Archive for the ‘Musings’ category
September 19, 2013
Lots to do today but around the house lots to do, my least favorite sort of today. This room resembles a haunted house, one left to dust and cobwebs. It was in disarray because some electrical work had to be done, and the desk had to be moved out-of-the-way. All the books on the shelves and the drawers ended up in the living room. Behind the desk, an area not seen in decades, was a bit of Miss Haversham’s room. That area was cleaned but now everything on the desk is filled with dust. I’m tackling that today. I should wear a full length apron, a scarf on my head, rubber gloves so my hands will stay soft, a dress, and, of course, my pearls. For some reason, that’s how I imagine the dusting look. Wait, I forget the feather duster!
Today is another beautiful autumn day with blue skies, lots of sun and warmth. Last night was cool, perfect for sleeping weather, and the weatherman has kindly predicted a whole rest of the week of the same. Both doors are opened and Fern is lying asleep in the sun. Gracie is on the couch for her morning nap and is snoring. I didn’t get to sleep until around three o’clock this morning so I’m thinking a nap sounds perfect. I imagine Fern and Gracie will join me.
I had the two bathrooms painted, got a new shower curtain made of Ghanaian cloth and had some Ghanaian cloth send to me by one of my former students so my friend can sew bathroom curtains. I bought a new bedroom spread, curtains and throw rugs. I figure with winter coming it’s like I’m getting the house ready for hibernation, changing the scene a bit to stave off boredom. I go through recipes planning menus in my head. They all have a different theme. I’m thinking Hawaii for a dead of winter party with only flowered shirts allowed. Poi will not be on the menu. Chinese is another choice and only chopsticks will be used for eating. The planning is fun. For now, though, I’ll just enjoy the weather and keep getting ready to hibernate. I’m trying to decide what room will be next.
Categories: Musings
Tags: autumn weather, changing decor, cobwebs, disarray, Dusting, feather duster, Miss Haversham, morning naps, naps sleeping in the sun, planning dinners, ready for hibernation, Snoring
Comments: 10 Comments
September 17, 2013
An early morning meeting (9 for me) has slowed down the day. I didn’t get to the papers until I got back home, and my morning doesn’t officially start until the papers are read and my two cups of coffee are consumed. I am now ready to start the day.
I’m wearing a sweatshirt so that should be all you need to know about the weather.
As much as I wanted an empty dance card this week, it seems to be filling. I have a meeting tomorrow and I need to shop on Thursday for the fixings to celebrate my friend’s birthday on Friday. That means making my chili after I shop so it has a whole day to settle. On Friday I have to make my chocolate pudding pie for dessert. Those choices are my friend’s for her special birthday dinner. I think Saturday is still an open day, but the way things are going, it will probably change.
Soon will be the start of the hibernation season for me and the bears. Nothing much seems to happen in winter. A few playhouses stay open, but I usually don’t buy a ticket unless the play is spectacular. In a short time, the house will get that closed in feeling, a stuffiness from the heat and the lack of fresh air. I’ll only go out on the deck to fill the bird feeders and out front to get the papers and the mail. All summer I would stop for a bit to admire the front garden and take in the morning. In winter, it’s a rush to get back inside the warm house.
I chose to live in New England even though I am not a fan of winter. I always think of the other seasons as rewards for living through the cold. My favorite season is just beginning. Autumn on the Cape is beautiful with clear crisp air, the red leaves of the oak trees, colorful mums at the garden stands, the harvesting of cranberries from the bogs and fall flowers still brightening the gardens. It’s still a long way until winter.
Categories: Musings
Tags: autumn, coffee and the papers, cold morning, crisp air, empty dance card, fall flowers, heating the house, hibernation season, morning meeting, mums, red leaves, special birthday dinner, winter
Comments: 8 Comments
September 16, 2013
Lately the days seem the same. The mornings are cold with the sun nowhere to be found. Today a dampness makes it feel even chillier. I’m thinking I might have to put in my back storm door. That’s the door I leave open so Gracie can come and go, but the cold comes all the way down the hall from the screen. I hate the thought that it might be storm door time for even that one door. The windows have been closed for the last three or four days. I’m not liking this at all. I want my sun back. I want warm days.
When I was a kid, I didn’t care much about what the weather was each day. I did want snow in the winter and warm days for swimming in the summer, but as for the other two seasons, I had no preferences. I’d take the days as they came except for Halloween. I didn’t want rain. As for any day rain, I never really minded getting soaked walking home from school. I’d get home, skip the play clothes and get cozy in my pajamas. I lie in bed and read. I can still see the window at the foot of my bed and the rain drops hitting the glass then sliding to the bottom. The fiercer the storm the better.
I can’t stand my feet being cold. They make my whole body feel cold so I put on my fleece-lined slippers, but sometimes they aren’t enough. I have to add socks. In winter, I spend the days at home wearing those slippers, flannel pants and a sweatshirt. It’s become my winter uniform. Right now I’m wearing those slippers and thinking of adding a sweatshirt. The house is only 66˚, colder than I keep it during the winter.
My mother kept her house too hot in the winter. We used to wear t-shirts inside and complain about how hot it was. She was always cold except for her feet. On them she wore slippers with open toes and no backs. I wish I had inherited her warm feet.
Now I tolerate cold and heat far less than I used to when I was younger. On the last two trips to Ghana, my hair was always soaked with sweat. I don’t remember that happening when I lived there so long ago. I used to wear a t-shirt all winter; now the sweatshirt is a must. I’m beginning to understand my mother and her need for a hot house.
Categories: Musings
Tags: 66˚, closed windows, cold mornings, dampness, flannel lined slippers, grey days, open slippers, rain, storn doors, sweatshirts, walking home from school, warm feet, where's the sun?
Comments: 12 Comments
September 15, 2013
Fall weather has settled in for the duration. The days are pleasant, the nights cool, even cold. In the morning, the house is still night cold so we go outside in the sun on the deck to get warm. When I last went outside, Gracie was lying in the sun on the lounge chair.
Last week was busy for me with something every day. I drove over 400 miles. I wasn’t happy. Considering I usually drive between 20 and 40 miles a week you can understand why. I like my sloth days, and I haven’t had one in a while. This coming week four days are already booked so I’m keeping the rest of my week’s dance card empty.
My friends have already landed in Ghana and are probably at their B&B. I wished them a safe and wonderful trip through teeth gritted with envy. Their plans aren’t solidified. Bill said they’d be leaving Accra in three days for parts unknown though I know Bolga will be on the list. He said they hadn’t yet made hotel reservations anywhere. I chuckled to myself. Who makes reservations in Ghana? Up country has plenty of hotels and not a lot of tourists.
Most people I know who visit other countries do so in places with flush toilets, hot water and air conditioning. The very thought of aiming at a hole in the ground is horrifying to them. Good aim is the difference between a tourist and a traveler. I have stayed in absolutely gorgeous hotels and in some of the seediest places you can imagine. Once I stayed at a brothel. I didn’t know it was until all the knocking on doors and all the men doing the knocking. I didn’t sleep much that night. In a small hotel in Columbia, I swear you came out of the bathroom dirtier than when you went in. The hotel at the Iguazu Falls was pure luxury. It was right at the falls and had huge rooms and amazing food. There was a garden walk with parrots in the trees. There was even a casino. It was not my usual hotel. In Lomé, Togo I spent two nights at a wonderful hotel as a treat for myself before I moved over the Peace Corps Hostel. The hotel had air-conditioning and hot water and a delicious breakfast. It’s where I ate barbecued lobster on the terrace. The hostel had bunk beds.
On my first trip back to Ghana we stopped at a roadside chop bar (restaurant sort of) for fufu. I had to go the bathroom so I walked around the corner wall to the hole in the ground. My aim wasn’t as good as it used to be, but it got better the longer we traveled. By the time I left, it was perfect.
Categories: Musings
Tags: busy weeks, cold nights, cool mornings, fall days, Ghana, good aim, hole in the ground bathroom, luxury, seedy hotels, sloth days, traveler or tourist, traveling back to Bolga
Comments: 12 Comments
September 14, 2013
Okay, it’s as if I were a kid again. I’m watching a black and white science fiction movie on TV. This one was made in 1957 and is called The Night the World Exploded. The hero, a scientist, is flying with some air force types to check out a newly formed volcano. On the plane, they are sitting in regular chairs at a card table. The radio operator is on a folding chair. I hope it was a smooth flight. Our heroine, call me Hutch, froze on a ladder going into a cavern. Our hero talked her down by asking if she wanted her mommy and daddy. I’d have punched him. He is now, of course, in love with her, and yes, they did save the world, but it was a close call.
Baby spawn has much to learn. Late yesterday afternoon I heard Gracie prancing about the deck. The spawn was in a tree near her, and Gracie was trying to figure out how to get to it. I brought Gracie inside. A few hours later, I let her out and then heard all sorts of noises. I went out on the deck to check and saw Gracie in the backyard. She had the spawn cornered and was picking it up in her mouth then putting it back down. I went to save the spawn. I was barefoot and was walking in Gracie’s poop part of the yard carefully picking my way through the mine field. I got to Gracie and she took off away from me. The poor spawn ran only a little bit up a tree. It was soaked and mewing. I didn’t see any bites, just saliva. Gracie came to me finally, and we went into the house. That night I took her out twice but on a leash. This morning I checked before Gracie went out, and the baby was gone. I only hope that three run-ins with Gracie were enough for it to stay out of the yard.
I’ve never seen a baby pigeon. I figure they just arrive full-grown, and it’s the same with mourning doves. Baby squirrels, though, have been around the last couple of years. Before that, I would have assumed they too arrive full-grown though in the pine trees are old squirrel nests, huge nests built between branches. Last year I saw a mother squirrel trying to wean her baby. She kept lying on the branch so the baby had no access. The Gracie targeted baby squirrel is on its own, no mother in sight. I think there should have been one more lesson: how to avoid a dog!
Categories: Musings
Tags: B&W science fiction movie, baby squirrel, exploding Earth, Gracie and the squirrel, hero and heroine fall in love, saving the beastie
Comments: 12 Comments
September 13, 2013
The rain started when I was sleeping but wasn’t unexpected. It is still raining but hardly, only drop by drop slowly, and I can hear the drops falling on the umbrella. The day has a calmness about it despite the rain. The house is dark and quiet. Today is a favorite sort of day.
Yesterday Gracie had a run-in with a baby spawn which sounds a bit redundant so maybe spawnette would be a better word. Anyway, I heard a bit of a commotion and went into the yard. Gracie had the spawnette running through and around her legs. It was the safest place, a spot where Gracie couldn’t get at it. Gracie kept trying but wasn’t too successful. Finally the creature started to run and the paw got it, sort of flattened the spawn which then ran between Gracie’s legs again. It tried running away a few times but each time Gracie got it. I yelled for Gracie to come, and, as usual, Gracie ignored me. Here’s the irony: I used the hose on Gracie who ran. The spawn went underneath the outdoor shower for safety. I went into the house: mission accomplished. A bit later Gracie came in: her nose and mouth were covered in dirt. I knew she’d been digging. Sure as heck she’d dug a hole under the shower. I didn’t find a dead spawn so it must have gotten away. Much to her consternation, I washed Gracie’s face and cleaned her mouth.
The dry season in northern Ghana lasted half the year. We used to check out the morning sky and say it looked like rain, knowing we had months before it would rain again. The water was often turned off for two or three days most weeks, but we usually knew in advance so we filled our metal buckets with water and lined them up against the wall in the shower room. We also filled every water bottle. At night I’d take a bucket bath and then use the remaining water to flush the toilet. Without water, the grasses turned brown and the soil became dust. Any traveling meant dust in you mouth and all over your body and your clothes. Mammy lorries traveling on laterite roads were followed by dust clouds. I always thought of the old west and stagecoaches when I saw dust billowing behind the lorries.
I loved the start of the rainy season when the storms were most dramatic with thunder shaking the house and lightning bolts hitting the ground where you could see them. I loved the rain when it fell in Bolga.
Categories: Musings
Tags: baby spawn of Satan, bucket bath, dark and calm, dog the hole digger, dramatic storms, drops on the umbrella, dry season, Ghana, Gracie and the squirrel, hosed down, rain, rainy season
Comments: 22 Comments
September 12, 2013
Yesterday was summer with all its heat and humidity. We were cooler than most places, but that didn’t matter. I still took refuge in the house and the air-conditioning. This morning is cool and today will be hot but not like yesterday. I can already feel the difference in the humidity. The windows are open and the half-deflated Happy Birthday balloon from last month’s festivities is slightly swaying in the breeze. Gracie is taking advantage of the open door and staying outside.
On the back of the door going down the cellar is my spice rack. When I open the door, I am assailed with the best smells, smells which give me pause. Curry seems to be the strongest, but there is also another smell, a combination of all the herbs and spices in the rack, a smell which makes me think of Marrakech and the spice market.
Years ago I went to Santa Fe, once with my sisters then again with my mother. I saw chimineas on that first trip and especially loved the clay ones with the primitive designs. My mother surprised me the next Christmas as she had bought me one. That was before anyone knew what they were, before they became a backyard standard. I use to sit on the deck and burn the piñon wood I had bought on-line. It had the sweetest smell.
My garden has a variety of herbs. Window boxes sit on the deck rail, and I have also herbs growing in each of them. Rosemary fills one box. I love rubbing my hand up the stalk of rosemary then smelling the herb on my hand. When I cook with the rosemary, the kitchen fills with its scent.
The smell of a summer rain has been a favorite of mine since I was a kid. The smell of the rain comes before the storm, but once the rain begins, the smell is of wet earth and wet pavement. They have a singular smell, not sweet, maybe even a bit pungent, but they give the summer storm a bit of character, a depth the winter rainstorm never has.
I have my favorite Ghanaian smells-wood charcoal burning being the best one of all.
Fall is coming quickly and it will usher in the smells of the seasons, of Thanksgiving and Christmas. Those smells conjure memories of childhood and of my mother’s kitchen. They are really the best of any smells.
Categories: Musings
Tags: cooler day, less humidity, Marrakech, memories, piñon wood, rosemary, smells, smells of Thanksgiving and Christmas, spice market, spice rack, summer rain, summer rains smells, sunny, wood charcoal burning.
Comments: 8 Comments
September 10, 2013
The weatherman said sunny and warm today, mid 70’s. Right now, though, it is damp, dark and chilly with a strong breeze. Later Gracie and I have to go to the dump, but that’s it for chores. At the vets yesterday, I found out Gracie has gingivitis. We knew she had gum issues but it hadn’t gotten to gingivitis before this. Now she is on antibiotics which only cost me $110.00. The other choice was surgery to cut away then cauterize the gums. Before my eyes flashed a bill well over a $1000 so I went with the lesser of two financial evils. The vet said Gracie is in good health and has plenty of energy. She got her ears cleaned and her nails cut as well. Despite being a crazy dog, she abides getting those done quite calmly. I think it always surprises the toe cutter.
When I was a kid, our dog was a boxer named Duke. The only shot he ever got was his rabies shot every couple of years. There were no well dog visits back then or heart worm treatments or Advantix against fleas. My father would douse him with flea powder periodically or give him a bath. He ate horse meat, a component of dog food back then. There were no natural or healthy foods for dogs. Leash laws didn’t exist back then either. Duke was a roamer, and he knew his way all over town. You might have heard this before, but it’s a great story worth retelling. Duke was uptown and found my grandmother. He followed her right into Woolworth’s and while inside he lifted his leg on the comic books. The manager wanted to know whose dog it was. My grandmother said not a word as Duke really wasn’t her dog, but when she left the store almost immediately, Duke followed, a dead giveaway, but my grandmother never looked back. She wasn’t an animal lover, and I can only imagine the embarrassment she felt. To the rest of us, it was just a funny dog story. Duke lived to be fifteen. He was a great dog, stubborn as they come but protective and loving.
I can’t imagine being without a dog. Gracie is always happy to see me. That boxer stub of a tail goes so fast back and forth it reminds me of helicopter rotors, and I half expect her back-end to go air-borne. Sometimes she puts her head on my arm, looks at me and gives me her please eyes, the look which says a treat would be nice. I seldom refuse. She and I are in constant battle for alpha dog. I always win, but she is never happy about it. She sits then talks back to me. There is no mistaking her tone, and it always makes me glad dogs don’t talk.
Categories: Musings
Tags: alpha dogs, Boxers, damp day, Duke, dump run, fleas, following people, great dog, leash law, lifting his leg, my dog Duke, rabies shot, sassy dogs, stubborn dog, vet visit, Woolworth's
Comments: 26 Comments
September 9, 2013
Every morning is now the same: cool in the house from the cold nights while the outside air is warm with sun. Last night I woke up chilly and added an afghan to my bed. It’s not yet comforter weather, but we’re getting closer.
The worst is yet to come. Soon it will be shut down the deck time, my final acknowledgement that summer has ended. I’ll leave out a couple of chairs as I am ever hopeful for warm days and maybe enough sun to make me lazy and tired and ready for a nap.
Summer seemed to stretch forever when I was young. I was never mindful of the days passing. I’d ride my bike or walk the tracks or be at the playground throwing horseshoes, playing tennis or softball. By bedtime I was exhausted, and sleep came almost as soon as I closed my eyes. When my birthday came in August, I knew school wasn’t far away. The trip to the shoe store sealed my fate.
I was always excited the first day of school. I liked school and loved learning. It was the getting up early part I didn’t like. My mother always made breakfast. I was a cocoa drinker. Everyone else drank tea. My mother used a china tea-pot. It had flowers on it, and it always made the table look just a little bit fancy even without a tablecloth. We had eggs or oatmeal in the winter. On the warmer days we just had toast and cold cereal. I always wanted to be the first one to open a new bottle of milk so I could scoop the cream. I was a dunker and dunked my toast in the cocoa though graham crackers were always my favorite. It took skill in knowing exactly when to take the graham crackers out of the cup before the end dissolved. I was an expert.
My friend from up the street would knock at the back door so we could walk to school together. My mother would hand us our lunch boxes, we’d grab our school bags and off we’d go.
Categories: Musings
Tags: afghan weather, bike riding, breakfast, cocoa, cool mornings, dunking, graham crackers, lunch box, school bag, shutting down the deck, starting school, summer days, summer stretching forever, tea pot
Comments: 12 Comments
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