Archive for the ‘Musings’ category
July 13, 2014
The premier of movie night was wonderful, almost perfect. We had appetizers then dinner then War of the Worlds, the one made in 1953. The movie was fun to watch. The heroine was a typical 1950’s science fiction female. She screamed a lot with her hand to her open mouth wide with horror, buried her head in the hero’s shirt and promptly fell in love with him. The only crimp in the evening was how cold it got. There we were on July 12th wearing long pants, sweatshirts and one of my guests even added socks to her ensemble. Two were bundled in blankets. Wearing pajamas was optional but one was clad in warm and cozy night clothes, including slippers. I wore a sweatshirt but in honor of summer stayed in bare feet. I love these movie nights, and every time I have one I think how cool it is to be outside on your deck watching a movie.
My town used to have a very small, secluded drive-in off the beaten path. It was surrounded by woods. Bugs, especially mosquitos, were plentiful. We’d daub bug spray on us in the car or burn mosquito coils around us when we’d sit outside on lawn chairs. High mounds of dirt for some unknown reason separated each row of parking spots. The car went up and down and up and down until we’d finally settle on a spot. Our drive-in snacks included crackers and cheese, a dip or two, chips and a bottle of wine or a thermos of already made drinks, summer drinks with lots of ice. It was a favorite spot of ours on a Saturday night. Being in the car was almost like being in your own house to watch a movie. You could eat noisy snacks and you could talk any time you wanted. I was really bummed when that drive-in closed. Where it used to be is a field now, and I am sometimes tempted to get out of my car to see if any remnants of the drive-in remain hidden in the tall grass. It would be a sort of archeological dig of places from my past.
Categories: Musings
Tags: bugs, cold summer night, drive-in, outside movie night, War of the Worlds 1953
Comments: 22 Comments
July 12, 2014
Yesterday and today have been delightful days and last night was cool, low 60’s cool. Today is sunny with a sharp light. The sky is dark blue and cloudless. Tonight will be in the low 60’s again. It is my first movie night of the season. The War of the Worlds, the original with Gene Barry, is on the big screen. We’re having hot dogs and chorizo and a salad or two. We’ll munch a few appetizers beforehand and have candy and popcorn for the movie. I love movies on the deck.
I do a crossword puzzle everyday. Some of the clues and answers are anachronisms. One of the Bobbsey twins is a frequent clue. The answer is always Nan, twin to Bert. Today Look-alike was the clue. The answer was carbon copy. I have no memory of the last time I used carbon to copy anything. I do remember using them years and years ago when I taught, and I remember how the kids always smelled the papers when they got them. They had a peculiar smell from the carbon. I think carbon copy for many people will have to come from the clues around it. Card catalog was another answer, but the clue acknowledged it no longer exists: Part of a library once. My mother would sometimes but not often yell, “Ash truck,” so we would hurry to get the trash barrels out. The need for haste brought back a place in time, a childhood memory. My dad always called the cleaners the cleansers, a word also dating from his childhood. We always knew what he meant.
Words and phrases are born then fall out of usage and finally disappear. I remember having Chinese fire drills at red lights. I still call a bottle opener, the simple metal one, a church key. Police were heat and then pigs. I remember, “Oink, oink I smell bacon,” when police were around. Submarine races were popular viewing except they didn’t exist. I can’t remember the last time I said groovy or when I last rapped with anybody.
My dad would call someone a good egg. My sisters say it now and then in a deep voice like my dad’s just for the memory. I remember heebie-jeebies and ants in my pants, neither of which I get any more.
I grew up outside of Boston. Wicked good is common. I still use it all the time. That one, I think, will never fade and disappear.
Categories: Musings
Tags: anachronisms, ash truck, beautiful day, Bobbsey Twins, carbon copy, Gene Barry, great weather, movie on the deck, slang, War of the Worlds, words
Comments: 14 Comments
July 11, 2014
The morning is a quiet one with only the songs of birds breaking the silence. I am part of the morning. A calmness seems to take over, a slowness with no need for haste. I stood outside leaning on the deck rail for a long time. I could smell the freshness of the morning air. I watched the birds at the feeders and the slow sway of the leaves from the slight breeze. It is a familiar feeling for me, the sense I am alone. I remember being in Maine on vacation, and it was pouring. I took my book and went to the car, got comfortable and read for hours. I loved the sound of the rain on the car roof, and I loved being alone. When I’d get home from school on a rainy day, I’d take off my wet clothes, put on cozy pajamas, get in bed and read. I snuggled in the warmth of the blankets and loved the quiet of my room. I used to be a night owl, and I was always the only one awake in my neighborhood. I remember being outside at one or two in the morning watching the meteor shower. I oohed and aahed as they lit up the sky. Every other house was dark, and I felt sorry for them. I wanted to run up and down the street waking my neighbors so they could share the glorious sight of all those meteors. I didn’t, which was probably the right choice.
The first time I ever lived alone was in Ghana. We were altogether for training so someone was always around who was sharing the same experiences I was. At the end of training, the transition to my post, Bolgatanga, way north and off the beaten path, was difficult, especially the first few months. I was terribly homesick and had no one to talk to about it. I was also having trouble teaching. The students didn’t understand my American accent, and at the end of the class they would tell me they heard nothing, a Ghanaian term for not understanding a word. I felt like a failure. Here I was lonely, miserable and a complete failure. I made plans to go home by Christmas if things didn’t change, but happily for me they did. I began to love being alone, to having all this time to myself. I would read for hours. My letters home were filled with everything I saw and did, and I took pleasure in the descriptions. I didn’t have to lie any more about everything being great because it actually was. I learned how to teach, how to enunciate. No more did students not hear me. Everything had fallen into place, and I couldn’t imagine leaving.
I bought my house when I was 29. I have lived alone the entire time. Sometimes I’d like some company, and I always miss my guests when they leave, but I am content living by myself.
Categories: Musings
Tags: being alone, Bolgatanga, clamness, Ghana, living alone, lonely, meteors, miserable, morning, night owl, not hearing me, Peace Corps
Comments: 14 Comments
July 10, 2014
Yesterday was a sweat producing day, a day for the air-conditioner which was on all afternoon and night, but I turned it off this morning though it is still a bit warm. It’s just that the mornings are so lovely I hate to miss them sitting behind closed doors and windows. Right now there is a little breeze from the window behind me, the birds are singing and the neighborhood is gloriously quiet as if I’m alone in the world. I like that feeling sometimes. Last night it rained, but I didn’t hear it. Today might reach 80˚ but it will drop to the 60’s tonight. Tomorrow’s forecast has the nighttime temperature at 59˚. That sounds delightful.
My energy comes in spurts sometimes dictated by my back. Yesterday my sole accomplishments were to re-set the flag holder and screw in the hook off the deck which holds a bird feeder. Both were victims of the wind. The bird feeder had been filled but it fell to the ground and was emptied. I’m thinking the spawns had a picnic. Now that the hook is fixed I’ll go and retrieve the items which fell off the deck and refill the feeder. I am already on my second load of laundry, and I have to go buy Gracie food and drop a few things off at the dump. That, for me, is quite the busy day.
My sisters used to give my mother dandelion bouquets. She’d act thrilled as if she had been given the rarest flowers. She’d put the bouquet in a jelly glass and then in the middle of the table. The dandelions were brilliant yellow and didn’t seem at all like a weed should be.
My father always got two weeks’ vacation, and he took them in the summer. Most of the time we didn’t go away as it was too expensive though I do remember the trip to the island in Maine and the Niagara falls trip, but that’s it; instead, we’d go places close to home. I remember going to the beach on weekdays when the traffic was light, and there were parking spaces near the water. We’d stay most of the day. A couple of nights we’d go to the drive-in. Sometimes we’d go to Maine for a weekend and stay at my father’s friend’s cottage. I always found that boring. The water was too cold, and there was little to do. The museum trips were my favorite. I remember standing in the Egyptian section at the MFA and marveling at how tall the sarcophagi were. I still get that feeling when I visit the MFA even now. Once during the two weeks we’d go out to dinner, a rare occasion for us. We’d go to Kitty’s where the food was cheap and plentiful. It never occurred to me that we didn’t have enough money to go away. I never felt deprived, and I loved being surprised by every day.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Air conditioner, bird feeders, bird song, breeze, dandelion, dandelions, Laundry, mornings, Niagara Falls, stay at home vacations, sweat, the dump, Wind
Comments: 11 Comments
July 8, 2014
The breeze is just about gone, pushed aside by the humidity. We will be in the 80’s today while Boston will suffer in the low 90’s. Sitting on the deck under the umbrella surrounded by trees seems a perfect spot to spend the day. After my errand, that’s where I’ll plunk myself with a book and music to sweeten the day.
Both my sisters had extreme weather yesterday. In Colorado there was rain, wind and hail. My sister said the sky got so dark they knew the hail was coming followed by the rain, a deluge. My other sister who lives outside of Boston got tremendous thunder and lightning. She was outside watching when a bolt hit close, and she realized how silly it was to be out there, but lightning is so amazing it seems to draw us to watch. I remember the same realization hitting me when I was in Ghana. It was the start of the rainy season when thunder and lightning herald tremendous rain storms. I was outside in the front of my house on the porch under a roof covered in tin. Lightning struck the ground in front of me, and I decided I best get inside before the roof attracts a bolt of lightning. I had to be happy with a window view.
Deluge was one of my mother’s weather words. It didn’t rain cats and dogs. It was a deluge. Spitting rain was another, and I always knew what she meant. It was too cold to snow she’d tell us, and I believed her never having given thought to the Arctic filled with snow and fatally low temperatures. I was an adult before I realized snow could come regardless of the temperature.
My mother used to play a game with us called Jack and Jill. She would attach a band of paper on one finger of each hand, the same finger on both hands, and place only those fingers on the edge of the table. She would say, “Go away, Jack,” and raise her hand in the air then bring it back down and put the finger on the table again. Jack, the band of paper, was always gone. She’d do the same with her other hand and finger. This time it was Jill who disappeared. We would look under the table on the floor, behind my mother on the floor and on her lap. We never found Jack or Jill. My mother would then say, “Come back, Jack,” and raise her hand again. Jack always came back. She’d do the same with the other finger and Jill would come back. I was aways in awe of my mother and her magic trick. I’d ask her to teach me, and she’d say when I was older, but she didn’t need to teach me. She knew when I was older I’d figure it out for myself and I did. In my mind’s eye I can see my mother with her fingers on the table and my brother and me watching and hoping to catch Jack and Jill. Never finding them made me love that trick even more. My mother was magical.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Come back, deluge, extreme weather, Go away, heavy winds, humidity, Jack, Jack and Jill, Jill, rain and hale, spitting rain, thunder and lightning, too cold to snow
Comments: 36 Comments
July 7, 2014
Yesterday got so busy for me I didn’t make it back to post music. I spent the time getting ready to celebrate a belated 4th of July. I had to make 2 trips for last-minute stuff, organize the dishes and bowls, sweep the deck and wash the table. My friends arrived at 2 and left at 9. It was a wonderful evening. We played games first on a table filled with appetizers then we had dinner then took a small break before dessert. The weather was perfect with a cooling breeze.
Today started out sunny but has since clouded over. The breeze is strong and chilly. It is supposed to be quite warm and humid later so I’m appreciating the cool morning.
When I drove to breakfast today, I was a gawker. All along my familiar route were people outside enjoying the start of the day. I saw dog walkers, a woman watering her lawn, a man with an electric saw trying to get rid of a huge stump in his front yard and joggers and golfers. Old Main Street, filled with historical homes, drew my attention today. I see them all the time but mostly from a side glance as I drive by. Today I was taken by the beauty of their front gardens and the houses themselves, each with a dated plaque. I think it one of prettier rides on the cape, and I get drive it whenever I want. That’s a nice gift.
Summer makes us more familiar with each other. We are out of our houses, out of bulky coats and scarves, the windows are opened and we smile at one another or nod as we pass. I stop and chat with my neighbors. We have just come out of winter hibernation, and we need to get reacquainted, catch-up with the latest news. We bemoan the Red Sox and their tumble from greatness. We talk about the weather: no conversation around here is complete without a mention of the weather, either loving it or whining about the heat and humidity. We wish each other the best of all summers then I say good-bye, wave and drive home. We’ll see each other again. It is after all summer.
Categories: Musings
Tags: barbeque, breezy day, every day life, golfing, historical homes, Old Main Street, out of hibernation, Red Sox stumble and fall, summer
Comments: 6 Comments
July 6, 2014
Yesterday I cleaned the deck. I also brought up all the stuff which had had been blown off the deck. Only the clay pot had broken. I was quite surprised that the glass chimney was intact. Yesterday ended up being a lovely day with sun and a cooling breeze. This morning is the same, and the forecast says high 70’s. I can live with that.
We had to wear dresses or skirts to mass every Sunday. We also had to wear hats. I had a mantilla which folded up small enough for my pocket. My favorite was the tissue paper hat worn across the head. It was attached on the sides with bobby pins. I always wondered why those women didn’t have hats. After all, they were a required part of the dress code.
When I went back to Ghana, I brought pants and wore them every day. When I lived there, I wore dresses. I’d go to the market and buy cloth, beautiful colorful cloth, and bring it to a seamstress. For a couple of cedis, think Ghanaian dollars, she’d make me a dress. Some seamstresses added intricate decorative stitching called jeremy though I’m not sure of the spelling. Tie dye was a popular cloth as was batik. The dresses were cooler in the heat than pants. It was also easier to pee in a hole or along the roadside. Pants would have been complicated. In my house, though, I didn’t care. I’d wear shorts or pants but I’d change to go to town.
I used to walk to the market as it was all downhill from my school. Sometimes I’d borrow a bicycle and ride both ways but mostly I walked the bike at the steepest part of the uphill going home. If I were walking home and carrying vegetables in my market bag, some car usually stopped to offer me a ride. I always took it. The school was off the main road but only a little way down a dirt road. There was a gate which the watchman locked at night. If I had been out, I’d have to stand outside the gate and yell for the watchman. Many times I could see him sleeping, but he chose to ignore me. Even his barking dog didn’t get him moving. I’d have to climb the fence, and that was no small feat wearing a dress and sandals.
I have dresses and blouses I had a seamstress make when I went back. It was fun to shop in the cloth market again. I also have a tablecloth and matching napkins, all with beautiful stitching on the edges. My house is filled with Ghana.
Categories: Musings
Tags: bobby pins, climbing fences, cloth market, decorative stitching, dress code, dresses and skirts, Ghanaian cloth, sunny and warm, tissue paper hats
Comments: 11 Comments
July 5, 2014
Arthur passed by closest to Nantucket but dropped on us inches of rain and heavy winds. My deck is covered in oak leaf clusters, one of the heavy clay pots fell and broke and the chimney candle holder which had been clamped to the deck also fell but luckily didn’t break. Later I’ll have to clean up all the debris on the deck and the ground. I’m waiting for the sun before I venture outside. It is still cloudy, damp and chilly. I lost electricity last night for all of ten minutes, but the timing was bad. Gracie was just coming up the steep deck stairs when it went dark, and I heard her trip, but she was fine when I checked her.
When I was a kid, I got fifty cents allowance every week. It seemed like a king’s ransom. My father, the only ant in a family of grasshoppers, wanted me to save it for a rainy day. I never did. Sometimes I’d buy a new book for 49 cents, no tax back then, or I’d shop Woolworth’s for something I didn’t know I needed. On the way home, if I had money left, I’d stop for a vanilla coke, ten cents. Wealth was counted in pennies.
Nobody I knew worked summers during high school except for my friend Maryalyce. She had bought an old car, a really old car with the start button on the floor, and needed insurance and gas money so she worked weekends and summers. We were college roommates one year, the only year Maryalyce lived away from home, and she worked long hours as a waitress to pay for school. The muscles on her right arm were huge from carrying heavy trays one handedly. I talked to her not so long ago and she is still working. I wasn’t surprised. She didn’t seem surprised that I wasn’t.
My sister baked sugar cookies for the 4th using the cutters I had sent her. One cutter was a woman with her leg bitten off, another was a surf board with bite marks and a missing piece and the third was the shark who was responsible. My sister used red sprinkles around the bite marks on the missing leg and on the shark’s teeth. She said a couple of the woman’s arms had broken off but that was okay. The shark probably got those too. One cookie lost its head. It was like Hooper finding Ben Gardner’s boat. When Ben’s head appeared, Hopper and the rest of us jumped. It is still one of the scariest scenes in Jaws. I love the headless cookie.
I watched Independence Day for the umpteenth time last night, but I still had to watch. It is one of my July 4th traditions not at all dependent on the weather.
Categories: Musings
Tags: allowance, clutch buttons, college roommates, cookie cutters, fifty cents, hurricane Arthur, Jaws, rain and wind, sharks, summer jobs, summer work, working
Comments: 16 Comments
July 4, 2014
Happy July 4th!
We had a bit of rain this morning. It started just as I went to get the papers. I swear it was done on purpose, but I don’t know whom to blame. I got wet. The sun is out right now, but the storm is heading our way and will be here in the evening and will stay all night with heavy rain and strong winds. Nothing like Mother Nature dramatically celebrating the 4th of July in her own way.
My American flag waves in the front yard all the time. My Peace Corps flag does too. For today I have bunting hung on the fence and a wooden flag on the gate. I am proud to be an America. It is the greatest country in the world. We aren’t always right in what we do, but we usually do it with the best of intentions, and we welcome dissenters who disagree. Look around. You see Americans from so many different places. Try to describe an American, and you can’t give a physical description. The most ardent Americans are often from somewhere else, people who have chosen to become citizens because they see and appreciate the freedoms we enjoy. We have lived with those freedoms all our lives and sometimes we forget what we have. Today is a day to remember we live in the home of the free and the brave.
On July 4th in 1776, the Continental Congress approved the final wording of the Declaration of Independence. They’d been working on it for a couple of days after the draft was submitted on July 2nd and finally agreed on all of the edits and changes.
July 4, 1776, became the date that was included on the Declaration of Independence, and the fancy handwritten copy that was signed in August. It’s also the date that was printed on the Dunlap Broadsides, the original printed copies of the Declaration that were circulated throughout the new nation. So when people thought of the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776 was the date they remembered.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Categories: Musings
Tags: American flag, Americans, Declaration of Independence, July 4th, rain and wind
Comments: 18 Comments
July 3, 2014
Arthur will be dropping by tomorrow bringing showers and thunderstorms. This afternoon we’ll have heavy rainfall and hail. My July 4th barbecue is now July 6th. The events originally scheduled all over the cape for tomorrow, like parades and fireworks, are either cancelled or postponed. It will be a dreary 4th of July.
Today’s weather is so humid I swear the wicked witch would melt. I can even imagine hearing her cackling as she melts and becomes a puddle on the deck. My air conditioner is blasting wonderfully cool air. I turned it on yesterday afternoon when I began melting. I, however, did not cackle.
July 4th is the holiday which has changed the least over the years. Towns, big and small, still have their parades and fireworks. Barbecues are lit in backyards everywhere, and the air is filled with the smell of food cooking. We used to have hot dogs and hamburgers when I was a kid. Now I have ribs, chicken and sausages. Potato salad is still a necessity. Mine this year will be sweet potato salad, and I’ve found a great fruit salad I might just add. Corn on the cob slathered with butter will round out the meal. I always think of corn on the cob as the great American vegetable.
My sister won a prize in the July 4th doll carriage parade. She was a hula girl wearing a grass skirt. My mother made a similar skirt for the doll carriage and the doll. My sister even got her picture in the paper, but black and white didn’t do her justice. She was Hawaiian colorful. Only once did I take part in the decorated bicycle parade. I didn’t win a prize, but my bicycle was great looking with colorful crepe paper wound around the wheel spokes and hanging off the ends of the handle bars. In Colorado my grand-nephew is going to be in the decorated bicycle parade. I believe crepe paper is involved. He is quite excited at being in the parade. I know that feeling.
On July 4th some movies are a must see. If you want the patriotic route, there is always the musical 1776. I, however, think the best of all movies to watch is Jaws. It even takes place on the busy holiday weekend when, because of the vacationing crowds, the mayor wouldn’t close the beaches that is until the little kid got eaten. The second movie to watch is Independence Day when aliens screw up the holiday by trying to vanquish the population of Earth. As if that would happen!
Today I will stay home. The roads will be crowded with people looking for something to do to occupy their rainy day. I don’t have enough patience to deal with that.
Categories: Musings
Tags: barbecues, bicycle parade, corn on the cob, Crêpe paper, doll carriage parade, hail, humidity, Jaws, Potato salad, rainy July 4th, ribs and chicken, wicked witch
Comments: 10 Comments
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