Posted tagged ‘cloudy’
May 28, 2015
The wind is gone, replaced by still, humid air. We may have rain later today, but the clouds right now look more like your usual hanging-around clouds. I have a few errands today. Yesterday was around the house day. I fixed the cabinet door for about the fourth time, watered all the plants and scrubbed the deck table and chairs. The deck is ready should the weather be inviting.
You’d think living in Africa would have made me inured to bugs. It didn’t. I am ever sensitive to crawly things. This morning I felt something on my arm. It was a tick, now deceased. I am still grossed out. The dog has none. I check her all the time. Now I have to keep checking myself.
The spiders are active. I saw a huge one I recognized as having once starred in his own scifi movie, and I saw baby spiders starting webs on the windowsill plants. The strands go from frond to frond. I don’t hurt spiders, but I do clear out their webs. I think my house would like Miss Haversham’s in a short time if I didn’t. The other day a spider was on a jar on the counter. I took him outside and shook him loose. Faster than a speeding bullet he slid down to the deck on a strand he had just made.
When I was a kid, I loved watching bugs. At the swamp, dragonflies, darning needles to us, flitted and zig-zagged across the water. They were all sorts of colors, and I remember how their wings seemed to shine and reflect the sun. Snakes, especially garden snakes, were common. They’d be in the garden, and we’d give chase, not to hurt them but to watch them slither. I always thought that was pretty neat.
In Ghana I saw poisonous snakes for the first time. I remember my students pegging rocks into the bushes outside the classroom block. I asked why. “To kill the snake, madam.” One of my hens lost a chick a day probably to snakes. That hen quickly became dinner. I saw a boa once and once was enough.
My friend Christer’s special guy Hector, “Isn’t around anymore.” Loving and being loved by a dog is wonderfully amazing. A dog loves you no matter what. Gracie’s stubby tail wags and wags when I talk to her. She looks into my face as if she understands every word. The only problem is dogs don’t live as long as we do. I am so very sorry, Christer.
Categories: Musings
Tags: cloudy, crawly things, humidity, Miss Haversham, poisonous snakes, snakes, spiders, still day, ticks, webs
Comments: 16 Comments
May 21, 2015
Earlier, when I let Gracie out, I followed her to the deck. The air smelled sweet the way it does on a chilly spring morning. The sun was shining but soon went behind a cloud. The weatherman said maybe rain on Cape Cod today.
When I looked out the upstairs bathroom window, I noticed something red high up on a pine tree. I went outside to investigate. It appears to be a plastic bag, part of the nest of what I think is a grey squirrel. The greys don’t bother me so I don’t mind identifying them. The nest had leaves on the outside, and I could see branches sticking up. Last summer Gracie caught a baby grey which I saved, and the summer before that I watched a mother grey lie down on branches to keep her baby from feeding. I figured it was time to leave the nest day. I’m thinking that same grey might just be back for another round of motherhood.
I woke up early, early for me that is, at 7:30. I had coffee, read the papers, made my bed, got dressed and then did an errand. That’s it for me for the day. I’m thinking I’ve accomplished a lot.
When I was kid, my mother woke us for breakfast then afterwards hustled us to get dressed for school. I think school started around 8. We always left in plenty of time. There were no busses in those days so everybody walked no matter how far away they lived. Our walk wasn’t too long. It took maybe 15 or 20 minutes. One of my friends walked from the other side of town. It was probably a mile or even two. Few cars delivered kids. It was the 50’s and most were one-car families, cars which our dads drove to work. I never thought about the walk even on rainy or freezing cold days. I didn’t ever complained. That was just the way it was.
I did love the springtime when my mother would let me ride my bike to school. I’d park it in the wooden bike rack, and even though my bike wasn’t locked, it was always there at the end of the day. The bikes back then weren’t fancy. They had big tires and back pedal breaks. Mine had a basket off and a silver bell on the handlebars. It had been a Christmas present when I was around nine or ten. It was the best present I ever got.
Categories: Musings
Tags: 7:30, bed making, cloudy, cool morning, errands, grey squirrel nest, mother squirrel, newspapers and coffee, plastic bag, school, school yard, sweet smelling, walking
Comments: 16 Comments
May 16, 2015
The forecast says maybe rain today. I love it. You can’t be wrong when you say maybe. Right now, though, the clouds are few, and they don’t look like rain clouds. The sun keeps appearing and disappearing. It’s a chilly morning with a cool breeze.
Gracie and I were on the deck. The red spawn has started eating flowers from the clay pots. It had the nerve to grab a flower, scurry up a branch then sit and dine al fresco right in front of me. Now, though, I have the nozzle on the hose set to jet and I’m just waiting for the spawn.
When I was a kid, a rainy Saturday was the worst. If the rain was heavy, it meant staying inside all day, the most important day of the week for any self-respecting kid. On Saturday we had no obligations. We had no homework to finish, no church and no family dinner demanding our attendance. It was our day to do whatever we wanted except when it rained. A summer rain, though, was sometimes gentle, and we went out anyway. We figured the sun would appear and dry us. A winter rain made us chilled to the bones, and we didn’t whine about having to stay inside. On those Saturdays my dad would sometimes drive us to the matinee, more for his sake than ours. He wanted us out of the house. We were glad to oblige.
Even as a kid, I loved the sound of rain. On one vacation, in Maine, on a rainy day, I went to the car with my book, settled down in the back seat and read. The sound of the rain on the car roof was like music. The stronger the rain, the louder the music.
During the rainy season in Ghana, everywhere was music. The roof of my classroom was tin, and the sound of the rain hitting the roof was all we could hear. Teaching was impossible. My students would read, but each in turn seemed to stop, look above and listen. It didn’t matter how familiar we were with the sound; it still drew us.
The rain on thatch had a different sort of music, a crisper sound. My back courtyard was concrete, and the rain hit it with a pounding beat. The open sewers ran when it rained, and it was the sound a stream makes, a rippling sound, a burble.
On many a rainy day, I would sit on my front porch under the small tin overhang and listen. Even now I still remember the music.
Categories: Musings
Tags: chilly rain, cloudy, cool day, flower eating spawn, matinees, maybe rain, rain on thatch, rain on tin, rainy Saturday, sound of rain, Sunday obligations
Comments: 10 Comments
May 1, 2015
Okay, I’m not liking this on again off again sunny day. Today is cloudy and chilly. Supposedly warm days are coming, but I have become a weather skeptic. When I can go outside wearing a short sleeve shirt, I’ll become a believer.
This morning I dragged myself out of bed at ten, yup ten o’clock. Fern and Gracie were still with me. As my mother used to say, “You must have needed the sleep.”
We’re going to the dump today, a day later than usual. We’re also going to buy cat food and dog treats and a treat for me, my favorite sandwich.
Some days I have absolutely nothing to talk about while other days my words runneth over. Today is a nothing to talk about day. It is May Day which means baskets of flowers and it’s also International Workers’ Day, take your pick, both have merit. I’m in a flowers sort of mood hoping they’ll brush away the clouds.
When I was a kid, I felt interminably stuck inside on any sunny, spring school day. My classroom was surrounded by tall windows and looking out of them was a form of torture. I could see what I couldn’t have. There I was using my fingers to count while outside all that sun was being wasted. Even worse was when the sunlight shined on my desk. I loved recess on those sunny days but recess always had the same ending: the officious nun rang the bell, and we dutifully and quietly lined up in twos by class to go back inside. I remember running all the way home so I could play just a bit longer in the sun before my mother called me in for dinner.
I’ll abide the clouds today. It’s not as if I have a choice. I suppose I could be a Pollyanna and build a castle in the clouds, but given my mood, that’s far too much imagination for me. I’m really tired of clouds.
Categories: Musings
Tags: baskets of flowers, cat food, cloudy, dog treats, dump run, favorite sandwich, International Workers' Day, May Day, playing after school, sleeping in until ten, stuck in school, sunny days
Comments: 8 Comments
April 26, 2015
It’s cold again today. The high will be 51˚. The nights are still in the mid to high 30’s. The sun was here for a bit then the clouds came in and the sun was covered, but the day is still light.
When I was a kid, I either went to the early mass with my dad, the usher, or I walked to mass later in the morning. If it was a lucky Sunday, my aunt would be at the later mass, see me and invite me to the Stoneham Spa for a lime ricky. The spa was uptown. It was old and looked like the malt shops on TV. It had wooden booths with all sorts of names carved on the tables, faded signs on the walls highlighting some of the menu items and stools at the counter. It had been a hangout even during my mother’s high school days. I don’t remember when it closed down, but I know it was before I was in high school or we would have been there.
If I didn’t see my aunt, I’d trudge home after mass to spend the most boring day of the week in the house. We didn’t go anywhere to play or roam on Sunday because we had to be there for the big Sunday dinner. It was usually the only time in the week we had roast beef so it wasn’t all that bad being stuck in the house waiting for dinner. I’d read the comics, the only part of the paper I cared about, or watch the Sunday movie. Sometimes we’d go visit my grandparents after dinner, but mostly we just stayed around the house. On Sunday nights we went to bed earlier than usual. My mother gave us the excuse, which we never believed, that because we had been up late on Friday and Saturday nights we needed to go early to get our rest for school on Monday. We used to argue and plead but to no avail. I think my displeasure was evidenced by my feet pounding each step as I went upstairs, but I was usually wearing slippers so the noise wasn’t bad enough for my father to yell.
Sundays haven’t really changed much. They are still mostly boring. Now I read all of the papers, but I still start with comics. Old, ingrained habits seldom die. I don’t cook a big meal for myself but I like Sunday breakfast. That comes from when I’d visit my parents, and my dad always made me my Sunday breakfast. He’d cook eggs, anyway I wanted them, bacon and toast. Mostly I liked them sunny-side up. That’s what I make for myself, but he never broke the yolks. I sometimes do.
Categories: Musings
Tags: afternoon TV movie, boring Sunday, cloudy, cold, comics in the paper, early to bed, malt shop, Mass, pounding feet, roast beef, Stoneham Spa, Sunday breakfast, Sunday dinner
Comments: 12 Comments
April 23, 2015
Lately I have been a bit bored with the outside world. Nothing much is going on. I stayed around the house yesterday, chased the spawn a few times and watered my plants, the highlights of my day. I also read a while and took a nap. The weather has settled into the 50’s every day, some days cloudy, some days sunny and some days both. Today so far is a both day. I woke up to sun and now it’s cloudy.
When I was a kid, I’d go for a bike ride to while away some time. I’d ride up town and check out the lobsters swimming in the tank in the window of the fish market. I’d watch the cobbler tapping the soles of shoes with his little hammer. He always wore an apron. I’d look through the window of the bakery and wish I had some money. They made the best lemon cupcakes. I’d stop at the pet store and check out what was for sale. They never sold cats or dogs but mostly lizards, chameleons and fish. Next store was the sub shop, and I could smell the stuff of subs like the meat and condiments. Mr. Santoro, the owner, spoke English with a heavy accent, and if he made my sub, I didn’t always understand what he was saying. Sometimes I pointed.
I always rode in the same direction on my bike, toward the zoo. I don’t know why I seldom headed the other way, toward Reading. I just never did though once I did ride to Reading with some friends to my seventh grade teacher’s house. She wasn’t happy to see us but pretended she was. We all agreed on that. She was a bit of a cold fish, a description my mother would use. Her name was Mrs. Cochran, and even before the ride wasn’t a favorite of mine. She was the one who told me girls shouldn’t play basketball.
I guess I should take the hint from my younger self and go for a ride, a car ride this time as I suspect Gracie would love to join me. I’ll do back roads, and they’ll be a bit like my store windows with stuff to see. I’ll go slowly so I don’t miss anything.
Categories: Musings
Tags: bakery, bike ride, bored, car ride, cloudy, cobbler, cold fish, lemon cupcakes, lobsters, nap, pet store, reading, Santoro's, sub shop, sunny, teacher, window shopping
Comments: 10 Comments
April 21, 2015
Today is cloudy, but the day is so light the sun must be hidden behind the grey. Earlier, morning fog covered all the bushes and the lower branches of the trees. It’s warm, far warmer than I expected. Despite the clouds, I think it’s a nice day. The street cleaner rumbled by a couple of times sweeping the winter storm sand to the sides of the street. It is not a quiet truck.
My morning routine seldom differs. I wake up whenever, feed the cats, let the dog out, put the coffee on, go out and get the papers and yesterday’s mail, give Gracie her morning treats then grab a cup of coffee and settle in with the papers. I like my mornings.
No matter where I am, the mornings are different from the rest of the day. If I’m on a trip, I love to get up really early and wander the streets. I get to watch the day unfold. People sweep. Shopkeepers wear white aprons and have long-handled brooms. Africans wear colorful cloths and have hard grass brooms with no handles. They have to bend to use them. In cities, trucks stop in streets to unload goods for stores and restaurants. In one hotel my room’s window faced a side street where the trucks parked. They were my wake-up call every morning. In Santa Fe I sat on a bench and watched the Indians set up their wares while I munched on pastry and drank coffee. It was so early the square was empty of other people. At Gettysburg, I was awake before the park opened so I waited and was the first that morning to wander the battlefield. It was covered in ground fog. It was quiet as befitting a memorial.
Early mornings here on the Cape are quiet in the summer. The tourists are late risers. I sometimes go out to breakfast but most times I get coffee and take a ride. I watch quahoggers raking the river bottom while seagulls swoop and fly in circles over their heads hoping for a handout. Seagulls are always loud.
I know I’ve told you before, but I love African mornings most of all. They are filled with the smells of charcoal fires and the sounds of women pounding their mortar with pestles to make fufu. The sound is rhythmic. Everyone is up early in Ghana, even I was. I hated to miss any part of the morning.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Africa, African mornings, Cape mornings, charcoal fires, cloudy, daily routine, foggy, Gettysburg, morning air, mornings, people sweeping, quahogging, Santa Fe, trucks, warm day
Comments: 33 Comments
April 3, 2015
Last night the wind was ferocious. I went to bed early to read, but the sound of the wind grabbed my attention so many times I stopped to listen. It was easy to imagine myself in a house on a cliff overlooking the ocean while the wind whistled and howled around me. The house would be a huge old Victorian filled with dusty rooms and mystery. The French doors in my bedroom, with the prerequisite long white, billowing curtains, would face the ocean. When the doors blew open, as they usually do in mysterious houses, I’d stand on the small balcony looking out at the water while the curtains blew around me. I’d see the huge white caps pummeling the rocky shore. That was about as far as my imagination took me before I turned off the light and went to sleep. Later I was awakened by the sound of the rain.
The day is a dismal one, cloudy and damp, but it is warm, in the mid 40’s. Much of the snow disappeared with the rain except in my neighbor’s front yard. Underneath their trees a tract of snow remains. The huge plowed piles on the corner are just about gone, but my neighbor’s snow, still white, resists the warmth and the rain. I guess it is winter’s last gasp.
The morning birds are the first sounds of spring. The leaf blowers are the second. My neighbor’s deck is now being cleared of winter debris. It won’t take long. My deck, on the other hand, has leaves and branches fallen and blown from the pine trees which overhang it. Cleaning all that debris will take much longer. My backyard has some huge branches which broke off during the winter. In the no man’s land between my house and the next, a pine tree trunk has split in half. One half, leaning on the branches of other trees, will be sawed into pieces and hauled away. The other half will be left in the ground.
Good Friday has always been a no school day, but starting around the sixth grade, I had to sign up for an hour vigil at the church. I used to sneak in a book and would read the hour away. It always went fast.
Categories: Musings
Tags: broken branches, church', cloudy, dismal day, Good Friday, howling wind, Leaf blower, no school, snow disappearing, split tree trunk, spring clean-up, Victorian mansion, vigil, white caps, Wind, winter's last gasp
Comments: 10 Comments
September 26, 2014
The rain fell for most of the night, but it wasn’t nearly enough to wash away the drought. The sky is still cloudy and the day is dark though the sun is supposed to make an entrance later, hang around for a while and give tomorrow some summer warmth. I’m thinking it may be warm enough for the last movie on the deck night.
When I was a kid, I was not a girly girl. My sisters were. They played with dolls, wore dresses with pouffy slips underneath and loved hats and patent leather shoes. I didn’t. I wore skirts and blouses when I was forced to get dressed-up and had to wear them to school and church. Slacks and sometimes sweaters were my weekends and after school ensembles. I went through the wearing the cardigan backwards fashion craze. I suppose that made me a bit stylish or at least current. I remember stretch slacks with the loops on the bottoms for your feet. They were popular for a while, and I got a pair for Christmas one year. I also got a pink fuzzy sweater the same year. They too were popular. I loved that outfit and wore it until the fuzz disappeared.
I don’t get dressed up much any more. I wear nice pants and blouses or shirts when I go out. If it is somewhere special, I pull out one of my three dresses. Because my entire professional career was spent in dresses or skirts, I figure I’m entitled to wear what I want. I do make sure everything complements each other so I’m never messy or odd, just comfortable.
I think there is magic age where you can mix and match whatever you want. That black and white striped shirt is just fine with the yellow plaid capri pants, the blue ankle socks and the white sneakers with velcro. You just have to be old enough to pull it off.
Categories: Musings
Tags: backwards cardigans, cloudy, comfortable, dark, deck movie, Dresses, fuzzy sweaters, looped pants, patent rather shoes, pouffy slips, rain, skirts, sun, warm day
Comments: 8 Comments
July 20, 2014
This morning is still and overcast, white cloud overcast. The sun may appear but in its own good time. Meanwhile, I’ll enjoy the coolness of the morning. The only sound is a dog endlessly barking. It is somewhere down the street, and the bark is unfamiliar.
My eyes are a bit better. The swelling has gone down, and I can “clearly now” from the worst eye. The strangest symptoms are the bumps still in the corners below the eyes and the red underneath both eyes. I look like some science fiction writer’s vision of the raccoon from hell. The second symptom, the itchiness, is only spotty now so that too is on the mend.
A giant branch broke off one of the pine trees in the backyard. I never heard it. It must have happened last night when I was sleeping. I was surprised to see it when I did my morning survey from the deck.
Today seems like a throw back Sunday. It is so very quiet. Even the barking dog has stopped. I am reminded of Sundays when I was a kid. We never really played outside or made much noise. All the lawn work was finished on Saturday, and there were no Sunday errands. The stores were closed. Sometimes I wish we could go back to those Sundays.
The other afternoon I watched a movie new to me: The Wasp Woman made in 1959. It was wonderfully bad. The owner of a cosmetic company is visibly aging so women aren’t buying her stay youthful products. A doctor who has been experimenting with enzymes from a wasp successfully used his formula to make Guinea pigs younger. Janice Starlin, our cosmetic queen, wants to be the first human. The doctor is reluctant but agrees. Believing the process is going too slowly, Janice, our soon to be wasp, breaks into the lab and injects herself several times with the formula. Now here’s my favorite part: the doctor realizing the formula causes test subjects to become violent goes to tell Janice but gets hit by a car and falls into a coma; of course, he’d get into an accident. Telling her would ruin the plot. Janice then keeps using the serum causing her to transform into a murderous queen wasp wearing a dress and high heels. I’m thinking a dressy queen wasp beats a fly any old-time, even a talking fly.
Categories: Musings
Tags: barking dog, cloudy, cool day, itchiness, swollen eyes
Comments: 19 Comments
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