Archive for the ‘Musings’ category
November 12, 2015
Cloudy still, but finally the rain has stopped. Even the wind of last night has calmed and everything is quiet. Some leaves still hang from oak branches despite all that weather. Pine needles are everywhere covering lawns, driveways and my deck. If I had awakened from a coma and looked out the window, I’d know it was fall.
Each season has its own identity, but the identities sometimes blur when moving from one season to another. A few weeks ago was late summer and shirt-sleeve weather. My friends and I ate on the deck. Winter then sneaked in for a bit and we had temperatures in the high 30’s. Now, though, summer has finally gone and fall is here. The days are in the 50’s but the nights are colder, into the high 40’s. It isn’t yet jacket weather. A sweatshirt will suffice.
I saw where many places got snow: my sister got 3 or 4 inches in Colorado, but the mountains got far more. She said it was cold, down to the teens at night. It was sort of a run of the mill storm for her because her first snow is usually in late October or early November. She says 3 or 4 inches is nothing. I agree. I think of a snowstorm with so little snow as a sweeper, a broom instead of a shovel.
When I was a kid, any amount of snow was worthwhile. A huge storm was always the best as that would mean no school and a day spent outside building forts, throwing snowballs or sledding down the hill. A storm of tree or four inches meant fun after school, but it also brought the horrors of snow boots and ski pants. I could never get my shoes out of my boots without taking the boots off and pulling the shoes out. The ski pants went under my uniform skirt. I hated the look of the skirt over the pants, but my mother insisted as my legs would be so red from the snow and the cold when I’d get home if I didn’t wear them.
I can remember sitting at my desk looking out the window and seeing branches bent lower from the snow, the outside windows sills holding snow piles and snow falling from an occasional squall. I think all of us, my classmates and I, spent the day sighing.
Categories: Musings
Tags: boots, cloudy, fall, leaves falling, pine needles, seasons, ski pants, Snow, snow squalls, sweatshirt weather, winter
Comments: 8 Comments
November 10, 2015
This morning I had a meeting at 9. When I got home, I went back to bed and slept almost three hours. The clouds and the dampness don’t seem to engender high spirits and frivolity. I’m tired and I’m grouchy, and I pity anyone who crosses my path. Luckily, though, I’m in for the day so the rest of the world is safe from me.
Working in a high school meant dealing with people, mostly teenagers, all day long. I was generally pleasant but occasionally had one of those days. When I did, the news about my mood spread like wildfire among the kids. They knew this was not a day to be tossed from class. This was a day to walk on egg shells and be especially polite.
Nothing will be accomplished by me today. The laundry sits in the hall as testament to my lack of energy and my lack of interest. The other day I went through the closet to find all my winter hats and mittens. I knocked down some games, some books and a couple of coats. I found almost everything except two mittens are singles. Somewhere are the other two. I, however, choose not to tackle the closet again as I expect that what I put back is tenuous and might just fall again. Usually I would be obsessed with the need to rejoin the couples. Not today!
I do have some napkins which need to be ironed. They have been piled on the desk chair for a few months, okay maybe even a bit longer than that. I’m thinking I might just iron them today. It’s an easy task, unlike the laundry which necessitates up and down stairs a few times then folding the clothes and putting them away. With the napkins I can sit down and use my table as an ironing board. I can even watch TV. This day might just go down in the annals as one filled with accomplishment.
Tomorrow I have a doctor’s appointment. He’s keeping an eye on my cholesterol and checks it every six months. When he asks me how I’ve been feeling, I don’t think he’ll take grouchy as an answer, but I might just give it to him anyway. After all, he did ask.
Categories: Musings
Tags: bad moods, doctor, high spirits and frivolity, ironing, missing mittens, teenagers, tired and grouchy
Comments: 20 Comments
November 9, 2015
Today is a lovely fall day. It isn’t all that warm because of the cool breeze, but the sun is bright and sharp. My heat came on during the early morning so the house was comfortable when I came downstairs. It was my morning to sit and chat with my neighbor to help improve her English. She gets stuck on have or has. Usually she uses have for everything. She turns played and similar words into two syllables. We worked on that as well. She gives me the Portuguese word for what we’re talking about and helps me with the pronunciation. I guess that makes it a joint effort.
After Wednesday my dance card is empty. It is getting on to the time of the year when I tend to hibernate. I’ll see a movie now and then and play games with my friends on Sunday, but that’s about it, and I’m fine with that.
When I was a kid, my winters were about the same as now. We went to the Saturday Matinee a couple of times a month, but the rest of the week was pretty quiet. It got dark only a few hours after we’d get home from school, but most days we just stayed in the house as it was too cold to play outside. We’d watch television and we’d do our homework. Most afternoons we did both at once. I remember watching Superman and even back then I wondered how Lois and Jimmy didn’t recognize Clark. I guessed the glasses were a better disguise than we imagined.
Supper was usually around six. Most nights my father made it home in time. In my memory drawers I see him walking in the door wearing his overcoat and his fedora. He’d put them in the closet then change out of his suit. He always wore a suit to work. Supper was eaten around the kitchen table, but there was never enough room for all of us unless the table got pulled out and another seat was added at the end. I think that’s when my mother started eating at the counter as we never did pull out the table except for holidays. Much later, in a different house, the dining room table was big enough so the whole family and more could sit together and eat; however, we mostly did that only on holidays because by then we were scattered and it was only during the holidays we’d all together. My mother always joined us at the table.
Categories: Musings
Tags: has or have, hibernate, homework, learning English, Portuguese, Saturday matinee, Superman
Comments: 8 Comments
November 8, 2015
Autumn has returned. The air is chilly. It is 54˚, a seasonal temperature. Last night the wind blew and howled. This morning more branches are bare, their leaves covering the ground and deck. The house was cold when I woke up so I had to turn the heat back on. Gracie and I are going to the dump and Agway then we’ll watch the Patriots.
It is a quiet day both inside and out. Gracie is sleeping and breathing deeply. The keys make noise when I type. Those are the only sounds I can hear. The quiet is a Sunday thing. That’s the way it has always been. I know the stores are all opened, but my neighborhood has no shouts from kids playing in the street and no dogs barking one after the other. Noises like leaf blowers, instead of rakes, and lawn mowers are Saturday things. They were when I was young and still are today. The rest of the days of the week haven’t as much personality as the weekend.
When I was young, I loved nursery rhymes. The way the words fit together and the rhythm appealed to my ears. I always said them sing-songy. We used to tease my brother by calling him Georgie Porgie then we’d run before he could catch us. I used to wonder about the ten o’clock scholar, “A diller, a dollar, A ten o’clock scholar, What makes you come so soon? You used
to come at ten o’clock, And now you come at noon.” How could he be earlier if he came later? I looked this up one time and found out the word ‘diller’ is a Yorkshire term for a boy who is dim-witted and stupid. The ten and twelve o’clock lines are the other students making fun of him. It still doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.
I don’t know if I have a favorite nursery rhyme as I liked so many of them. I always felt bad for Old Mother Hubbard’s dog, Humpty Dumpty and poor Jack of Jack and Jill fame. I used to wish on the first star, Star Light Star bright, The first star I see tonight, I wish I may, I wish I might, Have the wish I wish tonight. Actually I often still do. I don’t think many wishes ever came true , but I thought I’d keep giving it a try in case. I liked the days of the week one because I was a Sunday child: But the child that is born on the Sabbath day Is bonny and blithe, and good and gay. Maybe my favorite one is Christmas is coming, the geese are getting fat, Please to put a penny in the old man’s hat; If you haven’t got a penny, a ha’penny will do, If you haven’t got a ha’penny then God bless you!
I accepted this rhyme without too many questions. It was the Christmas is coming which I loved the very thought of. Bob Cratchit and his family ate goose so that was okay with me. I got the penny part and my mother told me a ha’penny was a half penny. I wondered if you had to cut the penny in half. It took a while before I got the answer to that one.
Categories: Musings
Tags: 54˚, autumn, bare branches, cold house, days of the week, Georgie Porgie, heat, Jack and Jill, nursery rhymes, quiet Sunday, Saturday lawn work, ten o'clock scholar
Comments: 12 Comments
November 7, 2015
Yesterday and sometime during the night it rained. The wind was so strong my deck, my lawn and my driveway have disappeared, buried in fallen leaves and pine needles. The sky is still overcast and the day is damp and cooler than it has been. Yesterday was close to 70˚. I even had windows open including my bedroom all night.
A loud noise woke me up last night. When I turned on the light, I found Gracie had rolled out of bed to the floor. I hurried to check her. She seemed fine and had no problem jumping back onto the bed. This morning I checked her again, and she seems fine. I suspect she was as shocked as I was. Fern looked, didn’t move and quickly went back to sleep.
Yesterday morning there was a head-on collision on the Sagamore Bridge. The front page of the Cape Times had a blurb which said the driver of the box truck was seriously injured. The inside, more detailed article, quoted the CEO of the company saying the driver was injured but was okay. It wasn’t the fact of the accident which caught my attention but rather the cargo of the two trucks. One carried fish and the other cranberries. I have to think the cape would be just about the only place where fish and cranberries would be involved in the same accident. The driver was concerned about his two beautiful bluefin tuna. The description of the accident by a police officer in Bourne gave me a chuckle, “Cranberries were observed covering the entire roadway in either direction on the bridge.” After the offending cranberries were removed, the bridge was reopened.
I do love reading my papers, but I often find the language wanting and sometimes even silly. Sadly a woman’s burned body was found on Wednesday near railroad tracks in Bridgewater. Her hands and feet were bound. According to the article, police speculated this was a homicide. There were a couple of quotes from people living in the neighborhood. This was my favorite and clearly indicated the author was starved for copy, “It’s very disturbing to have a dead body dumped next to the house you grew up in.” You think?
Categories: Musings
Tags: 70˚, cloudy, damp, fallen leaves, fish and cranberries, head-on collision, murder, pine needles, rain
Comments: 12 Comments
November 6, 2015
My friends have left. The house is just so quiet without them, but luckily Gracie is snoring which is sort of keeping me company. We had a wonderful time together. The weather was perfect, nearly 70˚ each day. Today is raining but ever so lightly. It is still warm. I have had the heat off and windows open the last three days. The cold will start returning tomorrow.
On Wednesday we rode around Hyannis and Hyannisport. We went by the Kennedy Compound then drove a different road back, all the more to see. That night we had dinner at Karoo’s, a South African restaurant with a cuisine quite different from Ghana’s. Two of my other friends joined us. We stayed talking and laughing long after we had finished dinner. Yesterday we went to the Kennedy Museum and the Kennedy Memorial then I took my friends to lunch at Jerry’s where I’ve been eating since high school days. The original Jerry is long gone, but the name and the good food remain. I showed my friends where my family lived, and we did a nostalgia tour. Last night was dinner at home.
The three of us, Bill, Peg and I, will be going back to Ghana together next October. We’ve already started talking about the trip. Grace, a former student, is building a house in Bolga and hopes to have it finished so we can stay there. We’re making a list of places we want to see. I mean, really, it’s only a year away!
Being with my friends is always comfortable. They are family. We shared a unique experience which created a bond so strong that time can never break it. We have stories which still make us laugh and we have a history. We met during staging in Philadelphia at the Hotel Sylvania. Staging is when the trainees get together for the first time, meet each other, have all our paperwork checked and see slides and hear lectures about Ghana. Bill and Peg were my kindred spirits as we skipped the large group events and went sightseeing. In Ghana we were first posted far apart as Peg was pregnant and PC wanted her near a decent hospital. They stayed there for a year then I talked my principal into asking Peace Corps to transfer them to my school. The three of them, Bill, Peg and Kevin, came and we lived in a duplex. That was the beginning of all our adventures.
Categories: Musings
Tags: friends, Hotel Sylvania, Hyannis, Karoo's, Kennedy Memorial, Kennedy Museum, old friends, quiet house, sightseeing, Snoring, staging
Comments: 10 Comments
November 3, 2015
Today is absolutely beautiful. The breeze is slight, the sun is strong and the temperature is in the 60’s. I think Gracie and I might be taking a ride later. I have a few errands to do then off we’ll go with no destination in mind, a ride just for the fun of it.
Every now and then we’d skip part of the way to school. There was a sense of exhilaration, of joy, when we’d skip. First we’d hop on one foot then we’d hop on the other and we’d keep hopping until we were so tired we had to stop. Skipping wasn’t as fast as running but it was faster than walking and was more fun. Learning to skip looked easy but it wasn’t. My feet seemed to get tangled in the hopping, and I’d lose the rhythm. Finally after many starts and stops I got my feet to work and I was finally a skipper.
Jumping rope was another one of those get your rhythm and your feet working together. We used to jump rope at recess. It was a single rope as none of us knew about double Dutch. We had rhymes we said while jumping. They helped us keep the cadence, the rhythm. I was okay at the slow jumping but once we hit the fast jumping, pepper, I was doomed. I always ended up being the rope swinger.
Probably around the sixth grade we stopped jump roping. We were on the second floor of the school and felt older. We thought jump roping was for kids. During recess we’d just stand around in small groups of friends and talk. Boys started to be a conversational item. We were still too young for dating but we were poring the foundation (sorry-that was the only analogy I could come up with). We’d decide who among the boys in our class was the cutest. We never talked about the nicest or the smartest. It was always the cutest.
Categories: Musings
Tags: beautiful day, jumping rope, recess, Shopping, skipping, sunny, taking a ride, talking abut boys, warm day
Comments: 12 Comments
November 2, 2015
Skip, my factotum, is here, and the deck furniture and decorations are disappearing, some being covered and others being stored in plastic bins. I was outside for a while just chatting but I got chilly so I came inside. Skip doesn’t need any instructions from me. He does this every year. For him it’s a job, but for me it is the sad ending of movie nights, barbecues, sitting by myself under the stars watching fireflies flit through the backyard and listening to cicadas which always remind me of maracas.
The sun taunted us a bit earlier. It came and went quickly. It’s getting chillier and the sky is cloudy. The breeze comes and goes. Right now everything is still, not even a leaf is moving. I think I’ll read today. I’m thinking cozy under the covers. If I nap, it’s all good.
I’m wearing what I think of as my winter uniform: flannel pants, socks and slippers and a sweatshirt with a pouch to keep my hands warm. When I was a kid, I had pairs of flannel pajamas. When I got home from school and wasn’t going out, I’d change into pajamas because they were comfy and warm. I always wore slipper socks. They and the pajamas were traditional Christmas gifts. My pajamas had snowmen or elves, Christmas trees or even Santa on them. My slippers were usually red. They had a sort of knitted top and leather soles. I liked the scuffing sounds the soles made on the wooden floor. My mother didn’t.
My mother wore slippers, sort of slippers. The toes were open, and they had no backs. I always thought they were useless because to me slippers are meant to keep your feet warm, but my mother said her feet never got cold. The rest of her did as she always had the thermostat up high. We’d complain. She’d get feisty.
I know why the heat was up so high. I’ve learned the older I get the less tolerant I am of cold. My mother’s house would be perfect now.
Categories: Musings
Tags: cicadas, clearing deck, cloudy, covering furniture, factotum, flannel, listening to night birds, sweatshirt, winter uniform
Comments: 6 Comments
November 1, 2015
This morning it sprinkled a bit, and though it has stopped, the clouds remain. Today is chilly and dreary. When I look out my windows, I see more and more dead leaves hanging from the oak trees. A small tree with some red leaves is all I have left of the colors of fall. Hunker down time is nearer and nearer.
Night has begun encroaching. With the change in time, with the end of daylight saving, it will come earlier. When I was a kid, I didn’t understand the whole idea, but I didn’t like it. My afternoon play time was less because the street lights came on earlier. I thought that was a cheat somehow, a parental ploy to get us to bed earlier.
We always had November 1st off from school because it was a holy day of obligation. That was one of the perks of attending a Catholic school. We had to go to mass then the whole day was ours. Today is the holy day and a Sunday. You get to knock off two obligations at the same time.
Clean underwear was always a big thing with mothers. I never understood why because even without the possibility of an accident and eternal embarrassment to my mother I always wore clean underwear. I mean really who’d want to wear dirty underwear? My mother would have been better served warning me to wear underwear without holes. I had a theory that socks with holes and underwear with holes were fine because nobody saw them excluding any accidents of course. I still adhere to that theory but mostly with wearing socks with holes. I turn over the top of the socks so my toes won’t poke through. A few times I tried to darn the socks but instead I got these huge lumps which hurt with shoes on. I went back to folding. When I went to Ghana, I bought enough new underwear for every day so I wouldn’t have to wash any. I have so much now I throw away the ones with holes or loose elastics. My mother would be so proud.
Categories: Musings
Tags: chilly, clean underwear, daylight saving., dreary, early darkness, holy day, hunker down time, rainy
Comments: 14 Comments
October 31, 2015
Every kid’s calendar had only three days circled. The biggest and the best day of all was Christmas. Weeks of anticipation, making and changing lists for Santa and decorating the house and tree helped to make the time pass, but it passed ever so slowly, especially Christmas Eve. The second best day was Halloween. What will I be this year was the most important question and a topic of great discussion walking to and from school. The third circled day was our birthdays. They didn’t need any preparation and were anticipated but not with the same level of excitement as the other two days. My birthday came with a present, a few cards, always one with two dollars from my grandmother, and a cake. Blow out the candles, eat cake, open presents, and it’s over for another year. Christmas and Halloween seemed to last days. They had a before and an after.
Going to school on Halloween always seemed wrong somehow. We fidgeted and clock watched the whole day. I doubt we learned anything as our minds and imaginations were filled with costumes and candy. Arithmetic had no chance.
I remember the afternoon lasted nearly forever, not as long as Christmas Eve but a close second. We’d eat dinner then pester my mother to let us leave. She always said it was too early. We kept watch at the window hoping to see a treat or treater so we could prove my mother wrong. Finally we’d get to leave.
First we did the neighborhood then the side streets near the house. I have memories of leaves blowing, street lights shining on the sidewalks, walking all over town and eating as we walked. When house lights finally started going out and few trick or treaters were still around, we’d head home stopping now and then at a lit house.
Once home, we’d empty our bags into big bowls and do a bit of trading. We’d throw away the popcorn balls. My mother took the apples. They’d get eaten at another time. We’d eat a few more bars of candy then the bowls had to be put away. Though the evening was officially over, the candy lasted for days.
Categories: Musings
Tags: birthdays, blowing leaves, calendar days, Christmas, Halloween, house to house, school on halloween, street lights, Trick-or-treating
Comments: 14 Comments
keepthecoffeecoming.blog 