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“The traveler sees what he sees, the tourist sees what he has come to see.”

July 7, 2011

The day is already hot; yesterday was hot. I am inside right now with the air conditioner on and am quite comfortable, but, because the back door has to be shut, Gracie is driving me crazy. She rings her doggie bells to go out and a couple of minutes later flaps the dog door to come back inside. I think it’s a test. Either that or she’s out to drive me crazy. After I finish here, I’ll join her on the deck while there is still a breeze.

This morning I got my yellow fever shot for Ghana and a lecture from the doctor. He told me to wear cotton socks and sneakers: New Balance was his suggestion, and he thought two pairs of socks a day would be best, and I should travel with large zip-lock bags so I can store my muddy sneakers. Never wear sandals is what he said. Your feet could get horribly sunburned, and there is danger of rocks getting between your feet and the bottom of your sandals which could cause cuts which would lead to infections. He didn’t mention possible amputation from wide-spread infection, but I thought that’s where he was heading. Avoiding packs of dogs was another suggestion. I never once saw a pack of dogs; herds of goats is as close as I got. He said he assumed I was going economy so he was giving me a series of exercises to avoid blood clots. I took the paper and didn’t correct him. I figured with my t-shirt having a hole or two and my wearing rubber flip flops the assumption made sense. He gave me a pamphlet warning me about armed robbery, war in the north and the poor quality of hotels in Ghana. I just thanked him and left. I didn’t tell him I won’t be bringing socks or sneakers, and up north is exactly where I want to go, including Bawku which had had gunfire a year ago between robbers and police.

If I listen to the doctor, I can imagine what my new packing list will look like: sunscreen for my feet, pairs and pairs of old socks (old because the doctor suggested I could just throw them away after wearing them), sneakers, a bullet proof vest and one of those wrist locks connecting me and my suitcase. I just hope no one thanks of chopping off my wrist. It could get infected.

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“It’s always the badly dressed people who are the most interesting.”

July 5, 2011

I’m outside on the deck where a wonderful breeze is keeping me cool. When I went inside to get my mac and read my e-mail, I was hot and sticky in no time, even in the still shady part of the house. Today is going to be a scorcher, 88°, the hottest day yet, but if the breeze stays on the deck, so will I.

I wore my new sandals yesterday so I could start breaking them in before my trip. I bought a pair of Chacos with a great strap design. It reminded us of the 60’s and the bottoms of our pant legs which had cloth with similar designs sewn on them while we wore matching headbands. I also remember a great vest with a bit of fringe, influenced I suspect by Donovan. Those days were great for clothes with giant flowers and brilliant colors. Fringe was just a perk.

It was back then I started wearing sandals. As a kid, I wore sneakers all summer, different colors when I was little and white ones when I was a teenager. In Africa we wore sandals all the time. After I retired, I wore sandals well into November or December. I just added socks on the really cold days. I haven’t gone back to fringe yet but who knows?

When I was younger, I’d see old men and women wearing the most God-awful clothes . The colors and patterns clashed, and I’d shake my head and wonder how they couldn’t notice. Those stripes definitely didn’t match those plaids. Men were the worst as women still retained a bit of fashion sense despite their ages, but their dresses were ugly and so were their shoes.

I’m at that age now, but my clothes more closely resemble the clothes of my youth. I have flowery, bright shirts, cool sandals and comfy pants missing only that strip of cloth.

I did a buy a dress recently as I needed one for a family event. It will come with me on my trip just in case. With it, I wore sandals. It felt strange wearing a dress as it has been so long that any event necessitated wearing one. The dress has flowers.

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Happy Birthday, America!

July 4, 2011

Happy July 4th! I hope your day is spent in pure leisure, in eating wonderful food and in enjoying friends and family. That’s going to be my day!

When I was young, I knew today was America’s birthday, but I didn’t know why today was the big day until I was a little older. It was then I learned about Philadelphia and the Declaration of Independence and the brave men who risked treason to sign and adopt it. Parades with their pageantry and fireworks with their colors and bursting designs seem the perfect way to celebrate our country’s birthday.  I’ll wear my red, white and blue proudly.

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear;

Those of mechanics – each one singing his, as it should be,
blithe and strong;
The carpenter singing his, as he measures his plank and beam;
The mason singing his, as he makes ready for work,
or leaves off work;
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat –
the deckhand singing on the streamboat deck;
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench –
the hatter singing as he stands:
The wood-cutter’s song the ploughboy’s, on his way
The delicious singing of the mother – or of the young wife
at work – or of the girl sewing or washing – Each singing
what belongs to her, and to none else;
The day what belongs to the day – At night, the party of
young fellows, robust, friendly,
Singing, with open mouths, their strong melodious songs

– Walt Whitman (1819–1892). Leaves of Grass


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“Grilling, broiling, barbecuing – whatever you want to call it – is an art, not just a matter of building a pyre and throwing on a piece of meat as a sacrifice to the gods of the stomach.”

July 3, 2011

The sun has already disappeared though I expect it will peek back in every now and then. Rain, thundershowers, are predicted, and the rain will be heavy at times. I look forward to the storm. It hasn’t rained in a while, and I love a rousing bit of thunder. It will be nature’s way of celebrating the 4th.

Houses are all decked out in buntings and flags. The 4th has become a huge celebration again. For a while, back in my college days, celebrations were muted. Flags were burned and worn as shirts or cut into pieces for patches on pants. The flag no longer held the reverence which should have been accorded to the symbol of our country, but over time those feelings changed. Patriotism, love of country, has returned and is celebrated. I put bunting on my fence and happily and proudly wave our flag.

I always think of the 4th of July as a family holiday. Everyone in our neighborhood had a cook-out, and you could smell and almost taste the charcoal fluid in the air. My dad loved his charcoal fluid, and often we would hear the whoosh of a fire as he lit the fluid drenched briquets. That was often followed by stomping as my dad tried to put out the fire on his shoes and the bottom of his pant legs. He’d take a lawn chair and sit by the barbecue and tend the meat. He’d have a beer and a few pops, shots of whiskey, as he cooked. It was tradition.

My dad cooked the meat just right. It was always still juicy and tasty. When we were young, it was hot dogs and burgers. When we were older, it was steak tips, chicken, ribs and sausages. My mother always made her potato salad, and, if we whined enough, we got her deviled eggs. Once in a while she’d cook peppers and eggs, still a favorite of mine. The kitchen table would be heaped with food, and after dinner, we’d all groan about how full we were and how great the food tasted.

Later, that night, we’d sit at the table and play cards until late into the night. July 4th with my family was always the best of days.

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“Weekends don’t count unless you spend them doing something completely pointless.”

July 2, 2011

Traffic coming on cape last night was bumper to bumper for about three miles. I, on my way off cape, hit no traffic at all even through the city at what was usually the tail end of rush hour. I sailed right through. Coming home around ten last night, I ran into a little traffic but not enough to make me curse. Today is so lovely it would have been worth the wait to get over the bridge.

My garden is getting edged, weeded and mulched, and the lawn is getting cut then fertilized. My landscaper and two other guys came early this morning and are still working to spread the last of the mulch. I don’t remember my father ever mulching our garden. I suppose because it was so small, and he was no gardener. He was a buy some flowers and plant them sort of guy. If they grew, all was well. If they didn’t, at least he had given it a try. My mother got into having a garden a long time later when we were all grown, and they had moved into their own house. I remember in the middle of the garden stood her statue of St. Francis with a bird on his shoulder and his arm spread wide with his hands filled with seed. The garden was lovely, and we would sit by the kitchen windows and could see and smell the flowers. I think her small garden was the inspiration for my front garden. I’m just missing the St. Francis.

Last night I listened to the Sox on my way home. I caught the 7th inning which gave them the lead they kept. My father never listened to the game and seldom watched it. He was a hockey, football guy. I am a basketball-baseball sort though I do watch the Patriots. I just don’t understand everything, only the basics. My college was and still is a hockey school, and we went to all the home games. They were occasions to warm the innards with alcohol before we went. I think most occasions in college called for warming the innards. While the crowd stood and cheered, we sat and passed the wine skin sneaked in under a heavy winter coat. We were accurate at finding our mouths even under the worst conditions though a few misses were good for laughs. I still remember how cold the seats were and how cheap the wine was.

It’s a sit on the deck and read day. The air is comfortable, and there’s sun if I want it.

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“The United States is the only country with a known birthday.”

July 1, 2011

The weather each day is spoiling me with its warm sun and cool breezes. If I could invent the perfect weather, the last couple of days would have been patented under my name. The birds are singing, the spawns of Satan are chasing each other from tree to tree and Gracie is taking a nap. I feel like I’m in a Disney movie.

This is the first big weekend of the season. Cars will be bumper to bumper waiting their turns over the bridge. Bicycles will be hanging off racks on the back. The wait to get here is easily endured. The wait to leave never is. I have to go off cape tonight to a family party celebrating my aunt and uncle’s 50th wedding anniversary. He went into the hospital earlier this week, but we were just told he is being discharged today in time for his party. Today, fifty years ago, was their exact wedding day.

I have no plans for the weekend itself. This is when most of us who live here start to hibernate. Monday I’ll go down the street to my friends’ for a barbecue. We’ll do the all-American July4th menu of burgers and franks and deviled eggs I hope. It’s traditional after all. Later I’ll put out the bunting on my fence and add flags to the garden. My flamingo will be dressed like Uncle Sam.

Through my teen years, I always marched with my drill team in the July 4th parade, a huge one in the next town over from ours. The parade still exists and is still huge. People put out chairs in the pre-dawn hours to reserve seats on the sidewalks beside the road. The ones under trees are prime seating. The sellers of balloons and such walk up and down the route selling their wares. Every year I watched some poor kid see his balloon fly high into the sky. The kid always cried and most times got another balloon which was tied more tightly to a wrist.

Lat night I could hear fireworks from further down the street, and every night now through the 4th we’ll hear bursts and blasts. Celebrating a country’s birthday should never be confined to just a single day!

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“Visits always give pleasure – if not the arrival, the departure.”

June 30, 2011

The sky is a vibrant blue and the sun is warm. A slight breeze makes the day delightful. This morning my house is quiet. The routine of every day has returned because my company left last night. I miss them. Having company interrupts routine in the best possible way. We laugh, chat and enjoy being together. The house is filled with sounds different than every day when only the animals and I move about, and I’m the only voice. Gracie is sleeping on the couch which she does every morning except she didn’t for the last couple. She was intent on missing nothing and was our constant companion. The deck is empty and quiet. My sister should be out there reading her book and following the sun as it moves about the house. I need to get used to the quiet again.

I never lived alone until I was in Ghana. The house, where I grew up, was small, and there were six of us always bumping into each other. When we moved to the cape, I had my own room, but the house was never quiet. The kitchen, close to my bedroom, was the hubbub of activity. I didn’t mind. It had been the same all of my life. College was no different. I could fall asleep surrounded by people and noise.

I lived alone in Ghana, on one side of a duplex. It was the first time in my life I wasn’t surrounded by family or friends. I was depressed, lonely and homesick and had no one to talk to about it. I couldn’t tell my fellow staff members. It would sound a bit insulting. I did write to friends about it, and that was cathartic, but it was only a stop gap. The loneliness returned. I decided I would leave at the end of term one if nothing changed, but I was lucky. Everything changed.

I began to enjoy being alone, having time to myself. Ghana and my four rooms became home. At night, I’d sit outside under the most magnificent starlit sky with my mouth opened in awe then I’d go inside, read and listen to music. During the day I’d teach and in-between classes I’d go home and be by myself with my book and a cup of coffee until the next class. I enjoyed being alone and found company disruptive. I was at the polar opposite of where I had begun.

It took a while to find the middle, but I did. Company was welcomed. Being alone was never lonely. That’s still the way it is. I miss my recent company and their voices and their movements about the house, but I’m content to be alone.

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“Celebrate Summer – Sun drenched days and starlit nights…”

June 28, 2011

Yesterday was the perfect day-sunny with a little breeze. Today is the same. I sat on the deck with my coffee and papers and chatted with my sister. Gracie played with her rubber chicken.

My company has gone to P-Town to sail on a whale watch. As tonight is movie night and I have a dinner to prepare, I stayed home. We’re having Thai Shrimp, chicken, a light lasagna and a couple of new recipes I’ve wanted to try. Muhammara is one of the appetizers-it’s a crowd favorite. I’m also trying something with dried figs, fruit and cheese. I have only the shrimp to buy.

It’s fun making new foods, and I don’t do it for myself. Tonight they’ll be six of us.  We’ll eat before the movie-yet to chosen.

Last night we went to a baseball game, a Cape Cod League game. It was a great night for baseball with warm temperatures and an occasional breeze. The games are fun to watch. The players are good, and we saw a pick-off at second and a home run. I love the sounds of baseball: the cracks of the bats and the thwumps as balls hit gloves, especially the catcher’s mitt. In the bleachers to the right of us, I noticed every time one of the pitchers threw the baseball, radar guns appeared. There must have been six or seven of them. The men would check the speed of the ball then write it down. Scouts, we all figured.

I have now a list of daily chores. I fill the oriole feeders, water the deck flowers and fill the fountain. Gracie thinks it’s her personal water fountain and drinks it dry a couple of times a day even though she has an outside water dish. I figure it’s because the fountain is exactly the right height for her and the water is constantly moving.

The yard was filled with fireflies last night. Colorado has none so my brother-in-law watched them for a while and so did I. Watching fireflies never becomes boring.

I’m looking forward to tonight. Having dinner and a movie on the deck is one of the great pleasures of summer, and best of all, we have ice cream for dessert!

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“Simplicity is making the journey of this life with just baggage enough.”

June 27, 2011

The day is warm and sunny. Even this early Gracie is out lying on the deck, and Fern has staked her claim to the mat by the front door where the morning sun streams into the house. She is stretched out so all of her can feel the warmth. I must have instinctively known there was sun as I was up early, have read the papers, put on a wash and cleaned the table and chairs on the deck in anticipation of my company sitting outside to enjoy the day. My guess is they should arrive around noon.

We are most assuredly spoiled. When I was in Ghana, I made do with very little. Even though it was often over 100°, I didn’t even own a fan. I just sweated a lot. Going to bed still wet from my nightly shower was as close to air conditioning as I got. Coke was a treat as was a bar of Cadbury chocolate. Traveling even a few miles took forever in over-crowded mammy lorries or buses. I prayed for a window seat. The buses often smelled of goats or chickens, both of which were sometimes under the seats. Goats, however, were usually tied to the top with the luggage. It took close to four hours to go a hundred miles. From Accra, on the coast, to Bolga took 16 hours. It still does. Irons used charcoal for heat and bucket baths were common. I became an expert at bucket baths. I could wash my hair and all the rest of me then use the left over water to flush the toilet. I also became an expert at using public toilets with holes in the floor, and that dubious talent came into use more recently when I went to Morocco. When I was in college, we had pit stops, but they were more the result of a night of revelry than usual practice.

Ghanaians wasted nothing, and that was one of the most important lessons I learned. Bottles and cans were reused over and over. Sandals had retread tires for soles. Food from the market was wrapped in newspapers. My rice always came in a newspaper cone.

When I left Ghana, I vowed to remember I didn’t need much. A hand can opener works just as well and a broom can sweep a room clean. It has been forty years since that vow, and I have accumulated much, and those Ghanaian lessons have faded over the years. Now, though, for some odd reason, I find myself doing chores far more simply. I sweep the kitchen clean most mornings. My electric can opener died so I use the hand opener on those few cans which still require one. I use few dishes so I hand wash them every night. It gives me a small sense of satisfaction.

My life is getting simpler. I think it has to do with getting older. I need much less than I used to, but, no matter what, I can’t give up the air conditioner.

 

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“Family is just accident…. They don’t mean to get on your nerves. They don’t even mean to be your family, they just are.”

June 26, 2011

The sun has yet to appear but Gracie is resting on the lounge so I know the day is a bit warmer than it’s been. Earlier, while the coffee was brewing,  I was out on the deck and brought in the jelly feeders to clean and refill. I’ll go back out after this and also fill the seed feeders. Company comes tomorrow so I have a lot to do today. Well, actually, I just have to shop and make beds which doesn’t sound like much, but that’s because I’ve already done a little bit every day for the last couple of days. We have an itinerary of sorts. Tomorrow night is baseball: the Cape Cod league. Tuesday is movie night, and I’ve suggested the audience bring their woolies as it will be chilly. Wednesday night is still open. The days are also open though a whale watch is a possibility. I want to take them to my favorite lunch spot. It’s on the channel to the harbor and has picnic tables, nothing fancy except great food.

When my whole family lived on the cape, relatives we hardly knew crawled out of the woodwork and came to visit. One was my father’s cousin whom I had never heard of let alone met. I don’t even remember her name, but I certainly remember her husband Ray. He said his mother wasn’t the greatest mother, and he still had occasional diaper rash from being left unattended as a baby. He also told us he was swimming in the ocean and swallowed a clam, shell and all. Ray was perfectly serious and his dutiful wife nodded in commiseration. My father’s aunt Helen, the cousin’s mother, also came to visit. I hadn’t met her either. She was the one who once had a huge shadow on her chest doctors thought was a mass of cancer. It was her change purse pinned to her slip. My mother’s Aunty Clara once stopped by to visit, but my parents were off-cape for the weekend. She wanted to know who was a babysitting. I was said I. She was appalled my parents had left us alone. I was twenty-one at the time.

My Aunt Barbara and My Uncle Lorrie came often. I knew them well, but I was never really all that excited for their visits. I had to sleep on the couch, and they brought with them cousin Bobby whom we all detested. I didn’t remember the incident, but my mother reminded me I once punched Bobby in the face. It seems he was harassing me, and, despite my polite requests, he wouldn’t stop. The punch was perfect persuasion. After that, Bobby seldom came down to visit with my aunt and uncle. He wasn’t missed.

I don’t get much company here. That surprises me as I really am a good hostess. It probably has to do with how little I see my off Cape relatives, though I really enjoy most of them. It’s the same day round trip I hate as I can’t stay over because of Miss Gracie. My sister is the standard bearer for the Ryan family and goes to most of the events. For that I am eternally grateful!

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