have to support a family so he should get the better education. That struck me to the quick because he wasn’t considering me. He was considering the role of women and throwing me into the mix, but it wasn’t an out of the blue idea for my dad. His generation believed women stayed home and men worked, but I knew I’d never have to transfer. I knew my brother better than my father did.
When I was a senior in college and the future loomed, I started to make choices. My first choice was always the Peace Corps for as long as I could remember. My second choice was law school, and my final choice, my back-up, was teaching. First I filled out and sent the Peace Corps application. I then took the LSAT. I did well and applied to a few law schools. Suffolk accepted me. I told my father about law school and wanted to know if he would help me pay for it. No was his answer. He said law was not for women. I hated his mind set, but I was okay with the no. In January I was accepted to train for Peace Corps. I called Washington right away and accepted the invitation. I then had my mother tell my father. It was cowardly, no question about it. He forbad me to go. I would have chuckled when he said it, but that would have made his veins pop in anger. A few months later my dad told me he and my mother had been talking, and they would be happy to help pay for law school. I recognized the offer for what it was and thanked him but said no.
In the spring I started to interview for teaching jobs just to go through an interview process. One interviewer told me they only hire teachers with masters. I told him that wasn’t true or he wouldn’t be interviewing any of us as we were getting our bachelor’s. I was totally frank with all my answers. I had nothing to lose. At the end of the interview he offered me a job. I admitted then I wasn’t looking for a job, just interview experience. I was going into the Peace Corps. He offered me his card and said call him when I got home. I didn’t.
If I hadn’t chosen Peace Corps, I would never have been a teacher. Of all the gifts those two years gave me, teaching was the ultimate. I had found the place where I fit the best and loved the most, the classroom.
Categories: Musings
Tags: college, graduations, grey skies, men and education, rain, Snow, transfer schools
Comments: 12 Comments
April 30, 2016
My house was chilly this morning. Even Fern’s fur felt cold. I finally remembered my thermostat has its own mind on the weekends so I checked and found the house was 64˚. I turned the thermostat to manual and cranked up that heat to a respectable 68˚. It is blowing now, and I can already feel the difference.
The color of the sky is so lovely it almost doesn’t look real. It is as if a painter mixed his blues until he found the perfect one. The sun is bright but hasn’t yet the strength to warm the air. It is sweatshirt weather so I suppose I shouldn’t complain as winter coat weather wasn’t that long ago.
My current funk continues. I figure a really warm day, a ride in the car with the windows down and a Dunkin’ Donut butternut donut would go a long way in brightening my weekend.
I can’t remember the last time I jumped from grumpy into a funk. Usually grumpy goes away quickly because I take a ride and sometimes find something entertaining or funny or I shop and happen upon exactly what I wanted or what I needed or, even better, a surprise I never expected. I think shopping at little stores will be what I’ll do today. I’d love a surprise.
If the weather changed enough and got much warmer, I could while away the hours on the deck and that would totally upend my mood. I always think of Cinderella and the blue birds. I loved the one in the kerchief.
That blue bird reminded me nobody wears kerchiefs any more. My mother would sometimes wear one to hide the bobby pins she used to curl her hair, but even bobby pins are gone. If I needed one, my mother would rummage through her purse and almost always found one at the bottom. She also used to find pennies and tobacco. I remember each curl was held by a bobby pin. It must have taken hours to do that.
I am the only one awake. I think I’ll have another cup of coffee and maybe some toast.
Categories: Musings
Tags: 64˚, blue birds, bobby pins, butternut donut, chilly house, Cinderella, cold fur, curls, Dunkin' Donut, funk, grumpy, heat, kerchiefs, sunny
Comments: 20 Comments
April 29, 2016
This week has been boring. I figure it’s my fault for doing nothing except some house chores and a dump run. I was going to take a ride yesterday, but I got stopped at an accident where three police cruisers were blocking cars from going any further so I turned around and went home. I brought my laundry down stairs this morning and it is sitting in front of the cellar door until I can’t stand looking at it anymore. It is just one of those weeks.
When I was young, I was a dreamer. My imagination was filled with adventures I knew I’d have. My friends too had dreams, but theirs were far different from mine. Some dreamed of getting married and having a family. One of my friends used to cut out pictures from bridal magazines and put them in an album. I guessed she wanted to be ready. Her dream did come true as she ended up being the first of us to be married and have children. I was a bridesmaid at her wedding. One of my friends dreamed of starting his own company and making lots of money. The last time I saw him, decades ago, he was a salesman. He seemed happy. Many of my friends went right to work after high school, got married in a while and had kids. Now they’re grandparents. Some became social workers, nurses and teachers. They all seemed happy with their choices. One became a nun, but she left after a while. I don’t know what she does now.
When asked, I would usually answer teacher because it was an easy answer, but there was far than that to my dreams. I saw myself as an adventurer wearing a safari jungle hat and safari clothes while riding in a Land Rover which bumped up and down on roads not deserving of the name. I could see myself on a boat drifting down the Amazon or the Nile. I wasn’t picky. I was in the jungle and I was in the desert. A desert nomad and I shared bush tea in a tent near an oasis. I’d read adventure stories and put myself into the exploits. I would travel to so many places and see the world. I am a dreamer who grew up but has never stopped dreaming.
Categories: Musings
Tags: adventures, boring week, bridal magazines, college, dreaming, Dreams, dump run, grandparents, salesman, wedding
Comments: 15 Comments
April 28, 2016
Though it is still chilly, I think spring has started to take hold. When I went to get the papers, I stayed outside a while to listen to the birds. Their songs filled the air from everywhere.
Gracie has been outside most of the morning. She lies in the sun on the deck until her fur is hot to the touch, and she has started panting from the heat. She comes inside, waits for a small treat then goes into her crate for a bit of a nap. She and I are going to the dump later.
Yesterday was a busy day for me mostly picking up Coke cans. I was in the cellar looking for a wooden box when I knocked the bags of cans over. The open bag fell and cans went everywhere. I picked them up and put them back into the bag only to have them fall one more time. I didn’t complain because in picking up the cans I found an old wooden box once used for storing cranberries. It was exactly what I was looking for. It is now in the kitchen and already filled.
My daytimes are people-less and quiet. Dogs, including Gracie, bark and they and the birds make the only sounds. I do hear cars going down the other street but not so many during working hours. Winter is the quietest season but this, now, the in-between season, is almost as quiet, but all that will change too enough. In summer the noise will seem endless, but now it is only in the afternoons when the kids get home from school. On good days like today, they play in the street, and they are not quiet. They don’t speak in normal tones. Everything has to be yelled from one kid to another. I don’t know if yesterday was bike or scooter day. I just know it was loud.
When I was growing up, my neighborhood was filled with kids. The younger ones stayed around the backyards under the watchful eyes of mothers looking out kitchen windows. We older kids roamed sometimes on our bikes and sometimes on foot. We made forts in the woods and sustained ourselves with blueberries picked from the bushes on the sunny side of the path in those woods.
The path was brown grass in-between two parts of the woods. At one end of the path was the water tower. The other end was the field below my house. That’s where we used to catch grasshoppers and fireflies and where we’d play tag or red rover. I can still see in my mind’s eye the grasshoppers jumping up in front of us as we ran through the field. I remember the sounds they made.
I think I grew up in the best of all places at the best of all times.
Categories: Musings
Tags: birds singing, blueberry bushes, busy day, Coke cans, cranberry box, field, fireflies, Gracie in the yard, grasshoppers, kids playing, quiet days, roaming, spring
Comments: 6 Comments
April 26, 2016
We had rain earlier, but I don’t think it was much as I never heard it. The day is cool and dark. Grace and Fern are here with me but Maddie is hiding. I managed to give her some medicine last night and haven’t seen her since. I checked her usual places, but she has found someplace new. She’ll turn up just in time to get medicine again. After that, I expect her to pack her bags and leave without even saying goodbye.
In the dampness of the morning, I walked around the front garden. All sorts of flowers are peeking out of the ground. I haven’t an idea of what any of them are. Some have spread and my burning bush which was cut to the ground last fall has several small branches. I was worried but was reassured by Sebastien, my landscaper and my neighbor. He was right.
It never entered my head that I would care about a garden or flowers. Even when I first moved in, I didn’t care so much. The garden was behind the front fence so nobody could see my neglect. When Sebastien planted the lawn, he suggested I move the fence behind the garden. That’s when I started to buy plants. I bought perennials and a few annuals but the garden was still sparse looking. I still didn’t care all that much until I saw a garden filled with color and flowers, and it was beautiful. I started buying flowers. I think I have an addiction as I buy some every year. This year, I already have a list, but I need to do some refining. I want flowers which bloom at different times during the summer and fall so the garden will always have color. I’m still taken aback by my flower enthusiasm.
It has started raining again. Maddie just showed up from wherever she has been hiding. She is allowing me to pat her. That will last only for a while as soon enough it will be time for her medicine.
I have always found the rain subduing. Even when I was little I wanted to hear the rain and nothing else. School seemed quiet when it rained. I remember the sounds of papers being moved and pages being turned but no conversations. I don’t even remember the nun teaching us. She too must have listened to the rain. I remember seeing her sitting at her desk looking at papers, but I always thought she was really listening to the rain.
Categories: Musings, Uncategorized
Tags: blooming, cats, cool, dark day, flowers, gardens, medicine, quiet, rain, subdued, wet
Comments: 10 Comments
April 25, 2016
The day started grey but it is now sunny, not bright but sunny. It is also noisy with birds singing and calling. Monday always seems quiet to me. It’s the day to recuperate from the weekend and all the errands and chores and evenings with friends. I spent the morning with my neighbor. We chatted in English to improve her skills. The have/has problem is the one she can’t seem to shake. I explain it. She thinks about it, repeats it a few times, then a bit later says she have when telling me a story. I want to bang my head on the table. Maybe she’ll connect my head banging with has.
When I was a kid, it was easy to be happy. I had everything I wanted. I had a bike, ice skates, regular skates and a sled. The library was a good walk away but worth the walk. It was filled with books so I never wanted for something to read. I liked school so going every day was no big deal. I loved learning new things. My friends were neighborhood friends so we saw each other even day walking to and from school and on Saturdays for whatever we decided to do. I think it was when I was a teenager that I started to want more.
Clothes became important when I was older. We all wanted to look alike without looking alike. It was a strange conundrum. Transistor radios were a must, the smaller the better. Saddle shoes were in for a while, and I still have a pair of them. Maybe I ought to wear them. My Easter bonnet was a hit so maybe the shoes will be too. Back then only white sneakers would do. We wanted more. Discontentment replaced happiness. Envy was big.
I went through a few more transitions. One of my favorites was my overalls-flannel shirt phase. I wore them with high tops, pink high tops. Individuality had become more important.
I think the Peace Corps made me brave. I was living in a far different culture where I had to do most things on my own including traveling. I learned to be self-sufficient and a bit daring. When I told my family I was going to Morocco by myself, they chatted among themselves and were quite nervous. They even designated my brother-in-law Rod as the rescue person should I break a leg or need saving for some reason. They told me this when I got home. I thought it was pretty funny. I think, though, I should be thankful for a family with emergency back-ups plans for me when I travel. You never know!
Categories: Musings
Tags: bike, conversation, English language, envy, happy kid, has/have, head banging, learning new things, library, Peace Corps, roller skates, saddle shoes, singing birds, Sled, sunny, teenagers, transistor radio
Comments: 10 Comments
April 24, 2016
The sun is doing its best, but the air has a bit of a chill, usual weather for spring on Cape Cod. When I left the Cape yesterday afternoon, it was grey and cloudy. As I got closer to Boston, the sun was shining, the sky was bright blue and it was about 6 or 7 degrees warmer.
I am taking a short hiatus today. My body isn’t at all happy with all the driving yesterday, and I took a small spill last night. My foot got caught in the strap of a bag on the floor and I went down on my right knee. In trying to stop myself, I grabbed a storage box. I went forward more and fell while my arm stayed back. It is quite sore today.
On the cat front, I did manage to dose Maddie once last night. I didn’t see her the rest of the night, and she just showed up. She is supposed to have two. I need someone here she can dislike instead of me when it comes to medicine time
I’ll be back tomorrow. Don’t worry I am fine. It was one of my gentler falls, low on the pain scale!
Categories: Musings
Tags: chill in the air, grey and cloudy, sunny
Comments: 8 Comments
April 23, 2016
We finally have rain. It’s a bit heavier than when I woke up, but it is still a drop by drop rainstorm. I can the drops hitting the roof. It is one of my favorite sounds. I feel cozy and protected in the house, the dark house as I have lit no lights, only a couple of candles.
It would rain on the day I have to go off cape. That’s the luck of the draw. I’m heading to dinner with friends I marched with in the drill team. Many of them were also my elementary classmates. I don’t see them very often. The cape might as well be a foreign country reached only by a long flight. Other than Bill and Peg, my friends from Peace Corps days, no one comes down here, not even my family. I always find that strange.
I think a rainy Saturday was one of the worst things that could happen to me when I was a kid. In the summer, we’d still go out because it was warm, and we didn’t care when we got wet. This time of year, though, was too cold to be outside in the rain. I remember moping around the house sighing at my plight and driving my mother crazy while I was doing it. Saturday was the only day of the week that was all mine. I had no obligations and had the entire day to what I wanted, but it was ruined in the cold of an early spring rain. Finally I would read to pass the time, but I wanted to be outside. I wanted the fresh air I didn’t get being stuck in school the whole week.
The rain has stopped. The only sound is one of my cats purring. She’s the one I had to chase around the house to give her the medicine in her ears. I have now switched to liquid thinking it might be easier. I’ll know in a bit because I’m going to try and give her some. After that I probably won’t see her for a day or two. Maddie doesn’t forgive easily, and she never forgets.
Categories: Musings
Tags: a foreign country, cape cod, chinese food, dinner, moping, off-cape, rain, ride, sighing, St. Pat's drill team
Comments: 8 Comments
April 22, 2016
Warm today, it is actually long sleeve shirt weather, the first of the season. I can’t wait to get out. I have two errands then I get to enjoy the rest of the day. Notice I didn’t mention making my bed or doing anything domestic. They’re not on the list!
On the cat and medicine battle, Fern is letting me dose her twice a day, one rub and one liquid. Maddie is still running. She senses I am up to no good. I called the vet, and we’re going to try liquid with Maddie. I suspect she’ll still take off on me. She’s a feisty cat that one.
The ten year old me had dreams and hopes. They mostly centered around seeing the world. I wanted to hurry and get old enough to bag my bags, pick a spot, jump on a plane and go. I’d stand on the roof lookout at Logan airport, the old airport, and watch the planes leaving and I’d be wishing I was on one. The logistics of travel never occurred to me. I didn’t give money a thought. I was dreaming and my dreams were never sensible or logical. I saw myself traipsing through the world having adventures. When you’re ten, anything is possible.
I don’t know why I never noticed different flowers when I was young. I did notice dandelions and thought them flowers. Most of the front yards on my street had pansies and marigolds. I like pansies but marigolds not so much. Our neighbors all wanted the best lawns so flowers weren’t all that important. My dad planted pansies in the front garden, a very small garden because of the bushes. I used to look at the flowers and try to figure out who the faces of the pansies resembled. I think a lot of them were Winston Churchill.
I used to lie on the grass and watch the clouds. I remember the grass felt cool and soft. The clouds mostly looked like animals. The only exception was I often saw a witch. It was her hat that gave her away. I’d watch until the clouds moved and the animals disappeared into a single cloud, one with no shape or personality.
I always saw the man in the moon, and for me he was always smiling. Even now I check to make sure he’s still there. I’m never disappointed. He is always there and he always still smiles.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Clouds, dreams and hopes, flowers, long sleeve shirt weather, man in the moon, marigolds, pansies, planes, ten year old me, traveling, warm day
Comments: 12 Comments
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