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“It is remarkable how closely the history of the apple tree is connected with that of man.”

October 8, 2018

Every morning the weather is the same: cloudy and damp. The sun usually appears later in the day but never stays around too long. This morning, like every other morning, is quiet. Only the birds are noisy. I’m watching a godawful movie called Zone Troopers. I don’t recognize a single actor. Aliens help GI’s in Italy fight the Germans during WWII. The aliens have giant hands each having two fingers and a thumb. The aliens chatter, eat tobacco and point a lot. The males all have blond hair. The females are ugly and look like giant bugs. I am easily entertained.

I finished my last book around 2:15 this morning. The ending was only a few pages away  so I decided to keep going. It was a Mrs. Murphy the cat book by Rita Mae Brown and her cat Sneaky Pie Brown. My cat has no writing ability. She doesn’t even use her litter box anymore. She pees on puppy pads. She stares at me and meows. I suppose she is conversing, but I don’t speak cat.

My dance card has been empty for over a week. All I’ve done is errands. I don’t even have a to do list and now I have no books left to read. I’m thinking to bake and use up the two cans of pumpkin I bought. It is, after all, pumpkin season.

I need to start decorating for Halloween. I have the most amazing decorations including a few rats, spiders, a zombie, a scary clown whose eyes light up and stuffed monsters, all the great monsters, even a Mrs. Frankenstein.

When I was a kid, we carved pumpkins, and that was about it for Halloween decorations.  I remember a Halloween party. It was in our cellar. We dunked for apples and tried to eat donuts hanging by strings without using our hands. The donuts used to swing back and forth and hit our faces on the swings. It took a while to get a bite. The best way to get an apple was to try to hold it against the sides of the tub. I knew the trick but still wasn’t all that good with apples. Mostly I just got wet. There was a pin something on the witch game, but I don’t remember what. There were refreshments including apple cider and unbitten donuts.

Henry is barking at the front door. I’m going to check to see what has his dander up.

 

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“I think insomnia is a sign that a person is interesting.”

January 20, 2017

The clock just struck one. I’m not even tired. I went up and down the TV dial and checked out Netflix, but I didn’t find anything I wanted to watch. I tried to read, but I just couldn’t settle down and pay attention. Gracie and Maddie had slept most of the night away, but Gracie just woke up, had a snack and a drink of water then climbed back on the couch to go back to sleep. In about two minutes she was snoring. I envy her.

The weather stayed lovely all day. It hit 43˚. Gracie and I did our errands. We went to the dump, and she got her nails cut at the vets then we took a ride. Gracie liked the window down.

When we got home, the alien took over my body again. The kitchen is gleaming. This sudden spurt of housecleaning has to end.

When I was a kid, I read all of the time. I visited the library just about every week in the summer and every couple of weeks in the winter. I can close my eyes and still picture the children’s side of the library. The librarian sat behind a round counter made of wood set in the middle of the room across from the door. The shelves filled with mysteries were against the wall behind her. The tables and chairs were all wooden. The chairs were spindlebacks though I didn’t know back then that’s what the style was called. Some of the chairs had arms. The tables were different lengths. I’d sit for a bit and look through books to decide which ones I wanted to read. When I was ready, I’d bring the books to the librarian who would stamp the lined sheet in the back with the due date.

I loved mysteries. My favorite detectives were Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden. The library didn’t have those books, but I’d use my fifty cent allowance to buy the Trixie Belden books and just about every birthday and Christmas I’d be given new Nancy Drews. I loved that they were girls solving mysteries. Nancy drove a roadster. I had to look up what kind of a car a roadster was. Trixie was much younger, closer to my age. I always envied their sleuthing. I would have loved stumbling on a mystery.

Well, I finally settled on a Netflix film about conspiracies. Hitler and Eva were replaced by doubles who were shot. The two of them were then spirited out of the country. Now I’m going to find out what really happened to Nazi gold.  This program was a great choice. I’m getting sleepy from watching it.

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“Quiet is here and all in me.

June 25, 2016

The weather is still perfect. The days are warm, even hot, and the nights chilly. Even upstairs, on the third floor, I need a light blanket at night. What a delight to feel chilly!

Yesterday was major errand day as I haven’t been out so I can keep an eye on Fern. Animal food was the priority then my food. I bought wonderful food: a cooked tenderloin, orzo salad, Caesar salad, barbecued shrimp, watermelon, kebobs, chicken salad, a Clark bar and honey wheat bread. I have a feast in my fridge.

Last night I was trying to find a movie to watch from On Demand. I told my remote to find science fiction movies. I went through all of them and read the information on the ones which interested me. Come to find out many of them had something in common. The destruction of the human race was a prime theme. Aliens seem hell bent on eliminating us. They want our planet or our water. Et was the last friendly alien.

Fern is doing better. This morning she woke me up by lying on my hip and purring in my ear. She waited around until I’d patted her several times. I have given her only one medication so far, three more to go. She caught on to the pill pockets so I have to be inventive. She can jump on my bed and on the couch where she is sleeping right beside Gracie.

My neighborhood is quiet except for the birds. It is as if only I exist here in my house. I haven’t even heard a car. It is a sense of aloneness. Out my window I can see the sun through the branches, the birds at the feeder and the leaves slightly blowing. The view is almost magical in its perfection.

I have the urge to cook. I keep saving recipes from magazines and newspapers. Usually I cook a dish for the first time and invite friends. I just hope for the best. I’m thinking I might do an international dinner. On the menu will be kelewele. I am so looking forward to Ghana when I can eat it every day.

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“Babies have big heads and big eyes, and tiny little bodies with tiny little arms and legs. So did the aliens at Roswell! I rest my case.”

July 25, 2015

It would seem a bit egocentric to believe we are it in this universe. Those science fiction movies about aliens can’t all be make-believe though I admit most of the the aliens are a bit much, totally unrealistic, in the looks department, but I digress so it’s back to the news. What has happened is the plot of one of those movies is bumping into real life. At the start of the movie Battleship, the scientist notes that they have found a planet in orbit around a sun almost equidistant from its sun as we are from ours. They speculate it has conditions similar to Earth’s and could sustain life. They are sending a beacon to that planet from a communications array in Hawaii; of course, the aliens directed by the beacon find Earth and set out to conquer it. We defeat the aliens, no surprise there. Okay, here’s real life: scientists have discovered an Earth like planet orbiting its sun just a bit further away from its sun than we are from ours. It is the third planet from the sun. Sound familiar? I’m thinking no beacon.

Today is an on again off again sunny day. Earlier it was all sun then all clouds. Now the sun is making a return engagement. The day feels pleasant, no humidity. It is in the mid 70’s. Tonight will be cooler, perfect for sleeping. It is also movie night. We are going to watch Breaking Away. My friends who were apparently brought up in closets haven’t ever seen it. I’m going to buy movie candy: Junior Mints and Malted Milk Balls and they’ll be popcorn.

Everything this morning is very quiet. I don’t even hear a mower. When I was a kid, my neighborhood was never quiet. Every house had multiple children so the place overflowed with kids. The little kids stayed close to home and played in the backyard. I can still see my two sisters sitting on the back steps playing with their dolls. The rest of us were nomads traveling for the sake of traveling. We had the world to explore.

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“I have never listened to anyone who criticized my taste in space travel, sideshows or gorillas. When this occurs, I pack up my dinosaurs and leave the room.”

May 9, 2015

Gracie drools when I am eating something she’d like. She often even makes bubbles which hang from her jowls. The bubbles are sometimes doubled, with the smaller on top, which I think takes talent, but why am I talking about drool is probably running through your heads. It is all because I am watching a really bad science fiction movie called Age of Tomorrow. The queen alien drools constantly while eating human captives. I figure the director thought she looked more menacing with her sharp teeth and the drool. The main general just made an Independence Day knock off speech because they are going to invade the alien home planet to save captive humans still on the menu and to kill the aliens who are bent on total human destruction. The good guys used an alien craft they captured to get our heroes to the planet. Sound familiar? Bullets don’t kill the aliens, but the army keeps shooting. A fireman is part of the rescue because his daughter is being held. He is carrying an axe. It works. The really awful movie just ended. The humans didn’t win for a change, but the main character said, with his axe in hand, “This isn’t over yet.” I pray that doesn’t mean a sequel.

I have switched to a 1950’s B&W movie called The Lost Volcano starring Johnny Sheffield better known as Boy in the Tarzan movies. It takes place in Africa, has lots of vine swinging, a pet monkey who understands English and Bomba, as Johnny is known, wears a loin cloth. The white bwana is capturing wild animals. Bomba is freeing them from their cages. Bwana’s son plays with Bomba but doesn’t believe Bomba is real. He calls him a legend like the man raised by apes.

I feel ten again watching Saturday TV especially this black and white movie. The only changes fifty plus years have made are I had coffee instead of cereal, and I sat on the couch instead of on the floor inches from the TV screen.

As for the weather report, today is chilly and cloudy. I have no plans whatsoever that take me out of the house. I do have plants to water, bird feeders to fill and a bed to make. Sounds like a full day to me.

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“I have not yet lost a feeling of wonder, and of delight, that the delicate motion should reside in all the things around us, revealing itself only to him who looks for it.”

August 2, 2014

It’s raining, and that’s the only sound I can hear now. Earlier it was the sound of the chain saw cutting down dead branches from the giant pine trees in my front yard. Now the lawn is covered in spindly dead branches. Gracie and I watched for a while. I got bored. She didn’t.

The first of my movies has arrived, actually two movies have arrived, both on a single disc. The descriptions on the covers are perfectly wonderful, so bad you have to laugh. The first, The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant, says, “One a Hillbilly Half-Wit, the Other a Psycho-Killer! They were headed for trouble.” The other movie, The Thing with Two Heads, says,”They share the same body but hate each other’s guts!” The premiers, though, will have to wait until next week as this week’s movie night is postponed due to rain.

When I was a kid, I could see the face of the man in the moon. Some nights he looked happy while other nights he looked surprised, his mouth wide open. I weighed in on the controversy and voiced my opinion that the moon was not made of cheese. I guessed maybe rocks and sand though cheese would have been more fun but less durable. I knew there were aliens somewhere on a far off planet who probably didn’t look like us, but I had no idea exactly how they looked or if they’d discreetly visited. For some reason I figured they’d have really bad taste in fashion, and that’s how we’d find them. I’m thinking checkered coats and bowler hats. They’d speak in stilted English and not understand idioms or slang. I haven’t found one yet but bad taste in fashion abounds so I’ll keep looking.

I got to grow up in an age of wonder when trips to the moon were science fiction, and computers were background props in space ships so big people stood upright, ate at a table and slept in state rooms. The porthole windows showed stars and meteoroids which never moved, special effects being what they were back then. I never minded. I had learned early on to suspend disbelief. It made movies so much more fun.

Some of my friends can’t believe the creature features I watch. They talk about the bad special effects, the B actors and the unbelievable creatures. What they don’t know is I can still see the man in the moon and my suspension of disbelief is finely honed after all these years. I know wonder can be found even in a B movie.

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“It’s okay to be crazy and scared and brave at the same time!”

May 2, 2013

The day is so beautiful that Gracie just came inside for her morning nap. It’s quite late as the cats are already well into theirs. Fern, of course, grabbed all the morning sunlight streaming through the front door so Maddie is on the afghan. Gracie hit the couch.

Last night around 11:30 I noticed the back sensor lights were on. They were keyed to Gracie when she was younger and around 25-30 pounds so a possum or skunk wouldn’t trigger them. I was curious to know if something was in the yard so I went out to check. I saw nothing, and a few minutes later the lights went out. I had to laugh when I thought about the whole thing. If I were watching me do that in one of those B science fiction movies I love, I’d be sitting on the couch saying what an idiot that character is to go outside like that. Then when a rabid wild beast or a homicidal maniac with an axe or an alien hungry for human flesh got me, the me on the couch would not be surprised. Characters who follow blood trails or weird sounds in the woods always end up dead. The lights being on could have been a tip-off, but I went out anyway. Watching those movies, I’ve always wondered why the blood on the stairs wasn’t enough of a warning to make those characters run as fast as they could in the opposite direction, not upstairs, but I really knew it was one of those suspension of disbelief moments, a necessary plot detail, as no real person would ignore the blood. Because I always get into those movies, I often yell out loud, “Run!” as if I could save the character walking upstairs to his doom. Last night, though, I found out it isn’t only in movies. Even in real life people ignore the warning signs and walk blithely into the possibility of mayhem or impending doom. After my having ventured out to the deck, I’m going to re-evaluate calling those characters idiots. Maybe I’ll use curious or even brave.

The brave woman holding the kitchen knife in her hand followed the blood trail up the stairs.

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“The stuff that dreams are made of.”

August 14, 2012

Sorry for the lateness of the hour, but I had a library board breakfast meeting this morning at 10. I actually set my alarm, a jarring way to wake to the day, so I’d have time for coffee and a paper before I left.

It is already getting hot and will reach 84˚ today, not hot for other parts of the country but it is for us, and when you add a bit of Cape humidity, the heat becomes even a bit more miserable.

Last night was movie night. We had appies first and played Phase 10, our favorite of all card games. Supper was chicken and Waldorf salads, perfect for a summer evening. The movie was Night of the Hunter, one of my all time favorites. I love all the angles of the rooms, the play with light and dark, the river and the views of the animals along the river. My friends, who had never seen it or even heard of it, liked it and thought Robert Mitchum creepy and perfectly evil. We munched lemon bars as we watched.

One Saturday matinée I saw was Over the Rainbow. It was probably sometime in the mid-50’s before movies on TV so I knew nothing about the movie. I remember being totally amazed when it went from B&W to color after Dorothy’s house crashed in Munchkin Land. I still think that whole scene is one of the prettiest in the film, and I especially love the flowers.

When I saw Aliens, it was with my friend Annie. We were both sitting there with tubs of popcorn watching Ripley and Burke walk through a lab with specimens in glass containers. One of the specimens jumped at the glass. We all jumped, but my friend Annie was even more dramatic. She jumped so much that her popcorn went flying all over the people in front and in back of us. It was pretty funny and is what I remember most about the movie.

Jaws made me jump as well. It was when Matt Hooper was diving to check out Ben Gardner’s sunken boat and Ben’s face floated out of a hole at Hooper who jumped, and I jumped right with him. The music from that film still haunts me.

I like being scared by a movie because I know nothing will happen to me; I’m perfectly safe. It is, after all, only a movie!

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“Babies have big heads and big eyes, and tiny little bodies with tiny little arms and legs. So did the aliens at Roswell! I rest my case.”

November 6, 2010

The day is still dismal and it’s colder. It rained last night, and the wind blew. My front lawn has disappeared beneath pine needles, and the deck is filled with leaves plastered by the rain. Today is not at all inviting.

The computer is back, but I can’t use it. My keyboard and mouse are wireless and useless until I can load their programs. I need a mouse to load a mouse so I’m still using my laptop, and it’s driving me crazy. I don’t know how to type. I use two fingers and am usually pretty fast but not on this keyboard. It’s too small. I keep hitting the caps lock.

Clothes are sitting and wrinkling in the dryer. My bed is disheveled and unmade. I haven’t even gotten dressed yet. I’m not even sure I will. I haven’t a speck of ambition.

Captain Midnight was the TV show which helped whet my appetite for science fiction. My memories of specific programs are hazy, but I remember his sidekick was named Mudd, and he always introduced himself as Mudd with 2 d’s. I wanted to be a member of his secret squadron, but my mother couldn’t be convinced we needed jars and jars of Ovaltine.

Early Saturday morning programs were often old science fiction serials from the movies. I followed them week after week and learned a lot from watching them. I learned that the domination of Earth was the common ambition of every alien, especially Martians, and all of them, to their detriment, underestimated mankind. A hero would rise, assume the mantle of leadership and send those aliens to perdition. Our hero would fall in love with a beautiful scientist who had a doctorate in some odd science which would prove invaluable in defeating the aliens. She would place her hand over her mouth and scream at her first encounter with the alien. She’d also run away and trip and be saved by our intrepid hero. She would be wearing a suit and heels.

I’m still waiting for my first alien encounter. My neighbor from Brazil doesn’t count.

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“I stopped reading science fiction once I saw that the UFO was real. It became science fact that just hasn’t been proven yet.”

September 21, 2010

It was an early morning appointment which put me behind, an alarm setting early morning appointment. It was a shock when I first heard the radio and saw the time. I have come to love waking up whenever and slowly making my way into the day.

On the way back from Hyannis, I took the long way home, Route 28. I noticed some buildings have disappeared since I last took that road. One was a guest house where college kids used to stay all summer. A dirt filled lot sits where the house used to stand. Friendly’s has been torn down, and an almost completed CVS will replace it. Just what we need, another CVS, a behemoth with no local personality or flavor. As I was driving, I saw so many other changes and remembered what some of the buildings used to be. Johnnie Yee’s was our favorite Chinese restaurant. It’s now a buffet place catering to tourists, a squat, gray building with no personality. Fruitland was an all purpose store with a meat counter and a great variety of groceries. It was reincarnated several times but nothing lasted. It’s now an empty building. The Gay Nineties was a perfect place to take company to eat good food and listen to great music. It was right across the street from the Barefoot Trader Gift Shop. The two buildings are still there. The Gay Nineties has been replaced by an antique store and the gift shop has become outlet stores including Bass shoes and a shirt company. My parents used to bring relatives to the Compass Lounge where the waiters and waitresses would break into song, mostly show songs. Later it became a nightclub. Now it’s a CVS.

I got tired of 28 so I took the back road through the historical district. The shoe repair shop is still there, and it was open. It reminded me of the cobbler’s shop in the town where I grew up. I never saw the cobbler standing. He was always bent over one of those metal shoes lasts working on resoling somebody’s shoe. He wore an apron. A pile of shoes stretched across and filled the counter. Pairs were tied together with a tag. The shop smelled of polish and leather.

I swear we have been invaded, and we don’t know it. The aliens are disguised as workers in CVS stores across the country. The stores all look alike, these Stepford stores, and enough will soon be build so the aliens can show their hands or suction cups or webfeet or whatever it is theses aliens have. The one thing I know is germs won’t defeat this bunch.

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