Archive for the ‘Musings’ category
September 11, 2014
Not only has fall unofficially begun on Cape Cod but so has chartered bus season. On my way to the dentist this morning, my reason for the lateness of the hour, I saw four buses filled with what I used to say were old folks but now I think of as my contemporaries. I have no idea what is on their itineraries as we don’t travel in the same circles, but I do see the buses parked at a variety of motels on Route 28, mostly in Yarmouth. They’ll fill restaurants and motels during the week, the slow part of this shoulder season. It’s a good thing.
I hated the dentist when I was a kid. The one my father took me to was a sadist who used neither novocaine nor gas. The dentist was really old and had been my father’s dentist. I swear he pressed a foot pedal to keep his drill spinning. It was always painful, and tears would silently run down my cheek. I would grasp the arms of the chair with all my strength, and I swear I left indentations of my fingers on the undersides of the arms. That put me off dentists for years unless I had a toothache. It was only when I needed to have them perfect for Peace Corps that I forced myself to go. The dentist, who was near school, was basically painless as long as I didn’t look at the novocaine needle. My father nicely agreed to pay the bill as I had rotted my teeth on his time. After that it would be my responsibility. I go to the dentist every six months to have my teeth cleaned. He is the same dentist I started with in 1972, and I don’t mind him at all though that novocaine needle still looks so long I don’t know why it doesn’t reach through my cheek. Today my hygienist told me I do a good job with the brushing and flossing. I should have gotten a star.
I stopped at a farm star on my way home and also at the store for a few groceries. I got some native tomatoes and honey crisp apples at the stand and rolls and lettuce at the store. I’m thinking a BLT for lunch.
Categories: Musings
Tags: BLT, bus season, cape cod, dentist, farm stand, honey crisp apples, native tomatoes, novocaine needle, scary dentists
Comments: 18 Comments
September 9, 2014
This morning was busy for me. I woke up early, read one of my papers then went to vote in the state primary. More people than I expected were there as a low turnout was predicted. Next, at nine, was my monthly library board meeting. It lasted an hour. I came home, made coffee and finished reading the second paper.
It is a chilly morning with a strong breeze. The sun held sway earlier but clouds have appeared. The day is darkening. Rain is expected.
When I was a kid, Saturday morning TV would show old movie serials. Each week we’d see a new episode. The one I remember the best was The Phantom Empire starring Gene Autry as himself, the singing cowboy. Gene stumbles on a subterranean civilization called Murania. The serial then becomes a mix of the west and science fiction, and that’s why I love it. Gene is kidnapped by the Thunder Riders from Murania, who often ride above ground wearing breathing masks. You know they’re around as their horses’ hooves make a thunderous sound. Gene is brought underground. I remember he rode a see-through elevator tube that went from above ground to miles underground where there were ray guns, robots, a queen, moving sidewalks and male workers wearing skimpy outfits. It was the west meets science fiction. There are bad guys, there are always bad guys, who want Autry’s Radio Ranch so they can strip mind the land for radium. They keep trying to kidnap him so he misses his show and loses the ranch, and if they aren’t kidnapping him, the Thunder Riders are so poor Gene hustles from deep underground to the surface during many of the episodes.
Like most serials this one always ended with a cliff hanger so we had to wait a week to see the good guys triumph as we already knew they would.
Categories: Musings
Tags: bad guys vs. good guys, cliff hanger, Gene Autry, Murania, Phantom Empire, Radio Ranch, robots, science fiction meets the wet, Thunder Riders
Comments: 16 Comments
September 8, 2014
The weather today is perfect. The morning is cool, the sun bright, a breeze stirs the air and the sky is brilliant blue with just a few clouds, small and wispy. It is a read on the deck day. I have a new book, and my dance card is empty.
I remember learning about coins. It was a kind of neat when I realized that a nickel was the same as five pennies and the dime was 2 nickels or ten pennies. I gave up the notion that the bigger coin, the nickel, was worth more based on its size. The worksheets had pictures of groups of coins and two different kinds of work problems using the pictures. The first sort of problem was to figure which coins to use to reach a given amount of money and the second was to add up the coins and figure how much they were worth together. I did all the problems, even the ones with quarters, though I seldom had a quarter, a rare amount of money for any kid in those days, the days when pennies had value.
One year we learned Roman numerals and did math problems using them. Mostly we added and subtracted. It was fun to learn ancient numbers though I never expected to need the skill, this recognition of V or X or D, but Roman numerals have never disappeared and pop up in the unlikeliest of places. Luckily I can still translate the numerals because every Super Bowl has a Roman numeral designation. I went looking and found out why: because the playoffs occur in a different calendar year than the regular season, the league can’t have the Super Bowl identified by year, like the NBA Finals or World Series. It’d be too confusing. For example, the Seahawks won the Super Bowl in 2014 but are the champions of the 2013 season. It’s easier to say the team won Super Bowl XLVIII, but there is now a glitch. For Super Blow L in 2016 they are ditching the L for the equivalent 5o because the NFL thinks the L by itself would be too confusing for the average person. The next year, though, we’ll go back to the tradition for Super Bowl LI. I guess average people understand two numbers.
A totally useless skill I learned was how to read and notate Gregorian chant. I liked making and coloring in the square boxes, but I have had no occasion to use it since.
Algebra, though, still remains two years of wasted time. Why I had to take algebra at all or even worse Algebra 2 or II is one of life’s mysteries. I haven’t ever used it. I know it has applications. I even found descriptions of a few. At the playground if you knew the weight of a person at the top of the slide and you knew the height of the slide you could roughly calculate how fast you would be traveling as you exited the bottom of the slide. Why would I care? What if the slide is sticky as some are? Then there’s dropping a rock off the roof of a house and wondering how long would it take to hit the ground. If you didn’t get caught climbing on the roof and somehow dropped a second rock 100 times as heavy off of the same roof of the same house, how long would it take to hit the ground? Then there’s the never going to happen part of the application which is used mostly for effect: If you somehow brought a bulldozer up to the roof of the house and dropped it, how long would it take for the bulldozer to hit the ground? Now you get to use your algebra and you’ll have the answer in no time.
Categories: Musings
Tags: algebra, beautiful day, coins, Gregorian chant, Roman numerals, Super Bowl 50, work problems with coins
Comments: 21 Comments
September 7, 2014
The rain arrived sometime after 1:30. At 5 I woke up and could hear drops hitting the window. I don’t know how long it rained, but it rinsed away all the humidity and heat. This morning is a delight. The deck is dappled with sunlight. The air is dry and cool. All the windows and doors are open letting in the feel and smell of fresh air. Gracie is sleeping on the rug by the front door. She knows a good thing.
I sing but am always off tune. I wish I weren’t. Mostly I sing at home or in the car. I never sing in front of people. In the third grade I was told to mouth the words during the May procession. I was eight. Luckily that never dampened my love for music. I still remember that nun, Sister Eileen Marie, who was one of my favorites until that fateful practice. She was the only nun who let my dog stay in the classroom when he followed me to school. With other nuns, I had to leave school to take him home which was actually sort of fun. It was permission to take a field trip of my own, just the dog and me. My mother was always surprised.
Duke slept on a rug on the floor under the clock. Our classroom was in the cellar of the rectory as the school had run out of rooms and no one knew except us that Duke was allowed to stay. I thought that pretty neat, like we had a mascot. We had tables instead of desks, and the windows were high up and small like cellar windows are. We entered through a door beside the garage as the cellar was mostly above ground. We were the only class not in the school, and I loved having a private room. I loved the tables and folding chairs instead of desks. We piled our books and supplies in front of us down the middle of the tables. We had our own bathrooms: one for girls and one for boys and it was one at a time like a real bathroom. There were no bells. In the old building a student would stand on the top floor and ring a hand bell to tell us to change subjects, eat lunch or go home. In the cellar we kept an eye on the clock especially as we got closer to the end of the school day. We didn’t want to stay an extra minute.
The next year we were back in the old building on the top floor. We were one among many. It just wasn’t as fun.
Categories: Musings
Tags: cellar classroom, cool and sunny, end of the school day, lovely day, May procession, my dog Duke, ringing bells, school bathroom, tables, third grade, tin ear
Comments: 14 Comments
September 6, 2014
Today hasn’t had the best start. I turned off the air conditioner and opened the doors and windows upstairs and downstairs. When I opened the doors, a blast of hot humid air immediately made me regret the decision so I went around closing the doors and windows and turned the air back on; of course, Gracie then wanted out so I opened the door, let her out, shut the door and kept watch. She stood by the stairs for a few minutes surveying the yard then turned around and wanted back in so I opened the door and let her in. She did it again and so did I. After she came in, I sat on the couch and noticed one of the cats had been sick on my computer top. I cleaned it up, sat down and started to read the papers. Gracie sat close on the floor by me and stared, just stared and drove me crazy. I gave her a treat which she ate on the rug then she got on the couch for her morning nap, mission accomplished. I then opened the first paper and finally had my cup of coffee. That it didn’t spill I found amazing.
A thundershower for today and rain continuing into the night and maybe into tomorrow is the forecast. The day is dark. A small breeze ruffles the leaves on the oak tree. No birds are at the feeders this morning and not even the spawn has made an appearance. They must be hunkering down before the storm. I guess that’s what I’m doing.
Mostly everybody I knew went to St. Patrick’s Grammar School. Each grade had two classes loaded with kids. Some of my classes had as many as thirty-five or forty kids, but despite the number, there were never discipline problems. When I was young, I thought the nuns were scary and crossing them was done at one’s own peril. Nobody even whispered. I do remember an acceptable sound. When kids raised their hands to be called on for an answer, they’d wave their arms and say “Sisster, sisster,” hoping to be noticed. It always sounded like hissing from a roomful of snakes. Lunch time meant we could talk quietly. We could even get out of our seats but only for a basement or trash run. At our school we didn’t ask to go to the bathroom. We asked to go to the basement as that was where the two bathrooms were. The older we were the higher we were and the longer the trip. The first graders had to go down two sets of stairs while the oldest kids had to go down six. The girls’ bathroom was really old with wooden stalls and exposed pipes across the ceiling. Sometimes there was water on the floor, but I loved that bathroom. It meant freedom if only for a short while.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Air conditioner, Basement, bird feeders, birds, filled classes, hot and humid, nuns, school bathrooms, St. Patrick's Grammar School, staring dog, talking at lunch
Comments: 12 Comments
September 5, 2014
The heat is still here and today it will again be coupled with humidity. It is the third keep the air conditioner running day this week. I am beginning to feel like a hermit behind locked doors and closed windows. Gracie is content sleeping in her crate. I can hear her snores all the way from the kitchen down the long hall. Boxers are wonderful dogs, but they do snore loudly and some drool, like Gracie when she wants what I’m eating. Sometimes she even has bubbles.
The red spawn of Satan has been hosed twice already this morning. The second time he took off into the next yard, but I don’t trust the sneaky spawn. He’ll come back thinking I won’t notice. I will and it will drive me crazy. That rodent is pushing me closer and closer to buying a have-a heart-trap for spawns which is sort of odd as I have nothing but contempt for them. I figure I’ll catch the beastie and relocate it far, far away from here. Good luck finding your way back to my bird feeders, spawn of Satan.
When I was young, I loved going with my family to the Boston Public Garden. We’d ride the swan boats and walk around to see the flower gardens. In the pond there were always ducks waiting for a handout and gray spawns romped all over the grass. I even fed them a few times, but what did I know? I was a kid.
I don’t remember a whole lot of wildlife romping around my neighborhood when I was growing up. Even on the other of the tall grass, where there was a bit of woods and the swamp, there were no critters, but here on the cape, in my yard and on the street, I have seen opossums, raccoons, skunks, wild turkeys, chipmunks, rabbits, foxes and coyotes and for a couple of years pheasants used my front yard as a shortcut to the next street. Gracie usually lets me know if we have company. She has been sprayed by a skunk, has run around the yard with a baby gray spawn in her mouth which I had to save and did the same thing with the adult possum who even convinced me it was dead. I watched her go in circles around a tree chasing a mouse doing the same thing just ahead of her. I collared Gracie and saved the mouse. Another time I had save Gracie from the giant raccoon she had cornered on the deck. She wasn’t happy with me. When Gracie barks and jumps on the front screen door, I know she’s seen something. I always check. Sometimes it is just a dog being walked or the cat who saunters on my neighbor’s lawn. That drives Gracie the craziest even though she lives with two cats. She barely notices the wild turkeys. I guess she thinks they’re humdrum.
Categories: Musings
Tags: baby squirrel, Boston Public Garden, coyotes, critters, foxes, heat and humidity, hosing the spawn, opossums, racoons, red spawn of Satan, snoring Boxers, wild turkeys
Comments: 10 Comments
September 4, 2014
School started here today. I heard the kids walking to the bus stop at the end of the street. Two parents with coffee in hands were with them. At about nine the five boys finally boarded the bus but not before they’d hung off a tree branch, climbed another tree and chased each other. Right now the summer rental next door is having its weeds mowed, and I can hear the clicking when the mower hits rocks. It hasn’t been a quiet morning.
At the housewarming party friends threw for me when I bought this house in 1977 one of the gifts was an iron. I’d do my wash, hang up everything which needed to be ironed on a line downstairs, and when I had a enough clothes, I’d set up the ironing board, watch TV and iron my clothes. I’d do that every couple of weeks. I still have that iron, and it looks as good as new. I can’t even remember the last time I used it. When my nephew started school in the mid-1980’s, he was given a test of reading readiness. The only thing on any part of the test he couldn’t identify was an iron. I only one person who still irons, and he is mystified that I don’t. My clothes have that right out of the dryer look, but they’re never wrinkled enough for ironing except for a couple of linen shirts which I do wash but bring to the cleaners for ironing. My iron can now be described as vintage 1970’s.
When I went to Ghana, I didn’t bring any music, but my mother sent me a cassette recorder and some of my tapes. The recorder was that rectangular one we all had. My camera was an Instamatic. Pop in the film and take your pictures. My mother had to send slide film to me as Ghana had no film at all for the camera, not even film for stills. I had to send the finished films to my mother to be developed. When my house was broken into, the thief left the camera.
I have some albums which I first bought on vinyl, then cassette, then CD’s and now I upload new ones or ones I don’t have from iTunes and similar sites. I can’t remember the last cookbook I bought, and I used to collect cookbooks. The only ones I’d buy now are those based on novels or authors to add to my collection.
I have a CD player, a multi-zone DVD player, an HD TV, which was the first in the neighborhood, an iPad, an iPod, and an iPhone. The phone needs to be upgraded but I don’t really care. It does enough for me. I know there is blue-tooth to replace my DVD player so I’m behind a generation, but I don’t care about that either.
I use to be filled with wonder at all the changes my grandmother had seen in her lifetime: from the beginning of air flight to the trip to the moon being the most amazing. I have grown up and gotten older in a world where change is a constant. Think about it. It is now so commonplace we seldom even notice.
Categories: Musings
Tags: cassette recorder, change, dvd, films, Instamatic, IPad, iPhone, iPod, ironing, ironing board, school starting
Comments: 15 Comments
September 2, 2014
Today is unpleasant, another hot and humid day in the 80’s. Gracie and I went to the dump this morning. It was packed, and I had to wait in line to dump my trash. A bit later I drove my friends to the bus stop as they are going to stay in Boston tonight then leave for Hawaii in the morning. That’s it for the day. There is nothing more on my dance card. When I finish here, I am going to change into my comfy clothes and be a sloth for the rest of the day and luxuriate in my cool house. I see a nap in my future.
Gracie went out around 12:30 last night before we went upstairs to bed. While she was out, I went on the deck for a bit. The songs of crickets filled the night air. I stood there for a long while and listened. Their songs took me back to the summer nights my friend and I would sleep in the backyard and pretend we were camping in the woods. Those nights too were so filled with song it was easy to believe there were no houses or people. We were alone under the night sky with crickets for company. We were never afraid. We were amazed.
My lawn got mowed the other day, and the air was filled with the sweet smell of cut grass. Someone in the neighborhood was grilling yesterday, and I could smell their chicken cooking. I always put four flowers on the table for movie night because I have a vase with four holes. Last Saturday it was white roses, and the first thing my friend did was pick up the vase to smell the flowers. My kitchen smelled like popcorn. I ran my hand up the lavender in the deck box and my hand smelled like lavender. My friend couldn’t decide what was in the deck box behind him so he grabbed a few leaves, rubbed them between his fingers and smelled them. He knew they were oregano.
Smells are sometimes so unique and trigger the most amazing memories. Wood charcoal burning is Ghana. Fir trees no matter when are Christmas. Turkey is always Thanksgiving. I swear I can smell snow coming before the storm starts. Sugar cookies baking are Christmas. They remind me of my mother. The aroma is a favorite smell for everything it brings to mind and to heart.
Categories: Musings
Tags: apple pie baking, chicken on the grill, cricket songs, cut grass, dump run, empty dance card, fir trees, hot and humid, lavender, nights, oregano, sleeping outside, sounds and smells, wood charcoal burning.
Comments: 8 Comments
September 1, 2014
Last night around midnight I was in bed watching a movie on my iPad when all of a sudden the room lit up. That was the beginning of the thunder and lightning and the torrential rain. The thunder was loud and long-lasting. The rain was so heavy I could hear the drops plunking my air conditioner in a constant rat-a-tat. I got out of bed to look out the window at the storm. I watched for a long while. The wind was whipping the oak branches back and forth and the backlash from the rain hitting the overhang came in the window. I didn’t mind. The storm was exhilarating.
Today is humid and ugly. It is an August day, the sort we usually suffer through each summer but not this year when August days, weather defined, have been noticeably missing. The sun managed to break through for a short time earlier but disappeared and left behind a cloudy, darkish day. It is very still and quiet.
Labor Day was always the last day of summer vacation when I was a kid. It meant a week day bath, setting out my new clothes and arranging the supplies in my school bag. The arranging took the most time as I would put the supplies in then take them out to look at them then put them back in a different arrangement. My mother would put our new lunch boxes on the counter and have them open and ready for packing in the morning. She made us go to bed earlier than we had all summer, but we didn’t fall asleep any earlier. I remember lying in bed thinking about the next day. I was excited about school starting.
My mother woke us up, and we were grumpy because of the early hour. She made us eat breakfast first then we got dressed, grabbed our book bags and lunch boxes and left for school. My friend Michelle and I always walked together. We were a little anxious getting to school on that first morning, but the nervousness wore off quickly because every day after that was always the same. The only thing that changed was my sandwich and the dessert.
Categories: Musings
Tags: baths, humid and ugly, last day of summer, lunch box, lunch boxes, rain in the windows, rat-a-tat rain drops, sandwich and dessert, school, school bags, school supplies, thunder and lightning, Wind
Comments: 12 Comments
August 31, 2014
Last night a cool breeze made the night chilly. My friend Clare was dressed for an Arctic expedition. A sweatshirt was enough for me, and I was still bare-footed. The deck movie was Capricorn One, released in 1977. It was about a Mars landing hoax which got me thinking about the moon landing. I know I’ve mentioned I heard the description of the landing as it was happening but from the radio on VOA during training in Ghana. The Ghanaians also heard it so none of us actually saw the one giant leap for mankind. Many Ghanaians don’t believe it was real. They think it was faked for the radio. Capricorn One would fit right into that theory.
We cancelled Clare’s sled dogs when the breeze disappeared and the night got warmer, but it still felt more like mid-September. I don’t remember the last hot night or when I had to use my air conditioner. This has been a spectacular summer for weather.
When I was a kid, a summer rainstorm was my favorite of all. The rain hitting the pavement caused steam to rise, and the cool rain and the hot pavement together had a distinctive smell, a summer smell. The street gutters were rivers of fast-moving water carrying leaves and paper to the grates over the sewers. Sometimes paper would get caught on the grate and the water would rise. We’d splash through the gutters barefooted and clear the grates so the deepened water would flow like a waterfall into the sewer. It made a roaring sound.
Sometimes when it rains I go on the deck and sit under the umbrella. Above me I can hear the rain tapping as it falls. The leaves glisten with drops of rain. All around is wet, but I stay dry. I love a summer rain.
Categories: Musings
Tags: breezy night, Capricorn One, cold night, gutters, Moon landing, movie night on the deck, sewer grates, summer rainstorm, the smell of rain, waterfalls
Comments: 18 Comments
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