Archive for the ‘Musings’ category
October 6, 2015
We have anomalies today, and I haven’t quite interpreted their meanings. The sun is shining and the sky is blue. What do these heavenly signs portend? Might they be heralding the end of time and the destruction of all we know and hold dear? Or might this be just a sunny day, and I’m over-reacting?
My neighbor brought me dinner last night. I dined on rice, chicken and an okra dish, the best okra I’ve ever had with not a bit of the slime I’d come to associate with okra. That was a vegetable I didn’t even know existed until Africa where I ate okra soup many times the slime notwithstanding. I’m now adding okra to my list of favorite vegetables.
My brother had the job of emptying the baskets into the barrels kept in the cellar until trash day. It was his only job. I didn’t have a job though sometimes I’d set or clear the table if asked. I think boys and trash were a natural pairing when I was a kid. Back then girls had a certain behavior protocol which didn’t include trash. Any kitchen work was appropriate. Girls also had a stricter dress code than boys. I had to wear a dress or a skirt going to church which also meant I had to wear nice shoes and socks and a hat. I always felt over-dressed, and I was never one for prissy. My brother wore a collared shirt and nice pants. That was it. I envied him the casualness of his Sunday clothing.
Now that I look back, I liked having a Sunday. Every other day of the week was filled with school, playtime, movies, bike riding, watching TV and the so many other fun things we did to pack our days. Sunday was truly a day of rest. We were expected to stay around the house. We had that great family Sunday dinner. It was always special, not the usual fare. The one constant was mashed potatoes.
Sunday has lost its identity. That’s too bad as we all need to stop to take a breath, look around and be amazed at all we can see. Sunday used to be that day. It was special. I even wore a dress.
Categories: Musings
Tags: anomalies, blue sky, destruction, dress and hat, end of time, girls' dress code, heavenly signs, Okra, prissy, sun, Sunday clothing, sunny day
Comments: 8 Comments
October 5, 2015
Mondays are my late day as I go to my neighbor’s at ten and stay a couple of hours. She is from Brazil and thinks her English needs help so we chat. Through our conversations, I get the chance to explain and correct as best I can what she says wrong. Lately it has been subject-verb agreement though I never use those words. She is stuck on he have. She tells me English isn’t easy, and I totally agree.
No weather report today. Just look at yesterday’s and the day before that and on and on. I swear I saw a patch of blue sky but I may have been hallucinating.
I sometimes thought my dad was really born in another country and English was his second language. He had no idea how to spell words. He wrote them the way the way they sounded to him. I had the challenge of translating into English and typing what he wrote for the company newsletter. It took me the longest time to decipher some of the words. I’d read the sentence aloud over and over trying to figure out the word through context. Usually I was wrong. My dad couldn’t understand why I’d miss such easy words. I didn’t bother to explain.
We were a game playing family. Every Christmas we got new games. When we were young, we played board games. When we were older, we played card games. I remember so many nights sitting around the kitchen table playing cards. Cribbage was always my father’s game, and we played every time I visited and every time we traveled together. When it a bunch of us, we played all sorts of card games. Uno was our game for a while. My Dad never remembered to say uno when putting down his second to the last card so he always ended up having to pick up another card. That frustrated him, and he always used the appropriate swear to accompany his mental lapses. We laughed at him. He was never grateful. Finally, after two or three times of forgetting, he took a match book, put it in the middle of the table and said that was his uno. He didn’t have to say it any more. We handed him back his match book without a single word.
We played Jeopardy with clickers so the first person to click got to answer. My dad ignored the clicks. He’d answer whether he clicked or not. We sort of gave up on Jeopardy.
We played hundreds of games of Hi-Low-Jack mostly on Friday nights. One of my uncles was usually there. The bar was set up on the counter, and the kitchen was filled with smoke. Whoever sat out a hand was forced to be the bartender. Those nights were the best. We laughed all night long. We all made fun of my Dad, the perfect target. He bid high and often, and it was a pleasure to take a trick away from him with the jack of trumps. We all did it with a flourish just to antagonize him. If I had three wishes, one of them would be to have one more Friday night at my parents’ house with all of us there playing hi-low-Jack. I’d even volunteer to be the bartender.
Categories: Musings
Tags: board games card games, cold, conversations, counter bar, dank weather, game players, hi-low jack, learning English, new games, smoky room, Uno, verb agreement
Comments: 4 Comments
October 4, 2015
I am in a funk. I have been struck by malaise. Maybe it’s the rain’s fault. It does get old after 4 or 5 days. Maybe it’s my back which has been hurting and making me grumpy. My plans for the day were to stay home, not get dressed and lie in bed and read. Now I have to go out to get cat food. The only 2 cans left are back-ups, food I bought for them to taste which they hated and left untouched in the dish. Rather than toss the cans, I kept them as an emergency supply hoping hunger would overcome distaste. It didn’t happen so I have to get dressed and go to Agway. I thought I’d take a break today and not write Coffee, but then I got started and just kept going. I guess I need a place where I can whine and complain a bit.
The sun was out this morning for about ten minutes. I got hopeful. Foolish me! The gray, damp day has returned. I suspect we’ll have rain later. I had to run the heat again for one cycle this morning. With the cold, I have to keep the back door shut which complicates Gracie going in and out. I figure I’ll put the storm door in today. That’s a surrender of sorts.
Right now Gracie’s deep breathing, her occasional snores and the tap of the keys are all I can hear. The house is almost eerily quiet.
I have the habit of reading what I write out loud. I have to hear the words. My ears tell me more about the language than my eyes. I make corrections based on the sounds of the connected words and on the choices of words. Sometimes it takes me a while to correct a single sentence until it sounds right. I am now at the read aloud stage. I am done writing.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Agway, back pain, cat food, complain, funk, grouchy, heat, Storm door, surrender, whine
Comments: 10 Comments
October 3, 2015
Much as I appreciate the rain, the darkness worms its way inside sapping my energy, making me sluggish and listless (which can actually be taken a couple of ways as I haven’t a list today. Despite my mood it seems I can still conjure a pun).
This morning the house was so cold I decided to stay in bed and did so for another hour. I read my new book so the hour was not wasted. When I finally came downstairs, I saw 61˚ on the thermostat. I turned on the heat to warm the house. Now it is cozy. All three animals are asleep for their morning naps. Each has her own room: Fern is in the living room, Maddie likes the cushions in the dining room and Gracie takes the couch.
While I was reading this morning, silent reading came to mind. I have no idea why. I haven’t heard or thought about that in years. It used to be a graded subject on my grade school report card. You either got a U or an S. I always got the S for satisfactory though it probably should have meant superb given how many books I sneaked and read during class time. The nuns didn’t teach silent reading as the name said it all so I used to wonder how silent reading was graded. What were the standards? Doesn’t move lips could have been one as moving lips is like talking. Doesn’t shuffle feet or look around could have been a couple more. Maybe posture was part of the grade, but that’s a bit of a stretch. The number of pages wasn’t a fair standard. Not every kid was honest. I really think it was made up so nuns could have a break whenever they needed one. I remember they used to tell us to read silently to ourselves. When I got older, I wondered how you could read silently to someone else, maybe in sign language which none of us knew, but I never dared ask. Nuns could be scary when they were mad.
Categories: Musings
Tags: 61˚, darkness, heat, new book, no energy, rain
Comments: 18 Comments
October 2, 2015
I never did get around to changing my bed, a nap got in the way. I guess I’ll have to do it today to complete my list. The only problem is I haven’t the energy and I certainly don’t have the enthusiasm. Bed changing doesn’t engender any.
The rain stopped for a bit yesterday afternoon so Gracie and I left for the dump. When we were about half-way there, the rain started again just as I suspected it would. That always happens. It rained all the rest of the day and all night. It is still raining, and there is a wind strong enough to sway the tops of all the trees. The weather forecast in the paper this morning said rain for the next three or four days.
On rainy days my first grade cloakroom was always dark. The walls were made of wood, and there wasn’t any light. When I’d walk into my classroom, all the lights seemed as bright as the sun. The only noise in the classroom was the rain beating against the windows. We spoke only in whispers. I can’t explain why, but it was as if the rain had muted our voices. I was always drawn to the rain on the windows. I’d follow a drop all the way down until it got smaller and smaller and finally disappeared. The nun and my classmates were background murmurings to the rain. That was the year I watched the rain.
My fourth grade classroom was on the second floor. The long windows looked out only to the sky. I was in the last seat in the first row. I had a panoramic view of the whole room but couldn’t see the windows behind me. That was the year I heard the rain.
In the eight grade, my classroom was on the second floor of the new school. My seat was right beside the windows. I could see the whole school yard and the road beside it. I could hear even the smallest drops of rain hit the windows. I could look out and see the rain falling sideways in sheets blown by the wind. Other times the rain fell straight down in a thunderous deluge. The misty rain fell gently, quietly. That was the year I could see and hear the rain.
Categories: Musings
Tags: changing the bed, cloakroom, drops of rain, listening to the rain, rain and wind, rainy day, school classroom lights, watching raindrops, windows
Comments: 10 Comments
October 1, 2015
My mother would have called it a deluge. The rain all day yesterday was so heavy it was deafening. The wind came later and then the night got cold. Today is dark, damp and cold. The rain will be back, if not tonight, definitely tomorrow.
When I let Gracie out this morning, I noticed a few yellow leaves on the tree near the driveway. They weren’t there two days ago. I think yesterday’s weather shocked the leaves into changing color. I checked out the rest of the yard and saw more yellow here and there. We now have real fall weather, no more 70’s. It will be in the 50’s the rest of the week.
I keep my outside sandals by the clothes tree in the living room. Around the house I wear flip-flops. Before I go out, I switch from one to the other. Today my feet are cold so I think it’s time to hunt down my slippers and my outside shoes. The sandals will be moved to their winter home, the closet. It’s a sad day.
I have a list of all the chores that need to be done, the ones I’ve ignored for a while. My book got in the way and then I got two new books and started one of them. I have no guilt over being a sloth, but the list seems to get longer and longer so I’m working on crossing off chores one by one. I’ve already cleaned the litter and brought the trash to the car. I have laundry to bring upstairs to put away and I need to change my bed. Once that’s done Gracie and I are going to the dump. I’ll stop to pick up a few groceries on the way home. That will finish my list and I can go back to more days of lolling about reading and eating bon bons, which happen to be on my list.
Categories: Musings
Tags: 50˚ weather, a day of heavy rain, cat litter, cold, dump, lists, winter shoes, yellow leaves
Comments: 6 Comments
September 29, 2015
It seems I get later and later but for good reasons. This morning it was a long library board meeting to choose officers. The length of the meeting had little to do with the election of unopposed officers. No, it was mimosas and pastries and conversation which kept us late.
I’m running out of adjectives to describe this gorgeous weather. It is in the mid-70’s and sunny with a breeze strong enough to swing the chimes. Tomorrow they’ll be downpours and over 3 inches of rain according to the weatherman. Not a single person is complaining. We need the rain, and we have had our share, more than our share, of beautiful fall days.
Where I grew up, we called it tonic. Down here they call it soda. By either name, we seldom had any in the house when I was a kid, ginger ale maybe for an occasional highball, my parents’ favorite drink when I was young, but nothing else. We drank milk, a combination of white milk and chocolate milk, both delivered by the milkman. My mother used to drink Tab until Diet Coke came along. My father was always a milk drinker. He loved a cold glass of milk with his Hydrox cookies or his Pilot crackers topped with butter. He’d be devastated now as both his favorites are no longer made. He’d probably start eating Saltines but never Oreos, maybe Newman-O’s which remind me of Hydrox. My dad was most particular about his snacks.
We called my mother the seagull because of what she ate. Leftovers were her favorite breakfast, and sometimes she ate them cold in a sandwich, including hot dogs cut in half and down the middle. She’d rummage in the fridge, pullout the covered dishes and build herself a sandwich. Cucumbers were a favorite topping. She was also a mayonnaise fan far more than a mustard fan. My mother liberally applied the condiment. Even with toast the butter was slathered. Grilled cheese, according to her, was best at its messiest.
I eat all sorts of foods and will try almost anything when I’m traveling. I think that’s the seagull in me.
Categories: Musings
Tags: beautiful fall days, Butter, chocolate milk, downpours, gorgeous day, grill cheese, highball, Hydrox, library board meeting, mayonaisse, messy foods, mimosas, Newman-O's, Pilot crackers, rain, seagull, soda, tonic
Comments: 8 Comments
September 28, 2015
Woe is me! Woe is me! My back was terrible yesterday, last night and this morning. I maneuvered by holding on to stuff as I moved. Last night I woke up several times when I heard moaning. No ghosts or spirits, just me. This morning you’d have sworn Quasimodo, Igor and I were blood relations sharing the same handicap. I was grouchy and miserable.
Now I am finally feeling better. The pain cream and the Aleve worked liked magic. Though I am not completely upright I no longer resemble the left side of the evolution chart.
The eclipse last night was awesome in the true definition of the word. I watched it all from the front of my house where I had an unobstructed view as the moon darkened. I was mesmerized when the blood moon appeared and lit up the sky. It was if the moon and the sky around it had been painted with water colors.
Today is the loveliest of days, sunny and warm. Rain is due the next few days, but it will be welcomed as we haven’t seen much rain since the summer began. Besides, this has been such a spectacular fall I can’t begrudge Mother Nature a bit of rain.
We used to iron the colored leaves between pieces of waxed paper. I didn’t understand why it happened. I just knew the wax paper kept the colors alive. I’d keep the leaves on my bureau as keepsakes. Sometimes I’d even use one as a bookmark. I think the bright red was my favorite color but the yellow was close behind. We’d pick the leaves up our way home from school and put them between the pages of our books so they wouldn’t get wrinkled. The single ones on the sidewalk were the best as the ones in the piles along the curbsides would crumble.
I could hardly wait to get home and change into play clothes. At the kitchen table, now transformed into a craft table, my mother would turn on the iron then tear off pieces of wax paper for us to use. I remember gliding the iron back and forth across the paper, and I remember when the leaves were captured by the melting wax. Every one was beautiful.
Categories: Musings
Tags: beautiful day, blood moon, eclipse, evolution chart, Igor, painful back, Quasimodod, wax paper and leaves', yellows and reds
Comments: 4 Comments
September 27, 2015
The morning is warm, but the house is still nighttime cold. The sun was so pleasant I sat outside for a while then with great resolve went inside to brave the chill of the house. The animals were huddled beside me when I woke up. If this had been winter, the furnace would have gone on triggered by the low temperature.
I’ve decided I am stuck in a rut, not an unpleasant rut but a rut nonetheless. This last week I stayed home most of the time by cramming all four of my errands into a single day. The reason for this inactivity is a new book. It was slow reading at first, but not anymore so I read and keep reading. Every now and then I take a nap then I read again. Last night I was in bed well before midnight but didn’t turn the light off until 1:30. I kept telling myself I’ll finish this chapter then go to sleep. That went on for several chapters. Today I’ll finish my book when maybe I can rejoin the world. (In case you’re wondering: The Nature of the Beast: A Chief Inspector Gamache novel.)
Losing myself in a book is one of my favorite ways to spend time. I’ve been doing it since I was a kid. I devour books sometimes reading them in one sitting, one very long sitting well into the night and into the next morning. I used to hide my books when I was in school. I’d pretend to be reading the textbook but instead was caught up in a mystery or a suspense novel smaller than the textbook so easily hidden between the pages. In biology class we read the text a lot. Among many I finished The House of the Seven Gables during that class. I never once got caught. I’m thinking I looked intensely interested in my text.
I remember my mother reading Treasure Island to my brother and me. That novel whetted my appetite for more. I think I’ve read most of Stevenson’s books, but Treasure Island will always be my favorite. I am so grateful my mother gave us a love of reading. What a wonderful gift!
Categories: Musings
Tags: Chief Inspector Gamache, cold house, cold night, hiding in the textbook, late night, lovely morning, reading, reading in school, rut
Comments: 10 Comments
September 26, 2015
The morning is again lovely with a strong breeze and a wonderfully bright sun. When I went to get the papers, I sat on the front steps a while to check out the neighborhood and to let the sun wash over and warm me. The leaves were rustling and the chimes in the backyard were ringing every now and then when the breeze was the strongest. The sound of the chimes is sweet. I finally went back inside drawn by the thought of my first cup of coffee.
We never had fresh orange juice. My mother always bought it frozen in the can. I can still remember how much of an ordeal it was to get the juice to the drinking stage. First you had to open both ends of the can to slide out the glob of frozen juice. The silver hand can opener sometimes cut not just the top but also the sides of the can making it harder to get the tops off. More often than not one of the tops would fall into the pitcher with the frozen juice. When digging it out, you had to be careful as it was easy to cut your finger on the sharp edges. I know from experience. We never had the foresight to take the can out of the freezer and leave it on the counter to let the juice melt. Come to think of it we probably didn’t have the patience either. I remember holding the pitcher under hot water to help along the melting, and we’d use a spoon to smash the glob into smaller pieces so it would melt quicker. When it was finally melted enough by my mother’s standards, we’d run the cold water until it was as cold as it could be from the faucet then make the juice.
We went through a Tang phase for a while because John Glenn and the Gemini astronauts drank it. Besides, it was easy to throw a few teaspoons in water then stir and drink. There was no can opener, waiting or hot water baths before drinking it. The only problem was it really didn’t taste all that good.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Bolgatanga, canned orange juice, chilly, chimes, hand can opener, hot water melting, lovely day, rustling leaves, sunny
Comments: 17 Comments
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