Archive for the ‘Musings’ category
April 10, 2014
I want a weapon which uses projectiles. I’m thinking a potato gun. My target is the red spawn of Satan who is constantly at the big feeder. I chase it away but it always comes back. This morning, after my second chase, I was thinking of putting barbed wire across the part of the deck rail the spawn uses for its take-off to the feeder. I’m also giving a bed of nails serious consideration or a metal cylinder. I chuckled at the picture of the spawn trying to get a paw hold on the cylinder but sliding every time. Buying a Have-a- Heart trap is another idea. I’d catch the beast and drive it so far away it would have to learn a new language. That spawn has to go!
The sun is out, but the morning is chilly. It is only 45˚ right now though it is supposed to get warmer by afternoon. I opened the front door and Fern is sleeping on the rug, sprawled in the sun streaming through the storm door. When the sun shifts, Fern too will move to the rug by the back door for the afternoon sun. Maddie is still sticking her head up under the lamp shade for the warmth from the lightbulb. The house isn’t cold, but I guess it’s not cat warm.
Today is my only lazy day, and I’m taking full advantage. Granted, I did make my bed and change the cat litter so I haven’t been a total sloth. I’m really just saving my energy as tomorrow is such a full day.
I always hated people asking me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I had so much trouble figuring out what I wanted to be at Halloween that choosing a profession for my whole adult life when I was ten was ridiculous. I had pat answers: teacher or nurse. Which answer I gave depended upon my mood and the asker. I actually hadn’t given a thought to either one. I was a kid, not a long-range planner. No kid ever was.
I did end up a teacher but hadn’t planned on being one. I was going to be a lawyer. My dad told me law was not for women so he was against it. That didn’t matter to me. I got into law school and was also offered a teaching job, but I turned both of them down for the Peace Corps. Law school was willing to defer my admission so that was my plan after Ghana, but it never happened. I became a teacher. It seemed I had been prophetic at ten.
Categories: Musings
Tags: barbed wire, bed of nails, Bird feeder, blue skies, cats in the sun, cold day, Ghana, growing up, have-a-heart trap, lazy day, long range planning, Peace Corps, red spawn of Satan, sunny
Comments: 8 Comments
April 8, 2014
The morning has already been a full one. I think I’m ready to join Gracie in a morning nap. I had my library board meeting, stops at the pharmacy, Stop and Shop and Ring Brothers, my favorite store for almost anything. I’m shortly going to get into my cozies and while away the day. Right now it’s pouring. It rained during the night, stopped so I could do my errands then started again when I got home. I love rainy days like this one. The house is dark except for the light in this room, my comfort, warm and cozy, a refuge from the rain.
My yard is spring ready. My landscaper and two of his workmen raked the lawn, edged and cleaned the flower beds, blew the debris from my deck and cleared the backyard of all its fallen branches. The lawn also got fertilized. Sebastian, my neighbor and landscaper, wanted it done so the rain would soak the fertilizer into the grass. Once the garden is cleared, I get itching to flower shop, but I know it is way too early. I’ll just have to buy a few pansies for pots on the front steps to hold me in the meanwhile.
My flamingo and my Travelocity gnome winter here in the house. All summer they stay on the deck and enjoy the sunshine. The flamingo dresses for every occasion. Right now he is wearing rabbit ears and a jaunty jacket. The gnome has no wardrobe but is content in his blue coat and conical red hat.
I used to think fireflies were fairies, relatives of Tinker Bell. At night there were so many in the field below my house they seemed to lift the darkness. We’d run and catch them in jars but keep them only a while. They were always one of the best parts of a warm summer night.
Spring and summer are wondrous seasons for me. The world is fresh and new in spring and every flower is welcomed after the drabness of winter. Summer is gardens bursting with color and it is late nights on the deck. I sit in the darkness and watch the fireflies flitting in my backyard among the pine trees, and I still point and yell and watch until they disappear into the next yard.
Categories: Musings
Tags: dark, errands, fireflies, flamingo, flowers, full morning, garden, meeting, pnsies, rainy, spring and summer, Travelocity gnome, yard clean-up
Comments: 8 Comments
April 7, 2014
It must be spring. I can hear blowers cleaning yards, and I saw my landscaper with his green spreader fertilizing a neighbor’s lawn. Good luck to him with mine. It is covered with small branches felled by that last storm with all the wind. My backyard too has fallen branches but large ones from the pine trees.
Color is returning to the world. The male goldfinches have their bright yellow chests and are beautiful against the backdrop of the brown, bare branches. In my garden are yellows and purples and stark whites. I am back to my stop and look at the garden routine when I get the papers. I don’t want to miss a single new spring flower.
Yesterday I treated myself to my favorite sandwich: an avocado, bacon, cheddar cheese and spicy mayo panini. I also bought a whoopie pie. They were my reward for doing errands.
For me, this is a full week. I have something on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. It always seems to work that way. I have weeks with nothing scheduled then my dance card fills. I actually resent my time being taken. I moan and groan at having to set an alarm, get up early and be out at some ungodly hour. I’m talking nine here. Everything is relative.
My first bike was clunky. All of them were back then. The brakes were back pedal, and there were no gears. The chain sometimes fell off, but we were all skilled at getting it back on the silver cogs. It was one of the first bike maintenance things we learned out of necessity. Once in a while, my pant leg got caught in the chain, and it would all be greasy and sometimes torn before I could free it. I had a wire basket on the front and a bell on the handlebars. When I’d hit a big bump, the stuff in the basket would bounce and sometimes even fall out. We’d attach playing cards or baseball cards to the spokes with clothespins, the snap kind, and we weren’t riding bikes anymore. We were riding motorcycles.
Categories: Musings
Tags: back pedals, bicycle, bike bell, branches, clunky bike, color, cras and spokes, garden, goldfinches, landscaper, spring flowers, wire bike basket
Comments: 14 Comments
April 6, 2014
The sun is beautiful, a welcomed sight. The cats love it and are sleeping on the floor in the sunlight coming through the front door. Their fur is hot to the touch. They are in a sun-induced deep sleep.
I once spent a half hour watching ants travel in a long, wide line. They were many, too many even to estimate their numbers. I put a leaf in the middle to see what would happen. The ants went around it then rejoined their straight line on the other side. I had to jump the line when I was leaving.
Horses always intrigued me, but I seldom rode. The one time I did I got thrown. That was no surprise. I got right back on the horse again. We made it to the stable without further incident.
When I was nineteen or twenty, I went out to eat with my parents at Mildred’s, an iconic Hyannis restaurant now gone. An empty lot is left where Mildred’s used to be. I remember that dinner because my father ordered me a drink even though I was underage. It was a daiquiri, my father’s idea of an underage woman’s drink. It was sort of gross but I drank it anyway because my father had ordered it for me.
I sometimes wonder how many people died trying and eating new things. My brother once ate red berries and had to have his stomach pumped. I was partly responsible as I had dared him. Cranberries are red and someone had to have tasted them first. In the movies, they watch the birds and eat what the birds eat. I’d stick to fish, or if I’m not near the ocean, grubs. Disgusting I know but with lots of protein.
Eating a lobster is a messy meal. The bibs aren’t silly but necessary. Lobsters squirt. My mother always ordered the lazy man’s lobster. We sort of looked down on that. She didn’t care. The rest of us took the lobster as a challenge. We wanted every tiny piece of lobster meal, even to sucking the claws for their meat. My dad was a champion lobster eater and ate joyfully with lots of ums. He wielded the cracker with precision and artistry. When he was finished, the plate was filled with empty shells. The man missed nothing. My sister and I learned from my father. We pride ourselves on our techniques and always leave a plate filled with empty shells. We are our proud to be our father’s daughters, specially when it comes to eating lobster.
Categories: Musings
Tags: comfortable cats, daiquiri, desert island, eating lobster, grubs, horses, lobster, Mildred's, red berries, sunny day
Comments: 20 Comments
April 5, 2014
My dance card is empty this weekend. I’m thinking Miss Gracie and I might just go for a ride down cape. That means traveling on the inside lane so I don’t miss anything. It would be nicer if the sun stopped playing peek-a-boo, but it will be warm, close to 50˚, so I’ll take that as compensation. Last night it rained again.
I never cooked when I was a kid. I never baked a thing. My junior year of college I had an apartment, and my roommate knew how to cook, good thing too as we had decent dinners most nights. If she wasn’t there, Dinty Moore beef stew was my back-up dinner. I ate a lot of beef stew. It was a similar lifestyle my senior year but with different roommates. None of them could cook either. We were more like seagulls eating whatever we could find in the fridge and the cabinets. Dinty Moore was a feast.
I became a really good cook, not bragging, just reporting. When I have friends over, I am willing to be daring so I try new recipes. My favorites are foods from other countries. I figure I am expanding my own and my friends’ palates. It has been a while since my last dinner party, and I’m thinking of having another, an eclectic buffet of foods from a variety of countries. The planning is fun, and I always have a flow chart.
I have to sew on a button today. That is my one sewing talent. I sew other things by hand, like seams or small holes, but they never look good, and I usually jab myself a couple of times. The seams tend to buckle, for want of a better word, and where the holes were are still apparent even after the stitching. My friend sewed curtains for my bathroom using my African cloth. The curtains are beautiful. I am in awe of her talent.
I am a great duster, and I wield a mighty mop.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Cooking, dinners, Dinty Moore, empty dance card, foreign food, ride, sun and no sun
Comments: 17 Comments
April 4, 2014
Sun, we have sun. Fern is even lying by the front door where the sun is streaming through the glass onto the floor. It is chilly still, but spring chilly, not winter cold. Today is the home opener for the Red Sox. The pre-game will have much hoopla as they will be receiving their World Series rings and the championship flag will be raised. My friends and I are watching together and will be eating baseball food as if we were at the park only we’ll be warmer and closer to the bathroom. I’ll be wearing my new Red Sox sweatshirt, a gift from my sister at Christmas. It’s red as befitting the team and the holiday.
When I was young, I didn’t give a whole lot of thought to the future. It always amazed me when people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I didn’t know what I was going to do on Saturday let alone in ten or fifteen years. When I was twelve, I couldn’t wait to be thirteen, a teenager with all the rights and privileges which came with that magic number. When I turned thirteen, there wasn’t any magic. I was shocked. My sixteenth birthday, my sweet sixteenth birthday, was a total disappointment. We were on vacation with my aunt and uncle and my birthday was their anniversary so the cake had Happy Birthday and Happy Anniversary written across it. I hated it. I wanted fireworks and balloons as this was a significant birthday, a milestone, but, instead, it was a total bust. Eighteen didn’t mean much in those days. We were all waiting to be twenty-one, the big birthday with so much attached. My twenty-first birthday lived up to its hype. My boyfriend at the time gave me a magnum of champagne, and my friends took me out to dinner. They got drunk and forgot to pay the bill so I did. I registered to vote. According to the law, I was now an adult. I took that with mixed emotions.
The last big celebration was when I turned sixty. My sister flew out from Colorado, and the three of us, my two sisters and I, spent the day in Boston, took a tour of Fenway and went to the ballgame. That was my gift from them, and it was great one.
Birthdays are special to me, each one a milestone, another year of life well-lived. It’s not my birthday. I just got to thinking.
Categories: Musings
Tags: growing up, sunny day, sweet sixteen, teenager, thirteen, time, twenty-one
Comments: 31 Comments
April 3, 2014
The day is bright and sunny and framed by a clear blue sky. It is a bit chilly but I don’t care. It’s the sun that matters.
Today is a stay home day, a day for the mundane. The wash sits in the hall waiting to go down stairs, the watering can for the plants is on the counter, the litter is by the door where the litter boxes are and the clean sheets are by the bed. I’ll stay in my grubbies all day. It’s that sort of a day.
I forgot to switch from slippers to shoes when I went out the other day. My slippers are a bit worse for wear. Each one has a hole in the toe, the right slipper’s hole being much larger. They fit fine so I don’t know why the holes. I figured it is old lady syndrome though I really don’t think of myself as an old lady. I remember my grandmother wearing her house dress covered by an apron and wearing slippers with the backs down and stockings rolled around her ankles. My other grandmother would never have worn slippers or had stockings rolled around her ankles. She also wore a fancier dress usually flowered, never a house dress, and she smelled like lilacs. This grandmother was not my favorite. My other grandmother always had spaghetti on the stove and cheese you had to grate yourself on the table. She had eight kids and six of the eight were married, and we were all there every holiday to visit, cousins galore. My grandmother had chocolate bunnies for us each Easter and a present every Christmas. My grandfather hid in his bedroom from all the bedlam, but he used to give us dimes if we dropped into say hello. He kept a pile of them on the table beside his bed. My other grandfather was an imposing figure with whom we had little interaction. He was not a favorite either. It was the slippers which brought all this to mind.
Categories: Musings
Tags: blue sky, cousins, dimes, grandfathers, grandmothers, slippers, Spaghetti, sun
Comments: 26 Comments
April 1, 2014
This has been a busy morning. First was a follow-up doctor’s appointment in Hyannis then the optometrist in South Yarmouth to get my glasses fixed. The easy part was putting them back together. The difficult part was trying to straighten out the ear pieces. They were all bent from my fall into the roots. All went well. Next was getting the dog license and paying my car excise tax, both at the Dennis town hall. Last was a stop for bread, some fruit and a cupcake. It was there I dropped the new dog license and it disappeared. Three people looked and it was nowhere to be found. We figured it bounced onto shelf or was somehow transported to a parallel world.
The sun was out for five minutes. My glasses even tinted, but it clouded up again. I am the little girl in Ray Bradbury’s All Summer in a Day. The clouds are on their fourth day. Today is cold, in the high 30’s.
Zombies have taken over. Vampires are passé. Zombies are far uglier and fairly difficult to kill though they are already dead. Usually a bullet to the head or lopping off the head means a permanent end to the zombie. Today I watched Detention of the Dead. High schoolers in detention have to fight ravenous zombies who have taken over their school. It was actually funny, sort of a zombie ridden Breakfast Club.
Aliens and monsters have a heyday then disappear. No more are we attacked by creatures like the giant ants created by the nuclear blasts of the fifties. Tokyo is no longer a fun target for Godzilla and his kin. The space station doesn’t attract aliens the way a mission to Mars did. We have become unimaginative. Zombies are just too easy. Rip a bit of flesh, walk stiffly and have blood dripping. Where’s the creativity in that?
Categories: Musings
Tags: busy morning, doctor, dog license, eye doctor, Lunch, sun'clouds, vampires, zombies
Comments: 16 Comments
March 31, 2014
I did it again. I fell this morning, and it was a doozy. The bush was all roots which looked easy to walk through and over, but I didn’t. My foot got caught, and I went down hard. My glasses broke and the right side knee and hand took the brunt of the fall. Two people helped me up and walked me back to the car where I sat feeling perfectly miserable and in pain with tears coursing down my cheeks. Gracie stood on the console, rubbed her face on my cheek then sat down. My first thought was to go right home, but I had must-do errands and decided to do them regardless, to shoulder on in pain. I had trouble walking into CVS, but I made it to the pharmacy then back to the car. The next stop was Agway where the best people work. They carried all the canned dog food and cat treats to the car. I limped behind. My hand is better, but my knee isn’t. These other glasses keep slipping down my nose, but I’m glad for the spare pair. I’ll recover. I always do.
The first real fall I remember was when I was three or four and living in South Boston. I had been jumping off the fence backwards for a while. I told my mother to watch me, proud as I was. It was a tall chain link fence and the gate was my jumping off spot. I got ready, jumped and used my hand to stop myself from falling. I cried a little then went right back to playing. My mother told me she checked my wrist while I was sleeping, and it didn’t seem to bother me, but my grandfather told her to get it x-rayed anyway. It was a buckle fracture of the wrist. I was really proud of that first cast and have a couple of pictures of me showing it off. When I was ten or eleven, I fell down the stairs, hit my chin on a table and slashed my chin open. It was sleepiness which caused the wrong turn out of my bedroom. The bathroom was in the other direction. I walked back upstairs, woke my mother and told her I had fallen. Seeing I didn’t mention an injury she asked if I was okay to go back to bed. I said sure. There was blood all over my pajamas, and I had to sleep sitting up because of the pain, but I did fall asleep. My mother took me right to the doctor when she saw the results of the fall. He couldn’t stitch it as he was afraid of infection so he cleaned and butterflied the cut. I have a great scar under my chin.
Falling is genetic in my family, and I have had some spectacular falls. I have broken a bone three times, counting my childhood break, knocked myself out three times, sprained my ankle and broken a couple of teeth. It was the day my dental insurance took effect. That was lucky, I suppose.
Categories: Musings
Tags: fall, self-pity, sore hand and knee
Comments: 24 Comments
March 30, 2014
The rain started yesterday afternoon. It rained all night and is still raining. At times the rain is heavy, noisy as it pelts the windows and falls on the roof. I find the noise comforting. It isn’t the silence of falling snow.
I have never liked Jello. Its gelatinous consistency has always been off-putting, even when I was a kid. The worst is Jello with fruit suspended in the jell. For some reason it reminds me of an alien attack and stun guns. Give me chocolate pudding and tapioca any time.
I don’t remember when I first started drinking coffee. I think it’s been a morning ritual the whole of my life. Nothing beats a good, hot cup of coffee, but I’ll even drink bad coffee rather than none at all. Ghana has bad coffee, but I still drank it for two years and two return trips. I always found coffee shops everywhere else in my travels. In Italy I drank cappuccino after dinner. It was my favorite way to end a meal.
I used to wear panty hose, nice shoes and dresses to work every day. I even changed my earrings to match my outfits. This summer will be the tenth anniversary of my retirement. I haven’t worn panty hose in all that time. No event is important enough to warrant panty hose.
I don’t eat tuna salad. When I was growing up, we couldn’t eat meat on Fridays so mostly my mother made tuna fish sandwiches for our lunch boxes. Once in a while it was egg salad but mostly tuna. Even if we got a sub on after pay-day Fridays, it was always tuna. I added pickles, onion and hot pepper to jazz up mine. They only helped a little. I figure during that time I ate enough tuna to last me a lifetime.
I love roast turkey. I buy one every now and then and eat it for about a week. I have it straight from the bird the first few days with all the trappings: mashed potatoes, stuffing, a vegetable or two, cranberry sauce and gravy. I then start having sandwiches with cut turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce. I use mayonnaise to hold it all together. I make turkey salad next and have it for a lunch for a few days. Finally I throw the carcass into a huge pan, boil it for a while, strip it of meat, add veggies and make turkey soup. I freeze some for later. A turkey is forever.
In a bit, Gracie and I will brave the elements to do a couple of errands. Sadly for her, I am forgoing the dump trip because of the rain. She’s asleep and won’t notice.
Categories: Musings
Tags: alien attack, bad coffee, chocolate pudding, coffee, evaporated milk, Jello, panty hose, rain, roast turkey, tuna salad
Comments: 12 Comments
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