Posted tagged ‘Clouds’
October 23, 2014
The visit was spectacular. We laughed and reminisced. We ate the great food Peg brought and I had made. We went up Cape sightseeing, stopped at the Coast Guard Museum, the Old Jail and in Sandwich for lunch. The weather cooperated, and we missed rain everywhere. They left yesterday afternoon and the house got too quiet. I miss them. Gracie does too. She loved her walks with Bill.
We always easily connect. I think it is the friendship of years and the experience we shared in Ghana. The other night we listened to a song called Poop in a Hole about being a Peace Corps volunteer. The country wasn’t Ghana, but it didn’t matter. It was a universal experience we all accepted and mastered. The three of us laughed several times. I have no other close friends who would think that song funny, gross maybe, but not funny. Bill, Peg and I are experts at pooping in a hole.
Last night the rainstorm and the wind were tremendous. As I was going to bed, I saw lightning through the windows on the front door. The thunder was next. It was loud and it rumbled often. The rain was heavy and I could hear it hitting the windows and the roof. When I woke up this morning, it was sunny, but now it is cloudy again. It is warmer than I expected.
Pine needles cover my grass. They are all brown and would have fallen eventually but they were rushed by the wind. For some people on the Cape, pine needles are their front lawns. They buy and spread them mostly at seasonal homes. Crushed white sea shells too act as lawns. When I was young, there were very few lawns. Keeping them healthy and green was just too much trouble. The house I lived in had a weedy front yard so it was a lawn of sorts, the same with the back. I don’t know remember when grass reared its ugly head and having a beautiful lawn became a matter of pride. It was like importing suburbia. I do have a beautiful lawn now, but I also have a landscaper who takes care of it. I write a check and take compliments on how green and lush my lawn is: that’s my only contribution.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Clouds, good food, old friends, Peace Corps, poop in a hole, rain, rain on the roof, thunder and lightning, visits, white seashell lawns
Comments: 12 Comments
June 17, 2014
The streets were wet this morning so it rained during the night. The morning started out as cloudy, but the sun is in and out so I hope it might just end up being a pleasant afternoon.
That was one exciting soccer game last night. The US scored in just the first forty or so seconds but Ghana later tied the score. After the US broke the tie, I sat on the edge of my seat for what seemed like forever, but Ghana didn’t score. The US won 2-1.
I have only caught 4 mice in the cellar trap. The fourth was released last night. He had been in the trap about a day and was totally scared, even in a panic. It took a while before he’d leave the trap. I hope he finds some friends in his new neighborhood. I’ll bait then return the trap to the cellar later. Mice do like peanut butter.
Every time we went to the beach when I was young, I collected shells and a few dead starfish. The shells I got to keep but not the starfish. They always started to stink and out they went. Sometimes I’d find a really neat stone by the water, a flat, round stone with different shades of gray across it, and I’d save that too. Those shells and stones were my first collection.
I’ve noticed that being a kid and being older have a lot in common. I know if I wore plaids and prints or plaids and poker dots people would just think my ensemble was chosen by an old woman who has lost her fashion sense. When I was a kid, we didn’t have any fashion sense. I wore what was in the bureau drawer, and matching wasn’t taken into account. At stores like Woolworth’s or Grant’s, I always took my time choosing what to buy with my dime or quarter. My slowness probably drove the adults crazy, but I never noticed their impatience. I do notice old people in stores and how slowly they walk or push their carriages, and I’m often caught behind them. They stop in the middle of the aisle. I say excuse me so I can pass but most times they don’t move. I figure they didn’t hear me so I ask more loudly. If they don’t move, I just backtrack and change aisles. I wonder sometimes if I am looking at my future and one day I’ll be in the middle of the aisle. Kids and old people are discourteous at times. I used to think old people felt entitled because they had lasted so long. Kids just do what they can away with doing.
It occurred to me that there is a name for this phenomenon, for this similarity. First there’s childhood then second childhood with all its rights and privileges.
Categories: Musings
Tags: beaches, childhood, Clouds, collections, fashion sense, mice, mouse trap, old people, rain, second childhood, shells and stones, USA soccer
Comments: 6 Comments
November 15, 2013
No sun today and a fairly strong breeze, but the day is warm for November, in the high 50’s, and will be the same all week. One day may even reach 60˚. I’m thinking the deck with my face to the sun.
My back is screaming loudly from my over-doing. I am not a slow learner but just figure I can do what I always used to do. I can’t. Yesterday I hauled out the heavy litter. It is biodegradable pine litter which turns into sawdust when wet, and the bag was heavy. I carried it downstairs, outside to the car and then lifted it into the trunk. I also went shopping for my dinner ingredients and toted three heavy bags of groceries into the house. I left the stout in the car and thought I was being cautious. I wasn’t. I spent the whole middle of the day and the afternoon getting dinner ready. All of the dishes were ready to cook, and because I just had to put two of them into the oven and reheat the carrots, I got to spend the evening sitting with my friends rather than in the kitchen. I thought getting everything ready was a great idea. I was wrong. I never thought about all that standing while I worked.
Dinner was perfectly planned from appetizers to dessert. I, however, didn’t plan for my back, but luckily for me my friends did the clean-up. I just sat and gave directions. It sort of made me feel like the lady of the manor.
I slept little last night between Gracie’s snoring and my back aching. I didn’t even go upstairs until 2 AM. I most decidedly see a nap in my future.
I have wonderful leftovers for dinner tonight.
Categories: Musings
Tags: bad back, Clouds, dinner, grocery shopping, leftovers, perfect dinner, Snoring, toting and carrying, warm day
Comments: 13 Comments
August 18, 2013
This morning I woke up early to go to the bathroom. The bathroom window was open so I rested my arms on the small sill and looked out. It’s the same view as from this room but so much higher, a third floor view. I was in the trees. I could see movement in and around the branches, but I couldn’t see the birds. I could smell the morning air, a combination of so many things. I could smell dampness, not the sort a moist cellar brings, but the sort which comes from humidity and a wet driveway and dewy grass; the sweet aroma of flowers was strong, mixed as it was with the dampness. It seemed to circle me on all sides and come from all the gardens. The best smell of all, though, was the one only a morning brings. It was the smell of freshness in the air, the smell of a new day, of another start. I stood for a bit at the window, took it all in then went back to bed. The morning was still too new, too early. Fern and Gracie hadn’t moved. They were both still asleep in the same spots on the bed as when I’d left. I slid in between them and fell back to sleep.
Today is dark, cloudy dark, with a chance of rain, but I don’t think it’ll rain. Today will stay humid and close. Right now nothing is moving in the dense air, and it is quiet except for Gracie’s every now and then bark. She sounds so loud I keep wanting to hush her. I want the quiet I love so much.
When I was little, my dreams were enormous. I thought I could do and be anything. The worse part of growing older was learning I had limitations. Math was out of reach. Once it got too complicated for my fingers, I knew it wasn’t for me. I loved nature and bugs and snakes and all sorts of crawly things, but I didn’t want to learn about them from books. I wanted to watch them crawl and slither. I learned early, third grade, that I couldn’t hold a tune so singing was out. I had begun whittling the list of what I could do and be. Amazingly I wasn’t disappointed that some doors had closed for me because I figured there were plenty out there just waiting for me to find them, and when I did and turned the door knobs, I knew I’d find treasures. I started to like some things over others and was better at the ones I liked. I tolerated the ones I didn’t. Soon enough, I got to pick, and I chose to study English. It was the best of all choices for me. It gave me the world.
The first time I ever taught was in Ghana. I remember those first few months. I was awful. I stood in front of my students day after day, and they had no idea what I was saying. I spoke too quickly, and they couldn’t hear my English accent though they spoke English. I was having the same trouble but in reverse. Somehow, though, over time, I stumbled into teaching so that we all learned. Franciska still remembers much of what I taught her. The best thing she said was I told them the sky was their only limit. They could do and be whatever they wanted. They just had to keep reaching.
I still do that-I still keep reaching.
Categories: Musings
Tags: barking dog, Bolga Women's College Students, closeness, Clouds, cloudy dark, Dreams, flowers, freshness, Ghana, humidity, limitations, morning, opening doors, reaching, smells of the day, stillness, studying English, teaching
Comments: 22 Comments
July 2, 2013
The day is thick with an intermittent breeze. Rain is again predicted, maybe even thunder showers. The sun won’t be making an appearance until tomorrow when the weather report predicts partly cloudy. I think they could have thrown us a bone and said partly sunny instead.
I used to like to miniature golf. I admit, though, that the windmill sometimes gave me trouble even with its three openings to the hole. My ball usually hit the wall between the openings and bounced right back at me. I’d keep count, one stroke, then try again, two strokes, and hope the ball would go through and maybe even into the hole. Nope, that never happened. It usually went through but to a corner, and I’d have to move the ball a club head length away from the side so I could putt. Par was like a magic number to me. The best thing about the miniature golf course in my town was it took just a minute or two to walk to the Chinese restaurant after a strenuous 18 holes.
We used to spend the whole day at the beach, usually Sunday because Saturday was my dad’s errand and chore day. We swam, walked the beach, collected shells, ate sandy food and were never bored, not the whole day. My mother wasn’t a swimmer. She had never learned how. She used to sit on the blanket and read and keep an eye on my two sisters who never strayed far. She wasn’t worried about my brother or me as we could swim, and she could see us walking along the shore or throwing rocks into the water. I remember she’d go crazy if we stepped on the blanket with sandy feet. That meant taking everything off and shaking out the blanket. The picnic basket was always on one side to anchor the blanket and keep it from blowing. We’d eat lunch and then periodically comb the basket for a snack as the day lengthened. Usually we’d find cookies or fruit. In the late afternoon, it was time to pack everything up and trudge to the car. My dad always put a towel on the seat to keep the seat dry and the sand out of his car. He’d then have us sit on the edge of the seat while he dunked our feet in a bucket of water to get the sand off and then we’d inside the car so the next sandy feet could be cleaned. The ride home was usually a blur as I slept most of the way.
I remember lying on my pillow as I was falling asleep and feeling warm water drip out of my ear. It was the weirdest sensation.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Beach, Clouds, Miniature golf, rain, rocks, sand, shells, swiming, thick day
Comments: 11 Comments
June 2, 2013
The morning is cloudy and cooler than it’s been. Thunder showers are predicted for this evening and tomorrow, but I won’t complain. I love thunder showers, and the flowers and the grass can use the rain.
Yesterday was to be my sloth day. It wasn’t. I ended up planting flowers and herbs in some of the deck pots, and I did two loads of laundry. My back is screaming from two days of hauling and bending. Today will really be a sloth day. I’m thinking about a nap. The cats and dog are already asleep.
The Cape Times has entered its summer mode. The paper uses just about a whole page to list events, shows, musicians, speakers and farmers’ markets. I check every morning for something interesting and then plan my day. Perhaps this will be another tourist summer, something I haven’t done for a while. I’ll go up Cape this year. My last tourist season I went down Cape. It’s always fun to answer the docents who want to know where we’re all from. Usually I’m the only one who says Cape Cod.
My front garden is so awash with color I wish I were a painter. The irises are in bloom, in purples and golds. A blue flower has also bloomed. I don’t know what it is but there are two, one on each front side of the garden. They stand tall in huge clumps. The wild rose bushes have buds, and the small lilac has bloomed in light purple. A white columbine sits daintily in the back of the garden. Lilies of the valley from my mother’s house have covered the ground on each side of the driveway, and the white, fragrant flowers have bloomed on the side which gets more sun. A few baby forsythia bushes, offspring of my oldest one which was a house-warming present, need to be dup up and passed along to friends for their yard. That will give me some space for a few new flowers, for more perennials. I’m going with red.
In addition to the flowers I planted yesterday I also planted basil and rosemary. I so love the smell of fresh rosemary that I run my hand up the whole plant then breath in the wonderful aroma. When I take scissors to the garden and cut fresh herbs for my recipes, I feel like a professional chef giving a tour of my garden in front of a camera which isn’t really there but then again neither is my audience.
I need a few more herbs for the garden, and I also have to plant the thyme I’ve already bought in its deck box. Oops, a pun jumped into my head here, a really corny pun, but I won’t submit you to it. I’ll leave that to Ben.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Cape Times, Clouds, front garden, herb garden, lilacs, lilies of the valley, planting flowers, playing tourist, rain, sloth day, thyme, white columbine
Comments: 17 Comments
May 23, 2013
I wish it would rain. The day is cloudy and a dampness has given the house a bit of a chill so I’ve lowered the downstairs windows. Yesterday I did a few chores and a couple of errands. One stop was for cat food and clay flower pots at Agway. Tomorrow I’ll shop to fill the pots and also get herbs for the herb garden and the deck window boxes. Next week I’ll buy some front garden flowers. I noticed a few empty spots.
The spawns have found a new way to harass me. The tall bird feeder holder with the anti-squirrel baffle at the bottom had to be moved. The spawns were jumping from trees to get at the top of the pole where there are holders for four feeder stations, and the spawns have enjoyed dining at each one. When Skip came last week, I had him move the pole away from all the trees. Now the spawns are flying off the deck to the feeders. The problem, though, is getting off. There is no easy way so they sort of just fall unto the fence below the pole, the fence which is protecting my vegetable garden. The spawns knock over the posts and the wire gets bent down from the force of their bodies falling from so high. It has happened three times and I have fixed the fence three times. Now I have this dream of a hunter dressed in khaki, wearing a pith helmet, also khaki, sitting on my deck steps with an elephant gun in his hand just waiting for the spawns. I think I’ll have them mounted. Meanwhile, the feeders remain empty until I can figure out a solution.
The hunter’s pith helmet got me thinking about hats. When we were little kids, we had two main hats. One was for winter, a woolen hat with ear flaps and a pretty design, and the other was an Easter hat, usually a new one each year to match our dresses. The Easter hats had ribbons in blue, yellow or spring green, but it didn’t matter to me how pretty or flowery or filled with ribbons the hats were because I never liked hats. My mother, however, insisted I wear a hat when I walked to school on blustery cold winter days, but it never helped all that much to keep me warm. My head might have been fine, but my face was always freezing cold with bright red cheeks. Mittens were more essential. The Easter hat went into the closet and was pulled out only for Sundays.
I don’t wear hats any more. In the winter I sprint from the house to the car and back again when I get home. On Easter I wear one to my friends’ house: it’s a wide brim pink hat like those models during the 50’s wore. I don’t wear it to dinner when we go out though I might one year as a lark.
Maybe in my future is me as an eccentric old lady wearing a hat every place I go, even the dentist. I think I’ll start with the old faded red band hat with the plume. I’ll drop feathers everywhere I go.
Categories: Musings
Tags: bird feeders, chores, clay pots, Clouds, Easter hat, elephant gun, hats, herbs, hunter, rain, spawns of Satan, Sunday hat, winter hat
Comments: 10 Comments
March 26, 2013
The snow never materialized last night but it did sleet then rain for a short while, and the morning still bears the remnants of the storm though storm seems a bit grandiose a description for a bit of rain and sleet. Our familiar gray skies are back, but the sun has been making quick visits then disappearing to wherever it’s been going for what seems like weeks. I watched the bird feeders while my coffee was dripping, and my suet feeder had a huge guest, a flicker. I also noticed the gold finches are getting brighter. The tops of the hyacinths are appearing above their leaves, and there are several daffodil buds. I think we’re in the two steps forward and only one step back part of spring. It makes me hopeful for one really warm day when I can sit on the deck, close my eyes and fall asleep with the sun on my face.
The perfect day when I was about ten was always in the spring. It was warm and sunny but not hot. I’d wear my spring jacket, my favorite of all jackets. It had a front zipper and was pale pink. The first wearing of that jacket was a symbol back then though symbolism was lost on the young me. I just knew I loved my jacket because it was light and pink and had replaced the heavy, dark winter coats and layers we’d worn for months. Wearing it was the acknowledgment the season had finally changed and winter was passed.
On my perfect day, usually a Saturday, I’d go down the cellar and maneuver my bike out the door and up the stairs. That was never easy. The door faced a wall so the angle was all wrong. I had to lift the front wheel in the air to get the back wheel out. Once up the stairs I’d get on my bike, ride across the side lawn and down the grassy hill, a maneuver forbidden by my dad who’d yell later when he saw the tire marks. I’d always get the how many times do I have to tell you lecture, but the little ride was worth it. My dad just didn’t get how neat it was to start my adventure by going down his small hill. From there, I’d sometimes ride down the big hill on which we lived or I’d take the side street and head toward the field with the horses. I remember how bright the sun seemed and how the trees had buds and the grass was finally turning green. I’d see the colors of the spring flowers blooming above the ground. The air smelled fresh and brand new. I always took my time, not wanting to miss a single thing though I’d taken that same route so many times. I remember feeling joyful and as alive as spring as I rode through the small streets.
I have that same feeling every year on the very first warm spring day even without my bike.
Categories: Musings
Tags: bike riding, buds, Clouds, flicker, flowers, fresh air, gold finches, green lawn, hyancinths, perfect day, spring, spring jacket
Comments: 24 Comments
March 18, 2013
Monday has always been my least popular day. Because work started again, the horrific sound of the alarm jolted me from bed, disoriented me and made me bemoan my fate of five more days until the weekend. I was always tired on Mondays regardless of how much sleep I got on the weekends. I don’t work now, but I am still not fond of Mondays. The papers are thin. It seems there is never much news on a Sunday to write about on a Monday. I suffer from lethargy, not as severe as on a work day Monday but it’s still a lack of enthusiasm to do anything of substance. I keep staring at the laundry bags sitting in the hall waiting to go downstairs to be washed. This would be the perfect time for laundry elves who would leave my clothes cleaned and folded. I have to fill the bird feeders, a small task grown out of proportion by the day of the week. I’m already tired or maybe I’m just still tired.
It was sunny when I woke up, a strange phenomenon, but the world has righted itself and now it’s cloudy. A rain snow mix is expected tonight. We’ll have mostly rain, less than a half-inch. North of us will have snow.
I could do an errand today, but I won’t. I’m staying home. I’ll get it done tomorrow. Tuesdays are nothing days which have no innate negativity, no descriptions of any sort and no nicknames. Nobody says TGIT and hump day is Wednesday. Tuesday is the forgotten day unless we count monumental events like Black Tuesday or Super Tuesday. I don’t.
Yesterday I watched a baseball game. It was the Sox and the Jays. The Red Sox wore green hats and green shirts for St. Patrick’s Day. Lester pitched six great innings. I was envious of the people in the stands who were dressed in summer clothes. I hoped they were hot and sweaty. I am not above a bit of spite.
My coffee this morning was monkey poop coffee my nephew brought back from Bali.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Clouds, disorientation, elves, Laundry, lethargy, Mondays, rain, Tuesday
Comments: 18 Comments
March 16, 2013
The sun was shining earlier but has since disappeared. I don’t really care. A cloudy day seems to be the norm. Sunny days are anomalies. It is also really cold, but March on Cape Cod is seldom warm. When I went to get the papers, I stood a while at the front garden. The crocus (or croci if I use my Latin) are fully bloomed and so beautiful. The yellow even brightens a day like today.
I am amazed by how quickly the world has changed. I used to be content with a flickering black and white TV, even for cartoons. Now I have this big HD television and am even thinking of upgrading. My typewriter is in the cellar. It was a high school graduation present from my parents. I was then and still am the worst typist. Wite-Out was my friend as was that white tape you typed over to correct the errors. Now my computer makes corrections, most of the time without my help. I don’t chop onions. My food processor does that. I have three different size processors. I use the smallest one for when I need a tablespoon of something chopped. The microwave cooks dinner in minutes. I use my oven for storage. I do use it other times to bake, but the last time I did I burned a box of crackers I forgot was in there. I have a blender and an immerser. The only machine I don’t have is a can opener. I still use a hand opener. I used to sleep downstairs on the couch in the summer with the back door open. Upstairs was too hot. Then I got an air-conditioner for my bedroom and sometimes I’d stay in the cool all afternoon. Now my whole house is air-conditioned. I remember Sunday drives with all six of us crammed in the car and all the windows opened, but it was still hot and sticky. I sometimes got car sick. Who’d blame me? The car air-conditioner solved that problem. No more encyclopedias. We can just Google anything and get more answers than we imagined existed. My first transistor radio was big, but every year radios got smaller. I had a cassette recorder with me in Ghana. The last time I went I brought my iPod with I don’t know how many songs. My iPad came with me also and was my source for books and amusement. My Instamatic took pretty good pictures back in 1969, but my parents had to send me film as none could be had in Ghana, and I had to send it to them to be processed. In two years I took 290 slides. On my last visit, using my digital camera, I took over 400 pictures in three weeks.
When I was a kid, dreaming of the future, I figured by now, like the Jetsons, we’d have cars which can fly. I expected to be anywhere in the world in a short time, but it still takes 10 1/2 hours to get to Ghana. I want to be beamed, here one minute and there the next. Maybe a bit of cryonic sleep will preserve me until then, but wait! We don’t have cryonic sleep yet.
Categories: Musings
Tags: clothes, Clouds, cold, computers, digitial cameras, flying cars, future, iPads, iPods, modern machines, simple life
Comments: 24 Comments
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