Archive for the ‘Musings’ category
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
October 30, 2015
Mother Nature has blessed us with another lovely day. Though not as warm as yesterday, it is still in the high 50’s, breezy and sunny. Every time the breeze blows more leaves fall and the trees become barer. I kept the front door opened and stood for a while watching the leaves flying and twirling in miniature eddies. I can see my neighbor’s deck for the first time since the beginning of summer. Fall has begun its annual wrap up to make way for winter.
I have never had the urge to go south for the winter. I am a New Englander who abides all four seasons. Admittedly, winter is my least favorite for the cold, not the snow. Ever since I was a little kid I have loved snow. I’d stand at the picture window, my head resting on my hands bent at the elbows, and watch the snow fall lit by the streetlight below my house. I could see individual flakes in the light. Sometimes they fell sideways blown by the wind. The street would disappear. I’d see the hand-rail but not the steps which led to the sidewalk now buried under snow. My father’s car was a mound of snow. When it was time, I’d go to bed hoping for a snow day, hoping to hear the whistle blasts from the fire station announcing no school. That would give me a whole day to play in the snow, to sled down the hill and to have a snowball fight.
I still love watching the snow. I go from front door to back door to see how much has fallen. My deck disappears and sometimes I can’t get the door open. I worry for poor Gracie who tries to get out but the snow is too deep for her. Sometimes I brush away enough for her to get right outside the door where she barely squats before running right back into the house.
The morning after a snowstorm, before the plows and shovelers, is always beautiful. The snows glints in the sun like diamonds. Everyone is still housebound and the snow lies untouched. It is why I stay here in the water.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Accra, bare trees, beautiful day, flying leaves, four seasons, miniature eddies, no school day, Snow, snowflakes, winter
Comments: 6 Comments
October 29, 2015
Some days just don’t have a chance. Today is already one of them. I woke up with my back hurting, something which hasn’t happened in a while. I know why. Yesterday I was an idiot. I changed the litter boxes and hauled the heavy, used litter downstairs then to the car. I brought laundry up two flights. I went shopping and brought in several bags including new litter which I then hauled upstairs. I gave my back no thought. This morning I was reminded.
Now for today’s fiascos: I was putting on my sweatshirt and my arm knocked over the bag of dog treats. I picked up the treats and swept the small pieces. I decided to take a few Aleve’s for my back. I dropped the bottle on the floor and had to stoop to pick up the pills which were strewn across the bathroom floor. I went to change the water in the dog dish and found one of the cats had thrown up in it. At least her aim was good. I got my coffee and was walking down the hall juggling the cup with the mail and the newspapers. Yup, I spilled the coffee but not all of it, a good omen I figured. I cleaned it up and was finally able to sit and read the papers. There was no good news.
It rained all night. The fallen leaves are plastered to the deck, the walkway and the driveway. From the right viewpoint, they look like a painting of reds and yellows scattered here and there on the canvas. It is warm and the sun has just appeared. I am becoming optimistic, even rosy, about the prospects of the rest of the day.
I had plans for today, but they are now scrapped. The dump will be there tomorrow. Low lights will hide the dust on the bookcases and the shelves. I’m thinking I need a sloth day, maybe even a ride to nowhere.
The last three days have been filled with chores and errands, with me making up for lost time from being sick. I’m done with that. I’m going to brush my teeth which is about as strenuous an activity as I’ll have today.
Categories: Musings
Tags: autumn, dump, fallen leaves, hurting back, idiot, kitty litter, Laundry, making a mess, painting, plans, rain, sloths, spilling treats, spillingpills, throwing up
Comments: 8 Comments
October 27, 2015
I see spider webs. That may not sound like much, but it means I am just about healthy again. It means the weird cleaning obsession is back so I have to stop and clean away the webs and dust whenever I see them. Already the dishwasher is filling with dusty votive glasses and chimneys. I’m even going to empty the dryer.
Today is much like yesterday, sunny and in the 50’s. We’ll have warmer weather later in the week, back to the 60’s for a couple of days. I love this time of year.
My mother always created our Halloween costumes. We never bought them ready-made. Sometimes, though, we’d buy a mask to go with whatever we were, but I never really liked full-faced masks. They were hot, and most times my eyes didn’t line up with the holes so I could only see half the world. I liked the masks favored by the Lone Ranger and the Green Hornet, the ones where only your eyes were covered.
We used pillow slips to carry our bounty so we didn’t have to worry about paper bag handles breaking. Those were the days of red apples, popcorn balls and little tied bags with a few pieces of candy. I remember one red apple had a nickel stuck in it. That was a treasure. I never thought about the time that went into making popcorn balls. I was a kid. All I thought about was the candy.
Fun size candy bars didn’t exist when I was a kid. Now that’s just about what everyone gives. A few years ago I decided to give out what we called nickel bars. I remember how excited we were to get them, and how from year to year we’d return to the houses which passed them out. One was a red house with a huge porch. It was on Main Street right near my friend’s house. Two old ladies usually answered the door. They loved to see the costumes and always complimented us on how good and scary we looked. They gave us Hershey Bars every year. The red house is still there though now it is a business. I always think of those two old ladies every time I go by it. We were so excited to get those Hershey Bars. That memory so filled with delight had me switch to full size bars. The first year I did, a little girl was so excited she yelled to her father waiting on the street, “It’s a big bar.” I knew exactly how she was feeling.
Categories: Musings
Tags: candy, cleaning, Clothes dryer, costumes, dust, fun bars, Halloween, masks, pillow cases, popcorn balls, red apples, spider webs
Comments: 8 Comments
October 26, 2015
Today is the epitome of a perfect fall day. The sun is shining with that sharp glint it seems to have only in the fall and winter. The temperature is in the mid 50’s. A small breeze is blowing. Some trees still have color, but others have brown leaves clinging ever so slightly. The last of my flowers are still in bloom. The rest of the garden is filled with brown stalks. Soon they too will be gone as it is close to clearing the garden time. The deck is still open but I’ve called Skip to come and cover the furniture and the umbrellas and stow away the candles and decorations which made the deck so inviting last summer. I think when winter comes I miss the deck most of all.
When I was in elementary school, in the lower grades, art was mostly cutting and coloring. I remember coloring leaves. On a single piece of paper, there were a few outlines of leaf shapes each with a vein down the middle. We’d color them with our crayons then cut them out using those little scissors which always seemed to get stuck on my fingers. The leaves were yellow or red as all the real leaves were. After we’d cut them out, we’d paste them on construction paper to make a collage. I remember the paste seemed to get on everything, including my fingers. We used a round bottle of paste which had a brush attached to the top. I could never get just the right amount of paste on the leaves. Sometimes the leaves stuck to my fingers and when I pulled them off, the leaves stuck to my other fingers. My collage took a long time to finish, and sometimes the back of the paper was wet from the paste leaking through. I’d wave it in the air hoping it would dry. I always put it between books when I was going home or it would curl.
My mother made a big deal of my art work. I beamed.
Categories: Musings
Tags: art, blooming flowers, clearing the garden, closing the deck, coloring leaves, dead stalks, fall day, sunny
Comments: 9 Comments
October 25, 2015
Yesterday, when I rebooted the crazed machine, a new problem appeared. I kept getting a box wanting the password for something saved in the keychain. I’d cancel and another box would appear. Every password I could think of wasn’t the right one. I used my iPad to look for help but no suggestions worked. I finally opened in safe mode and read my mail but couldn’t do much else. I shut the machine down and rebooted too many times to count, but the same damn box kept appearing, and I kept putting in passwords I’d tried before which didn’t work. On one such attempt, the box disappeared and didn’t reappear. Horns blew, confetti fell, bands played and I was crowned queen with a tiara and a sash reading Miss MAC of 2015.
Today is dreary. The air is damp and cold. It’s a day to stay inside cozy and warm. I am just about better. The quarantine signs can come down. My neighbor dropped by yesterday to make sure I was okay as he hadn’t seen me. I assured him I was on the happy road to recovery.
My mother never liked to spank us. That privilege she reserved for my father. The infrequent times she did we had to pretend it hurt, but it really never did. She finally caught on and her tactics changed. She’d throw things at us. We could duck, but that didn’t stop her. She had a tactic for that too. After she’d thrown the slipper and missed, she’d tell whichever of us was the target to bring the slipper back. We knew she’d use the slipper on us if we brought it back. It was for us a no win situation. Bring it back and get hit or not bring it back and get it worse later. We usually brought it back. Luckily she wore soft slippers.
Spanking wasn’t really the main punishment in our house. We were usually sentenced to solitary confinement in our bedrooms, a punishment I loved. Spanking was reserved for the worst offenses. “I’m telling your father,” was always the bad omen. He was the ogre. The afternoon always stretched forever then he’d come home. Sometimes my mother never told him, and we could breathe again. Other times she was so angry she told him and I swear she always embellished the story. He never spanked us so long after the incident, but he did find ways to punish us, usually taking away something we loved or grounding us so we’d miss something we had been looking forward to. I always preferred my mother and her slipper.
Categories: Musings
Tags: computer problems, keychain access, Mac, queen of the computer, road to recovery, slippers, spanking, tell dad, throwing things
Comments: 10 Comments
