Posted tagged ‘cold’
November 24, 2013
Last night the wind blew then blew some more and whistled and shook the house. It was tremendous.
Today is bone-chillingly cold. Patches of blue dot the sky. The wind is not as strong as last night but it is still whipping the bare branches of the pines and oaks. The sun shines weakly for a while then disappears and leaves behind a bleakness, a wintry feel to the day. Outside is not at all inviting.
I have always believed Thanksgiving is more about family than any other holiday. I remember the Thanksgivings of my childhood and being home together the whole day biding our time until dinner. My mother always woke up in the wee hours of the morning to stuff the turkey then put it into the oven. The huge oval turkey pan was blue with small white dots. Sometimes the turkey was so big it just fit into the pan. I can still see my mother straining to pull the shelf out of the oven so she could baste the turkey. She always took a taste of the hard outside crust of the stuffing before she’d push the turkey back into the oven. Her stuffing tasted of sage and Bell’s Seasoning. It is still my favorite stuffing of them all. The windows were always steamed from the heat so my mother would open the back door to cool the small kitchen. While she worked on dinner, we sat in front of the TV and watched the Macy’s parade. She always put out the same snacks for the parade. There was a bowl of nuts to crack and eat, M&M’s and tangerines. I always like the tangerines because they were so easy to peel. The nuts were fun to crack.
When we were young, the menu didn’t vary much. Mashed potatoes were one of the highlights. I remember the big glob of butter my mother would put on top and how it would melt down the sides of the pile of potatoes. I always made a well in my potatoes where I’d put the gravy. I am still a huge fan of mashed potatoes. Creamed onions were on the menu because they were one of my father’s favorites. Peas were mine. The green beans came from a can because all our vegetables did. My father cut the meat with great ceremony and we all watched. He cut plenty of white meat because it was our favorite, but not my father’s. He was a leg man.
Dessert was always the same. My mother made an apple pie, a blueberry pie and a lemon meringue pie, my personal favorite. Pumpkin pie was added when we were older.
Leftovers seemed to last forever.
Categories: Musings
Tags: basting the turkey, cold, cracking nuts, creamed onion, dreary, green beans, Macy's parade, mashed potatoes, my mother, patches of blue, peas, pies, remembering Thanksgiving, tangerines, windy
Comments: 12 Comments
November 3, 2013
I woke to the sound of rain plunking on the windowsill. The day is dark with an on again, off again rain. It is much colder than yesterday, and I’d call it a wind, not a breeze, which is shaking the tree limbs.
My backyard is filled with scrub pine trees. They are far from the prettiest of trees, but they survive the salty air and the sandy soil and have become the most numerous of Cape trees. They easily sway with the strongest of winds. This time of year their needles turn brown, drop and cover lawns and backyards. Raking is futile. Gracie’s domain, the backyard, is covered in leaves and needles. I never lose track of her even on the darkest nights. Because the fallen leaves crunch under her paws, I can follow Gracie through the yard just by listening from the deck. Miss Gracie has a favorite route, and there is a path which circles the yard along the fence. I love to watch her running round and round until she is spent.
My house is so very quiet right now. It is warm and cozy. It is a day for lying on the couch under an afghan and reading. Later, I will have to drag myself out of the house to the dump as it is will be closed the next two days, and I have trash which can’t wait until Wednesday. The dump has no dress code so I can stay as I am even down to the slippers. Gracie will be thrilled for the ride to her second favorite place.
I’m thinking I might have a cold coming. My voice is raspy, and I keep clearing my throat as if that might make a difference. I may have only one symptom, but it’s a stand-out.
Categories: Musings
Tags: backyard sounds, cold, crunching leaves, dark day, dump run, path, pine needles, pine trees, rain, running round and round, windy
Comments: 8 Comments
June 14, 2013
Mother Nature seems to have forgotten we’re close to the middle of June. It is 57˚. My house is cold enough that I’m wearing socks and a sweatshirt. The sky is gray and the wind is blowing. It poured rain all night into this morning. Sun is predicted tomorrow so I’ll just have to be patient with today.
I’m late as I met friends for breakfast. We get together once a month. All of us worked at the high school together and we all retired with a few years of each other. This morning there were 11 of us.
When I was growing up, nobody I knew skied or golfed. Those were sports for people with money. Miniature golf was the closest we ever got. I did go to the private golf course in my town but only in winter with my sled or my toboggan. I never even learned to water ski despite living by the ocean. My father only had a row-boat.
Only once did I ever go snow skiing. It was in Colorado when I was visiting my sister and brother-in-law. I got off the lift easily without falling, but as I went down the hill, I started speeding so fast and out of control I got afraid and threw myself to the ground just before I ended up in the trees. It took forever for me to get up and get the skis back on my feet. One or the other ski would slide down the hill by itself. A passing skier would be kind enough to retrieve them for me. One was a little kid about nine. My descent after that was tentative at best, and I still nearly ended up in the parking lot. I had trouble stopping. My brother-in-law, a skier, asked my sister and me if we minded him skiing a bit. Nope. We loved sitting in the lodge and having hot drinks. That is still my favorite part of skiing.
Categories: Musings
Tags: breakfast, cold, Colorado, falling, hot drinks, lodge, Miniature golf, Mother Nature, out of control, rain, skiing, toboggan, Wind
Comments: 6 Comments
June 7, 2013
The morning is chilly, drab and damp. I’m wearing a sweatshirt and thinking about socks as my feet are cold. I should have known the weather would turn as soon as I took the comforter off my bed. This weather will be hanging around through the weekend so I might as well pull out the comforter and put it back on the bed. I had such high hopes when I stored it. Yesterday I got outside as far as the deck. I made my bed, my sole accomplishment of the day, and went through cooking magazines and cut out recipes. I also browsed catalogues and dog-eared a few pages which had items I’d like to buy. It was a good day.
When I was a kid, around this time in June, we’d have final exams then we’d spend the next few days cleaning out our desks and packing away the classroom. It was always the best time of the year. We could chat all we wanted, and we did no schoolwork. Learning had ended. Our last day of school was always a half day. It was the day we got our report cards. The nun would call us to her desk one by one. None of us looked at the cards until we got back to our desks where we always looked on the back first. The bottom of the back was where it said Promoted To. We didn’t care about grades or deportment. We just wanted the next number in succession. I remember running home that last day with a few papers and my report card in hand. I’d yell to my mother I got promoted. That always seemed the most important part.
My sister who is five years younger than I wasn’t all that keen on being in school. She’d ask to go to the bathroom or the cloak room then go straight out the door and walk home. My other sister, too young for school, would tell my mother, “Sheila’s coming up the hill.” My mother couldn’t drive in those days so she walked Sheila back to school with my youngest sister in tow. The next time it happened I got sent to get her. I never minded. It meant I could leave school, take a casual walk home then walk back to school with Sheila. The nuns figured out the answer to Sheila’s escapes: they sent a guard with her whenever she left the room. That put an end to her walks home and my freedom even if was a little while.
Categories: Musings
Tags: chilly morning, cold, comforter, final exams, final school days, going awol, leaving school, promotions, report cards, walking home
Comments: 22 Comments
May 26, 2013
The house was winter cold this morning. I actually turned on the heat to warm it up. 61˚ is just too uncomfortable, and I refuse to dress in layers inside the house. My cousin in New Hampshire had snow. The weather has gone topsy-turvy. My sister in Colorado had her air conditioning blowing at full force. Hope, however, springs eternal. If the weatherman is right, tomorrow will be 68˚.
Turner Classic Movies has been my go to channel all weekend. World War II has been the subject of most of the films. Yesterday seemed to be submarine day. Today I get to go back to Bataan, and I just watched John Wayne, the captain of a German freighter, being chased by a British destroyer at the start of the war. Yup, John Wayne was a German, but a good German.
I do need to go out today and I fear the roads. It may not be raining but it is cloudy and damp. I suspect people will be looking for something to do, and they need to ride up and down the main roads to find it.
It’s time to decide my theme for summer movies. Last year it was movies made in Boston. This year I’d go with B science fiction, but I don’t think those movies would get a warm welcome from some members of my audience. July 4th is, of course, reserved for Jaws and Independence Day. I am not a fan of musicals so they’re out except for West Side Story. I’ve always liked that one. Westerns are also not among my favorites though She Wore a Yellow Ribbon is one I could watch, and there’s always Blazing Saddles which makes me think of a Mel Brooks medley of movies. Young Frankenstein always makes me laugh as does The Producers. I’m thinking to put them on the marquee. I love old movies, black and white movies, but they don’t have the best sound for the projector, too low for a couple of people.
For the first film of the season, whatever it is, we’ll have the red carpet and dinner, a deck dinner from the grill. I’ll put out my movie signs and get the popcorn ready. All I need is summer.
Categories: Musings
Tags: cold, heat, John Wayne, Mel Brooks, movies on the deck, popcorn, Snow, summer movies, tourists, Turner Classic Movies
Comments: 12 Comments
May 6, 2013
The weather today is the same as it has been in days: sun, blue skies and a temperature in the 50’s. Wednesday we’ll get some much-needed rain, and I’m hoping it will pour.
Every morning when I go get the papers, I check out the front garden. It is filling up with the shoots of flowers, and I noticed some of the flowers I planted last year have spread, and in the garden close to the house, some have already bloomed. It is still too early to plant as the evenings get cold, but that will give the flowers time to fill in so I’ll know if I have any space for new plants. I love shopping for plants. I do need to shop for herbs to plant in the side garden and for vegetables to plant in the garden below the deck. Last year I had tomatoes, cucumbers and beans. I never thought I’d become such a gardener.
Today is a lazy day. I could go get my new dump sticker, but that can wait as the dump isn’t open on Mondays and Tuesdays. I am going to do a peapod order later so maybe that will count as grocery shopping. The end of my book is close, under a 100 pages, so this afternoon I will get comfy on the couch and finish it. I could do some house cleaning stuff, but I won’t.
The Amazing Race ended last night, and I was happy with the results. Three teams were left for the final hour. There was only one team, a newly married couple, I hoped wouldn’t win, and they didn’t. They came in second, and I suspect the results stuck in the guy’s craw for a long time. Usually we don’t know when the race took place, but this one was in December as we saw Christmas trees and lights in some of the cities. They went to amazing places on this race, as promised by the title, including Botswana, a country on my list.
I am not a fan of reality television except for the Race. I could care less who dances or sings the best or who gets a rose or even why a rose is given. I won’t watch people make fools of themselves, and I don’t care who survives. All of these programs got me thinking about the movie Running Man. I wonder how close we’ll get to that reality or even how close we already are.
Categories: Musings
Tags: cold, flowers, garden, herbs, lazy day, reality programs, Running Man, The Amazing Race, TV
Comments: 18 Comments
April 6, 2013
My house was cold when I woke up this morning. I needed socks. Without warm feet, I’m doomed to feel chilly even in slippers. I felt a bit of a nip in the air when I went to get the papers. Gracie was quickly out and quickly back inside. She and the two cats are having their morning naps. After all, they have been up all of three hours.
I wonder who first decided toast was for breakfast. I toast sandwich bread too but mostly I don’t, except for BLT bread which demands to be toasted. I always toast my bread for breakfast so a toaster is a must in my kitchen. Was toast happenstance or a brilliant idea? That’s one of the mysteries of life. I hate crooked pictures. Why go to all the trouble of locating the right spot, finding a nail, hammering it onto the wall and then hanging a picture you totally forget about? Pictures by their very shape need to be straight. I don’t mind an unmade bed. I like a made bed better, but I’m okay if it’s unmade. I think that’s because I don’t go upstairs enough to be bothered by it. Sometimes clothes sit in my dryer for a few days or even a week until I do laundry again. Folding it and then bringing the laundry up two flights is one of my least favorite chores. The laundry rush used to happen when I ran out of clean underwear, but that’s no longer the case. I bought plenty for my trip to Ghana so the laundry can sit in the dryer for a while. I don’t care about wrinkles. No where I go has a sign which says shoes, shorts and no wrinkles. Dirty dishes in the sink drive me crazy. I wash them by hand every day as I don’t have near enough for the dishwasher, and I want my favorite coffee cup every morning. I hate bad grammar being spoken on a TV series. It perpetuates the downfall of the English language. I care, but other people don’t. I get the line,”You understood it, didn’t you? That drives me crazy. If a song is sung off-tune, I can still hear it. Is that enough?
I have to go out today. Gracie and I have a few errands, but I’ll have to wait until later this afternoon. I’d hate to disturb her nap-time.
Categories: Musings
Tags: bad grammar, clean underwear, cold, crooked pictures, faavorite coffee cup, Laundry, nip in the air, off-key singing, Toast, unmade beds
Comments: 22 Comments
April 4, 2013
The sun is shining but it is not warm, a bit of a deception I think. The sky is deep blue and beautiful. Lots of birds are taking advantage of the free food at the feeders. There is even a waiting line.
Hunky dory was part of an answer in the crossword puzzle today. It got me thinking. I don’t remember the last time I even heard anyone say hunky dory which is too bad as it has a great sound when said out loud, and it is one of those phrases which defies description. It’s a context guess but a tough one. Answer everything is hunky dory and tone alone would have to give the clue.
I do the crossword puzzle every day, and I’m noticing that many of the answers seem too easy. Most of these are historical, but for me, they’re like yesterday as I lived through them. I can imagine a twenty or thirty someone sitting and mulling. In my day, they’d chew on the eraser and mull. Now, I guess they sit at the keyboard. I can’t believe that sitting at the keyboard gives the same sort of help that chewing an eraser did. I was able to fill in every square, and I also did the cryptogram in a short time this morning. I felt smart.
Rhetorical questions were the bane of my childhood. “What do you think you’re doing?” sounds like a legitimate question but giving an answer was talking back. It took me a while to sort that out. “Who do you think you are?” was another one of those questions to avoid. It was usually asked when I’d already done something wrong, something above my station. My mother was a master at the rhetorical question. As soon as she asked, “And who do you think is cleaning that up?” I headed to get the whisk broom and the dust pan.
My mother was also the queen of quilt. She got us every time. When she’d ask us to do something and we’d say in a minute, my mother went into her theatrics. “Never mind. I’ll do it myself,” she’d say oozing with self-pity and disappointment. We’d scurry to get done what she wanted. Sometimes, though, she’d add to the guilt by saying, “Too late. I’ll do it myself.” That was a heavy burden to carry, and she knew it. My mother was a master at her art.
Categories: Musings
Tags: cold, dust pan, guilt, hunky dory, mothers, pencils, rhetorical question, sunny day, theatrics, whisk broom
Comments: 15 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
March 15, 2013
This morning is winter. When I left for breakfast at 9 o’clock, it was 27˚. I saw people wearing winter coats, hats and gloves while walking their dogs, also sporting coats. While I was eating, the temperature rose to 32˚, but that cold didn’t stop me from being hopeful. I still believe that spring is taking hold. The front garden is filled with blooming crocus, and the birds are singing and greeting the morning. The sound is joyful.
The other day I bought a small pot of pansies for the kitchen. The flowers are yellow, my favorite color this time of year, the color of the sun. The daffodils I bought have finally bloomed and they too are a bright yellow. The sun is shining today, and the sky is blue. I am content despite the cold.
Today I have a few errands so I’ll go out in the afternoon. I’m sure Gracie will be glad for the ride. I try to take her all the time now because when summer comes, Gracie stays home except when we go to the dump where I can keep the car and the air conditioning running between stops. The heat is otherwise too much for Miss Gracie.
When I was a kid, I had three pairs of shoes: well, two pairs of shoes and a pair of sneakers. One pair of shoes was for school every day and church on Sunday. The other pair was for playing. That pair started out as school shoes then got worn and eventually demoted to play shoes. I wore those mostly in the winter or on cold days. In the summer I always wore sneakers. Nobody wore sandals back then except little kids. My sisters had white sandals with straps. My sneakers were red or blue when I was little. When I was older, they were white. We all wore white sneakers, mostly Keds, which narrowed at the toes. We kept them as white as possible. Sometimes we even used white shoe polish to cover marks. That had its disadvantages as the polish would seep to our socks and through to our feet, but that didn’t matter. White sneakers were a point of pride.
For my eighth grade trip, my mother bought me new clothes: a pair of sneakers, a blouse and clam diggers. I don’t know if that was a purely regional name. They were also called pedal pushers, and they looked a lot like Capri pants, the Mary Tyler Moore type, but to us they were clam diggers. It was the perfect name. Not many clothes boast a name which fits their function. If you wore those pants while clamming, they’d stay dry and out of the mud. We never did, but we could have.
Categories: Musings
Tags: clam diggers, cold, dafs, dump, heat, pansies, school shoes, shoes, singing birds, sneakers, spring, white sneakers, winter, yellow flowers
Comments: 11 Comments
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