Posted tagged ‘cold nights’
March 22, 2014
Winter is a solitary season. I sit in my warm house with the doors shut against the cold. My neighbors and I wave as we drive pass each other going one place and another. The world goes quiet when it’s winter, and I seldom hear outside sounds except for the rain and the wind. I have more sloth days in winter than in any other season. Winter days are for flannel, sweatshirts and warm socks. Winter nights are for down comforters. I read, sometimes the whole day into the night. I like soups and stews and macaroni and cheese. An afternoon nap is a bit of bliss. I abide winter in its turn.
This time of year is the yin-yang season, the time of winter and spring. It is the most frustrating of all the seasons because it isn’t really one or the other. The calendar says spring but the weather is sometimes wintry, cold and even snowy. Two warm days lull us into thinking it is spring then a day of 23˚ throws winter right back at us. The only consolation is in the garden where the spring bulbs have become flowers bursting with color. Today will be warm. Tomorrow will be in the 20’s during the day and the teens at night.
Summer is the social season. I am out and about a couple of evenings each week and spend my days on the deck sitting under the trees, sometimes reading, sometimes just sitting. My friends and I have our movie nights and game nights. My neighbors are out in their yards mowing and raking and playing with their kids. I can hear their voices from my house. The birds are loudest in the morning when they greet the new day. I love the songs they sing. The front garden is filled with flowers of every color, and I always stop to admire it when I go to get my papers. The rain in summer seems gentler even with thunder and lightning. Sometimes I sit under my outside umbrella during a rainstorm just to hear the drops. I love summer nights with all the sounds of night birds, the flickering of fireflies in the backyard and the candlelight glowing from the glass tree hangings. Summer is just so glorious.
Fall is the magnificent season, my favorite of them all. The garden shops are filled with pumpkins and mums whose colors are a bit muted, perfect for fall, the end of the growing season. It is still warm here during the day but cools a bit during the night. In late fall, when even the days get cool, I always think they are a slow easing into winter, a warning about what’s coming. I know winter must have its turn, but I wish it wasn’t at the expense of fall.
Categories: Musings
Tags: bird song, cold, cold nights, flannels, rain, solitary season, spring, summer, sweatshirts, warm days, winter, yin yang
Comments: 18 Comments
March 4, 2014
The sun is intermittent in a cloudy sky. Right now we’re at 27˚. Last night was even colder, in the low teens, but the hope for spring is not yet lost: it may be buried in the snow but a glimmer of it survives. Supposedly Friday and Saturday will be in the 40’s, but I have become skeptical of weather predictions. This one, however, I need to believe for the sake of my psyche. I need a respite from winter. I need a day with the warm sun on my face.
This feels like the longest of winters. The snow falls, covers everything then melts so we can see the grass and the garden then it snows again. The amount of snow doesn’t matter any more. It is the mere act of snowing which has made this an intolerable winter. The 1 and 1/2 inches we got on Sunday aren’t much in the scheme of things, but it covered everything yet again. I have to terms with the cold but not with the snow.
I seem to be wearing an inside the house uniform every day. It is always my slippers with socks, flannel pants and a sweatshirt. Today I switched to my Italia sweatshirt friends brought me from Italy and my Christmas flannel pants covered in wrapped presents. The colors of the presents are bright and I needed some brightness.
All over my house are strands of lights which I plug in most nights. The kitchen has lights inside scallop shells and a swag of red pepper lights hanging from a shelf. The living room has lights in a gourd and around branches in a huge vase. The dining room has a set of lights around a shelf. The bathroom has a snowflake night light which, given my attitude toward snow, is a generous gesture. The den where I spend most of my time just has regular lamps as I need the light. In those other rooms, no lamps are lit. The strings of lights are enough. The rooms feel cozy and the lights reflect on the ceilings. Before I go to bed, I go around and pull out the plugs. It is my last nightly ritual. When Gracie and Fern, the cat, see what I’m doing, they both head to the stairs and wait there for me so we can all go upstairs to bed together.
Categories: Musings
Tags: bright colors, cloudy day, cold nights, flannel pants, lights, slippers, Snow, sweatshirt
Comments: 8 Comments
November 21, 2013
I am fine. Yesterday I even had my car serviced and then treated myself to a stop at William-Sonoma. I figured I deserved it. Had I not been tired and hungry, I’d have made a few more stops. ‘Tis the season for Christmas shopping.
The nights are cold now, snuggle into the down comforter cold, and the days aren’t much warmer. I was out filling the bird feeders this morning and my hands got cold, but I was rewarded when the birds descended en masse. The red spawn appeared a while later. I saw him from the kitchen window, and I swear he checked the back door before he decided to stay on the deck rail. I ran out, and he got caught on the deck and was running back and forth. Gracie joined in the chase. Finally the spawn leapt onto a branch, a far away branch, and went from branch to branch into my neighbor’s yard. That is the only spawn which can get at the squirrel buster feeder because it is so small and lightweight. He jumps up, grabs a seed then sits on the deck to eat it then does that over and over. He keeps the birds away. My other nemesis, the grey spawns, haven’t been around. I see them racing in the yard and on trees but not the deck.
When I was outside this morning, I could hear the birds and I could hear the tapping of my downy woodpecker. He comes often to my suet feeder. I like watching him eat as he does so with such enthusiasm.
I watered the upstairs plants this morning and was rewarded by finding my Christmas cactus in bloom. Last week it was close to blooming, but I forgot about it, all the better for today’s surprise. The cactus has both red and white flowers, and they cascade from the green stems and hang over the table. I sat on the bed for a bit just looking at that plant. It is so beautiful. I always think of a Christmas cactus as a gift from the season. It is winter’s only flower.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Bird feeder, blooming, Christmas cactus, Christmas shopping, cold nights, downy woodpecker, red and white flowers, red spawn, sunflower seeds
Comments: 6 Comments
November 14, 2013
The weather is quirky. Snow fell the other day, but today and the next few days will be in the 50’s, tolerable weather. The nights will be cold but that’s November, and that’s why I have a comforter on the bed and animals who snuggle.
The bird feeders need filling and the red spawn needs to be shot. It has defeated my squirrel buster feeder by being small. It jumps from the deck to the feeder, grabs some seed then sits on the deck rail to eat it right in full view of me. I run out to scare it away but it knows when to come back. I’m thinking some acorns, a bit of irony probably lost on the spawn, or small rocks as ammo stored upstairs. I’ll open a window and aim though the sound of the acorn hitting the deck should sent that spawn running. He knows he is targeted. Think hose and last summer.
Much to do today. My friends are coming to dinner, a very late birthday dinner. They both have their birthdays in September and mine was August, and we have yet to give each other our gifts. I have to shop so last night, to save time from today, I set out all the dishes and silverware. We’re having pork tenderloin with an herb crust, smashed potatoes baked in the oven and glazed carrots. I’ll make my Moroccan appetizer, muhammara, and put out cheese, to me the most versatile food of all.
I am a cheese lover except for gorgonzola and blue. They even smell bad to me and blue always looks as if it has been around too long to eat. Cheese is a staple in my fridge as many of my meals are just cheese with bread or crackers. Brie is a huge favorite.
Ghana has no cheese because it has no milk. Ghana has cows but no Ghanaians drink milk. When I went back to Ghana, I was forced to use evaporated milk in my instant coffee just as I did in 1969. Ghana is not a place for coffee lovers or cheese lovers for that matter. If I were in the Peace Corps there now and still lived in Bolga, I’d find the Fulanis who tend the cows, buy milk from them and make my own cheese. It isn’t difficult.
In 1969, I figured everything was just part of the experience as did most of my friends, but when we got together, food always became part of the conversation. We all mused about what we missed the most. In Accra, we’d spend money at Kingsway Department Store to buy bruni food, white people’s food, to bring home. We’d travel to Lome, Togo because you could get ice cream, pastries and yup, even cheese. Lome was a volunteer’s paradise of food. One wonderful memory is when a bunch of us from Ghana were together in the Peace Corps hostel in Lome, something that didn’t happen often. We had all bought stuff to bring home, special stuff you couldn’t find in Ghana. Well, we had a huge party for no reason except we were together, had food and loved parties. We ended up eating just about everything.
Categories: Musings
Tags: carrots, Cheese, cheese in Ghana, cold nights, dinner, food conversations, Lome, Peace Corps Ghana, pork, potatoes, red spawn, spawns of Satan, throwing acorns, Togo, warming days, weather
Comments: 16 Comments
October 26, 2013
Today is Saturday, really bad movie day. I am watching Spaceflight IC-1 made in 1965. A spaceship with families, including children, is going to a new Earth with the original name Earth 2. The ship is enormous. The kids sleep in a huge room with bunk beds and a small classroom. They fall asleep to a holograph of Ho Ho the Clown telling them a story. The crew couples have individual rooms bigger than bedrooms in some apartments. Each crew member wears a tag designating his/her responsibility, just in case anyone forgets. They have a head in a box, an electronic crew member, and a few other members of the expedition who are being kept in stasis. Right now the doctor is telling his wife the doctor she has a pancreatic infection. Her response, “Oh!” I have little hope the rest of the movie will get any better.
The nights are cold. Last night got down to the low 40’s, and the house was chilly when I woke up. I turned on the heat. I guess we’re officially into the time of year when the sun just isn’t enough anymore. I’m wearing a sweatshirt.
Back when we were kids, we’d probably have spent this week figuring out what we’d be wearing for Halloween. Because we never had store-bought costumes, we had to rummage through our imaginations and the house for something to wear. One year my sister was a ballerina and wore a tutu she had worn at her dance recital, but it wasn’t as easy for the rest of us. My mother would sometimes buy us masks, and we’d build our costumes around them, but I never really like the full-faced masks. I couldn’t see through the eyes too well, and the masks were hot and I’d get sweaty. The Lone Ranger type mask was my favorite.
I really don’t remember many of the costumes I managed to cobble together. I know I was a ghost, a cowgirl, a monster with blood on my face and a hobo with a pack. My mother made up our faces, and I do remember hobo stubble. We usually had paper trick or treat bags but when we got older we went to pillow slips. The best part of the night was getting home, grabbing a bowl and going through my haul. The apples went into the fridge. We’d trade candy and eat as much as we wanted. We’d even stay up late as we didn’t have school the next day. It was All Saint’s Day though the saints took second fiddle. I have always associated All Saint’s Day with Hershey Bars and bubble gum.
Categories: Musings
Tags: bad science fiction, candy haul, chilly days, cold nights, costumes, day off from school, fake blood, Halloween, masks, pillowslips, Spaceflight IC-1, trick or treat bags
Comments: 10 Comments
October 22, 2013
Today is the last of the warm, sunny days. Tomorrow will be cold and rainy. I have been a sloth of late so I need to motivate myself to go out and enjoy today. I’ll grab Gracie and my camera and off we’ll go.
In the winter I stay home a lot. It is, after all, usually cold which is the best reason to stay inside cozy and warm. In the summer, I am a deck denizen and love to sit and read and watch Gracie in the yard and the birds at the feeders. Right now I am just… You probably wonder if I left off a word but I didn’t. I can’t describe my mood exactly. I am not sad but I am not happy either. I am just…
I am unmotivated though I did dust strange places this morning and wet mop the kitchen floor. There was no sudden burst of energy. They were necessities. I couldn’t take it any longer. The dusting was the top of the baseboard behind the tavern table and the back of the Morris chair. The kitchen floor was filled with Gracie’s paw prints.
Grace, my student, not to be confused with Grace my dog, had her appointment at the embassy today hoping to get a visa to visit. I think she is probably done already given the time change. I called but got no answer. She is willing to come even in the cold, but Grace has no idea what cold really is. During the harmattan, especially around December, the nights are cold but only in comparison to the hot, hot days. I had a wool blanket on my bed. The mornings during the harmattan were my favorite times of the day. They felt like cool fall mornings when you knew the sun would soon enough warm the day. My students wore layers of sweaters. They complained bitterly about the cold. I relished it. It was such a strange feeling to be cold in Ghana. Well, Grace is in for a jolt. I doubt she owns enough layers for November cold. Luckily I have plenty of jackets. I don’t even know if Grace owns shoes. Sandals are all everyone wears. Shoes are unhealthy. Maybe our first stop will be a shoe store.
I am on tenterhooks waiting.
Categories: Musings
Tags: a sloth, cleaning weird places, cold mornings, cold nights, cold weather, embassy appointment, harmattan, jackets and socks, mopping the floor, nothing sort of mood, shoes or sandals, warm and sunny, wearing layers
Comments: 16 Comments
September 15, 2013
Fall weather has settled in for the duration. The days are pleasant, the nights cool, even cold. In the morning, the house is still night cold so we go outside in the sun on the deck to get warm. When I last went outside, Gracie was lying in the sun on the lounge chair.
Last week was busy for me with something every day. I drove over 400 miles. I wasn’t happy. Considering I usually drive between 20 and 40 miles a week you can understand why. I like my sloth days, and I haven’t had one in a while. This coming week four days are already booked so I’m keeping the rest of my week’s dance card empty.
My friends have already landed in Ghana and are probably at their B&B. I wished them a safe and wonderful trip through teeth gritted with envy. Their plans aren’t solidified. Bill said they’d be leaving Accra in three days for parts unknown though I know Bolga will be on the list. He said they hadn’t yet made hotel reservations anywhere. I chuckled to myself. Who makes reservations in Ghana? Up country has plenty of hotels and not a lot of tourists.
Most people I know who visit other countries do so in places with flush toilets, hot water and air conditioning. The very thought of aiming at a hole in the ground is horrifying to them. Good aim is the difference between a tourist and a traveler. I have stayed in absolutely gorgeous hotels and in some of the seediest places you can imagine. Once I stayed at a brothel. I didn’t know it was until all the knocking on doors and all the men doing the knocking. I didn’t sleep much that night. In a small hotel in Columbia, I swear you came out of the bathroom dirtier than when you went in. The hotel at the Iguazu Falls was pure luxury. It was right at the falls and had huge rooms and amazing food. There was a garden walk with parrots in the trees. There was even a casino. It was not my usual hotel. In Lomé, Togo I spent two nights at a wonderful hotel as a treat for myself before I moved over the Peace Corps Hostel. The hotel had air-conditioning and hot water and a delicious breakfast. It’s where I ate barbecued lobster on the terrace. The hostel had bunk beds.
On my first trip back to Ghana we stopped at a roadside chop bar (restaurant sort of) for fufu. I had to go the bathroom so I walked around the corner wall to the hole in the ground. My aim wasn’t as good as it used to be, but it got better the longer we traveled. By the time I left, it was perfect.
Categories: Musings
Tags: busy weeks, cold nights, cool mornings, fall days, Ghana, good aim, hole in the ground bathroom, luxury, seedy hotels, sloth days, traveler or tourist, traveling back to Bolga
Comments: 12 Comments
September 7, 2013
September is the time of year when the house in the morning is colder than outside. The nights get chilly, and it takes a long time for the sun to circle and warm the house. I’m wearing a sweatshirt and slippers, my usual cold weather garb, because the house was only 64˚ when I woke up.
Saturday used to be a busy day for me, my errand day. I’d go hither and yon then cross off each errand when it was finished then sigh when all were finished. Saturday nights were for play: for being with friends, going to a movie or going out to eat. Saturday is now a whatever day, a do whatever I choose day.
I still have my View Master and several reels: some are old and some were bought from e-bay. Some of the older ones are TV shows I used to watch like The Lone Ranger and Hopalong Cassidy. A couple are Christmas stories like The Littlest Angel. One of my favorites is of Queen Elizabeth’s coronation. I also have President Eisenhower’s inauguration which is far duller than the coronation. Of the newer reels, the ones I bought, I have two of Ghana and one of Togo. I also Time Tunnel, a program I used to watch. It starred James Darren. Every now and then I pull out that old View Master and my reels. The colors on even the older cards are still bright, and I love how the people and the buildings look 3-D. I watched NESN and the Red Sox the last few nights, and they have a new camera which makes the ballplayers look just like the people on the View Master Reels. They are in 3-D with stop action. I figure that’s what got me thinking about my View Master.
Toys were simple when I was a kid. I loved Slinky and would sit and watch it go down the stairs then I’d walk back up, let it go and sit and watch it again. I had so many board games, Sorry being the all time favorite though Go to the Head of the Class was a close second. I had pans and dishes and a Ginny doll with lots of clothes and furniture. We made up stories when we played, and we were the voices for our toys. I loved to play jacks and always got a new set in my stocking. Finger-painting was great fun. I remember how the paint would stiffen and dry on my fingers. None of my toys moved unless I moved them. Imagination was the key.
Categories: Musings
Tags: 50's toys, busy Saturday, chilly mornings, cold nights, errands, Ginny Doll, Slinky, Sorry and Go to the Head of the Class, sweatshirt and slippers, View Master, View Master reels
Comments: 14 Comments
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.
Categories: Musings
Tags: 57˚, a dog named Carol, autumn clematis, chilly house, cold nights, favorite season, garden centers, ironing leaves in wax paper, loud neighbors, mums, ornamental cabbage, palette of colors, picking up leaves, setting sun, the coming season
Comments: 19 Comments
December 18, 2012
As I was walking downstairs this morning, I could smell the Christmas tree. I smiled. I love that smell and can’t think of no better way to greet the morning. Right away I went over and turned on the tree lights. They brightened the room and chased away the clouds and the rain.
Yesterday Gracie and I went about doing a couple of errands. She got her nails trimmed, and while I waited, I bought her a few surprises for Christmas. I also stopped at a favorite bakery to get cookies to bring to the library for this week’s Christmas open house. The bakery owner, whom I see all the time, was there and asked what I was looking for. I told him about the open house and the library. He said he loved libraries and then he gave me three packages of his cookies as a gift to the library. How kind that was! How generous! I am forever thankful for the goodness in people.
I got a call from my friend Bill who had somehow managed to track down Patrick, another volunteer with whom we had served in Bolga. I had looked for Patrick for a while but never found him. Bill found a story in an Iowan newspaper about Patrick and send an e-mail last September asking if the Patrick he’d found was our Patrick, but Bill didn’t get an answer until now when Patrick called him. Pat’s memory is a bit fuzzy. He barely remembered Ghana let alone any of us. He asked Bill if there wasn’t also a gal in Bolga. I can’t remember the last time I heard anyone say gal. Bill told him I was that gal. I had to chuckle as did Bill. I have Patrick’s phone number and am aimin’ to give that galoot a call. I’ll introduce myself as a gal he knew from way back when.
I have a story I like to tell this time of year about my first Christmas in Ghana, my very first ever away from home. I was homesick and sad. My mother tried to help so she sent me a small tree, ornaments from our family tree, brick crepe paper so I could make a fireplace and a small stocking to hang. I decorated my house but it didn’t help much. Besides, the weather was all wrong. It was the harmattan, the driest time of the year with a hot, dusty wind which blew each day and covered every surface in my house with sand. The heels of my feet cracked from the dryness, and I had to walk on tiptoes until the skin hardened. The only redeeming parts of the harmattan were the nights. They were cold, put a wool blanket on the bed cold. I’d leave all my windows open so I could snuggle under my blanket. It felt a bit like winter.
The nights in Bolga were quiet. They were bright with stars which seemed to blanket the sky. I was in bed trying to fall asleep on a night close to Christmas when I heard a small boy singing. His voice carried though the night air. It was the only sound I could hear. He sand We Three Kings, every verse. His voice was beautiful. I don’t know where he was. I guessed he lived in a compound near my house, but that didn’t really matter. He gave me one of the most beautiful gifts I have ever received. He gave Christmas.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Bill, Bolga, Christmas, Christmas tree, cold nights, Ghana, harmattan, holidays, homesickness, Peace Corps, sand
Comments: 40 Comments
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