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Honky Tonk Merry Go Round: Patsy Cline
May 6, 2012
“And I love a scary movie. It makes your toes curl and it’s not you going through it.”
May 5, 2012Today is no different from yesterday or the day before or the day before that one. My deck still has its winter look. None of the furniture is uncovered, and the candles are yet to be hung from the trees. This cold and damp weather doesn’t invite the deck’s summer finery. I go out and fill the feeders then hurry back in cold from the dampness. It rained again last night, and I have a parade of paw prints across my kitchen floor. I’ll throw in a Pollyanna moment here and say there is an upside. My lawn looks green and lush.
Gracie and I are dump bound today, and I decided I might as well ruin the entire day by going grocery shopping.
If we count activity as productivity, this was a lazy week. Every chance I got, I read and yesterday I finished the Lincoln Vampire book. It was an odd one, and I’d be careful about to whom I’d recommend it. The list of people would be quite short. A suspension of disbelief is entirely necessary.
I think we are all born with a suspension of disbelief then, as we get older, we stop believing in wonders and get skeptical and scoff. Away goes Santa, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. Nothing replaces them. Our world becomes less filled with anticipation and a holiday is just a holiday. A once scary movie is made fun of and did you notice the Creature from the Black Lagoon wears a scuba tank? I didn’t. I love those old movies, and I always fail to notice their blemishes. I count myself lucky for that.
I admit being skeptical about many things. I don’t believe in ghosts, never did even when I was little. Things that went bump in the night gave me pause, but ghosts were never my first guess. I thought the Hook was more likely the reason for the noise. That story scared me to the roots of my being. The idea of his hook hanging from the car door seemed awful close to reality.
I love the books of Stephen King and Dean Koontz. A strange sound still gives me pause. That suspension of disbelief has never left me, and I am extremely grateful.
“There is no friend as loyal as a book.”
April 29, 2012Oh, spring, where have you gone? Last night was winter, and today is only 52°. The sun is warm through the doors and windows but not enough to make being outside on the deck inviting. I got cold when I was filling the bird feeders this morning. Even the house feels chilly. The heat turned itself on early this morning which meant it was lower than 62° in here. No wonder I slept in under the warmth of my down comforter.
This is a new week, and I have high hopes it will be a good week. It’s my Pollyanna moment.
When I was in high school, I took four years of Latin. I have no idea why, but I actually liked it. The Aeneid, my fourth year text, was my favorite. I still remember the first line, ” Arma virumque cano.” I sing of arms and of a man. I think the story appealed to me because I loved all the tall tales, stories of people like Paul Bunyan, Johnny Appleseed and Pecos Bill. I can still see in my mind’s eye the illustration of Pecos Bill riding that cyclone. In my library those tall tale books were on a short shelf to the left of the door. I used to sit on the carpet and look through them and read a few tales before I’d choose the books to take home. I think I read all of the books from that section.
I never read any of the science books in my library. They were in the shelves in front of the windows. I did read some of the biographies of scientists like Madame Curie, but the actual science itself never interested me. I loved mysteries and historical fiction, though, when I was little, I didn’t know that’s you called it. My favorite of all was Johnny Tremain. It took place in Boston so the novel felt personal for me, and I could actually visit the houses of characters like Paul Revere. It made the story real to me. I remember the horror I felt when Johnny spilled hot silver on his hand.
That book led me to read more stories about the Revolutionary War. I think that’s what books are meant to do. They take you to one place which leads to another and another and on and on. It’s like a family tree filled with the names of books on branch after branch.
“Precisely the least, the softest, lightest, a lizard’s rustling, a breath, a flash, a moment – a little makes the way of the best happiness.”
April 14, 2012Today makes me smile. It is warm and sunny and we’re glowing with victory because the Red Sox won their home opener yesterday in grand fashion. Sometimes all the pieces just fall into place and a day, even one as simple as this, feels perfect. My bedroom window was open all night, and I could smell spring when I woke up this morning. While my coffee was perking, I went out to the deck where I scared away a bird who was using the dog’s water bowl for its bath. That reminded me to clean and fill the big bird bath and the small one the chickadees like, the one which is really a candle holder. My deck is now bird ready.
I didn’t do anything yesterday except read and watch the baseball game, but today I have a few household chores, none of them strenuous, then this afternoon I’ll watch the game. Once I finish my chores, I’ll sit on the deck a while and replenish my vitamin D.
When we were young and Saturday was our day to roam, I think it was my mother’s favorite day. My dad was outside piddling around with the grass and the garden, my sisters were playing dolls on the back steps, and my brother and I were off on some adventure so my mother had the house to herself. My brother and I chose our direction randomly. Sometimes we went to the field where the horses were or to the farm at the edge of town to watch the cows or to the railroad tracks, our route to nowhere. I remember the piles of manure on the farm, and the mud around the barn filled with the hoof marks of the cows. It was a dairy back then, and I even have a milk bottle with Weiss Farm written on it. The cows were black and white. I didn’t know until I was much older that they were Holsteins. The horses could never be caught, and even if we did manage to corner one, neither one of us could ride, especially bare-back, but we always made plans to catch and ride them anyway. We knew where one end of the track was but we never made it to the other end. We went a little further each time but never really too far. Trains ran back then, and we’d jump off the track and stand close enough so that the wind from the train cars blew our hair and clothes. Once we thought of jumping the train and letting it take us wherever it was going, but we never got up the nerve.
It’s time for me to enjoy a perfect day!
“A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.”
April 13, 2012The house was really cold when I woke up this morning, 60° cold. I turned up the heat and nothing happened. I cursed a bit then decided to check the red on/off switch: it was on. I next checked the thermostat, and it was off. Glory be, no repairman needed! I turned the switch to heat and the furnace responded. The house got warmer than outside.
I know radiators aren’t the most attractive decorations for a house, but when I was a kid, I always took comfort from the hissing of the steam as the water coursed through the radiator at the foot of my bed. When I was cold, I could put my feet under it, and they’d quickly get warm. Mittens drying on the top of the radiator would steam a bit as they dried, and you had to remember to turn them over or the top side would never dry. The radiator was noisy so the house at night was never quiet, but it was always warm.
Today is Friday the 13th. I’m not suspicious so it is like any Friday for me. It’s a pretty day with the sun bright in the sky. Lots of birds are in and out at the feeders. I have a new feeder for Baltimore orioles that has yet to go out, and I’ll do that later. When I looked them up, the Audubon site said around the first of May for orioles, but all the birds were early this year so the orioles may already be here looking for their jelly. I need to get mealy worms hoping I can attract blue birds.
I don’t think I noticed birds when I was young. Seagulls at the beach and pigeons in the city are all I remember. Every morning when I woke up, I’d hear birds greeting the day, but I have no idea which birds were in my neighborhood. I assume robins as they’re everywhere but can’t think of any others. Nobody had bird feeders so there wasn’t any reason for the birds to drop by to visit.
When I was in Ghana, my family moved off cape to the same town where I had grown up. My mother put bird feeders in her yard. She got pigeons. We used to laugh and call them country pigeons. She wasn’t amused.
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