Archive for the ‘Musings’ category
July 14, 2015
When I woke up, there was sun. Now the day is darkening and getting breezy, hints of the rain predicted for the afternoon. My room is dark as I haven’t lit any lamps. I like my house in the unexpected darkness of a soon to be rainy day. For reasons I can’t explain the house is comforting in the darkness and in the quiet. I don’t even hear birds singing. The only sounds come from the rustling of the leaves on the trees hanging over the deck.
I haven’t been to a drive-in movie for years. Wellfleet still has one, but I can’t seem to interest anyone in going. I even promised to do the snacks but had no takers. We were frequent drive-in movie goers when I was a kid. My grandfather had a pass to every E.M.Lowe’s theater including the drive-in, and we used that pass often. Just like every other kid at the drive-in I was wearing my pajamas and my sneakers, no slippers in case I needed to walk to the bathroom. At intermission the playground was filled with kids dressed for bed in their pajamas and robes. The first movie was always one for kids, sometimes a Disney or a dog movie like Lassie. After intermission came the movie for adults. Kids presumably had fallen asleep. The adult movies were seldom recent releases but were a year or two old and would probably be PG-13 rated today. Sometimes I’d see a bit of that movie before I fell asleep, but by the time I was 11 or 12, I’d watch all of it, well most of it anyway as we always left before the end. My father was not one to wait in traffic so we’d get a head start and be the only car leaving so early.
We never bought anything from the concession stand as most things were too expensive. I’d sometimes check out the food and sometimes really want a hot dog, but I knew not to ask. We had plenty of snacks in the car. My favorite was the popcorn. My mother was never shy with the butter. We each had a nickel bar of candy bought at the corner store on our way to the movie. The jug was always filled with something to drink, but my father got annoyed if we wanted some too often as he was the pourer who felt abused by constant asking.
My family didn’t have much money when I was growing up, but I never knew that. We did neat things and the drive-in was always one of my favorites.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Clouds, concession stand, darkness, drive-in movie, films for adults, leaving the movie early, nickel bar of candy, PG-13, playground, quiet, rain, sun, wearing pajamas
Comments: 20 Comments
July 13, 2015
If someone knocked on my door and handed me a plane ticket, I’d take it in a heartbeat even with the destination unknown at the offering. In the last year I have traveled to New Hampshire, but that wasn’t a trip. It was a visit. The bug is getting itchier. I am in my saving mode so I can get somewhere. Ghana in a year is a possibility. I’d like to go back one more time though maybe I’ll wait for two years and treat myself to a 70th birthday trip. I’d add on a stop or two probably going rather than coming. I’ve always wanted to go to Timbuktu. It was the most exotic name I’d ever heard when I was a kid. I didn’t even know it was in Africa. I’d add on a safari but that’s drifting into dreamland. I’d have to live an austere life to save enough money which would be difficult as I like creature comforts, good food and a night out now and then. I guess I’ll have to give my destinations a bit more thought and work on keeping that travel bug under control. I do have a back scratcher.
I like today. It is less humid and the sun isn’t overwhelmingly hot. A few clouds cover parts of the sky. They are white grey, nice day clouds not rain clouds. A small breeze appears and disappears.
One of the plagues of Egypt returned. I had left a trash bag beside the car in the morning a day or so ago anticipating going to the dump. When I didn’t go, I put the trash in the trunk so nocturnal creatures wouldn’t open the bag and strew the trash about. The next morning I opened the trunk to add trash and a swarm of flies flew out of the trunk right by me. I’m not talking a few flies. I’m really meaning a swarm. Yesterday when I got in the car, more were buzzing around. I opened all the windows then went back into the house hoping the flies would be gone when I returned. When I got back to the car, there were a few lingerers. I kept the windows opened and some flew out but a couple needed my help. Now for the gross part of the story: I found dead flies on the back seat of the car, lots of dead flies. I hate flies.
Saturday night was entertainment night at my school in Ghana, and I remember one particular Saturday night. It was movie night and a USAID rep had left a cartoon for my students to view. It was about keeping bugs away from food and people. One sketch showed a fly stopping at an outhouse pile and then flying away with a bit of the pile on its legs. The fly’s next stop was food on the table, and it flew away with clean legs. The message was to cover your food to protect you from diseases. My students didn’t get the message. They were too enthralled with the first cartoon they’d ever seen. They thought the movie was a wonder and they clapped. They liked the flying, buzzing fly best of all.
Categories: Musings
Tags: austerity, birthday trip, Botswana, cartoon, cover your food, Dreams, flies, nice day, plagues of Egypt, plane ticket, safari, Timbuktu, travel bug, traveling, USAID
Comments: 4 Comments
July 12, 2015
The air conditioner is keeping the humidity at bay, but I feel a bit like a hermit. The closed windows and doors isolate me. No outside sounds, no people can be heard. Rod Serling could be standing in front of a camera on the front steps to introduce this episode of The Twilight Zone. I can hear him now,”Inside this house Kathleen Ryan sits in isolation, comfortable and cool and totally unaware that the world outside her walls has changed, but soon enough she’ll know she has entered The Twilight Zone.”
The morning is sunny with a slight breeze, but I can already feel the heat when I open the door to let Gracie in and out. According to the weather in the paper, the humidity will start to lessen tomorrow.
I don’t remember the weather being such a complicated topic when I was a kid. It was hot or cold or comfortable. There were no ten-day forecasts or drawings of cold fronts sweeping down from Canada. Forecasting was iffy at best, and the weatherman, always a man back then, was the target when his forecast went awry, and it went awry often. The best way to check the weather was to walk outside.
We seldom got sick when I was growing up. I think it had to do with the world being far less sanitized than it is now. We did get measles, mumps and chicken pox, but those were expected and there was nothing you could do about them. The worst was the itch from chicken pox. My mother went crazy making sure we didn’t scratch, “Do you want scars all over your face?” Then there was the possibility of blindness from measles. My mother kept the shades down and muted the light from the lamp by covering the shade. I couldn’t read or watch TV so lying in bed doing nothing made having measles seem interminable. The only thing I remember about the mumps is how huge my face and neck felt. I don’t know who brought home the mumps first but all four if us got sick at just about the same time. All I can think of is my poor mother!
Categories: Musings
Tags: air-conditioning, children's diseases, forecast, hermit, hot, humidity, Measles, Twilight Zone, weatherman
Comments: 6 Comments
July 11, 2015
The day is another beauty with sun, a blue sky and no humidity. The house is cool. The weather in the paper said we’d have low 80’s today and mid 60’s tonight, perfect for sleeping. This is summer at its best.
I have lots of household chores today and I have a list. I always have a list. Even when I had a good memory, I had a list. It is in no particular order and nothing is too strenuous. Doing the laundry is the most energy-consuming task.
The Great Whites are back in Chatham. One which was tagged in the past was the first to return. It seems even sharks can’t pass up a free lunch. The seals sunbathe on the rocks unaware of what lurks below the surface where the sharks wait patiently. People are a bit more leery this year given all the attacks off the coast in North Carolina. That they are not our Great Whites is a bit of comfort.
When I was a kid, my life was filled with demands. Brush your teeth. Wash your hands before dinner. Wipe your feet on the outside mat. Hang your coat in the closet, not on the chair. Put your schoolbag away. Go upstairs and change into play clothes. Finish your homework. Don’t sit so close to the TV or you’ll go blind. Leave your sisters alone. Don’t slam the door. Go outside and play until I call you for dinner. Don’t stand looking with the refrigerator door open. No cookies before dinner. Eat all your vegetables. Get ready for bed.
I suppose my mother chatted with us in-between, but I don’t remember. Every day she pretty much made the same demands because we generally ignored them, and none of her demands stuck with us in anticipation of the next day when they began all over again with something about teeth.
I was a master at not hearing my mother. When she spouted her daily demands, the words all ran together, and I understood nothing. It was as if she was speaking in a foreign tongue. I’d nod my head pretending I was listening. When I was reading, I didn’t hear her at all as I was totally immersed in the book. She never really believed me and thought I was ignoring her on purpose. She’d ask if I had heard her, and I’d truthfully answer no. That was the wrong answer. The truth sometimes is.
When I got a bit older, sarcasm just flew out of my mouth unfettered, uncensored. My mother would go wild. I didn’t blame her as I had become a bit of a wise ass.
Categories: Musings
Tags: beautiful day, Brush your teeth. Wash your hands before dinner. Wipe your feet on the outside mat. Hang your coat in the closet, cool house, demands, Great Whites, Laundry, list of chores, listening, no humidity, not on the chair. Put your schoolbag away. Go upstairs and change into play clothes. Finish your homework. Don’t sit so close to the TV or you’ll go blind. Leave your sisters alone. Don’t slam t, wise ass
Comments: 14 Comments
July 10, 2015
Such a long day it has been. I guess it feels that way due to my industriousness. Early on I did a couple of errands, dropped a dog can on my toe gouging the toe then went to the hardware store and my pizza place, Spinners at Ring Brothers where I picked up an Italian bakery style pizza, the kind made on a sheet pan and cut into squares. The bakery in my home town usually had some in a glass case, and I always bought a piece. Rita, the owner of Spinners, made me one at no charge. She was happy to do it. I finished my errands, drove home, limped into the house, sat down for more coffee, had two pieces of pizza for breakfast and started to watch the 1951 black and white film The Man from Planet X. It’s best line so far, “You’ve taken the taste of tea right out of my mouth,” said by a frightened police officer.
Yesterday my computer screen went black, and the computer ate a CD. I could hear sounds so I knew the computer was on, but I could see nothing. I grabbed my iPad and did some hunting. My favorite suggestion was to hold the eject button and shake the computer. It reminded me of shaking my piggy bank and hoping for a dime. Another suggestion had to do with turning it off then on and holding the eject button the whole time. That worked but the screen was still black. I went hunting again. I tried a few ideas but none worked. Finally one had me holding four specific keys while turning the machine on and waiting for it to turn itself on and off a couple of times. That actually worked.
Last night the pouring rain woke me up. I could hear it hitting the air conditioner in my room. I listened a while then went back to sleep. When I woke up, the rain had stopped but everything was still wet. The day is cloudy and damp, a cuddle and take a nap day. Sun is expected later.
The idea of an afternoon nap would have horrified me when I was a kid. Daylight hours were meant for playing, for exploring and for riding my bike. At night I’d fall exhausted into bed. Sleep was never long in coming. Summer heat never mattered. I was too tired to care.
College was when I realized the therapeutic effects of naps. I’d study until late, get up early enough to make class then nap in the afternoon. I never chose to study in the afternoon. I swear my brain was more attuned to nighttime than daytime studying.
Ghana made naps official. Places like the post office closed from noon to two, and my students were required to have a rest period after classes. I now had the best reason to nap: experiencing Ghanaian customs and culture. Besides, the northern heat zapped my energy, and naps brought it back.
I still take naps. I don’t need an excuse or a reason. I like taking naps.
Categories: Musings
Tags: afternoon naps, black computer screen, cloudy and damp, college naps, eaten CD, Ghanaian customs, Italian bakery pizza, long day already gouged toe, pizza for breakfast, pouring rain, siestas, Spinners, The Man from Planet X
Comments: 16 Comments
July 9, 2015
This morning is the nicest way to start any day. It is dry and cool because last night’s rain drove away the heat and the humidity. I get to turn off my air conditioner and open windows and doors.
Last night was play night, and I saw an Agatha Christie play based on a book I have no memory of reading, The Hollow. When I went hunting to find out more, I discovered the title had been changed for the US edition, not unusual for a Christie novel. Here it was called Murder After Hours. The novel featured Poirot who was not in the play at all. I suspect Dame Christie would be pleased as she believed her having added Poirot to the mix had ruined the novel. The play was well done and fun to watch though I did have a bit of trouble with a few mumbled English accents. The maid, Gladys, was indecipherable.
When I was in high school, I was in plays. I loved acting. It was a perfect extension of my personality. One year, my junior year, we competed in the Globe High School Drama Festival. I remember Sister Corita was our director. She took us out of classes to rehearse, the best perk of them all. We went to the church hall and she sat, watched, criticized and applauded. We’d do a scene then stop to listen to her comments. The only suggestion I still remember was to place the phone receiver on the base opposite its usual placement to make it easier for another character to pick up. I remember little of the competition maybe because we didn’t place, but we did come home with a couple of jars for the biology lab. My friend Jimmy and I took a self-guided tour of the school where the competition was held. We looked into the biology lab which was filled with jars of different specimens floating in formaldehyde. A teacher was working in the room. We told him how impressed we were with his collection, and that we came from an almost brand new school with no collection. He gave us each a bottle filled with I don’t remember what and also a note with permission to take the jars. I do remember the jars were big and heavy.
I won’t ever understand why some events are permanently and vividly preserved in my memory drawers while other memories are sketchy blurs of time. I remember the jars but not the competition. I remember the heat upon landing in Ghana but not the welcoming oompah band playing on the tarmac. I remember waiting in line to go into the auditorium for my college graduation, but I don’t remember the graduation. I remember my father ordering me a daiquiri once before I was twenty-one when we were out to dinner. It was at Mildred’s. That’s it, the only memory of the entire evening.
I believe these pieces of my memories have significance and are in themselves important events. The landing in Ghana is easy, the jars not so easy. I can’t control which memories stay or which memories vanish over time. I just sort of smile and let my mind go back. That’s the fun of it all.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Agatha Christie, beautiful morning, blurs of time, competing, Drama Festival, high school plays, lost over time, memories, memory drawers, Monomoy Theater, play night, Poirot, Sister Corita, specimens floating in formaldehyde, The Hollow
Comments: 8 Comments
July 7, 2015
Summer, I believe, has finally arrived. It has brought beautiful mornings, hot and humid afternoons and tolerable nights for sleeping, at least tolerable so far. Yesterday afternoon, though, the humidity became stifling. No breeze blew to push away the moisture. I turned on the air conditioner, and the house became comfortable. Gracie and I both settled in for an afternoon nap in the coolness of the bedroom.
This morning I turned the AC off and opened all the windows. I didn’t want to miss the smell of morning with its scent of flowers and mowed grass and sometimes even the salt air of the sea. Through the opened windows, I heard the songs of the different birds from trees in the front yard and easily recognized the song of the chickadees, my most frequent visitors, then I heard a metal clank sound which I ignored. When I heard it a second time, I recognized the sound as coming from the half-sized metal barrel where I keep the bird seed. I went on the deck to check it out, and the red spawn scurried away from the barrel and off the deck. The barrel cover was off and was lying beside the barrel. Several sunflower kernels were strewn around the bottom of the barrel. The spawn had found the mother lode. I put the cover back on the barrel and put two bricks on it. I figured that would keep the spawn away unless he platooned his buddies, and they all lent their paws to the effort.
I am waiting for Comcast to come to fix my phone line. During the conversation yesterday with Comcast I wished more times than I can remember that I had the power to put my hand through the receiver and grab the so-called Comcast technician and throttle him. I had opened the conversation with him by explaining that my phone line did not work. I told him I had tested the phone by connecting its line to the modem and the phone worked so I knew the problem was the line. He started to ask questions phrased as if to a five-year old. I interrupted him and said I had explained the problem and didn’t a walk-through from him. He then said he would reset the modem. I slowly explained it wasn’t the modem. It was the line coming from the wall. He then asked a few more questions, all of which had been answered in my first explanation. He then concluded my phone was not working. I told him I was talking to him on that non-working phone. He paused and then told me to remove the line from the modem and reconnect it to the wall. I explained the call would end once I did that. He took my cell number, and when the phone went dead, he called me back on my cell. It was 25 minutes from the start of the call when he said I think there is something wrong with your phone line.
Categories: Musings
Tags: afternoon nap, Air conditioner, bird seed, Comcast, humidity, metal barrel, morning air, mother lode, red spawn, ridiculous questions, salt air, so-called technicians, stifling, summer weather
Comments: 12 Comments
July 6, 2015
I’m melting. I’m melting. Okay, that may be a bit of an exaggeration, but only a bit. From wearing hoodies on July 4th to 84˚ this morning is a giant leap. The sun is brutal already. It is pretty to look at but that’s where the good part ends. It is just plain hot. Luckily this room is still cool as it doesn’t get sun until afternoon. It is a full 10 degrees cooler than outside. I will migrate to the deck when I finish here. If there is a breeze, it will find my deck.
At the park where I used to spend my summer days, the picnic table was in the shade under trees.The horseshoe pit was also in the shade just below where the table sat. The softball field was in total sun. Practice meant sweating all over including drips in my eyes and on my cheeks. I used the sleeves of my blouse to wipe my face. The sleeves got grimy, but I didn’t care. The slide got so hot in the mid-afternoons you chanced burns using it. The only water was a bubbler close by to the park. We taught Butch, the neighbor’s dog who followed us everywhere, to drink from it. We also taught Butch how to climb the ladder then slide to the ground. I spend most of my pre-teen summer days at that park. We always had plenty to do. I remembering painting flowers on a wooden tray for my mother. It was the best painting job I ever did. I bought gimp and made my father a key chain which he gushed over but never really used. It was well made but a bit gaudy and what adult male uses a gimp key chain? A couple of afternoons a week we competed against other town parks in baseball and softball. There was even a park column in the town’s weekly paper, The Independence. I love seeing my name in print and saved all of the columns which mentioned me. The park closed from 12 to 1 for lunch, and I’d go home, about 5 or 6 minutes away, eat lunch and sometimes even change my grimy blouse then it was back to the park until it closed at 4.
At the end of the summer we had contests then awards. I was the horseshoe champ a couple of years running. I also got awards for softball as our team was always first or second in the park league. I won the checker board award one year but only one year. I really loved going to that park. It was such a fun way to spend every summer day and having my name in the paper was my favorite perk.
Categories: Musings
Tags: 84˚, brutal sun, bubbler, Fenway Park, gimp, grimy blouse, horseshoe pit, hot, hot slide, on the deck, painintg, softball field, wooden tray
Comments: 6 Comments
July 5, 2015
Last night was wonderful except for the cold. I had to laugh when I looked at my guests and four of them were wearing their sweatshirt hoods and two of them were also wrapped in afghans. The rest of us also donned a sweatshirt or a jacket but no hoods. Dinner was a success from the appetizers to the dessert. The movie Independence Day was the perfect choice even though all of us had seen it. We clapped at the end of the president’s rousing speech about July 4th now being Independence Day for the world. Bill Pullman is way over the top, but I figure alien invaders bent on world annihilation deserve a speech more than a bit histrionic. Dessert was ice cream, just what we needed on a cold night, but the hot fudge and hot peanut butter sauces made the chill worthwhile. The evening ended quite late, after midnight. By the time I did a little cleaning and checked my e-mail, it was close to 3, but I still wasn’t tired. I watched a little TV, the perfect soporific, and shortly thereafter went to bed. I crawled out of bed at 11 this morning. I hope my neighbors didn’t wonder if I survived the night as my paper was still in the driveway.
One of my most memorable days was July 4th when I was around 12 or 13. We didn’t go to the fireworks, but I could see them from the hill behind my house. The colors would burst into circles first one then another. Some were single circles. Some were triples. They were beautiful. A couple of my neighbors were also watching and afterwards they invited in for a root beer. We sat around the kitchen table talking. The conversation went all over the place. They didn’t speak to me as if I were a kid, and that’s what I remember the most, how that conversation was the first tug of adulthood. I was a pushmi-pullyu looking in two different directions. Little changed that night, but the changes were starting.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Adulthood, appetizers, childhood, cold night, dinner, hoodies, ice cream, Independence Day, peanut butter sauce, pushmi-pullyu
Comments: 12 Comments
July 4, 2015
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
Tags: America, fife and drum, games, Happy Birthday, Independence Day, John Adams, parades, parties, Sports
Comments: 18 Comments
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