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“Computers are like Old Testament gods; lots of rules and no mercy.”

July 26, 2011

The morning has been so wonderfully cool that I slept in far later than usual. Somehow I feel as if I’ve overslept. When I worked and I was late getting up, I could be dressed and out of the house in minutes, coffee and paperless but on my way. Today I lazily got out of bed, brewed my pot of coffee and read both papers. It’s later than usual, and I do have to be at an appointment at 12:45 so I hope my muse is raring to go.

My computer goes shopping or out for coffee or somewhere. I can’t seem to get it to do a couple of tasks at a time. It gets busy and does no task. I sit here frustrated and impatiently waiting so I can get started. Today was like that. While I was waiting, I got to wondering where my computer would go. The Apple store is out as it is a Steve, who is the guy who put it together for me. Maybe I shouldn’t have named my computer. That could be the problem as we all know about Hal. I finally decided after much thought it might window shop at Best Buy or Staples looking for accessories like a new scanner now that the old scanner has gone to hardware heaven. Finally, after I closed Firefox, Steve decided to stop wandering and allowed me access. My iPad too had a glitch. Last night it wouldn’t connect to the internet. I checked all the settings, and they seemed just fine. I tried my Mac later, and it didn’t connect. All the lights on my linksys seem to be working so I am in a quandary. When I have more time, I’ll try and figure out the problem. Right now, I feel as if I have lost a friend.

I can do a lot of different things. I even have some talents, but computer problems make me feel like a country girl visiting the big city for the first time who’s lost on the subway and being crushed by the crowd.

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“There’s an unseen force which lets birds know when you’ve just washed your car.”

July 24, 2011

The day is dark and perfectly still. The leaves are barely moving. I only hear birds. It rained this morning for a while, a short while. Before I went to breakfast, I turned off the AC and opened the windows even though today will be in the 80’s. Gracie was tired of being stuck in the house, and I missed the sounds of the street and my little world on the deck. Later, when it hits the 80’s, I may have to turn on the AC again. Starting tomorrow and for the next few days, we’ll have a summer reprieve. Temperatures will be in the 70’s.

My friend Glenn sent me pictures of last January’s snowstorm. His house and car are covered in snow, and his street has yet to be plowed. I remember that storm, and I remember wishing for summer.

I’ve come to the conclusion that people need something to gripe about, even the happiest among us. It is just the nature of the beast. Though I count myself among the latter, the happy ones, I’ve been complaining about the heat and humidity, the traffic and the gawking tourists who slow down all that traffic. I figure venting by filling the air with a few blue words is my way of thwarting grumpiness.

Sunday was usually the day we went to the beach. On Saturday my dad did his house chores, mostly the yard, so it was his day to work around the house. Sunday we’d load up the car. The picnic basket, the tartan cooler, assorted towels, the beach blanket, shirts to ward off sunburn, four kids and my parents were piled into the car, the car without air-conditioning. All four windows would be opened, but the air always felt hot, and I was prone to car sickness. The two windows by the backseat could only go down halfway so that added to the misery. Once I threw up out the window, and my father thought it had started to rain. My poor sister sat in the middle between my brother and me, but we’d still fight over sides. I’d complain his foot was on my side and he’d yell back that it wasn’t. Meanwhile, with his eyes on the road, my father would swing his arm back and forth over the front seat hoping to hit one of us. He never did. The threats were next, ” Keep this up and we’re going home.” That generally quieted us down as we all loved the beach.

My favorite beach story, which I know I’ve told here before, merits retelling. It has become a family favorite repeated often when we’re together. My brother and I were tossing rocks into the water, and my mother told us to stop. We did, but a few minutes later she started yelling at us, “I told you to stop and now which one of you has hit me on the head?” We were dumbfounded as we had actually listened to her and stopped throwing rocks. We ran over and found a seagull had hit my mother dead center in the head. We told her, and she started gagging (my mother was a gagger, even when changing our diapers) as she ran to the water screaming for us to help wash it out of her hair. We did, but we laughed quietly the whole time. Only our shaking shoulders gave us away.

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“Handwriting is civilization’s casual encephalogram.”

July 23, 2011

Yesterday, at 103°, Boston was the hottest it’s been since 1926. We were close, in the 90’s, which is unusual for us, but the ocean breeze had totally disappeared. Gracie and I stayed inside almost the entire day. The few times I went on the deck the heat and humidity sucked my breath away. Today I have to go to a bridal shower, and I am not the bridal shower type. To make it even worse, if that’s at all possible, it will be hot. It’s only 10 and already the temperature is 83°. I’m going to practice my oohing and ahing before I go. I’m a bit rusty.

I remember learning the Palmer Method. First we had to learn to hold our pencils a certain way and then we did exercises. We were taught to use our hands and arms in making circles then lines. My circles were never very neat, but I was great at lines. I remember my hand moving up and down on the paper as I made my lines, and I remember the sound of hand against paper and the scribbling sound of the pencil. The nun would walk around and reposition pencils or make comments about the circles and lines.

Across the front of the room, over the blackboard, was a set of the alphabet in Palmer Method cursive writing. It was ornate with all sorts of loops. The R in my last name was one circle. It was the same R my grandmother always used. The K in my first name had a loop. I think my favorite letters were X, Q and Z. They were strange looking, and if you hadn’t learned Palmer method, you would never recognize the Q. We practiced all the time on lined sheets of paper. The capital letters went from the bottom of the line to the top. The small letters were about half the size and were easy to recognize, even the q, which looked a lot like the one my keyboard has except it’s missing the loop.

I read in the paper that schools are phasing out the teaching of cursive writing. The keyboard is replacing it. It reminded me of all that is fading away. My newspapers are ceasing to exist, bookstores are closing at a rapid rate and now cursive writing is disappearing. I’m afraid to venture a guess as to what’s next.

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“Technology is the knack of so arranging the world that we don’t have to experience it.”

July 22, 2011

The weather is just as they predicted: hot and humid. It is  one time I’d wish they’d have gotten it wrong. Today, though, will be the worst of it because, by the end of the weekend, the nights will be in the high 50’s for a couple of days. I’m all for that!

It’s so much easier living without when you have no idea what you’re missing. Fans were what kept us cool. I’d stand in front of the one in our living room until my sister or my brother complained I was taking all the cold. At night, I’d fall asleep despite the heat. A day of bike riding or walking the tracks or playing softball in the hot afternoon was enough to exhaust me for the night. I don’t remember which store was the first to be air-conditioned, but I’m betting, like in many towns, it was the movie theater. In my town in Ghana, it was a bar. The whole town called it the cold room. It was in the Hotel d’Bull, just about the only place to stay while in Bolga in those days. Crowds would so fill the bar that you could barely feel the air-conditioning. Inside the bar wasn’t a frequent spot for me. I didn’t drink beer or gin or scotch, the only alcoholic offerings. I drank coke. My Ghanaian friends loved to go to that bar so I’d meet them for a bit and hope to find a seat near the air conditioner. I seldom did.

My house is wonderfully cool right now. The two times I went outside I gasped in the heat. Gracie was out for a couple of minutes then came right back inside-nothing dumb about that dog.

My electric can opener broke, and I didn’t replace it because many cans are tabbed now, and my old hand can opener works just fine on the ones that aren’t. It was strange at first to wind the old opener as it worked its way around the top of the can. The lid almost always fell into the food in the can, and I was ever careful taking it out so I didn’t cut myself, but I have now become quite adept at opening the can without the lid falling, and I have yet to cut myself.

That got me to wondering what I could live without. Obviously the electric can opener is one, but I’m hard -pressed to come up with much more. My pencil sharpener is an old one with blades, but that hardly counts. I do use use my broom to sweep the floors as the vacuum cleaner is down the cellar and is now too heavy for me to haul upstairs. I guess that counts.

I can’t come up with anymore. My creature conveniences are far too ingrained. I’m going to have to give this some thought.

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“The trees that have it in their pent-up buds To darken nature and be summer woods.”

July 21, 2011

The breeze this morning was cooling, but it is disappearing. The clouds periodically give way to the sun. The 74° we have now will soon be 80°, the lowest temperature for the next three days. I feel like a hermit, a cool, comfortable hermit but a hermit nonetheless. A friend is coming late this afternoon for cocktails which sounds so 1950ish that we both should be wearing Donna Reed ensembles complete with pearls and dainty shoes with pointed toes. I need a brick patio and a husband wearing an ascot.

My town had woods everywhere. The ones below my house weren’t very big, but they had blueberry bushes, the swamp and a wonderful old tree with a split trunk which served as a plank for the pirate ship and whatever else filled our imaginings. Once we found a tiny wooden shack made with boards of all different sizes. Inside were magazines some of which had naked women. We didn’t go back there for the longest time, and when we did, the shack was gone. All that was left were a few boards. A water tower was at the top of a hill at one edge of the woods. We always wanted to climb the tower, but we never did. A small outcrop of rocks surrounded one side of the tank. Once we’d reached the tower, we used to sit on the rocks and rest as if we’d climbed Mount Everest instead of a grassy hill which wasn’t very steep.

We’d move out of the woods to the field across the street and watch the horses and try to tempt them to us with grass but we weren’t ever successful. The closer we got, the further away they got.  Sometimes we’d hike to another set of woods to a pond where we’d once built a raft. We got the idea from Swiss Family Robinson. It sank on its maiden voyage.

We’d arrive home late in the afternoon. We were always grimy, sweaty and thirsty, the best signs of a great summer day.

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“Never run in the rain with your socks on.”

July 19, 2011

The front page of The Cape Cod Times said the heat is heading our way. Generally the ocean keeps us cooler than off cape, but by Thursday we’ll be in the high 80’s closing in on 90. I expect to hibernate inside with the air conditioner on. I have to go to Falmouth this afternoon so I’ll stop and pick up a few books on the way. I can’t imagine anything worse than hibernating with nothing to read.

We had thunder and lightning last night during the rain storm. Neither was all that dramatic, always a disappointment to me. I love loud storms with torrential downpours.

When I was a kid, we used to love to stay outside during a summer rainstorm, the plain old rainstorms without any dramatics. I remember the rain was always softer in summer and seemed to invite us outside. We’d splash each other from the puddles and run along the sidewalk gutters filled with water. My hair and clothes would get soaked, but I never minded.

Running through the sprinkler was the next best thing to a rainstorm. We’d jump over it with long strides and arms spread as if we were competing in an Olympic event. The bravest among us would stand beside the sprinkler and get pelted by the cold water as it circled. Arms would be held close, crossed over our chests, as if to ward off the cold. We’d take breaks and lie on towels spread on the grass in the sun until we were warmed then it was back to the sprinkler. Our dog, Duke, loved to stop the sprinkler with his paw to drink the cold water. We’d watch him hold a sprinkler arm, slurp his fill and think him the smartest of dogs.

The sprinklers which go round and round have disappeared. Many of us have irrigation systems, and the only sprinklers I see are long and have one bar which sends the water back and forth. That wouldn’t have been any fun.

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“I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.”

July 18, 2011

Right now the day is lovely, breezy and cool at 77°, but there is a thunder and lightning storm advisory for this afternoon and tonight with damaging winds expected. I’ll be lowering my umbrellas before the wind takes them, and they become extras for The Wizard of Oz. Summer storms are often mighty.

This is one of my what in the heck can I talk about days when my muses are taking care of their own business at my expense. Tonight I am meeting my nephew for dinner. We’re doing Mexican. I have a play on Wednesday, Sherlock Holmes, and that’s it for the week. I do need to go to the library as I am out of books, and that is dire.

When I was a kid, libraries were sanctuaries like churches. Whispering quietly was all that was allowed or is that aloud?  Shushing was what we often heard from the librarian who also believed that the gesture of a finger on her lips had to follow shushing. I never understood why the library had to be quiet. Reading a book so transfixed me that I never heard anything, even my mother yelling for me who swore I was ignoring her on purpose, and I certainly wouldn’t have heard anybody whispering in the library.

The quiet rule sometimes had the opposite effect. When one of us laughed, we all did, and we couldn’t stop despite the shushing and the warnings. We were actually asked to leave the library a couple of times when I was kid. We thought it was so hysterically funny to be tossed out we always left laughing, out loud. I’m sure it displeased the dour librarian wearing the flowered dress, sensible shoes and a bun in her hair. For years, I thought all librarians had to wear that uniform.

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“I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.”

July 18, 2011

Right now the day is lovely, breezy and cool at 77°, but there is a thunder and lightning storm advisory for this afternoon and tonight with damaging winds expected. I’ll be lowering my umbrellas before the wind takes them, and they become extras for The Wizard of Oz. Summer storms are often mighty.

This is one of my what in the heck can I talk about days when my muses are taking care of their own business at my expense. Tonight I am meeting my nephew for dinner. We’re doing Mexican. I have a play on Wednesday, Sherlock Holmes, and that’s it for the week. I do need to go to the library as I am out of books, and that is dire.

When I was a kid, libraries were sanctuaries like churches. Whispering quietly was all that was allowed or is that aloud?  Shushing was what we often heard from the librarian who also believed that the gesture of a finger on her lips had to follow shushing. I never understood why the library had to be quiet. Reading a book so transfixed me that I never heard anything, even my mother yelling for me who swore I was ignoring her on purpose, and I certainly wouldn’t have heard anybody whispering in the library.

The quiet rule sometimes had the opposite effect. When one of us laughed, we all did, and we couldn’t stop despite the shushing and the warnings. We were actually asked to leave the library a couple of times when I was kid. We thought it was so hysterically funny to be tossed out we always left laughing, out loud. I’m sure it displeased the dour librarian wearing the flowered dress, sensible shoes and a bun in her hair. For years, I thought all librarians had to wear that uniform.

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Comments: 14 Comments

“Somebody did complain to me and tell me that my clothes were so loud they couldn’t hear me sing.”

July 17, 2011

No doubt about it: it’s hot already at 80°, but, luckily, yesterday’s humidity has yet to reappear. When it does, on goes the AC. My breakfast spot had no empty booths this morning for more than a minute or two, but I happened in at the right time and immediately found an empty booth. Breakfast, though, was boring. I’m beginning to think it always was, but I just didn’t notice. Lately I’ve tried eggs in a variety of ways, but there is only so much you can do with eggs. I’ve also tried French toast and even breakfast sandwiches. I’m out of options for what I think is the most boring meal of the day.

I sat at a red light by the summer church as it was letting out from mass. People in shorts walked out, and that’s what I noticed first. I thought how comfortable they must have been all crowded together in a pew. We used to have to wear skirts to mass and hats on our heads or even Kleenex if we didn’t have a hat. Bobby pins held the ugly white Kleenex in place. That reminded me of flying not all that long ago. People dressed up to fly. It was an occasion. It’s the same at my Friday night plays. Men used to wear shirts and ties with sports coats and women wore skirts or summer dresses. Now the dress code is simply cover your body in some way.

I read in the paper that GQ named Boston as the worst dressed city. The magazine article blamed all those college kids, called them hoodie monsters. It referred to the city as, “America’s Bad-Taste Storm Sewer: all the worst fashion ideas from across the country flow there, stagnate, and putrefy.” I find that a perfectly accurate description of the Boston fashion scene. I think I probably add to it as I like hoodies, and I hate to get dressed up.

The cape has always been a haven for the under-dressed, for the bathing suit crowd, for Topsiders white with salt rime, flip flops and t-shirts. It’s one of the reasons I love living here. No matter what I wear, nobody notices.

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“After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.”

July 16, 2011

I could smell the ocean this morning so I stood on the deck by the rail just soaking it in. The water is a long way off, but many a morning the ocean makes its way here, and I love those mornings the best. The breeze is slight, and the sun is hot. It is already 80°. When I came inside after my coffee and papers, the den felt cool, still shaded as it is. The sun is working its way around the house, and, by afternoon, the den too will be hot. Tonight is movie night. We’re seeing one recommended by a friend: Next Stop Wonderland.

The renters from next door have already left. I watched them tote boxes and roll their suitcases to the car. I don’t know who will arrive this afternoon, but I hope they are as quiet as the last tenants.

I’m busy with plays and dinners and such, but I still take the time to do nothing but put my feet up and read. Gracie and I sit outside for the longest time. Well, actually, only I sit. Gracie spreads out and sleeps in the shade. I stop to watch the birds, and my friend the giant crow comes back almost every day. I’m thinking of naming him, but I suspect he already has one of his own. The feeders need filling so that’s a chore for later. The kitchen needs sweeping so I’ll add that to the list. I need to do a bit of shopping and that will be the last chore of the day.

The paper this morning had an article about music returning to Afghanistan. It had been banned for so long many of the master musicians have died, and some traditional instruments have no one who knows how to play them. I thought how awful a world without music must have been. I think how music soothes me or enervates me or even makes me smile. I think of songs like Happy Birthday which we sing no matter how old the celebrant is. I can’t imagine a Christmas without carols. I think the first song I ever learned was Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. The words to that song and so many others stay in my head, and I can still sing along years after first hearing them. I wish I remembered yesterday as strongly as I remember, “Up above the world so high like a diamond in the sky.”

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