Posted tagged ‘chilly house’

“Sadness is almost never anything but a form of fatigue.”

April 30, 2016

My house was chilly this morning. Even Fern’s fur felt cold. I finally remembered my thermostat has its own mind on the weekends so I checked and found the house was 64˚. I turned the thermostat to manual and cranked up that heat to a respectable 68˚. It is blowing now, and I can already feel the difference.

The color of the sky is so lovely it almost doesn’t look real. It is as if a painter mixed his blues until he found the perfect one. The sun is bright but hasn’t yet the strength to warm the air. It is sweatshirt weather so I suppose I shouldn’t complain as winter coat weather wasn’t that long ago.

My current funk continues. I figure a really warm day, a ride in the car with the windows down and a Dunkin’ Donut butternut donut would go a long way in brightening my weekend.

I can’t remember the last time I jumped from grumpy into a funk. Usually grumpy goes away quickly because I take a ride and sometimes find something entertaining or funny or I shop and happen upon exactly what I wanted or what I needed or, even better, a surprise I never expected. I think shopping at little stores will be what I’ll do today. I’d love a surprise.

If the weather changed enough and got much warmer, I could while away the hours on the deck and that would totally upend my mood. I always think of Cinderella and the blue birds. I loved the one in the kerchief.

That blue bird reminded me nobody wears kerchiefs any more. My mother would sometimes wear one to hide the bobby pins she used to curl her hair, but even bobby pins are gone. If I needed one, my mother would rummage through her purse and almost always found one at the bottom. She also used to find pennies and tobacco. I remember each curl was held by a bobby pin. It must have taken hours to do that.

I am the only one awake. I think I’ll have another cup of coffee and maybe some toast.

“Scouting rises within you and inspires you to put forth your best.”

May 23, 2014

The house is far chillier than outside so I felt a bit silly wearing a sweatshirt in the morning warmth when I went to get the papers, but my house was only 65˚.

In the second grade I became a brownie. Lots of my friends became brownies too and we could wear our brownie uniforms to school instead of our regular uniforms if we had a troop meeting. I had the regular brownie dress and beanie, but I also had a brown purse which attached to the belt and had the brownie symbol on it. It had been a stocking stuffer one Christmas. I was proud to be a brownie but was thrilled on fly up day, the day I became a girl scout. We had prepared by learning scout songs, the pledge and everything girl scout. Our parents were invited to the ceremony. There were candles on the table and pins in rows. Candles always seem to make any ceremony a rite like in church. I remember our brownie leader made a speech and each of us was called in turn to the front where the girl scout pin was placed on our collars. After we all had received them, we stood as a group and said the girl scout pledge as scouts for the first time. Now our uniforms were green.

Jordan Marsh had a section where you could buy boy and girl scout clothes and paraphernalia. My mother and I went, and we bought my sash and my girl scout green tam. On the sash went the name of my town and our troop number as well as all the badges we earned. The Girl Scout Handbook listed what we had to do to earn those badges. I earned many. It wasn’t difficult.

Lots of us were scouts and most of us earned our ten-year pins. We were always proud to wear our uniforms. I remember wonderful overnights at the scout lodge in my town. It had a huge fireplace, and we slept on wooden cots which weren’t all that easy to put together. We ate hobo stew. We explored the woods on scavenger hunts for certain leaves and plants. We sang taps as the flag was lowered and folded.

I know a couple of scouts. I buy mint cookies from them every year. These scouts do so many different things than we had done, and they have a multitude of choices for uniforms, but they all still have sashes for their badges and they recite the Girl Scout Pledge. It seems we are connected.

“How beautifully leaves grow old. How full of light and color are their last days.”

August 25, 2013

Last  night I put on socks as my feet were cold. I even closed the window behind me in the den. The night got down to 57˚. This morning the house was only 64˚so I went outside where it was much warmer to read the papers and have my coffee. At first it was quiet with only the sounds of the birds then some neighbors went out on their deck. I call them the loud neighbors as I usually can hear them, especially when they argue, and when their language gets a bit salty. I met her once. She was smoking and wore curlers in her hair, those huge curlers. I swear she could have been someone from the mid-60’s pulled out of time to here. Her complaint was I call at night for my dog Carol too much. I told her I’d never call Carol again. They didn’t stay outside long this morning, and I’m grateful as I have just the sounds of birds again.

All the signs of the coming autumn are moving into place. The den gets darker in the late afternoon now because the sun is setting so much earlier than it was a few scant weeks ago. My autumn clematis is filled with buds and has taken over one section of the front fence. It will be glorious when the flowers bloom. The rental next to me is empty this next week. The garden centers are filled with mums and ornamental cabbage and all the other fall plants. I’ve got a hankering for a garden run.

I think this is my favorite time of the year. Even when I was a kid, I loved the autumn. My town had all different varieties of trees lining the sidewalks and in the front yards, unlike the cape with its scrub pines and oaks. Those trees were full and brilliant in the fall and were a palette of reds and yellows. It was like walking in a rainbow when I went to school. We always picked up the prettiest leaves and put them in our school books so they’d flatten. I was partial to yellow. Every fall we’d iron our favorite leaves between pieces of wax paper. It was our way of saving the beauty of the season for we knew it wouldn’t be too long before we’d be walking along the curbside kicking piles of dead, brown leaves as we walked to school.