Archive for the ‘Musings’ category
June 6, 2013
On Tuesday, of all my errands and chores, I only managed to buy the flowers. The rest of the list was put on hold for no reason except I didn’t want to do them, my favorite reason of all. Yesterday, though, was my most industrious day to date. I was the ant, not the grasshopper. I planted in all the deck boxes, pots and baskets, all 16 of them, and was quite creative in putting together the displays. There was one which was red, white and blue and another with beach grass and pink flowers with a sea creature on a stick added to each pot for decoration. I put the herbs in their window boxes: the thyme, rosemary and basil. When I’d finished planting, I was filthy and sweaty but yesterday was the perfect day to be working outside. It was cool and sunny so when I had finished with the pots and all, I sat outside for a bit just to enjoy the day. When I came back inside, I went upstairs. The cat boxes got changed as did the bed. My last upstairs chore was the badly needed shower after all that dirt. I sat and read for a bit downstairs then went out. Poor Gracie didn’t come as this is too warm a season for her to be left in the car. I sneaked to the dump, the pharmacy, the drop-in clinic, Staples and finally the plant store for a small tomato plant for the hanging thingee which hangs the tomato upside down. When I got home, I collapsed. I figure I don’t have to do anything else for at least a week!
In front of my house the other day was the truck belonging to the irrigation guy. Later that same day Peapod delivered my groceries. Today Roseana and Lee will be here to clean. I have Skip, my factotum, who is always only a phone call away. Here I am with more free time than I’ve ever had, but time I don’t want to squander on the mundane, on cleaning or shopping. I already resent my laundry, one of the few chores left to me. When I worked, I did everything on the weekends. I mowed the lawn, went grocery shopping, changed the bed, did my laundry and went to the dump every Sunday. Now I have people and more sloth days than anything. I figure I earned them.
Categories: Musings
Tags: chores, errands, flowers, herbs, hiring people, inside the house chores, Laundry, showers, sloth days, window boxes
Comments: 17 Comments
June 4, 2013
I should be outside singing, “Oh What a Beautiful Morning. The sun is brilliant, the sky dark blue and the air cool after the rain. This, morning, however, has been hectic. Grace woke me up barking her intruder bark, and I went downstairs to find the irrigation man standing and waiting with my paper in his hand. He needed to finish the job. Meanwhile, I let Gracie out then shortly thereafter went out myself to greet the morning. That was when I noticed the gate was open and Gracie was gone. I immediately called out the troops. Sebastian, my neighbor and landscaper, was checking on the progress of the irrigation and said he’d get her so I gave him the leash. Gracie came running of out of my neighbor’s backyard and ran down the street followed by Sebastian. Both of them disappeared but both surfaced in a few minutes: Gracie caught and leashed. Next, Gracie was a crazy dog running from one inside door to the other. I got up to grab her and noticed her friend Cody had come to play and was outside the front door. I let them both into the backyard, now secured. In a while both dogs were too tired and were whacking the dog door hoping to get my attention. They did, and I let Cody out and he ran home. Gracie is now calm for the first time all morning. The irrigation is set and ready so I’m going to stop for a moment and get more coffee.
I poured the coffee and found a dead moth floating in my cup. I picked it out and tossed it. Bugs on my food stopped bothering me in Ghana. The whole time I lived there bugs were my roommates. Most were fly bys, but my flour was the exception. I had to buy it in big bags because that’s how it was sold, and it took little time for the word to spread. All sorts of insects made the flour their home so it had to be sifted before it was used. Most of the bugs were caught by the sifting, but those that weren’t became part of the dish. We considered them protein.
Today I have a few errands and chores on my docket. I need to change the bed and the cat litter then hit the road to the pharmacy and the garden store. I need to buy the rest of my flowers and herbs, the flowers for the front garden and the herbs for the big herb garden. When I get home, I need to plant the rest of the deck flowers. Nothing’s better than getting down and dirty. That would make my shower the last activity of the day!
Categories: Musings
Tags: beautiful day, blue sky, bugs, errands and chores, flowers and herbs, hectic morning, irrigation system, runaway dog, sifting flour, sunny
Comments: 16 Comments
June 3, 2013
Last night it was a mighty storm. I saw the lightning then came the thunder, booming thunder getting closer and closer until it was over my house shaking the rafters. I fell asleep to that rain, but it was gone when I woke up. In its place was a dark, quiet day, the sort you sometimes get after a storm when all the sounds had been used up by the rain. Right now, though, the rain has started again, and I can hear the drops falling steadily on the trees and the deck. It will be around all day into tonight. The sun will be back tomorrow.
The rain makes me want to do little or nothing today, but my mood is neither lethargic nor somber. It is from the quiet and the darkness. Rain muffles all sounds except its own. My room is dark lit only by the computer screen. The window is wide open, and I have heard the progression of the rain. It started with a few small drops but is now the heaviest of rains. I have no gutters on my house so nearest the windows the rain falls in a sheet from the roof. No shopping for plants today, no planting flowers today.
Gracie is asleep in her crate. Fern is asleep on my bed and Maddie is in here with me sleeping on her chair. Animals know how to be cozy on a rainy day.
When I think of Ghana, I remember the smells and colors. My favorite of all is the aroma of wood charcoal burning. In my mind’s eye, I can still see smoke rising from the compounds behind my house when small charcoal burners were lit in the early mornings. My own burner was small and held only a single pan. First the charcoal was started. Thomas cooked for me and he’d squat in front of the burner fanning with a reed fan. When it was time for breakfast, he’d first boil the water for my coffee, my instant coffee, then the eggs and bread were cooked at the same time. The bread was leaned against the side to make toast. The eggs were cooked in groundnut oil, peanut oil, which gave them the best flavor of any eggs. I think breakfast was my favorite meal.
When I bought my first grill for this house, I never bought briquets; instead, I always bought wood charcoal. I used to sit outside on my little farmer’s deck not only to mind the grill but also to smell that charcoal burning and to remember and relive in a small way those mornings in Ghana.
Categories: Musings
Tags: aromas and smells, cozy day, dark day, Ghana, mornings, quiet, rain storm, thunder and lightning, wood charcoal
Comments: 10 Comments
June 2, 2013
The morning is cloudy and cooler than it’s been. Thunder showers are predicted for this evening and tomorrow, but I won’t complain. I love thunder showers, and the flowers and the grass can use the rain.
Yesterday was to be my sloth day. It wasn’t. I ended up planting flowers and herbs in some of the deck pots, and I did two loads of laundry. My back is screaming from two days of hauling and bending. Today will really be a sloth day. I’m thinking about a nap. The cats and dog are already asleep.
The Cape Times has entered its summer mode. The paper uses just about a whole page to list events, shows, musicians, speakers and farmers’ markets. I check every morning for something interesting and then plan my day. Perhaps this will be another tourist summer, something I haven’t done for a while. I’ll go up Cape this year. My last tourist season I went down Cape. It’s always fun to answer the docents who want to know where we’re all from. Usually I’m the only one who says Cape Cod.
My front garden is so awash with color I wish I were a painter. The irises are in bloom, in purples and golds. A blue flower has also bloomed. I don’t know what it is but there are two, one on each front side of the garden. They stand tall in huge clumps. The wild rose bushes have buds, and the small lilac has bloomed in light purple. A white columbine sits daintily in the back of the garden. Lilies of the valley from my mother’s house have covered the ground on each side of the driveway, and the white, fragrant flowers have bloomed on the side which gets more sun. A few baby forsythia bushes, offspring of my oldest one which was a house-warming present, need to be dup up and passed along to friends for their yard. That will give me some space for a few new flowers, for more perennials. I’m going with red.
In addition to the flowers I planted yesterday I also planted basil and rosemary. I so love the smell of fresh rosemary that I run my hand up the whole plant then breath in the wonderful aroma. When I take scissors to the garden and cut fresh herbs for my recipes, I feel like a professional chef giving a tour of my garden in front of a camera which isn’t really there but then again neither is my audience.
I need a few more herbs for the garden, and I also have to plant the thyme I’ve already bought in its deck box. Oops, a pun jumped into my head here, a really corny pun, but I won’t submit you to it. I’ll leave that to Ben.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Cape Times, Clouds, front garden, herb garden, lilacs, lilies of the valley, planting flowers, playing tourist, rain, sloth day, thyme, white columbine
Comments: 17 Comments
June 1, 2013
The day is bright and sunny and cooler than yesterday. It is 70˚ right now, and the high is expected to be only 79˚. Yesterday it got to 90K˚. I have windows open this morning instead of using the air-conditioner.
Yesterday was a busy day. I washed the deck and cleared it of pollen and dead leaves then I went to Agway, big mistake. My back complained loudly as I pulled the huge wagon filled with all sorts of plants. I bought tomatoes, cucumbers and squash for the vegetable garden, basil and rosemary for the herb garden and deck boxes and all sorts of annuals for the clay pots I put on the deck. When I got home, I unloaded them to the front walk then sat on the front step until my back was better. The plants sit there still waiting to be planted but not today. My back and I need a day of rest.
One more trip to Agway for some perennials and more herbs should do it for the garden this year. I’ll do that tomorrow. My landscaper wants to mulch, but he’ll have to wait until I shop one more time.
This morning I watched a fun, really great B science fiction movie, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms. It was made in 1953. The Beast, a pre-historic monster, was awakened from hibernation by-here’s where you get to guess the cause of his rude awakening. (I’ll pause a bit to give you time to think.) If you knew to say atomic bomb, you’ve watched far too many B&W 50’s science fiction movies.
This film had everything you’d expect: men wearing fedoras and coats running down the street away from the beast, women on fire escapes screaming and pointing but not thinking about going inside, horribly fake snow and backgrounds and corny dialogue. The general told Bazooka Man to fire. The poor guy had no name. The French scientist, the first to see the Beast, asked our heroine, ” What’s a girl like you doing being a paleontologist?” That girl paleontologist wore the most God-awful looking dress to the ballet. She even added long black gloves to complete her ugly ensemble. The cop shot at this enormous beast with his handgun. You can imagine the gun’s effect: none, and for all his heroics, the cop was eaten by the beast, head first into the mouth with the cop’s legs hanging from the mouth before he was totally devoured. The beast was wonderful because he was the first Ray Harryhausen monster special effect. As the movie was winding down, the poor beast was wounded, but he wasn’t done. His blood fell in droplets on the street and released some horrific prehistoric germ which killed more people. The beast was racking up fatalities. For the ending, the movie went full circle: a radioactive isotope was shot into his wound by a sharpshooter who added drama by shooting from a car at the top of a roller coaster. The Beast writhed in agony before it died: end of rampage, end of Beast and end of movie.
Categories: Musings
Tags: B science fiction, Black and white movie, hot, lovelt day, radioactive isotope, Ray Harryhausen, stereotypical scenes, The Beast from 20
Comments: 20 Comments
May 31, 2013
I never did get to the garden center yesterday because Gracie and I went to the dump. She saw me bringing trash to the car despite my stealthiness and got quite excited at the prospect of going to one of her favorite places. I couldn’t disappoint her so off we went. When I got home, I sat for a bit and that small break drained me of any ambition. It was around two, and I was sitting on the couch reading and sweating because yesterday afternoon was about 84˚. Why in the heck am I sweating thought I so up I got to turn on the air-conditioner. The house was so hot it took until early evening before it was comfortably cool. This morning I went outside to see if I could turn off the air. Nope!
I had no milk or cream so Gracie and I went to Dunkin’ Donuts. She enjoyed her morning ride and I got my coffee. We are both happy with the start of our day.
I don’t remember being hot when I was young. I remember cold, but the memory of heat escapes me. We walked from one end of town to the other to go to the pool, and I remember carrying my towel and bathing suit in both directions. On the way home the wet bathing suit was wrapped in the towel. I remember walking up the huge hill on the way to the square, but I don’t remember the rest of the walk. I remember tired but not hot. At night, the air was sometimes stifling in my bedroom, but I always fell asleep anyway. It was the exhaustion of a kid in summer.
We didn’t have air-conditioning. Nobody did. We didn’t even have a fan that I remember. My mother pulled down all the shades in the house to keep it cooler. We were moles every summer.
When I lived in Ghana, some days I minded the extreme heat. I’d sit in my chair, and when I got up, the imprint of my body was in an outline of sweat on the cushions. Candles melted sideways without being lit. That’s how hot it got in the Upper Region. I didn’t have a fan then either, never even thought of buying one. I just got used to the heat as best I could. In my mind it was just part of the experience of being a Peace Corps volunteer in Africa.
Every night I’d take my cold shower, no hot water, but the first water from the pipes was always hot, warmed by the sun, and I’d wash my hair quickly. The rest of me endured the cold water. I always took my shower just before I went to bed. I had learned not to dry myself off so I could air dry once I got into bed. It was like I was my own air-conditioner. I think the Peace Corps calls that adapting.
Categories: Musings
Tags: 84˚, Air conditioner, air dry, cold shower, dunkin-donuts, Ghana, hot, moles, Peace Corps Ghana, pool, shades, walking in the heat
Comments: 32 Comments
May 30, 2013
Last night Gracie went out about 11 for her last visit to the yard before bed. When she came in, we went upstairs. I saw something out of the corner of my eye, light I thought, but I looked outside and saw nothing so I got comfy in bed to read. All of a sudden the loudest clap of thunder rattled the windows and went on forever. The rain came next, heavy rain, and then more thunder as loud and long as the first. I figured it was lightning I’d seen out of the corner of my eye, a warning of what was to come. I read for about an hour and then fell asleep to the sound of the rain. This morning I woke to sun and warmth. It is supposed to be around 83˚ today: too hot for May on Cape Cod.
It is just so quiet outside. The birds were singing earlier, but I don’t hear them anymore. A few leaves flutter on a branch but make no sound. I do hear Gracie snoring from her crate in the kitchen. It is often her spot for a morning nap. I don’t know where the cats are, but I know they’re sleeping somewhere. Today is my day to buy flowers for the deck and the front yard and vegetables and herbs for the side gardens. I’m going with red and white flowers for the deck, basil for the window boxes and cucumbers and tomatoes again for the garden. I’ll decide one more vegetable and a few more herbs when I roam at Agway. This is one of my favorite days though I usually end up going back at least one more time. I just can’t resist those flowers, and this year I have all those new pots to fill on the shelf I had built on the deck.
I’m leaving deck cleaning for tomorrow if my back cooperates or Saturday if it demands a day of rest which I suspect will happen given all the hauling from the car to the deck to the gardens. Tomorrow will probably be a recuperative day. No complaining here about sitting outside with a cold drink and a good book. I just started another Patterson, an Alex Cross, a perfect book for a summer’s day.
My laundry has been sitting by the cellar door for three days but hasn’t inspired me to do anything about it so it can sit a bit longer. As Scarlett was wont to say, “After all, tomorrow is another day.”
Categories: Musings
Tags: Alex Cross, back problems, dump, flower shopping, flowers, garden shop, leaves, lightning, quiet, rain, reading, Scarlett O'Hara, sun'heat, thunder, veggies
Comments: 14 Comments
May 28, 2013
I’ve returned from my trip to the big city. Traffic was light so I had nothing to curse about.
Today is another beautiful day, as perfect as yesterday, our reward for the rain and the cold. It is lovely, warm and sunny, but the weatherman says a heat wave is on its way. The other night it was in the 30’s and now we can expect the high 80’s. I had the heat on the other morning for a short while and soon enough I’ll be cranking up the air-conditioner.
My red car is lime green as is the deck. Both are covered in pine pollen. The deck is so covered I can see Gracie’s paw prints and my footprints. A cloud of green pollen wafts off the pine trees into the air when any breeze blows. If this were an old sci-fi movie, it would be radiation of sorts released into the air by aliens (I just couldn’t resist). I have only one window opened, the one in my bedroom, because I don’t want every surface in the house covered in green. I’m enjoying the sun, but a good heavy rain storm is great to clear the trees; however, I don’t think there are any in the forecast. I’ll just have to survive the green invasion of the pine pollen.
When I was a kid, this time of year was one of my favorites. I could start riding my bike to school. The to school was all downhill from my street to a smaller hill, more of an incline, around the corner then a straight shot to school. The bike racks were wooden and under trees in the school yard. I didn’t have a lock, none of us did. We just pushed our front tires into the rack and there the bikes stayed all day. The ride home was a bit more strenuous. The incline was an easy ride, but the hill to my house wasn’t. I’d start at the bottom sitting in my seat then I’d have to stand to pedal harder. I’d try and try to get to my house without getting off, but this time of year I didn’t make it. I’d have to get off about half-way up, when the hill got steeper, and walk my bike the rest of the way. Soon enough, though, with all that riding, my legs got stronger and finally I could ride right up to grassy hill in front of my house, the grassy hill sacred to my father. I’d push the bike up the hill and around the back. That time of year the bike stayed outside in the backyard unless it rained. I’d lean the bike against the rail, pull my books out of the basket on the front, run inside, change into my play clothes and go back outside to ride some more. Spring and early summer days were the best for bike riding.
Categories: Musings
Tags: bike rack, bike ride to school, Heat Wave, pine pollen, riding up the hill, sunny day, walking the bike, warm day
Comments: 6 Comments
May 28, 2013
This morning I have an appointment so my daily musing will be on the late side, sometime after 12:30. Admittedly I could have set my alarm and gotten up early enough for coffee, the papers and writing Coffee, but I abhor alarm clocks as being the most disruptive of sounds so I just slept in until my body decided it had slept enough. Now I need to get dressed and head to Hyannis, the big city in these parts. We’ll chat later!
Categories: Musings
Comments: Comments Off on ” Grant us a brief delay; impulse in everything is but a worthless servant.”
May 27, 2013
Memorial Day, originally called Decoration Day, is a day of remembrance for those who have died in our nation’s service. There are many stories as to its actual beginnings, with over two dozen cities and towns laying claim to being the birthplace of Memorial Day. There is also evidence that organized women’s groups in the South were decorating graves before the end of the Civil War: a hymn published in 1867, “Kneel Where Our Loves are Sleeping” by Nella L. Sweet carried the dedication “To The Ladies of the South who are Decorating the Graves of the Confederate Dead.” While Waterloo N.Y. was officially declared the birthplace of Memorial Day by President Lyndon Johnson in May 1966, it’s difficult to prove conclusively the origins of the day. It is more likely that it had many separate beginnings; each of those towns and every planned or spontaneous gathering of people to honor the war dead in the 1860′s tapped into the general human need to honor our dead, each contributed honorably to the growing movement that culminated in Gen Logan giving his official proclamation in 1868. It is not important who was the very first, what is important is that Memorial Day was established. Memorial Day is not about division. It is about reconciliation; it is about coming together to honor those who gave their all.
Memorial Day
“Dulce et decorum est”
The bugle echoes shrill and sweet,
But not of war it sings to-day.
The road is rhythmic with the feet
Of men-at-arms who come to pray.
The roses blossom white and red
On tombs where weary soldiers lie;
Flags wave above the honored dead
And martial music cleaves the sky.
Above their wreath-strewn graves we kneel,
They kept the faith and fought the fight.
Through flying lead and crimson steel
They plunged for Freedom and the Right.
May we, their grateful children, learn
Their strength, who lie beneath this sod,
Who went through fire and death to earn
At last the accolade of God.
In shining rank on rank arrayed
They march, the legions of the Lord;
He is their Captain unafraid,
The Prince of Peace . . . Who brought a sword.
Joyce Kilmer
Categories: Musings
Tags: Memorial Day
Comments: 10 Comments
keepthecoffeecoming.blog 