Archive for the ‘Musings’ category
August 31, 2015
The air conditioner was turned off for a bit this morning so the house could have some fresh air, but the AC is back on as it didn’t take long for the house to get hot. I am spoiled now with central air. I think back to when I was a kid, and we had only one fan. It was moved from room to room. In the evening it was in the living room always facing my father. He and fans had quite a history. Once he was trying to clear off the fan blades while the fan was on. He cut all the fingers on the one hand. It was not a surprise to us given my father’s abilities with anything electric. My bedroom was always hot, and I think I sweated myself to sleep every night. Nobody had air conditioners in those days. Even after we moved to the cape, we still had that one traveling fan. While I was in Ghana my parents moved. The fan went with them and at night took up its customary place in the living room facing my father.
When air conditioning was common, my parents bought three: one for each of the two bedrooms and one for the living room. My dad then had one of his brilliant ideas. He tacked a sheet over the molding on the archway between the living room and the hall. Its purpose was keep all the cold air in the living room. It looked silly but it did keep the living room cooler.
When I bought my own house, I bought a couple of those famous move from room to room fans, and I had another put on the ceiling of the guest room, not so much to cool my guests but more so I could keep my own fans. When it got really hot, I slept downstairs on the sofa bed with the back door open and the fans whirling away the whole night. I finally bought an air conditioner for my bedroom as I seldom spent a summer night sleeping in my bed.
Putting in central air was one of the best decisions I ever made, electricity bill be damned. I am now into creature comforts and being cool on a sweltering summer day is a prime comfort. I deserve it.
Categories: Musings
Tags: air conditioners, air-conditioning, central air, cutting fingers, fans, fresh air, moving fans, whirling fans, window AC
Comments: 12 Comments
August 30, 2015
The house feels hot and a bit clammy. The humidity has returned. Gracie just sits in front of me and pants. If I were a dog, I’d do the same thing.
When I was a kid, I was a morning cocoa drinker. Two of my siblings were tea drinkers. My mother would put a nice tea pot on the table rather than putting the teabags in mugs. For my cocoa, she’d mix the powder with some milk, stir it together then add the water. Some mornings she made eggs. Other mornings we had cereal. We always had toast. She sometimes made soft-boiled eggs and put them in yellow, chicken-shaped egg cups. She always lopped off the top of the eggs. I loved how she used to cut the toast. It was the perfect size for dipping into the eggs. Oatmeal was common in the winter, the old-fashioned kind which took some time. My mother kept a good variety of dry cereals, including each of our favorites. I never gave those breakfasts much thought. It never occurred to me how early she had to get up. Not only did she make our breakfasts but also our lunches, great lunches, the envy of our friends. We never said thanks. We finished breakfast, grabbed our lunches, kissed her good-bye and ran out the door. Kids just don’t think sometimes to say thanks for the every day.
There is a slight breeze as I can hear my chimes now and then. The birds are noisy. I don’t hear any people.
I have nothing to do today except maybe the laundry still sitting by the cellar door, but it doesn’t bother me much so it may sit there a while longer. I am not even dressed yet. I don’t care. There is no urgency in putting on clothes. I do love this life of leisure.
Categories: Musings
Tags: cereal, cocoa, egg cups, Eggs, good breakfast, heat, humidity, lunches, school days, tea cocoa, Toast
Comments: 14 Comments
August 29, 2015
The sun was bright and warm earlier this morning. Now the sky is cloudy, and the day has darkened. No rain is predicted so I figure the sun will be back in a bit. I have a few errands today then I’ll do nothing productive for the rest of the day. The laundry still sits in the hallway. I don’t really care. It can sit another day.
My elementary school smelled of chalk, polish and on some days wet wool jackets. In the winter the radiators hissed steam and the windows were fogged so much you couldn’t see outside. That didn’t matter as there wasn’t really anything to see but the school yard in the back and on the side a couple of houses separated from the school by a fence and a driveway size exit from the back lot. I used to wonder if those people kept their windows closed whenever we were allowed out. That would be in the morning before school, recess and at the end of the day. My friend Kathleen lived three houses down from the school, and I envied her that. She came just before the morning bell, went home for lunch and after school was home in less than five minutes. I once had a pajama party at that house. I think I was ten or maybe eleven.
I have the strongest memories of that school. I remember standing on the top floor and looking down at all the stairs. Between each set of stairs was a landing and in the corner of every landing was a statue of Mary or Jesus or some easily recognized saint. They were small statues on shelves. The old stairs creaked and were so worn the middles of the steps dipped. Wood was everywhere. Every classroom had a cloak room right outside and every cloak room was too small for all the jackets. The classes had at least 35 kids and many had 40. So many jackets and coats were on the hooks you really couldn’t walk from one end of the cloak room to the other without having to pick up the jackets you dislodged.
That school is over a hundred years old. It is still in use. The old windows have all been replaced with more energy-efficient ones. Nothing else I can see on the outside has changed. I wish I could get inside. I want to see how well my memory drawers have kept the school alive for me. I can remember walking through the doors and seeing the first set of steps in front of me and on the right another set of steps going to the basement where the bathrooms were. At the top of the stairs I can look right and see my first grade classroom with the cloakroom right outside. That’s the room I remember the most because it was the first, the only room which made me nervous and a little afraid for the first few weeks. After that I was an old hand at school.
Categories: Musings
Tags: chalk, cloak room, creaky stairs, dark day, Elementary school, hissing steam, holy statues, pajama party, polish, radiators, sun here and gone, wooden stairs
Comments: 9 Comments
August 28, 2015
We are blessed with another lovely day, sunny but cool.
In the Cape Times was an article about the cranberry. The article explained how the cranberry is one of only three native fruits, the others being the blueberry and the Concord grape. It is close to cranberry harvesting time which usually starts in late September. I have sometimes been lucky enough to happen upon a harvest, always a wet harvest. I love seeing those beautiful red fruits floating in the water. The color is extraordinary.
There are two kinds of harvests: the wet and the dry. In the water harvest, the bogs are flooded the night before. The next day a paddle boat of sorts churns the water. The berries are dislodged and float to the surface because they are hollow inside then they are gathered together and finally loaded onto trucks. The other sort is a dry harvest. A mechanical picker acts a bit like a lawnmower and combs the berries off the vine and deposits them in burlap bags hanging off the harvester. The best berries come from the dry harvest.
Once my brother, urged on by me, ate a red berry. It was poisonous and he had to have his stomach pumped. Now it makes me wonder who was the first to try cranberries or anything growing wild. I can imagine it now: the circle stands around the tribesman who volunteered. He takes a few berries, chews then swallows. The circle waits to see if he’ll survive. If he doesn’t, that’s one more berry crossed off the list. I’d watch the birds. I read it is safe to eat what they eat.
In Ghana I saw pineapples and bananas growing. I thought it was kind of neat to see them, not many chances around here. The pineapples surprised me. I figured their weight kept them close to the ground, but I was amazed to see them standing tall in the middle of a plant, one fruit to each plant. Bananas grow just like I imagined.
I like fresh cranberries and cranberry sauce from the can. I have made my own sauce but I have a warm spot for the canned sauce with the decorative rings. I love pineapples and bananas.
I would never volunteer to taste a berry.
Categories: Musings
Tags: bananas, cool day, cranberry, harvest, lovely day, pineapples, poisonous berries, sunny, wet and dry harvesting
Comments: 12 Comments
August 27, 2015
Delightful is the first adjective that comes to mind to describe today. It is cool and dry, magical words. The windows and doors are wide open. Sitting here in my room, I can smell the fresh air, the cut grass and the flowers. I can feel the cool breeze from the window. I can see the sun shining through the branches and glinting off the leaves. I can hear the birds singing and the boys down the street yelling to one another as they play. I have reconnected with the world all because it is cool and dry.
I am guilty of procrastination. The morning filled my senses but left my brain blank of thought. I knew I had nothing to talk about today. I made my bed, sat on the deck, took my time reading the papers, checked the TV Guide for the next couple of days, read my e-mail and finally faced the inevitable: it was time to write, to compose, to imagine, to start Coffee.
If I could reorder my life, I wouldn’t change much right now. I have been retired for eleven years and have recently entered the what day is it phase of my retirement. I thought today was Friday until I remembered it wasn’t. I don’t live high on the hog (I’m thinking maybe today can be idiom day), but I do believe in ease and comfort. I have my house cleaned every two weeks though I am forced to do a bit of cleaning in between, as little cleaning as possible. I have my lawn cut and tended to all season. In the winter my yard is plowed and shoveled. My groceries are delivered though I do go to Ring’s, a bit of an extravagance, where I buy gourmet foods, pizzas and even organic dog biscuits for Miss Gracie. When I’m out, I sometimes stop to treat myself to lunch, usually my favorite sandwich with avocado, bacon, cheese and horseradish sauce. I have season tickets to the Cape Playhouse.
How do I keep body and soul together? (still working on idioms here). I don’t go out to eat much, don’t go to movies except on my deck, seldom buy new clothes (“Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes”) and use the library for new books.
I haven’t traveled in a couple of years, and the itch is starting, but I need to build more of a nest egg (number 3 if you’re counting). Rome was not built in a day (4) and my trip won’t be either. I’m thinking next year back to Ghana. My friends too are going back, and we are working on going back together. We lived side by side in Bolga and traveled together often. It’s time we did it again!
Categories: Musings
Tags: birds, breezy, cool and dry, delightful, empty of thought, fresh air, kids playing, procrastination, sun, sun glinting through branches
Comments: 8 Comments
August 25, 2015
The weather has broken. We have sun and a breeze. It is still hot, but the breeze makes the deck the best place to be. I’ll sit under the umbrella, read and watch the birds. The feeders need attention so I’ll fill them again today. The red spawn was on the deck rail, but it jumped onto branches then scooted away when it heard me. I guess all the hosing worked.
The summer is nearly over. There are fewer cars on the road this week. Some schools have opened and others open next week. Labor Day is in two weeks. That used to be the official end of the tourist season here when most motels and restaurants closed, but not anymore. The season now extends into October and the Columbus Day weekend.
The fall, the nicest time of year here, is probably called the shoulder season, but I always think of it as bus season. Tour buses, filled with older people, retirees, take over where the cars used to be. You can usually see the guide standing in the front of the bus chatting with microphone in hand.
The mums are here, one of the first signs of the changing seasons. They are on display at every garden center, and the ones I’ve planted the last few seasons have buds and flowers. I never noticed flower garden when I was a kid. I don’t even remember mums or a local garden center. I do remember farm stands selling pumpkins and corn stalks. We used to pass them on our Sunday drives to my grandparents. In those days much of the ride was on side roads until we connected with Route 1, but even then we drove through a few neighborhoods before we’d hit the oil tanks where the ships were moored. I remember the farm stand in Revere right near the church. The stand was set at an angle and pumpkins in piles filled both sides of the front. Inside the stand we could see those oblong fruit baskets filled with apples and vegetables. We never stopped there. We never even asked. We just knew my father would say no. He hated stopping. He was a straight here to there sort of guy.
Categories: Musings
Tags: bus season, end of summer, fall, farm stands, Labor Day, mums, pumpkins, red spawn of Satan, shoulder season, squirrels, sunny with a breeze
Comments: 8 Comments
August 24, 2015
We have yet to shake the dark and damp of the last few days. It almost feels as if we are living in a weather limbo. It doesn’t rain and the sun doesn’t shine. Today though feels a bit cooler than yesterday. The weather in the paper says maybe showers tonight and maybe showers tomorrow.
Last night’s movie was What’s Up Doc. My friends hadn’t seen it in years, and they laughed all the way through. It was a perfect choice for our weather moods, for the dark days we have been suffering through. The deck was still damp as we had no sun to dry it yesterday, but the table and chairs had been under the umbrella and were dry. There was no breeze and the air was heavy. We had bugs, a rarity on my deck, so we lit punks to keep away the bugs. We all had memories of those punk sticks from our childhoods when we’d spin one in the air and pretend it was a sparkler. I love the smell of punks. There is nothing else like it so my nose easily triggers punk memories from way back. We could even buy them at the white store. They were kept in a large glass jar. Last night we put a few sticks in the deck boxes, and they worked: no bugs.
Some volunteers used mosquito coils in Ghana to keep away bugs. The coils were spiral-shaped and were mounted on a small piece of thin metal so they were suspended in the air. Most of them were green. They too had a distinctive smell to repel mosquitos, and I know I’d recognize that smell if my nose ever got even the tiniest whiff. The coils burned for a long time so you had to be careful where you put them as they could cause fires. Some volunteers without screens used them inside. None of us gave any thought as to whether or not they were harmful. Come to find out the burning of one mosquito coil releases the same amount of particulate matter as burning 75-137 cigarettes. At least we didn’t get bitten!
Categories: Musings
Tags: bugs, dark and damp, mosquito coils, Peace Corps Ghana, punks, sparklers, weather limbo, What's Up Doc
Comments: 9 Comments
August 23, 2015
It is so quiet. The animals are having their morning naps, the birds aren’t singing and I don’t hear a sound from any house, not dishes, not voices, nothing. The air is still so even the leaves aren’t moving. The day is cloudy and damp. It rained yesterday and last night. The sun was out once this morning but disappeared quickly. It is the sort of day which saps my energy and makes me want to lie around and read or even nap.
If I were to rate the days of the week, Saturday would be my favorite day and Sunday my least favorite but Monday is close to Sunday at the bottom. This rating hasn’t changed since I was a kid. Saturday was the freest day of all. I had no obligations. I could do whatever I wanted. Cartoons and kids’ shows ruled the morning airwaves. I could eat my cereal in the living room in front of the TV. In the winter I could go to the movies. Saturday did have a few traditions like supper was always hot dogs, beans and brown bread. I think having that menu was a rule if you lived in New England. Saturday night was bath night. I never gave it a thought that we only had a bath once a week. I guess as long as the parts people saw were clean was enough until Saturday.
I can do anything I want any day of the week now so I try not to do much on Saturdays because it is a busy day around and about town. People are grocery shopping, doing other errands and going to the dump. This time of year tourists are coming and going as Saturday is change-over day. If you don’t go out early, you don’t go out at all. Mostly that means I stay home.
Movie night is tonight, postponed from last night. The crowd has two choices: The Haunting and What’s Up Doc? I’m hoping the vote is for the second movie. I could use the laughs.
Categories: Musings
Tags: bath night, cartoons, cereal, cloudy, dampness, favorite day, lie around and read, naps, quiet, Saturday and Sunday, still air
Comments: 11 Comments
August 22, 2015
Last night it rained, but I missed it. The streets were still wet this morning so I didn’t miss it by much. I caught the annoying bug, but it wasn’t a cricket but rather a smokeippus alarmus more commonly known as a smoke alarm. It was time to change the battery.
Today is overcast and humid. We may even have more rain later. Movie night is postponed until tomorrow just in case. Someone is cutting his lawn, but the sound is muted in the thickness of the air. The feeders are popular this morning.
The red store and the white store were where we went for milk or bread or whatever else my mother needed. The white store was run by two old ladies, sisters I think. The red store was just one guy who smoked a lot. The store had a haze. The two ladies were patient and pleasant. Their store had a penny candy case, and they’d wait until we’d picked what we wanted. It was never easy. Sometimes I went for the hard candy like Mary Janes, Bit-o-Honey or the square candy with green mint and yellow banana flavors. All of them lasted a long time which was their appeal. Other times I went for the small, chocolatey, licorice candies with the racist name. We didn’t realize the meaning of that word. To us it was just the name of the candy. Sometimes I’d buy the paper with all the colored dots. The only problem was a bit of paper sometimes came with the dots. The ladies also had nickel bars, but we seldom had that much money. The Red Store had everything. The store was small and the aisles narrow, but every space was filled. There was even a frozen case on the far wall. I also remember a display of everything Hostess. It had penny candy, but the owner wasn’t very patient. Sometimes, though, I had to bike there to get what my mother wanted because the white store didn’t have it.
I miss the little stores. They helped make a neighborhood.
Categories: Musings
Tags: errands, humid and warm, Mary Janes, muted sounds, overcast, penny candy, smoke alarm, smoking man, two old ladies, White and Red Stores
Comments: 14 Comments
August 21, 2015
Gracie and I are outside. The air is cooler and far breezier than it has been. The sun comes and goes. Rain is a possibility for later, but that has been the forecast on and off for the last week, and we haven’t yet had rain.
There is a cricket which has taken up residence in my house. I swear it follows me from room to room like the eyes of a creepy picture. My hope is either it finds the way out or has a short life span.
It is noisier than usual out here. I hear dogs barking from all different directions. From the grouchy neighbor’s house I hear voices and things being moved around on the deck. The birds are singing and the fountain is gurgling or whatever it is that fountains do. Lots of birds are enjoying the feeders which I filled yesterday.
Since the class reunion last Saturday I’ve done some thinking about people and time. I hadn’t seen most of those people in over fifty years yet we still had a bond of shared experiences and memories. We were fourteen, still young, when we met. We hadn’t yet figured ourselves out let alone other people. We gravitated to classmates who had similar interests and senses of humor and, for me, a willingness to try new things and an appreciation for the ironic though I didn’t know that’s what it was until I was older. My friends and I were, in a small way, rebels. I remember reading books from the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, forbidden books for those of you who weren’t lucky enough to have four years of Latin. I didn’t like the book. It was the forbidden part which drew me. Mad Magazine was a favorite of ours, and we bought it every month. We roamed Harvard Square. We rang doorbells for SNCC.
You can say my friends and I grew up together as parts of me were born during those days. Without those funny, irreverent friends I believe my life might have been very different. I would have missed so much!
Categories: Musings
Tags: barking dogs, breezy, class reunion, cricket, noisy, shared experiences and memories, sunny
Comments: 2 Comments
keepthecoffeecoming.blog 