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“I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day.”

October 16, 2012

Around 1:30 last night (although I suppose it should be early this morning) I was roaming around the house unable to fall asleep so Gracie and I went outside for a while. It was a misty, warm night. When Gracie went down to the backyard, she triggered her sensor lights so I joined her. She roamed while I picked up and piled a few fallen branches and emptied the bird bath. One house had lights on, but it always does no matter the time of night, but the other houses were dark. I went about my yard cleaning then came back inside. It was well after 2 before I went to bed. By then I could hear the rain: the gentle mist was gone.

Today is sunny and warmer than predicted. It’s the sort of day which makes me glad I’m not working, not staring out the window and wishing I could sit in the sun. Happily, the day is mine to do with as I choose, no wishes necessary.

Nothing in today’s papers made me glad, except maybe the comics.

Two of my friends are coming to dinner. I missed their birthdays in September so tonight we’ll celebrate. Their brightly wrapped gifts are ready to be opened, and I have my shopping list for the grocery store, one of a few errands I have to do before tonight. We’re having sausage shepherd’s pie, a favorite of mine they haven’t ever had. I figure some crusty bread will perfectly complete the meal. I’m thinking a round loaf.

With the storm doors up and almost all the windows closed, the house is quiet. Gracie is sleeping on the couch beside me, and she is lightly snoring, and every now and then she sighs; they are the only sounds I can hear. The window in my bedroom facing the backyard is still open, and last night I fell asleep to the sounds of the night birds and the rain. How wonderful that was.

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“I didn’t know that the world could be so mind-blowingly beautiful.”

October 15, 2012

The day is perfectly beautiful; it’s so warm and sunny I have “unbattened” down the hatches and opened windows. I feel as if  sitting inside is wasting the day so I keep going out to the deck and just standing there to enjoy the warmth before the rain starts or it gets cold though I don’t know if either is predicted. Weather just changes so quickly this time of year. It rained last night. I never heard it. The only way I knew we had rain was the wet street.

Yesterday it rained during the ceremony. Fewer people were there than expected, but the hardy ones came anyway armed with umbrellas and wearing rain gear. I was a fashion statement, a fashion statement for Ghana anyway. A reporter from the Cape Times took my picture and interviewed me. She asked what were some of the difficulties of living in Ghana. I came up with a lack of cole slaw. She also asked about Peace Corps, and I said it was the most remarkable experience, an unequaled experience. She wanted to know about what I was wearing. I swear it was the matching hat which caught her eye!

I’m going out and about today. I have an appointment at noon then I can roam. I have no set destination, but I’ll stop if something catches my eye. Back roads are favorites of mine. I like to go places I’ve never been. You can never get lost on the Cape. When you hit the ocean, just go in the opposite direction. Almost any road will lead to a main road as there are so few of those. Figuring out where you are is usually easy.

On The Amazing Race last night they were in Bangil, Indonesian, and it was beautiful, strikingly beautiful. I immediately put it on my wish list of place to visit. I haven’t ever been to Asian so I’m figuring it might be, in a year or two, my next destination. That will give me time to plan the trip and save enough money.

I love my life, but for this, I wish I were wealthy. I could just pack a bag, book a trip and leave.

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“Pithy sentences are like sharp nails which force truth upon our memory.”

October 14, 2012

My alarm woke me up. I had set it to give myself enough time to write Coffee before I head out to this morning’s RPCV event: as in Returned Peace Corps Volunteer. We are dedicating an engraved stone at site 7 of the JFK legacy trail in Hyannis. The stone commemorates 50 years of Peace Corps, and site 7 honors the Peace Corps. Luckily the rain fell last night. The morning is gray and damp but fairly warm. I’m going to wear a fugu, a smock I brought back from Ghana last year. I even have a matching hat. No woman dares venture out on a Sunday without her matching hat!

Yesterday I bit the bullet and went grocery shopping. It was late afternoon. I had chosen the time well. The aisles were nearly empty, and I was able to step right up to the register. My disappointment was I had nothing to complain about: no baskets in the middle of the aisle and no long lines. What is this world coming to?

One of the places I don’t spend a lot of time is a hardware store. It is my destination only when I need something specific. In most stores I like to roam the aisles in case something catches my eye, and even though I didn’t know I needed it, I end up wanting it. That the wanting has yet to happen in a hardware store. The aisles of screws and bolts and chains of all sizes don’t catch my eye. I go right by them. The electrical aisle is just as uninteresting. I usually only want an outside extension cord, and I just ignore the rest. The other aisles are jam-packed, and I can’t tell you what they are jammed packed with. I have no idea. The screws are in the back as are the nails. The electrical aisle is on the left about three aisles up. Keys are made up front. Other than those areas, I have no idea what treasures my hardware store holds. Ask me about Trader Joe’s and I can close my eyes and describe each aisle. Cheese is in the case on the right side wall toward the back; my favorite frozen pizzas, the ones with the Gruyère cheese, are are in a small case halfway down the frozen food aisle. If you obey traffic rules, the case is on the right as you travel up the aisle. I suggest you buy two of those pizzas.

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“Autumn is marching on: even the scarecrows are wearing dead leaves.”

October 13, 2012

Today is cold. It was 45˚ when I woke up, but I didn’t need to see the thermometer to know how cold it was. Fern and Gracie, my weather indicators, were snuggled beside me. None of us wanted to leave the warm bed.

I just heard one of the sounds of summer, my lawn being mowed. I went outside afterwards to water some mums and could only faintly smell the cut grass. Summer is fading away quickly. The sun shines sharper and much cooler. We’re thankful now for fall flowers and days in the low 60’s. They’re the warm days.

The cape is never a riot of color in the autumn. The scrub oak turn red. I have several in my yard, and the red has begun to appear. One tree in my yard turns yellow, but only a few of the leaves have turned. It is not peak season in my yard as yet.

When I was young, the gutters along the sides of the streets were filled with leaves. The leaves were piled so high they covered the edges of the sidewalks. We used to love to walk to school in the gutters kicking up leaves as we walked. They’d whirl in the breeze and scatter into the street. Sometimes we’d pick up a pile of leaves and throw them at each other. We’d try to be the quickest at tossing them, but it always seemed a tie. Leaves got stuck in our hair, but we didn’t care. We’d always end up laughing for the fun of it.

On the way home we’d stop whenever we saw the perfect leaf. Usually it was bright red or yellow. We’d pick it up and carry it carefully by the stem or put it inside a book. At home, we’d quickly get into our play clothes. My mother would bring out the iron and put it on a low setting. We’d take wax paper and our leaves and carefully sandwich the leaves between two pieces of the wax paper then we’d iron over them, the leaves and the paper. The wax would preserve the leaves, and they became our permanent reminders of the bright colors of fall. In the winter, when everything was stark and cold, those leaves reminded us of warmer days, of the beauty of the season and the fun of throwing leaves at each other.

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“The odds of going to the store for a loaf of bread and coming out with only a loaf of bread are three billion to one.”

October 12, 2012

Today was an unexpected sleep in late day. I won’t even admit what time it was when I finally crawled out of bed. Because I had no cream, the dog and I, as soon as we came downstairs, went to Dunkin’ Donuts to buy my morning coffee. Good thing they have a drive-up as I didn’t even bother to get dressed.

As soon as the sun goes down, it gets cold now, a lingering cold, the sort you know is here to stay. Tonight is supposed to be in the 30’s, yup, I said the 30’s. This morning, during my jaunt, the sun was out, but it has since disappeared and has left us with a gray, ugly day, the sort of day which invites coziness and a good book, but, alas, I do have to go out to get the cream for my coffee.

My mailbox will soon disappear. Everyday the pole on which it sits sinks further into the ground weighed down by the   catalogs my mailman has to deliver day in and day out, but, luckily, this is a rural route so Bob, my mailman, has a truck which is a good thing as I figure most of his route, maybe even much of the world, is being inundated by catalogs. Yesterday there were twelve catalogs in my mailbox. Three of them had threats, “This is your last catalog unless you order;” however, I am undaunted by these threats. Go ahead, stop my catalogs. I dare you!!

I admit some catalogs make me salivate. William Sonoma and Crate and Barrel are two of them. I also love Napa Style and VivaTerra. I look through each of them and make a mental list of what I’d buy if I had money and room for all the purchases. I even turn down the corners of the pages so I can go back and be tempted.

Back when we were kids we only needed one catalog, the king of catalogs: the Sears Catalog. It had everything anyone ever needed. I always thought it had a bit of magic about it. From its toys pages came our lists for Santa, including catalog numbers so Santa would have no doubt exactly what we wanted. We looked through those pages so many times they got wrinkled and dirty, but we still looked over and over again. Maybe we’d changed our minds or just maybe we might have missed something the first ten or twelve times we looked through those pages.

 

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“Do the unexpected. Take 20 minutes out of your day, do what young people all over the world are dying to do: vote.”

October 11, 2012

Earlier this morning, Fern and Gracie vied for the prime spot on the mat in the sun by the front door. Gracie beat out Miss Fern, but the wily cat found her own spot where the sun shined through the glass onto the floor. I don’t need a thermometer. I have the two of them letting me know the house is cold.

Caller ID saves me. The number of political calls is outrageous, but I don’t answer. The robo-callers tried to disguise themselves by phoning from everywhere: California, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Washington, state that is, but I’m not deceived by their duplicity. Most of the calls seem to tout Scott Brown for the senate. The calls don’t endear him to my heart.

I was excited when I could vote for the first time. I turned twenty-one in late summer before my senior year in college and immediately registered at the town hall as an independent, a designation I still have. I needed an absentee ballot to vote during my first election, the Nixon versus Humphrey one, as I was at school. When the ballot came in the mail, I didn’t ponder at all. I knew right away who would get that historic vote. It was Hubert Humphrey.

I love to vote and seldom miss even the smallest of elections. I vote in presidential years, off-years and in my town elections for the selectman, the school committee and the other offices small towns always seem to have. It amazes me when people proudly declare they never vote. I consider voting an obligation of citizenry. Most times local questions or state referendums are also on the ballot so not liking any candidates is only an excuse, not a reason, for staying away from the voting booth.

I vote at the police station where I can count on one thing every time I go to vote: someone will have set up a bake sale, usually for a school club or a sport at the local middle school. Not only do I exercise my franchise, but I also get cookies, usually peanut butter or chocolate chip, more good reasons to vote.

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“Do the unexpected. Take 20 minutes out of your day, do what young people all over the world are dying to do: vote.”

October 11, 2012

Earlier this morning, Fern and Gracie vied for the prime spot on the mat in the sun by the front door. Gracie beat out Miss Fern, but the wily cat found her own spot where the sun shined through the glass onto the floor. I don’t need a thermometer. I have the two of them letting me know the house is cold.

Caller ID saves me. The number of political calls is outrageous, but I don’t answer. The robo-callers tried to disguise themselves by phoning from everywhere: California, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Washington, state that is, but I’m not deceived by their duplicity. Most of the calls seem to tout Scott Brown for the senate. The calls don’t endear him to my heart.

I was excited when I could vote for the first time. I turned twenty-one in late summer before my senior year in college and immediately registered at the town hall as an independent, a designation I still have. I needed an absentee ballot to vote during my first election, the Nixon versus Humphrey one, as I was at school. When the ballot came in the mail, I didn’t ponder at all. I knew right away who would get that historic vote. It was Hubert Humphrey.

I love to vote and seldom miss even the smallest of elections. I vote in presidential years, off-years and in my town elections for the selectman, the school committee and the other offices small towns always seem to have. It amazes me when people proudly declare they never vote. I consider voting an obligation of citizenry. Most times local questions or state referendums are also on the ballot so not liking any candidates is only an excuse, not a reason, for staying away from the voting booth.

I vote at the police station where I can count on one thing every time I go to vote: someone will have set up a bake sale, usually for a school club or a sport at the local middle school. Not only do I exercise my franchise, but I also get cookies, usually peanut butter or chocolate chip, more good reasons to vote.

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Comments: 21 Comments

“In quiet places, reason abounds”

October 9, 2012

Today is socks and sweatshirt weather. It rained again last night into this morning, and the day is bone chillingly damp. I had a library board meeting this morning, and I turned on the heat in the car: the first time this fall.

We’ve had days and days of dark skies and periodic rain. The temperature has dropped to the 50’s during the day and the 40’s at night. I figure this is a shoulder season: the time between the beauty of autumn and the cold of early winter. The blanket was welcome warmth on my bed last night as were Fern and Gracie huddled beside me.

Sunny, warm days are delights and give the birds reason to sing. Squirrels, the spawns of Satan, are active and jump from branch to branch and run across the top of the gate. The chipmunk who lives under my lawn scurries in the sun. Gracie sleeps on the deck. The cats sprawl in the sunlight streaming through the doors. I sit outside, read and take in those days, but they’ve been gone for a while. The warmth has been replaced by cold, rainy damp days. which are cause for staying inside, staying warm. I had to turn on the lamp as the house is so dark. It’s also quiet. Gracie’s snoring is the only sound I can hear.

I haven’t much ambition. Yesterday all my chores were completed except for the laundry which I’ll finish today, but then I’ll do nothing else. I have no list. As soon as I finish here, I’m going upstairs to take off my outside clothes and put on my cozy clothes. I’ll come back downstairs and let the afternoon unfold as it will.

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“I’d like to be tidy, said Hen, I try, but I guess you can’t be what you aren’t.”

October 8, 2012

I woke up to a blue sky and a sunny morning. It was late, as late as I’ve slept in for a long time, but I didn’t go to bed until close to three. It was just one of those nights when Hypnos and Morpheus were elsewhere. I didn’t mind. I kept busy.

It’s a stay home day with lots to do around the house. I have to pay the bills, a drudgery I hate, and I need to take the screens off both doors and replace them with glass as the back door stays open so Gracie can come and go, but it was really chilly last night so I eventually had to close that door. Gracie, of course, then wanted out over and over again. She rang her bells and kept ringing them until I got up. Sometimes she didn’t even go out. The rest of my chore list includes changing the litter boxes, watering the plants and doing the laundry. It’s a long list, and somewhere in there I’d like to fit in a nap, maybe I can put off the laundry.

It rained most of last night. I was lying in bed trying to fall asleep, and I could hear the rain on the roof. It wasn’t a heavy rain, but it was a steady rain.

Last night, with all that time on my hands, I went into my memory drawers and thought about when I was in grammar school. I remembered my first couple of grades when we had desks which probably dated from the opening of the school in 1910. The desks were wooden and were attached to the floor by screws through the bottoms of their metal legs. The chairs were also wooden but had metal parts which ended in circles flush with the floor and these were either screwed or nailed into the floor so they didn’t move either. We had trouble finding our books which were stored inside those desks. We had to bend over to look and sometimes we’d have to pull out a book or two before we’d find the right one. On the top of the desks were the grooves for our pencils. We didn’t use pens in the early grades. On the floor, below the chair, was where we’d put our lunch boxes. Our jackets were always in the cloak room.

When we got older, our rooms had newer desks. Those desks were also wooden, a blond wood, but the tops lifted and we could see everything kept inside but then so could the nuns. They weren’t happy with messy desks, with desks filled with crumpled papers or pointless pencils, so we had periodic clean our desk afternoons, usually late on Fridays when the nun had probably already lost our attention. One boy would slowly walk up the aisles holding the basket, and he’d stop at each pair of desks to give us time to throw everything away. The basket would get filled so the basket boy would have to take it to the basement to the trash barrels then he’d come back and do it all over again: up an aisle and stop, up an aisle and stop then back to the basement. I always wanted to be the basket person who got to leave the room, and I’d raise my hand and wiggle it in the air hoping to be chosen, but the nuns never chose me or any other girl. It was not a fit job for a  young lady.

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“Yes, my dear child, monsters are real. I happen to have one hanging in my basement.”

October 6, 2012

Today is a lovely day, sunny and warm; however, it’s a teaser. Tomorrow will be in the 50’s and tomorrow night in the 40’s. I figure days and nights so cold this time of year are just promos getting us ready for what’s to come. In a few months, the 50’s will seem a heat wave.

I bought a zombie. He is crawling out of the hearth, and when he senses movement, his eyes turn red and he makes horrific noises. The first couple of days after his arrival I jumped when I noticed him out of the corner of my eye, but now he and I are on good terms. Yesterday he was joined by the mummy’s hand and a bat. The hand moves.

I have boxes of Halloween decorations which I’ll bring up this week to turn my house into a monster fest. My favorites are the rats, the disgusting rats, and they always have a prominent spot in my living room. When I was a little kid, it was witches and ghosts which haunted my Halloweens, but now it’s rats, giant crows and zombies.

I was never an easily scared kid mostly because I didn’t believe in monsters under the bed or ghosts, but strange noises in the dark of night gave me pause. I’d hear the wind blowing the leaves on a bush, and my imagination would take hold, and I’d conjured the man with the hook, the one my father told me about, the one who stayed with me for years. He could have been real. I knew ghosts weren’t, but a man with a hook for a hand could have been.

I remember calling out to the sound, “Hello, anyone there?” and I remember hoping with every fiber of my being that no one was there. I don’t know what I would have done if I ever got an answer. Besides, what would he say? “Yes, hello, I’m here. It’s me, the man with the hook, and I’m coming after you.”

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