Archive for the ‘Musings’ category
November 27, 2012
The weather is back to cloudy, grey and bleak. Rain is expected here while off-cape will be getting a little snow, an inch or two. I figure it’s just enough to remind people that winter is impatiently waiting in the wings. Yesterday I actually did some cleaning, a bit of polishing and dusting. I also filled all of the bird feeders and put out new thistle and suet feeders. Today I have to bring up the laundry from the cellar and do a few errands. Gracie will be glad for the errands. I’m not so glad about the laundry.
When I worked, I was able to fit in all the errands and chores despite the long work day. Weekends were filled with laundry, grocery shopping, cleaning and a run to the dump. I was usually in bed on school nights by 10 as the day started around 5:15 or 5:30. The alarm went off at 5, but I always hit the snooze button so I could feel as if I were cheating the clock in some small way.
Since my retirement I have noticed strange phenomenons. Though I have all the time in the world, I don’t get a whole lot done. I procrastinate as there is always tomorrow or the next day or the next, on and on. I also noticed I have become protective of my time. The phone gets answered reluctantly though I’m okay if it’s a friend or a family member. I hate appointments. They usurp my time. This week I have two, both of which I voluntarily made: one is to have my car checked for servicing and the other is stuffing envelopes at the museum where I am a volunteer. Based on past performances, I’ll regret having made them and will have to force myself out the door. I’ll whine and curse a bit.
When I was a kid, if my mother put on lipstick, it was a signal she was going out, and we always wanted to know where. I usually wear slippers around the house. If I put on shoes, Gracie is on the alert. She knows I must be going somewhere so she plants herself by the front door. Lipstick meant a complete change in routine and now it’s slippers. I guess I just don’t go out often enough or I should wear shoes inside more often.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Bird feeder, cleaning, going out, Gracie, lipstick, retirement, Shopping, time
Comments: 33 Comments
November 26, 2012
Today is a pretty day filled with sunlight and a clear blue sky. It’s even warm at 48 degrees. The leaves at the end of the branches are blowing, but the wind is gone. It’s a day to get out and do something.
My dance card for the week is fuller than usual, with usual being empty. Wednesday and Thursday are booked, and Skip will be by to put up my outside Christmas lights on Friday so I’ll have to scurry and get my wreaths. I love that errand: walking among the trees and wreaths and filling my nose with the smell of Christmas.
My father and his sister and Christmas trees are a part of my memories. My father used to go with my mother to pick out and buy the tree. He was always aghast at the prices and would try to convince my mother to go with a sparser, less expensive tree. My mother, at heart a Christmas elf, would never agree. She wanted the fullest of all trees, and my father usually gave in. The tree took up a whole corner of the room and was always beautiful. My aunt, my father’s younger sister, would drop by to visit and always admired the tree. She’d say something about how expensive it must have been which was really a subtle way to get the price. She and my dad had a yearly unacknowledged competition as to which one of them had bought the cheaper but more beautiful tree. My father always lied. We knew it and I think she did too. No matter how expensive the tree had been, my father always said $15 or $20, and my aunt was always amazed. None of us ever said a word about the real cost of the tree. We enjoyed the family ritual, the always rigged tree competition.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Christmas, Dad, family, Real tree, rituals, Shopping, Tree, Wreath
Comments: 30 Comments
November 25, 2012
I think the sun has appeared, a bit muted behind a cloudy sky, but I swear it’s sunlight, not very warm sunlight though as the day is cold and will be getting colder. A few inches of snow are still predicted for the Boston area next week. The Cape will be spared.
I have another mouse, a brazen mouse. It lives here in the den. The other day I thought I saw movement out of the corner of my eye, but when I looked, I saw nothing. That happened a couple of times then I caught sight of the grey mouse. It was around the room a lot that day scavenging stuff I must have dropped under the table when I was snacking. Today it has been all over the den, including on my foot a few times so I put my feet off the floor on the tops of the baskets under the table, but the mouse found my feet anyway. I think it’s the fur on my slippers attracting it. The mouse also joined me on the couch and was sitting on the arm. One cat noticed but the mouse disappeared under something, and the cat lost interest. My feet are now on the top of the table, and I’ve put a box on the floor hoping the mouse will get curious then I’ll zap on the lid and take the critter for a long ride before I let it loose. Somewhere in the cellar is my have-a-heart trap, and I’m determined to find it and capture that critter as the box is a long shot. I just jumped from what I thought was the mouse, but it was the wires from my laptop on my foot.
Yesterday was an out and about day. I actually made five stops during the day and went out to dinner last night with my nephew. Today is designated do nothing day or at least nothing constructive. Gracie and the two cats are asleep here in the den with me. They are my role models!
UPDATE: The Mouse has met its demise but I don’t know by whom as I had left the room for a while.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Cat, cold, field mouse, mouse, sun, trap
Comments: 28 Comments
November 24, 2012
Okay, I will not bore you with today’s weather report. Just think of the last several days. To add to the misery, it’s damp and chilly, and I just put my second load in the washing machine. Even I couldn’t take another day walking around the laundry bag by the cellar door.
When I was a kid, I didn’t really care much about the weather except when it snowed. The first one of us to notice falling flakes would yell “Snow!” and the rest of us would run and jostle each other for the center spot at the picture window, the best vantage point for snow watching. I can still remember the excitement a snow storm would bring and how at night the snow flakes glittered when they fell below the street light. We’d watch then keep going back to the window to keep track of the amount of snow as those flakes carried all our hopes of mounting inches and no school.
When I got older, snow was far less welcomed. It meant shoveling the walk and getting the car free of the mounds of snow left in front of it by the plow. I begrudged snow days as each one meant going deeper into June before school was out for the summer. Snow was an inconvenience.
Snow and I are on far better terms now that I’m retired. There is no hurry getting the car loose as I have nowhere to go. Let the school extend forever. It doesn’t affect me at all. Skip, my factotum, is also my plow guy. He comes and shovels the walk, gets my car loose and shovels the back steps for Gracie so she can get into the yard. Sometimes he doesn’t come until late as he also does the library and several other houses. I don’t care just as long as he comes.
Even in my anti-snow period, I loved watching the snow fall, still do. I always turn on my back light and leave the inside door open so I can stand there and watch the flakes as they glimmer and shine in the light. I figure there aren’t many things as beautiful as a snow flake.
Categories: Musings
Tags: plowing, shoveling, Snow, snow day, snow flakes, Snowflake, Winter storm
Comments: 16 Comments
November 23, 2012
It was a sleep-in morning, a result I suspect of the sumptuous meal I ate yesterday as well as having been up late watching the Patriots demolish the Jets. The Pats scored three touchdowns in 52 seconds, two of them so extraordinary they have to be seen to be appreciated. Even the announcers said they had never seen the like of those two touchdowns.
It is again a cloudy day, the latest in a long string of cloudy days, but I don’t care. I’ll just keep taking my vitamin D to compensate! I have no plans for the day except to loll around and read. I do need bread so I may venture out later. I might even do a wash, but that might just be going a bit too far.
I’m a sucker for Christmas movies. As sugary as some are, I watch them anyway. The Hallmark channel is either the best or the worst depending upon your holiday movie taste. Every Hallmark movie has a happy ending. Despite the impeding divorce or estrangement, you know right from the start that everything will work out in the end, and the couple still love each other. It just takes a push from Hallmark to remind them. I love A Christmas Carol, and I watch any version though Alastair Sim is my favorite Scrooge of all. I even watch Christmas horror movies, probably to counteract all that sugar. I have some favorites. Jack Frost is at the top. No, not the Jack frost with Michael Keaton, but the one with the murdering snowman bent on revenge. My mother and I first happened on it late one Christmas Eve, and we stayed up to watch the whole movie. Gremlins is another. I always laugh at the scene of the gremlins sitting in the movie theater eating popcorn, watching Sleeping Beauty and singing along with Heigh-Ho, Heigh-Ho. Last night I watch Homecoming: A Christmas Story, the very first movie about the Waltons. I’ll admit I really enjoyed it. The kids fight and call each other names, and I can relate to that. Though it wasn’t Hallmark, it still had a happy ending. I always think Christmas deserves a happy ending.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Alastair Sim, Christmas, christmas horror movies, Hallmark Channel, Heigh-Ho, Jack Frost, Scrooge
Comments: 13 Comments
November 22, 2012
Thanksgiving
The year has turned its circle,
The seasons come and go.
The harvest all is gathered in
And chilly north winds blow.
Orchards have shared their treasures,
The fields, their yellow grain,
So open wide the doorway —
Thanksgiving comes again!
~~Old Rhyme.~~
Thanksgiving morning my mother woke up very early. She’d make the stuffing, always a sage stuffing, fill the turkey and get it into the oven. Her pan was in a huge oval shape and had a cover, but I don’t remember my mother ever using that cover. The pan was blue with tiny white spots on it, and my mother cooked her turkey in that same pan every year. Now and then my mother would open the oven to baste the turkey with its own pan juices. I remember the whole house was filled with the aroma of that roasting turkey. I can still see the kitchen windows covered in steam.
We’d be in the living room watching the parade and eating the snacks my mother always put out for us. I remember the bowl of mixed nuts, the silver nutcrackers and the silver picks. There were tangerines, and there were M&M’s. They were always special on Thanksgiving.
I wish all of you the most wonderful Thanksgiving Day.
Categories: Musings
Tags: family, home, parade, Stuffing, Thanksgiving, Turkey
Comments: 14 Comments
November 20, 2012
It was not a hallucination. I swear when I first woke up this morning there was sun. I smiled, turned over, went back to sleep and missed it. By the time I woke up for good, it was gone; however, these familiar clouds have proverbial silver linings. On the weather last night we were fifteen degrees warmer than Boston and Southern New Hampshire. The weatherman said it was a combination of the warmer ocean and the cloud effect so I have stopped complaining about the lack of sunlight. I’ll just take more vitamin D than usual.
With Thanksgiving being an American holiday we still had to teach when I was in Ghana, but that didn’t stop us from honoring the day. We had a huge Thanksgiving dinner one year with several guests, one turkey, a few chickens, side dishes and pies. The owner of the turkey was a hard bargainer and Thomas, the cook, had to follow the man all the way to his village before he’d sell the turkey. When I was in Bolga last summer, I was amazed by the number of turkeys wandering around. In my two years living there I saw only that one which ended up being the showcase of our feast. The chickens you bought live, still do. You get to pick yours like we pick lobsters from the tank. The man hands you the chicken by its bound feet. I used to hang them from the arms of my moto (motorcycle) to get them home. Someone else always sent the chickens to their heavenly reward. I never could. The year of the giant feast we plucked the chickens. All of them, already having met their demise, were brought to us in a huge bucket. All of a sudden a few of them popped right out of the bucket onto the ground. No, they didn’t run around without their heads. They just popped. I knew scientifically why that had happened but it was still sort of amazing in its own weird way.
That was the year I made my very first pies ever, pawpaw pies. I made the dough, cut up the pawpaws and then added sugar and cinnamon. The cookbook Peace Corps had given us, Ghana Chop (chop being food), said that pawpaw pie would taste just like apple when you added the spices. I brought the two pies to the school’s beehive, clay oven. The cooks put them on the side of the oven away from the intense heat of the middle, but they still took only about 15 or 20 minutes to cook. They were delicious and they tasted exactly like apple pies.
That Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorites.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Chicken, cloud effect, couds, Ghana, Peace Corps, sun, Thanksgiving dinner, warm ocean
Comments: 7 Comments
November 19, 2012
The weather? Cloudy again, and I’m disgruntled. I don’t think asking for a couple of days in a row of sun is an outlandish request. It should be compensation for days in the 40’s. I’d be happy with that.
Today Gracie is seven years old, but it didn’t start out to be a happy birthday. She was sick with an upset stomach. I had to clean up when I came downstairs this morning. Knowing a remedy, I took Gracie out front where there is a patch of grass she always nibbles on when we’re going to the car. She grazed and mowed down all the rest of the blades. I also gave her a couple of fronds from the spider plant. Right now she is sleeping beside me on the couch and snoring. I know she feels better because she enjoyed a piece of cheese and some of her dry food before taking her morning nap. We’re going for a ride later just to celebrate the big day!
Yesterday I made cookies and caused what my sisters would call a Kathleen moment. The cookie sheets were leaning against the back of a tall stool. When I pulled them up, I knocked the unopened 5 pound bag of flour on the floor. It upended the dog’s water dish and water went all over. I grabbed the flour and managed to keep it dry then I tried to clean up the water on the floor. In the process I overturned another dog dish which I didn’t realize had water in it from the first dish. Now the water was spread all over. I finally sopped up the small lake then washed the dog’s food mat and all her dishes. I put the flour in a container. All of that happened before I even started on the cookies. Good thing the cookies tasted so great: chewy coconut lime cookies. I brought them down to my friends for our regular Sunday evening. We have appetizers and dessert, play a few games of Phase 10 and Sorry then watch The Amazing Race together. It’s a great Sunday tradition.
Today is a nothing day. I do have one necessary stop then no other plans. My bed will stay unmade. The clothes will remain in the dryer one more day. The cabinet won’t get organized. I am ambition-less.
Categories: Musings
Tags: baking cookies, birthdays, cloudy days, fiascos, Flour, Gracie, messes, Water
Comments: 10 Comments
November 19, 2012
The weather? Cloudy again, and I’m disgruntled. I don’t think asking for a couple of days in a row of sun is an outlandish request. It should be compensation for days in the 40’s. I’d be happy with that.
Today Gracie is seven years old, but it didn’t start out to be a happy birthday. She was sick with an upset stomach. I had to clean up when I came downstairs this morning. Knowing a remedy, I took Gracie out front where there is a patch of grass she always nibbles on when we’re going to the car. She grazed and mowed down all the rest of the blades. I also gave her a couple of fronds from the spider plant. Right now she is sleeping beside me on the couch and snoring. I know she feels better because she enjoyed a piece of cheese and some of her dry food before taking her morning nap. We’re going for a ride later just to celebrate the big day!
Yesterday I made cookies and caused what my sisters would call a Kathleen moment. The cookie sheets were leaning against the back of a tall stool. When I pulled them up, I knocked the unopened 5 pound bag of flour on the floor. It upended the dog’s water dish and water went all over. I grabbed the flour and managed to keep it dry then I tried to clean up the water on the floor. In the process I overturned another dog dish which I didn’t realize had water in it from the first dish. Now the water was spread all over. I finally sopped up the small lake then washed the dog’s food mat and all her dishes. I put the flour in a container. All of that happened before I even started on the cookies. Good thing the cookies tasted so great: chewy coconut lime cookies. I brought them down to my friends for our regular Sunday evening. We have appetizers and dessert, play a few games of Phase 10 and Sorry then watch The Amazing Race together. It’s a great Sunday tradition.
Today is a nothing day. I do have one necessary stop then no other plans. My bed will stay unmade. The clothes will remain in the dryer one more day. The cabinet won’t get organized. I am ambition-less.
Categories: Musings
Tags: baking cookies, birthdays, cloudy days, fiascos, Flour, Gracie, messes, Water
Comments: 10 Comments
November 18, 2012
When I went to get the papers, I gasped a bit for breath not expecting it to be so cold. Frost had iced the lawn and covered the car windows. I hurried back inside, had my first cup of coffee and settled in for a while to read a bit of the paper, but I couldn’t linger as I had to leave earlier than usual to go out for breakfast, even before my second cup of coffee, so I could scrape the car windows. I rummaged through the trunk and found the windshield scraper then went from window to window. I even scraped the window for Gracie. I hated every minute of scraping those windows not because of the effort but because of the significance. That frost is winter’s first assault.
On the way home I noticed lawns being raked mostly by men wearing warm jackets. A few joggers were out running, and they were wearing mittens. One woman, walking her dog, didn’t seem at all phased by the weather. She had on a long sleeve t-shirt and shorts. I was impressed by her hardiness.
The day is pretty with bright sun and a steel-blue sky, but the strong breeze blowing the leaves left on the trees has me thinking the day looks far better from inside rather than outside. When Gracie goes out and stays a while, her ears are really cold when she comes back inside.
When I was young, we never did much on a Sunday. After church we’d hang around the house and maybe watch a TV movie while my mother prepared then cooked dinner, and sometimes we’d sit or lie on the living room rug to play a few games while my father read the paper. He always sat in the same chair by the picture window, and I can still see him holding the paper in front of him. My father read his paper not as a whole but section by section. He’d finish one section then add it to the pile he’d started on the floor beside the chair then he’d pick up the next section and start reading. He always left the sports pages until last.
I read the Sunday papers much like my father did, section by section, and I put each finished section in the recycle bag I keep by the table here in the den. The one difference is in the last section to be read. I always save the travel pages.
Categories: Musings
Tags: cold, cold weather, coming winter, frost, Gracie, jogger, Sunday, Sunday paper, Wind, window scraper
Comments: 13 Comments
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