Archive for the ‘Musings’ category
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
August 20, 2015
We have rejoined the world. The doors and windows are open to the breeze. The stale air is disappearing. It is still hot but not unbearably hot. Here in the dark den all three animals are sleeping near me, each in her special spot. The breeze is coming mostly from the north, from the window behind me. Pleasant best describes the morning. I usually shy away from using generic adjectives. I was, after all, an English teacher, but I think pleasant conjures all the best of today: the sun, the clean, dry air and most of all the breeze.
When I was a kid, I had little concept of time other than a few minutes, an hour and maybe as far away as tomorrow. “Are we there yet?” drove my father and every father crazy, but it was because we had been in the car for what seemed like hours or even days so we figured we had to be there no matter how far away there was. We had countdowns to birthdays and the best of all days, Christmas, but the whole concept was a little blurry. Three weeks until Christmas really didn’t mean a whole lot to us. Even the number of days in three weeks didn’t help. We understood two days or maybe three days, but we never really caught on until the big day was close, like a day away. When you’re six, every day is endless.
Time in Ghana was frustrating at first. Six o’clock meant six o’clock to us but not to a Ghanaian to whom six o’clock meant whenever. If I invited someone to my house, I was always asked if I meant African or European time. I had been raised to be punctual, a courteous sign of respect, so it took me a while to unlearn European time. I learned to be patient and to wait. People would come in their own time. Lorries would leave when they were full. Stores would open when the owners got there. Dresses would be finished when the seamstress got around to finishing them.
I had to be on time for my classes and to take the government bus, but that was it. I came to like Ghanaian time. I was never late to anything. Things got done whenever. Life was slow and easy. I didn’t even wear a watch, still don’t.
Categories: Musings
Tags: African time, Are we there yet?, cooler day, countdown days, endless days, European time, Ghana, holidays, hours, minutes, opened windows and doors, Peace Corps Ghana, sleeping animals, time
Comments: 8 Comments
August 18, 2015
The hoopla is over, the festivities finished. The floor is covered in confetti. The balloons have lost helium and now are floating close to the ground. The cake is but a memory, a sweet memory. Last night my friends took me to dinner at the South African restaurant. It was the culminating event. Now my birthday is put away for another year.
The heat continues. We are still living behind closed doors and shuttered windows. Yesterday It became official. Boston is in the midst of a heat wave, three consecutive days above 90˚. We have been a bit cooler thanks to the ocean so no heat wave. The high 80’s don’t rate. They are just plain hot days.
Usually by this time in the summer, I’d done everything so many times I was getting bored. The joy of playing outside late had lost its luster. It was no longer a novelty. It was too hot during the day to do much. We’d bike ride, stop at a shady spot and just sit there until the sweat had stopped rolling down our cheeks, and we were cool enough to get back on our bikes. At every bubbler we’d drink water and wet our heads so we’d feel cooler. Bottled water was a long way in the future. Behind the town hall was a bubbler and another was in the middle of the field at the back of the baseball diamond near my house. That last one gave me the energy to get up the hill to my house.
We’d never have admitted it but it was exciting to get new clothes even if it was for school. We always got new shoes and socks and one new outfit for the first day of school because we didn’t have to wear our uniforms that day. We’d shop with my mother for the new outfit. The rest of the school clothes she’d just buy without us. The new white blouses and new blue skirts, our school uniforms, were never exciting so we didn’t care what my mother chose. It wasn’t as if there were a lot of options.
When I worked, I’d be back full time by now. Seldom did that mean new clothes for me.The excitement was gone.
Categories: Musings
Tags: above 90˚, air-conditioning, Birthday finished, bored with summer, bubbler, Heat Wave, new shoes, school clothes, school uniforms, sweaty, too hot
Comments: 10 Comments
August 17, 2015
Mr. Arbuthnot, an expert weatherman, was interviewed by the Sun Chronicle. His weather report is as follows: “It may become “steamy,” “sultry” and even “stifling,” but never “hot.” The temperature will soar, of course. It will set records. it will be a record-breaking heat wave. The average person will swelter, of course. Hence the phrase “sweltering temperatures.” They will also roast, broil, fry and steam. They may also sweat it out, but not in polite company. These people will seek relief by flocking, en masse to the beach, to the lakeside or to neighborhood pools. The roads to these places will be jammed, moving at a crawl and populated by exasperated motorists. For those who can’t escape, they will beat the heat by not going outside which will cause utilities to be strained, overloaded and working to capacity. This will cause scattered outages, perhaps, or possibly rolling blackouts.The heat wave will finally break thanks to pop-up thunderstorms and scattered thunder showers. Mr Arbuthnot’s final words to his audience, ‘It’s not the heat. It’s the humidity.'”
I figure you’ve guessed today is cliché day which reminds me of the best principal I ever worked with. His only imperfection was his reliance on clichés. I used to keep count whenever he spoke to the staff and sometimes he reached double digits. My mother always used to say someone had a tough row to hoe. When I was young, I had no idea what she was talking about. Why would anyone hoe a row? He’s a good egg was one my father often used. I knew my dad was complimenting whomever, but why a good egg was what I wondered. When I cracked open my first bad egg in Ghana, I totally understood. What I don’t get still though is why the farm metaphors.
Animals seem to be cliché targets. I’m guessing it is because they can’t complain. Somebody works like a dog, goes on wild goose chases, plays when the cat’s away, does something whole hog, waits until the cows come home, is stubborn as a mule and strong as an ox. My favorite is the straw which broke the camel’s back.
I slept like a log last night after burning the midnight oil. I woke up fresh as a daisy and happy as a clam. With the AC on, I am in the lap of luxury; however, today I turned older than dirt!
Categories: Musings
Tags: " "sultry" and even "stifling, " but never "hot.", "steamy, cliche day, flocking, good egg, heat, tough row to hoe
Comments: 24 Comments
August 16, 2015
Last night was my 50th reunion from high school, the high school from which I didn’t graduate though I went there for three years. Before my senior year, my parents kidnapped me and forced me to move to the cape ( that’s how I first felt back then). Friends I hadn’t seen since my junior year in high school went looking for me so I could attend, and they found me on Facebook. The whole evening was great fun. They even gave me a diploma, a real one from way back in time. It was signed by Sister Melania, the principal at the time. The signature is pure nun which I can’t really explain, but if you saw it, you’d understand.
The drive home, a two-hour ride, was unbelievable. The thunder rolled and lightning lit up the sky. I swear I saw the lightning dance. It looked like the jitterbug with the arms and legs of both dancers moving in tandem. Another series of lightning bolts looked like the God and Adam in the Sistine Chapel with fingers extended but not touching. Some bolts reached from the heavens to the earth. It was spectacular.
The rain storm was something else. It was raining so hard I slowed to a walk. The backwash from trucks made it almost impossible to see so I followed the red lights of cars in front of me and hoped for the best. The rain stayed with me but became a windshield wiper storm, and I could see the road and cars again. I drove in and out of the rain until about Plymouth when it just stopped. I don’t know if the cape got any rain as the road was totally dry. It took me about two hours to get home.
I am sitting in my air-conditioned house. I was taken aback by the heat when I got the papers. It will be in the 80’s all week. I do not suffer heat well. The young me did, but this me prefers to be comfortable. I think getting older should have some perks and being cool on a hot day is one of them. I do have a long list of the rest of the perks but most of them are unlikely. Having someone cater to my every whim probably won’t happen, but I’ll not cross it off the list just in case.
Categories: Musings
Tags: 50th reunion, AC, backwash, diploma, God and Adam, heavy rain, hot day, lightning bolts, Sistine chapel, spectacular lightning, thunder and lightning
Comments: 8 Comments
August 15, 2015
No Coffee today! I am taking a break as I have much to do and only a little time in which to do it. To add to the time crunch, I’m going off Cape at 4.
Fern seems to be hurting less so I guess the medication is working. She made it upstairs and jumped on my bed, but if I were an Olympic judge, she would be getting a 4 or maybe a 5 at best. Her landing still needs work.
I’ll be back tomorrow!
Categories: Musings
Comments: 4 Comments
August 14, 2015
The days of summer seem to run together. When I wake up, I often forget what day it is. My trick is to remember yesterday then let today slide in its place. Some days are the same, my favorite days, the ones which have no lists. Today is not one of them.
Fern had to go to the vet’s yesterday. She hated the ride and messed the crate going and coming, but when she got to the vet’s, she was calm and investigated everything. She even watched a dog out the window. I took her because she was limping. The vet, Gracie’s vet, said the ligament in the back leg joint is looser than it should be. Surgery would correct that, but she thinks Fern is too old so we are going with pain killers and the hope over time it will mend itself. I help by carrying Fern up and down the stairs.
I don’t spend much time with people any more. I have a play on some Wednesdays and Fridays and movie night on Saturday. That’s it. The rest of the time I’m by myself. I’m just fine with that. I don’t really miss people all that much though I always do enjoy my time with friends. I remember when I first lived alone. I hated it. It was in Ghana. I was homesick and lonely, craving people. I had my students but they didn’t fill the void.
It took a few long months before I was comfortable with myself and could fill and enjoy my time. That was a life lesson for which I am forever thankful. It is not one I ever expected. Peace Corps is so much more than you can imagine.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Bolgatanga, by myself, favorite days, few people, Ghana, lists, pain killers, Peace Corps, Peace Corps Ghana, people, quiet times, remember yesterday, vet appointment, what day of the week
Comments: 12 Comments
