Archive for the ‘Musings’ category
April 23, 2015
Lately I have been a bit bored with the outside world. Nothing much is going on. I stayed around the house yesterday, chased the spawn a few times and watered my plants, the highlights of my day. I also read a while and took a nap. The weather has settled into the 50’s every day, some days cloudy, some days sunny and some days both. Today so far is a both day. I woke up to sun and now it’s cloudy.
When I was a kid, I’d go for a bike ride to while away some time. I’d ride up town and check out the lobsters swimming in the tank in the window of the fish market. I’d watch the cobbler tapping the soles of shoes with his little hammer. He always wore an apron. I’d look through the window of the bakery and wish I had some money. They made the best lemon cupcakes. I’d stop at the pet store and check out what was for sale. They never sold cats or dogs but mostly lizards, chameleons and fish. Next store was the sub shop, and I could smell the stuff of subs like the meat and condiments. Mr. Santoro, the owner, spoke English with a heavy accent, and if he made my sub, I didn’t always understand what he was saying. Sometimes I pointed.
I always rode in the same direction on my bike, toward the zoo. I don’t know why I seldom headed the other way, toward Reading. I just never did though once I did ride to Reading with some friends to my seventh grade teacher’s house. She wasn’t happy to see us but pretended she was. We all agreed on that. She was a bit of a cold fish, a description my mother would use. Her name was Mrs. Cochran, and even before the ride wasn’t a favorite of mine. She was the one who told me girls shouldn’t play basketball.
I guess I should take the hint from my younger self and go for a ride, a car ride this time as I suspect Gracie would love to join me. I’ll do back roads, and they’ll be a bit like my store windows with stuff to see. I’ll go slowly so I don’t miss anything.
Categories: Musings
Tags: bakery, bike ride, bored, car ride, cloudy, cobbler, cold fish, lemon cupcakes, lobsters, nap, pet store, reading, Santoro's, sub shop, sunny, teacher, window shopping
Comments: 10 Comments
April 21, 2015
Today is cloudy, but the day is so light the sun must be hidden behind the grey. Earlier, morning fog covered all the bushes and the lower branches of the trees. It’s warm, far warmer than I expected. Despite the clouds, I think it’s a nice day. The street cleaner rumbled by a couple of times sweeping the winter storm sand to the sides of the street. It is not a quiet truck.
My morning routine seldom differs. I wake up whenever, feed the cats, let the dog out, put the coffee on, go out and get the papers and yesterday’s mail, give Gracie her morning treats then grab a cup of coffee and settle in with the papers. I like my mornings.
No matter where I am, the mornings are different from the rest of the day. If I’m on a trip, I love to get up really early and wander the streets. I get to watch the day unfold. People sweep. Shopkeepers wear white aprons and have long-handled brooms. Africans wear colorful cloths and have hard grass brooms with no handles. They have to bend to use them. In cities, trucks stop in streets to unload goods for stores and restaurants. In one hotel my room’s window faced a side street where the trucks parked. They were my wake-up call every morning. In Santa Fe I sat on a bench and watched the Indians set up their wares while I munched on pastry and drank coffee. It was so early the square was empty of other people. At Gettysburg, I was awake before the park opened so I waited and was the first that morning to wander the battlefield. It was covered in ground fog. It was quiet as befitting a memorial.
Early mornings here on the Cape are quiet in the summer. The tourists are late risers. I sometimes go out to breakfast but most times I get coffee and take a ride. I watch quahoggers raking the river bottom while seagulls swoop and fly in circles over their heads hoping for a handout. Seagulls are always loud.
I know I’ve told you before, but I love African mornings most of all. They are filled with the smells of charcoal fires and the sounds of women pounding their mortar with pestles to make fufu. The sound is rhythmic. Everyone is up early in Ghana, even I was. I hated to miss any part of the morning.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Africa, African mornings, Cape mornings, charcoal fires, cloudy, daily routine, foggy, Gettysburg, morning air, mornings, people sweeping, quahogging, Santa Fe, trucks, warm day
Comments: 33 Comments
April 20, 2015
Cold, windy day today. The sky is a light grey. The high will be in the very low 50’s. I have no plans for the day so I’m staying home, cozy, warm and, best of all, comfortable. Huzzah, there are buds on my forsythia and on my wild rose bushes. I noticed them this morning. They are always the first to bloom.
Today is Patriot’s Day here in Massachusetts, a state holiday. It commemorates the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the start of the Revolutionary War. That day helped define the character of Massachusetts.
I remember in the sixth grade learning about the Revolutionary War. Miss Quilter told it like a story, and I was enthralled. She explained about Paul Revere’s ride and how he, William Dawes and other riders rode all night to get to Lexington. She told us why it was called the “shot heard round the world” in Emerson’s poem. There was a picture in my textbook of Patriots hiding behind rocks to shoot at the Redcoats. Miss Quilter explained the picture and guerrilla warfare. That word wasn’t in my textbook, and I thought it was the same as the big monkeys. Miss Quilter went on to tell us the Red Coats didn’t see the shooters or know where the bullets were coming from. The Patriots followed the British all the way back to Boston and shot from behind rocks and trees.
We did a family outing one Sunday to Lexington and Concord. It was history come to life. I remember walking across the Old North Bridge in Concord and I remember standing on the Lexington Green just imagining the battle. The statue of the Minute Man seemed to stand above all else. We went into the tavern where Adams and Hancock were before they fled. On the way home we traveled the same route Revere had. I was in awe that whole day.
Categories: Musings
Tags: cold, comfortable, Concord, grey day, guerilla warfare, Lexington, Minuteman, Patriots' Day, Redcoats, Revolutionary War, windy
Comments: 8 Comments
April 19, 2015
It’s cold, but I don’t care because it’s sunny. The day is a pretty one. Earlier I was on the deck cleaning and filling the bird bath, and the birds flew by my head to the feeders and one nearly got me. I ducked. If birds can laugh, that one did.
My body aches and my bones crack. Lifting heavy stuff hurts my back. I like naps. I’m older than I used to imagine I’d ever be when I was young but being older is far different from I thought it would be. I’m not sitting in a rocking chair on a porch. I don’t wear a house dress or shoes with clunky heels or an apron if I’m working in the kitchen, though I probably should as I’m messy. I don’t even have a hat with flowers. I’m not thrilled with all those aches and pains, but with aging came an epiphany. I realized how much I’ve gained as I’ve grown older. I think everybody does.
I never really noticed all the best parts of spring. When I was a kid, I just figured it was time to ditch the winter coat and haul the bike out of the cellar. Now I see so much more. Every morning I notice the new flowers blooming in my garden. There are five or six hyacinths, all different colors spaced as if on a palette. The yellow dafs are so bright I almost want to shade my eyes. The tulips are beginning to make an appearance. I never tire of watching the birds. I love the smell of a spring morning. I can sit on the deck for hours reading books and watching the world.
I am slower now, and that has made all the difference. I get to see what is happening around me. I get to watch spring unfold a flower at a time.
Categories: Musings
Tags: being older, Bird bath, Bird feeder, cold day, cracking bones, noticing spring, old age, seeing the world with different eyes, spring
Comments: 10 Comments
April 18, 2015
Today smells like fresh earth. It smells like grass. The air is warm. The sun is bright. I keep going outside to the deck drawn by the warmth. Gracie has been out all morning mostly lying in the sun. Off in the distance is the sound of a leaf blower cleaning winter away. I think today is glorious.
The sun has made me energetic. I have completed and crossed off chores on the list for weeks. I am even getting closer to tackling the cabinet under the counter. I am curious as to what lies hidden there. I know there must be mice nests as I found some the last time I cleaned the cabinet, and I also found their cache of rice. I am on the hunt for a special baking pan long-lost in the Bermuda Triangle of my cabinet.
When I was young, I confronted noises. “Come out. Come out. I know you’re there,” I’d yell, but the last thing I wanted was for anyone or, even worse, for something to come out of the darkness. My bravery was bravado. I had this idea that by yelling I’d scare away whatever was making the noise. Nothing ever came after me. I figured I’d scared them or it. The older me knew better. Nothing was really there.
In the summer we could play outside even when it got dark. The street light rule was no longer in effect. We had to stay in the neighborhood, but our neighborhood was filled with wonderful places and so much to do. Hide and seek was even more fun in the dark. Sometimes we’d jump out at the seeker and scare him or her half to death. The more the seeker yelled in fright the more fun it was for us. Kids do have a bit of a sadistic streak.
Being a kid meant taking each day as it came. Saturday was the day filled with the most possibilities. We could go to the movies or ride our bikes or walk the tracks. We could catch grasshoppers in the field or watch the polliwogs in the swamp. We’d decide on Saturday morning. Planning is never a kid thing. Life is so much easier without a calendar waiting to be filled.
Categories: Musings
Tags: bravado, cleaning the cabinet, come out, darkness and the summer, doing chores, fresh air, glorious day, Leaf blower, noises, sacred, Saturday, sun, warmth
Comments: 14 Comments
April 17, 2015
We have rain, but the day is still warm. I consider anything over 50˚ warm. Gracie balked at going out this morning, but I told her to bite the bullet and she did and went out. I can’t remember the last time I heard anyone say bite the bullet but oddly enough it was a fill-in for the Globe crossword puzzle this morning. Strange coincidence.
We played outside all summer. In the cooler afternoons we usually played whole group games on the grass behind our houses. Anybody could play. Other than in red rover, age and size made no difference. It was the only time the big kids and the little kids played together.
Olly olly oxen free meant we could get out of hiding as somebody else had been found and was now it. The seeker was always called it. I have no idea why. Both were just parts of the game of hide and seek. I did look it up this morning out of curiosity and I found the all call possibly originates from the German phrase “alle alle auch sind frei,” which loosely translated means “everyone is also free.” Mispronunciation by non-German children probably became “olly olly oxen free.” It doesn’t make sense but we never noticed. Olly olly oxen free was just what you said.
We also played red rover. The key was in picking the right team. The stronger the team, the better the chances. We’d stand in a line holding hands or even arm to arm and call the other team, “Red rover, red rover send Kat right over.” My job would be to break through the line. If I didn’t, they got me for their team. If I got through, my team got someone from theirs. I always looked for the weakest link, the smallest kid. We all did.
We also played stair ball or stoop ball if you lived in the city. Your team was spread into the street. The batter, loosely used here to designate a position, threw the rubber ball against the steps. He was out if it was caught but got bases if it went over the fielders’ heads. The problem was deciding how many bases the hit was worth. We used the stairs at the end of our walkway. They led to the street. They were perfect for stair ball.
Blind man’s bluff was another game we played. The person who was it got blindfolded. The game was really tag with a twist. It was never easy though we were limited about moving. We sometimes talked, and that gave away our position.
It’s amazing that the games are played just like their names, other than red rover and maybe Simon says. Dodgeball and kickball are other games whose names tells you right away the object of the games, the same with follow the leader.
I noticed that rock-paper-scissors has been used lately on TV. It was our favorite way to make decisions when I was a kid. I remember if I lost I always wanted two out of three. Big surprise, the winner always said no.
Categories: Musings
Tags: hide and seeker's rover, Olly olly oxen free, playing outside, rain, red rover red rover, rock-paper-scissors, stoop ball, warm day, you're it
Comments: 8 Comments
April 16, 2015
The corner has been turned. Yesterday was cloudy but still felt warm. After the winter we’ve had, the low 50’s are tropical. I sat on my deck for a while and wished I had a drink with an umbrella and a piece of pineapple. Gracie sleeps on the deck and her fur gets hot to the touch. So many flowers have bloomed now. The hyacinths are the most recent adding some purple to the yard.
Tonight Captain Frosty’s opens. The boards are off the windows. In some places birds return, the cherry blossoms bloom and the gardens fill with flowers, all announcing the coming of spring and summer. For us the first sign of the changing season is when Captain Frosty’s opens. My friends and I are going to first night dinner, another one of our rituals. I can just taste that shrimp, the corn fritter and those amazing onions rings. It’s a happy day!
When I was a kid, it was hearing the ice cream man’s bell which announced the changing of the seasons. Johnny came up the hill and parked his truck in its usual spot as if it had been yesterday instead of a year ago when he was last here. We all ran home for a nickel or, if we were lucky, a dime. A nickel bought a popsicle and a dime brought so many different choices. I liked chocolate covers but my favorite was a drumstick. The vanilla ice cream had hard chocolate and nuts covering it. The cone was always soft, and after I finished the ice cream, I ate the cone, a sugar cone. My dad, who worked for Hood’s Ice Cream, told me that my drumstick is called an ice cream novelty. I think that name fits a drumstick perfectly.
This morning I read my two papers and a phrase, seldom heard any more, was written in one column. I don’t even remember what it was, but it sent me off on a tangent wondering what will happen to all the neat words and phrases of my generation. It seems sort of silly for woman of 67, almost 68, to say groovy. Nobody bums a smoke any more, nobody smokes. My brother and I yelled dibs when we reserved a seat in the car, usually it was dibs on a window seat. Drop a dime is gone forever. Where was the last pay phone you saw?Remember always checking the change slot in case someone left a dime. I found one a couple of times. On dates guys tried to get to second base or even go all the way. It usually started with making out. Luckily some of the lingo survives. You can still flip the bird, catch some rays or wear shades.
Every new generation needs its own vocabulary. It’s a sort of teen rebellion to break from our parents and speak in tongues they don’t understand. The problem is that vocabulary, like all the previous, will be replaced when a new generation takes center stage. How uncool all of that is, a real bummer.
Categories: Musings
Tags: 60's lexicon, Captain Frosty's, chocolate covers, corn fritter, drop a dime, drumstick, grovy, ice cream man's bell, ice cream novelty, idioma, making out, new generations, onion rings, payphone, shrimp, tropical drinks, warm days
Comments: 22 Comments
April 14, 2015
Lazy mornings are the best way to start the day. I read my two papers, drank a fresh cup of coffee with each paper and ate a couple of pieces of Scali bread toast. The coffee, from Uganda, a new roast for me, was delicious.
I didn’t wake to eye-blinding sunshine this morning. The day is dark, a turn on your light to see in the daytime dark, and rain is predicted. I guess this is what we get after a beautiful, warm spring day like yesterday. It was 63˚. I’m okay with this on again-off again weather switch. Give me some more days like yesterday, and I’ll abide the rain.
My dad was a yeller, but by the time we were four or five we had perfected the art of ignoring him while looking interested and concerned at the same time. He didn’t expect anything, just us nodding our heads. We could do that. He’d warn us not to repeat the infraction whatever it was, and we were then free to leave or were send to our rooms depending upon the seriousness of what had irked my father. I always liked being sent to my room. It gave me some privacy and some peace. I’d nap or read, two of my favorites ways to while away the time.
I never learned to keep quiet, a surprise I’m sure. When I got older, into my teens, I always had an answer. To me the answers were funny and clever. To my dad they were me talking back, being sassy and questioning his authority. He was actually right. I figured I was in trouble anyway and there was a limit on what he could do so why not keep going, get a bit of satisfaction by driving my dad crazy. My brother and I used to have a friendly competition on which of us could drive my father the craziest.
When we were older, we were usually grounded, the ultimate teenage punishment, a forced imprisonment in our own homes, but mine never lasted long. My father always relented after a couple of hours. I knew he would as my mother had taught me to accept my punishment quietly without my characteristic witty retort. She told me just to let him rant and soon enough he’d be done, and I’d be freed. She was right. I always sat in my room waiting for him to come to give me the lecture. I always looked chagrined. I was good at that.
Categories: Musings
Tags: 63˚, coffee from Uganda, grounded, lazy mornings, newspapers, rain, sass, scali toast, sent to my room, talking back, yelling
Comments: 10 Comments
April 13, 2015
Today is such a glorious Cape spring day with the usual bit of a chill in the morning air, lots of sun and a deep blue sky. My small dafs have bloomed, and my hyacinth has broken through its greenery and stands tall. The birds are at the feeders in big numbers. I love watching them. Dare I say winter has finally skulked away?
As a kid, I wasn’t all that attentive to the changing seasons until spring gave way to summer and vacation. I always saw the seasons as their events. Fall was the start of school and Halloween. One event was dreaded while the other meant weeks of chatting with friends as we walked to school about what we’d wear and where we’d go. Halloween was a countdown event. Winter was Thanksgiving and Christmas, the best holiday of them all. It wasn’t just the arrival of Santa which made Christmas so special. It was everything about it. The anticipation made us giddy. We had a tree and house to decorate, window lights to turn on every night, cookies to bake, wish lists to make and shopping to do. We had a ride to see the lights. Christmas was the best countdown event of them all.
It was a good thing Christmas was so busy as the rest of the winter was sort of empty of all but wishes. We wished for snow and a day off from school hoping to break the tedium. We ice skated on the town rink and at the swamp, my favorite spot. We were in the house early because the dark came so quickly. I didn’t have the sense of winter I do now. Back then it was filled with possibility. Now I mostly feel cold and complain a lot.
Spring had Easter and new clothes, new shoes and Easter baskets. It was riding my bike. It was color returning to the world. It gave me a sense of freedom. I think that’s what I remember the most.
Marching in the Memorial Day parade as a brownie and later as a girl scout was the first sign of summer. It was always sunny and warm that day or at least that’s how I remember it. The end of school was close.
Summer had July 4th but it didn’t really need it. The summer had long days to fill and Sundays at the beach and that would have been enough, but having July 4th was like adding hot fudge sauce to ice cream.
I am still loving the coming of spring with its warmth and color. Spring is filled with anticipation. Summer is still long days to fill but it’s movies on the deck and barbecues.
Now I see the seasons as their own events, as changes, as us moving in a circle. I think my favorite change is this one, the coming of spring. Every day brings surprises. How wonderful is that?
Categories: Musings
Tags: birds, chill in the air, Christmas, fall and winter, Halloween, ice skating, Sledding, Snow, spring day
Comments: 6 Comments
April 12, 2015
Today is glorious. The sun is bright, the sky a lovely dark blue and it’s warm, in the mid 50’s. The morning is loud with the songs of birds. I stopped out front with papers in hand just to smell the sweet spring scented air. The daffodil buds are bigger, closer to blooming. Purple croci have bloomed in the front. I swear my grass has shoots of green instead of just winter brown. I finally believe in spring.
The Globe had a column this morning in the travel pages about a woman who went to Togo to visit her Peace Corps son. She described where it was in West Africa, that it is a Francophone country and you spend French African francs (CFA). She was struck by the poverty, the trash and the lack of infrastructure. Many of the roads are unpaved red dirt which covers you and everything you’re carrying in red dust when your bush taxi takes you away from the coast. She went to the Grand Marché In Lome and described it just as I remember it. The building is concrete. The cloth market is on an upper floor. On the bottom floors are the food markets. The Grand Marché was always one of my stops during my frequent visits to Togo, an easy bus ride from Accra along the coast. You rode to the border at Aflao, got off the bus and walked across to Togo under an arch which says Bye-Bye Safe Journey. The other side of the arch says Welcome to Ghana.
In Lome I ate ice cream and pastries and rock lobsters from a grill on a hotel’s patio. I ordered bifteck and pomme fries using my halting high school French. I burned the bottoms of my feet running on the hot beach sand. Once I was swimming and a dead pig floated beside me. I took my life into my hands by renting a moped and driving on the crowded city roads. I went up-country on local busses.
I never thought of living in Africa as an adventure. It was home for 27 months, and always felt comfortable. I was never lost but easily found my way from one place to another. My French got better, and I could give or ask for directions, order more than steak and French fries and bargain in the market in French. Without realizing it, I became a traveler. That has held me in good stead all of my life.
Categories: Musings
Tags: beautiful day, Crocus, daffodil, Francophone country, Grand Marché, living in Africa, Lome, loud with birds, sunny, Togo, warm day
Comments: 12 Comments
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