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“Where is the good in goodbye?”

April 26, 2012

Yesterday was a bad day all around. A friend died in the morning. She had been sick a long while, but I had come to think of her as Superwoman surviving against all odds. That was the worst part of the day. Later I heard from my dog sitter that she can’t stay when I go to Ghana this summer. That one I’ll put away for a bit as it is four months until my trip. The last was Gracie jumped the rail off my deck, landed in the herb garden and started a fight with a dog being walked on the street. There had been a bamboo barrier on the top of the rail to heighten it, put there just in case, but it had fallen apart the other day. The deck is off the second floor of the house so the jump is a long one, but that didn’t faze Gracie. I could see where she had landed: she left a similar mark in the herb garden to a long jumper’s mark in the sand, and I half expected two guys out there with a tape measure. I ran out front when I heard yelling. The woman had Gracie and one of her two dogs by the collar. It seems Gracie had attacked one and the other had attacked Gracie. I grabbed Gracie who wanted nothing more than to go after that dog and dragged her into the house. I called Skip, my factotum, who came right over to help. Luckily I had boards, all the same size, and Skip constructed a wall to replace the bamboo. It is mighty ugly, but I dare Gracie to jump that one.

The one bright spot in the day yesterday was Grace Awai, one of my favorite Ghanaian students, called me from Ghana. She was not in Bolga last summer so I didn’t see her though I asked about her. They told me she lived in Accra and they didn’t know her number. A while back Grace visited Bolga, was told I’d been there and took my number. We talked a long while. Grace says she’ll meet me at the airport and come north for a while. I reminded her how I used to visit her mother’s pito house and have pictures of one of my visits. Pito is a wine made from millet and always served in a gourd. I thought it a bit sludgy but drank it any way being the courteous type that I am.

Well, I have high hopes today will be a better day. Gracie is still in the yard though she has taken to digging in my newly planted vegetable garden. I’m thinking she needs to be hobbled.

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“I had lunch with a chess champion the other day. I knew he was a chess champion because it took him 20 minutes to pass the salt.”

April 24, 2012

Earlier the day was cloudy and dark then the sky was blue and the sun was shining, but the sun didn’t last long; it disappeared behind a cloud. The sun has since returned and then disappeared again and appears a bit brighter than it was, good thing too as it’s only 51°. The wind is strong, and the trunks and top branches of the pine trees are swaying and bending. My backyard is a still life in brown as there are no leaves or any color. The male goldfinch was at the feeder earlier and he appeared brilliant against the drabness of the yard.

I never did go out yesterday, but I have no choice today. I have a list of places and another list of   grocery necessities. Gracie gets to come: it’s chilly enough to leave her in the car.

My mother always made us the best school lunches. We had sandwiches with the likes of bologna or ham. On Friday, the no meat day, it was usually tuna salad. She never made peanut butter and jelly. I’m glad because nothing was uglier than a PB&J sandwich which had sat in the lunch box all morning. The jelly seeped into the bread, and the sandwich looked blue. We always had cookies and fairly often small bags of potato chips she’d hidden from us at home so we wouldn’t eat them all. I don’t ever remember getting fruit. When it was cold, we’d sometimes find a thermos filled with hot soup, chicken noodle being the favorite. Once in a while we’d find Hostess cupcakes, Twinkies or Sno-balls. That was usually right after my mother had shopped, and my father had been paid. We bought our milk every day, those small cartons which were difficult to open in exactly the right place. The milk was delivered on metal trays to our classroom just before lunch. I think I remember it being a nickel, but I’m not sure. We were allowed to chat while we ate then we’d finish lunchtime by running around on the schoolyard every day but a rainy one. My friends always envied my lunches.

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“A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing.”

April 23, 2012

My PC is ailing. This morning has been a struggle. I think I’ll have to stop at my computer place and discuss the symptoms. I got so frustrated earlier that the air got blue a few times, but I did feel better afterwards.

We have had two days of rain, and I couldn’t be happier. Everything was just so dry, and there have been brush fires across the state. The red alert for fire possibilities has been in effect for several weeks so I hope the rain has helped lower the dangers.

Today is an out and about day. I have a few errands and some fun shopping which makes those errands more palatable. It is cool enough that Miss Gracie can come. Right now she is napping after her exhausting morning of barking and barking at the rabbit which decided to sit within her view and mock her.

My exertions at the computer have wiped out any original thought. I really hate it when machines out of my control begin to malfunction. With the small appliances, made for obsolescence, I just toss them and buy another. I always figure they were meant for a short life on this earth. But with larger machines like computers or even washing machines, my daily life is totally interrupted. I can’t wear dirty clothes and washing machines aren’t cheap. My MAC can replace my PC but I haven’t transferred all the files so that might be next. I’m groaning at the thought.

My mother always went over her budget when she bought us shoes. She figured the more expensive ones would save her money in the long run. She was right. Ihave the same philosophy with most things, not just shoes. I do a lot of research as sometimes small ticket items are just as good as large but without the fanfare, but I don’t mind spending the money if what I’m getting is worth the price.

Okay, this one is a doozie. The other day I got a free download from Noel Paul Stookey. It was an e-mail sent widespread, “In thanks for your past support of Noel Paul Stookey and Neworld Multimedia Music.” It also came with a video. I laughed and deleted it.

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“Are you writing a book?”

April 22, 2012

Today is foggy and damp with rain expected. I noticed stalwart golfers when I drove pass the course. Some were pulling their clubs while others rode golf carts with the striped awning tops. In the fog, I could only see the golfers closest to me. The others were mere outlines. When I crossed the bridge over the river, the houses along its banks were barely visible. It started to rain a bit as I turned onto my street.

As I was driving home, I saw a car with only one lit headlight and right away I said padiddle out loud which surprised me as I hadn’t given the padiddle game a thought in almost forever. My padiddle had to have come from the furthest reaches of one of my memory drawers and was automatic as if I’d played the game only yesterday. When I was a kid, we played padiddle only at night because no cars back then had daytime running lights. I remember the first person to yell padiddle had to touch the ceiling faster than anyone else to win the game. We used to get points, and, obviously, the winner was the one with the most points. When I was younger, the winner got to punch one of the losers in the arm. When I was older, the last person to hit the ceiling had to remove an article of clothing. We never did play that game to its finish.

Padiddle reminded me of, “Jinx, you owe me a coke.” That came into play when two people said the exact same thing at the same time. The easy version ended there, but sometimes you got a punch if you didn’t say it first and other times you were jinxed and couldn’t talk. I don’t remember ever getting that coke.

I love seeing rock, paper, scissors still being used, even if it is in TV commercials. That game was the almighty arbiter when we were kids. It started when your closed fist was banged three times on the palm of your other hand then out came either rock, paper or scissors. If you won, there was a set action. If paper, your out-stretched fingers, won, it covered the rock, your opponent’s fist; a rock hit scissors which meant the scissors were now broken and had lost. In turn the scissors cut the paper and won. Most times we did two out of three.

Out of the memory drawers filled when we were kids come the most amazing things. I haven’t thought about jinx or padiddle in years, but out they came today as if it were just yesterday I punched my brother.

 

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“Travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.”

April 21, 2012

The day is cloudy and damp. It must have rained a bit during the night as the ground is wet, and there are now Gracie paw prints all the way down my floor from door to den. Usually my cleaning compulsion kicks in, but I’d be cleaning over and over, each time she comes in, so I’ll be patient and live with the muddy prints.

Once in a while I think about how much fun my life has been. I think it all comes from being a dreamer. When I was a kid, I dreamed about all those places in my geography book, and I promised myself I’d visit them some day. My Dad had been to Europe but that was compliments of Uncle Sam and WWII, and his memories centered around the pubs near his hospital in England. My neighbors went to Martha’s Vineyard every year for the whole summer, and I thought that was so exotic, to stay on an island. Marty Barrett, my elementary school classmate, went to England every few years to visit his grandparents, and I envied him, but I knew, without question, my time would come.

My first airplane ride was when I was a freshman in college, and I flew from Boston to Hyannis, an Easter gift from my parents. The plane was a small prop, and I could see landmarks from the window. My eyes followed the highway as we flew close to the land but over the ocean. I watched waves crash against the beach sand and saw the canal as we crossed to the cape. Before we landed, the plane circled a bit and I saw the parking lots in Hyannis and recognized the stores. When I landed, my dad was waiting for me and right away wanted to know how I liked the flight. I think I gushed, and I am not a gusher by any stretch of the imagination. The trip was almost magical for me. I was hooked, and I knew it. That was the beginning.

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“Baseball was, is and always will be to me the best game in the world.”

April 19, 2012

It’s really early for me to be up let alone be working on Coffee, but we’re going to Fenway Park this morning. There’s an open house in celebration of Fenway’s 100th birthday which is tomorrow. For today, an off day for the Sox, areas like the bullpen, the dugouts and the left field scoreboard will be available for up close and personal looks. I also get to see my brick which is now a permanent part of the concourse. It’s like having a star at Grauman’s Chinese Restaurant minus the footprints. For the big celebration game tomorrow, the Sox and the Yankees will be wearing throwback uniforms. In 1912, the Yankees were the New York Highlanders, and they lost 7-6 in 11 innings. I hope the Gods of baseball will smile on the Sox in celebration.

I have loved baseball for as long as I can remember. When I was young, I watched my friends play little league at the field near my house. It had dugouts and a screened backstop and bleachers on both sides of the field. Every Memorial Day, the little leaguers marched in their uniforms, those old, bulky wool ones just like the uniforms the Sox wore. The little league teams were named after teams in the major leagues, and there was a draft day every spring after tryouts.

I loved the old uniforms with the high stirrup colored socks and the white socks showing on the sides underneath. Names like the Red Sox and the White Sox made perfect sense back then. A few players still wear them that way now, and I like the look.

Baseball was easy to understand: three up, three down and nine regular innings. The nuances I learned as I grew older: things like a squeeze play, the infield fly rule or a Texas leaguer.

I will never forget my first game at Fenway Park. It was a night game, and I walked out of the concourse near the bleachers and saw spread out in front of me the greenest grass I’d ever seen. It seemed to sparkle from the lights lit around the field. It was glorious.

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“Spring makes everything young again except man.”

April 17, 2012

I’m sorry about yesterday, but I worked the Boston Marathon and the standing and the heat got to me. My job is volunteer lunch distribution at Copley Square where the marathon ends. We put bags of chips and stuff together, pass them and sandwiches out and feed around 1000 people. The tent was quite warm in the 85° heat. Luckily it was going to become an auxiliary medical tent so they started air-conditioning at eleven, and that felt great. We had to be finished our jobs by noon, and we did. I then walked to the T at Arlington, rode to Quincy, got my car and drove home. When I got home at 2:30, having left at 6:40, I weighed writing Coffee against taking a nap. You know what won!

The city was filled with people. All the outdoor cafes had no empty tables, and people were just meandering or heading to the Sox game or going to watch part of the marathon. The Public Garden had people sitting on benches enjoying the coolness of the shade from trees overhead. I sighed as I sat down in the air-conditioned T car. It was just too darn hot for mid-April.

The Cape reached the low 70’s yesterday and is 73° right now. The sun is hot. No rain is in the forecast, and everything is really dry. A red flag alert has been posted which means we have critical fire weather conditions. My lawn water system was turned on today as my grass is already brown in spots where there is no shade. I remember complaining a few weeks back about three days in a row of rain, and I guess Mother Nature took it to heart.

When I was working, I used to go Europe every April vacation. I went a few times with my sister and several times with my parents. We seldom had a set route or destination. We’d mostly stay in one country the whole week and stop when we were tired. My favorite country was Portugal, but my favorite trip was the one with my parents and my sister when we traveled to Belgium and the Netherlands. We laughed a lot especially after we got stopped at a border station by a very angry guard. It seems we had driven back and forth through the border three times trying to find our road. We explained, but he was not amused. We looked solemn enough while he reprimanded us, but once on our way we had to laugh at the whole adventure. There he was sitting in his guard-house watching us fly by him not once but three times. Good thing we were just stupid tourists!

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“Childhood smells of perfume and brownies.”

April 15, 2012

Today is beautiful with no breeze and the brightest sun hanging in the sky. Fern is so relaxed lying in the sun shining through the front door that I had to check to make sure she was breathing. Gracie is outside sitting in the sun. She has a favorite spot on the back side of the yard where she sprawls on the grass. When she comes in to check on me, her fur will feel hot to the touch.

Yesterday I heard dogs barking, including my own, mowers and kids playing but not today. My neighborhood is Sunday quiet as if there was reverence still left for the day.

I have favorite smells. The every day favorite smells give me a sense of comfort and continuity like the smell of coffee brewing first thing in the morning or the smell of the ocean borne this far by the wind or the fog. Other smells transport me to different times and places. Last week I smelled leaves burning and saw a man tending his small fire, rake in hand. I slowed down and lowered my window when I went by him and his leaves. All of a sudden I was a little kid again watching my father tend to his fire burning on the street beside the sidewalk. The smell of wood burning brings me back to Ghana. During the harmattan, when the mornings are chilly, the family compound behind my house had smoke whirling into the air from fires lit to keep everyone warm. The smell of that burning wood was almost sweet as it filled the air. Food in Ghana is still cooked on small, round charcoal burners, and the charcoal is still made from wood. Last summer when I smelled the cooking fires I was transported forty years in time to when I lived in a small white duplex and behind my house was a field with a family compound. I can still see and smell the smoke from that compound as it rises into the air. My mother and the smell of sugar cookies baking are forever linked in my memory.

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“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear.”

April 12, 2012

Today is one of those days when I wish I lived in Victorian England and could languish on the chaise with a case of the vapors. I’d press the back of my hand against my forehead and sigh. It’s not that I feel bad today but I’m tired of neither days: neither sun nor rain. Today is such a day: cloudy yet again without the possibility of rain.

Yesterday was chore day, no wonder I want to languish. It was a trip to Boston for a doctor’s appointment, a change the bed, do the wash and hit the dump day. The dump was last, a half hour before it closed. I thought it would be empty, but there were so many cars I was thinking there must be prizes being given away but, alas, there were none. I even had to sit and wait for a place to park just to dump my trash.

I seem to have nothing on my mind today. No memories pop to the surface, and my life is quiet, almost routine. Even the birds are fewer at the feeders. A flicker, a goldfinch and a chipmunk have been my only visitors. The spawns of Satan have been missing of late so I haven’t even had the opportunity to rant. The chipmunk gave me a chuckle because it was dining on the squirrel buster but weighs too little to close the seed ports. I did shoo it away, and when I did, I noticed it had cheeks filled with seeds as if it had the mumps.

I watched an odd movie the other day, Vanishing on 7th Street. Almost the entire population of Detroit had disappeared and only their clothing, glasses and shoes were left, lying about where the people had been standing. The movie plays on fear of the darkness on what used to make us afraid to look under the bed. The darkness flows and surrounds the people who are left then they disappear and their clothes fall to the ground. Only light keeps the darkness at bay.

I like the feeling of being afraid but not for real. I want my fear manufactured by a scary movie or book. I never want to worry about what’s hiding in the closet or under the bed.

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“The world is mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful.”

April 10, 2012

The day is spring lovely. The air is warm and still and the sky cloudless. This morning I bought some pansies for the basket on the front steps. They are hardy enough flowers for these cold nights when the temperature still dips to the high 30’s. We have had a fire warning in effect for the last few days. As it hasn’t rained, there have been several brush fires, and the fear is there may be more.

When I was a kid, I always loved the coming of the warm weather when I could get rid of the pounds of winter clothing I’d endured for months. Away went the scarf and the mittens and the layers under my winter coat. Sometimes my snow boots became mud boots when the spring rains arrived and the softened ground turned to mud. On the way home from school, we walked across the field below our street, and it oozed with mud and water. We loved it; my mother hated it. Sometimes a boot got stuck, and while trying to pull it out, the other one would get stuck. That’s how my socks got dirty and muddy.

My bike tires left grooved ruts when I’d ride through the muddy grass, and the bottoms of my pant legs were flecked with blotches of mud spots like brown poker dots. The ruts were tell-tale signs to my father that we had used his grassy hill even though we had been told over and over not to use the hill but to walk down the steps with our bikes. That was the silliest request we’d ever heard. What self-respecting kid on a bike would ever bypass a hill for steps? We never did.

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