Posted tagged ‘cold’
May 13, 2017
This has been one of those mornings. Gracie has wanted out five times. She comes inside, jumps on the couch then wants down and out again. Maddie meows in a demanding way over and over. I finally reached the end of my patience and told both of them to leave me alone in a not too quiet voice. I felt silly afterward.
A nor’easter will be here tomorrow. Meanwhile we’re living with forever clouds and cold, so cold I was surprised by it on my first outside trip with Grace. I was also surprised to see the guys working on my lawn and gardens. They were spreading mulch in the gardens and reseeding Gracie’s dots. The air smells of the mulch.
The other day I watched a YouTube video about Ghana. I think I smiled all the way through it. I love the country and its amazing people. That seems to grow over time. I have been back three times and would love to go one more, an anniversary trip in 2019, fifty years since I started training, or a trip in 2021, fifty years since my Peace Corps service ended. To get there, I’ll have to scrimp. Each trip was about 6 or 7 thousand or somewhere in between the two. After last fall’s amazing trip, I’m starting with almost nothing, but that’s okay. I like a challenge.
I could go to the dump today, but I’m thinking a sloth day. I watered the plants yesterday and that was it, but I still felt a sense of accomplishment. It doesn’t take much.
I watched The Lone Ranger this morning, one from 1950. I recognized one of the actresses. She also played Penny from Sky King. I think the Lone Ranger is the second best dressed TV hero in black and white, following Paladin, quite the sharp dresser.
I remember Paladin’s business card with the knight chess piece in the middle and Have Gun Will Travel across that middle of the card and the knight. Underneath it said Wire Paladin, San Francisco. When I was young, I thought Wire was his first name. When I was older, I found out that a paladin is a knight.
The Lone Ranger and the Indian chief just ended their conversation each with one open hand raised. The chief said go in peace. Immediately Spock came to mind. The Indian’s gesture was like a live long and prosper from Spock.
Gracie and Maddie are awake. My peace has ended.
Categories: Musings
Tags: 1950, Clouds, cold, demanding pets, Ghana, Go in peace, live long and prosper, Lone Ranger, Mulch, Nor'easter, Paladin, Peace Corps, reseeding, Sky King, snappy dresser
Comments: 10 Comments
May 12, 2017
Today is a damp, chilly day. It must have rained a bit overnight as the streets were wet. The Globe reported this morning that all parts of the state are no longer in drought -condition, not a surprise given the amount of rain we’ve had. A nor’easter is due on Sunday which will bring a deluge. The sun is only a periodic visitor.
In my memory drawers, May is always a warm month. I remember riding my bike to school. I remember wearing only a light jacket. I rode under trees filled with blossoms and on petals fallen to the sidewalk. My bike flew. Spring and a bike ride brought such joy.
I have been getting up far earlier than usual, earlier than my paper delivery. I bring Gracie to the backyard and wait for her on the deck. I take in the morning while I wait. The air smells fresh, sweet. The only sounds are birds’ songs. I am glad for my sweatshirt in the early morning chill.
Gracie gets a treat when we come inside. I get coffee. I watch the news and listen for the drop of the newspapers. First is the thud from my neighbor’s paper hitting the driveway and a few seconds later my papers are delivered. They never sit long outside. My morning always starts with the papers and coffee.
I toasted an English muffin this morning and shared it with Gracie. What she didn’t know was I had hidden two of her pills in the nooks and crannies of the muffin. She scarfed the pieces down in record time. Gracie loves anything with butter and so do I.
I saw a cardinal through my window. Its red feathers stood out against the bare branches of the oak tree right by the deck making him easy to see. I need to fill the feeders. I hate that the cardinal was disappointed.
I turned off my heat, but the house got so cold last night I turned the heat back on this morning. It is still cranking hot air. I’m comfortable and warm.
Categories: Musings
Tags: bike riding, bird songs, blossoms, Butter, cardinal, cold, damp, deluge, early riser, English muffin, joy, May, rain, sunless, sweet smell, warm month
Comments: 6 Comments
May 9, 2017
Gracie woke me up around six this morning. She was panting, a sign she needed out. I put on my sweatshirt and took her out to the back yard. It was so cold I could see my own breath. My heat has gone on a few times. When I went to my early morning library board meeting, I saw people dressed in layers and wearing hats and gloves. Today is spring gone awry.
The sun was shining earlier, but now the clouds have taken over. The sky is a range of grays from dark to light. The prettiest clouds are the darkest of grays so dark as to be almost blue. No rain is predicted, just a cloudy day.
When I go back to my hometown, I pass houses where my childhood friends used to live. I remember them all. I used to envy Kathleen whose house was two houses away from school. She used to go home for lunch every day. My friend Eddie lived right across the street from the church. He also went home every day. Paula and Dennis lived close to each other about a fifteen-minute walk to school. Everyone walked. There were no busses, and very few parents drove kids to school as most families had only one car driven by dads and gone to work early, too early for school. I never gave walking to school a thought except when it rained.
My favorite lunchbox sandwich was bologna with mustard, the yellow kind of mustard. It was always a white bread sandwich. I didn’t even know bread came in a variety of tastes and colors. Friday was tuna fish sandwich day as we couldn’t eat meat. I can’t even remember the number of tuna sandwiches I ate all through elementary school, but I ate my fill. I don’t eat tuna fish anymore. I still eat bologna.
I used to love milk. It was perfect for washing down dinner and even better for dunking Oreos. I stopped drinking milk when I was in the Peace Corps as Ghana had no milk except evaporated in the can. I have milk now but only with my cereal. The best part of that is the flavor of the milk left on the bottom of the bowl after the cereal has been eaten.
Nothing much going on here. Today is a perfect day to stay home, to do nothing. My laundry finally made it upstairs, and I even put it away. That was my yesterday’s accomplishment. I’ll take what I can get and be content, maybe even a bit proud of finally getting that chore done.
Categories: Musings
Tags: bologna, Clouds, cold, dunking, familiar houses, family car, gloves, grays, hometown, Laundry, layers, lunchbox, milk, Mustard, Sandwiches, seeing breath, tuna fish, walking to school, white bread
Comments: 14 Comments
May 4, 2017
Last night was downright cold. I huddled under the afghan wearing my sweatshirt. This morning the sun is shining, even glinting, and the sky is blue. It is still chilly but is, at least, a pretty day.
My back is a bit better. I just can’t walk upright. On the evolutionary chart, I most resemble homo habilis without the hair.
Yesterday morning, Gracie wanted out around 5. Always willing to oblige, I got up and walked her to the gate. The air was filled with the morning songs of birds. What gave me pause and a smile was among the songs I could hear the gobble of turkeys from what sounded like a street away. As the other birds sang, the turkeys kept gobbling. I figure a song is a song.
Yesterday I had Frosted Flakes with a banana for dinner. I used my Animal Cracker’s bowl. I could have been six except my mother would never have allowed just cereal for dinner. It was breakfast. Dinner was meat, potatoes, and a vegetable. Lunch was soup or a sandwich or both.
My father hated breakfast in continental Europe. His complaint was the assorted cold cuts and cheeses were for lunch, not breakfast. He would usually have coffee and some sort of bread and butter and complain between mouthfuls. My mother and I enjoyed breakfast and the different sorts of cheeses and meats. In Ghana, I always had two fried eggs and two pieces of toast. Both were cooked on a small charcoal burner. The bread was leaned against the hot sides and turned so both sides browned. The eggs were fried in peanut oil. Ghanaians ate for breakfast what they had for any meal.
We affectionally called my mother the seagull. She’d eat whatever for breakfast. I can remember her standing one morning at the counter eating a sandwich of a cold but cooked hot dog with cucumber slices washed down with diet coke. If she had eggs, they were scrambled with cheese or whatever else she could scavenge in the fridge. When she visited me, I always had biscotti, a favorite of hers. She didn’t drink coffee but did use it for dipping the biscotti. I still have biscotti. The other day it was anisette.
I have some seagull in me as I am not bound by convention when it comes to meals; however, cold hot dog is out even for me.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Animal Crackers, Banana, birds, biscotti, blue sky, cold, eggs and toast, European breakfast, evolutionary chart, Frosted Flakes, homo habilis, morning songs, seagull, sunny day, turkeys
Comments: 8 Comments
May 1, 2017
My patience is exhausted so I’m putting Mother Nature on notice. Make up your mind. Is it spring or isn’t it? My heat went on for a bit this morning, and I had to add another afghan as I was cold. The gray sky has returned, and it rained earlier this morning. My dance card has a bunch of house stuff to do like the laundry. It overfloweth. I have some trash and recyclables which I need to move to the trunk. Tomorrow will be dump day, but I have to get a new sticker first. Be still my heart!
When I was a kid, I could eat hot dogs every day. The best were barbecued, but that was on the weekends when my father was home. During the week, my mother fried or boiled them. When she fried them, she’d make cuts across the dogs so both inside and outside got browned. I used yellow mustard and piccalilli. Toasted buns were the best.
During the week, my mother served some sort of meat with potatoes and vegetables. The vegetables were frequent flyers, the list of what we liked was limited. We had mashed potatoes, corn, peas, carrots or some sort of squash. Butternut was our favorite.
My mother made great brownies. They were always frosted with chocolate and sprinkled with jimmies (the Boston/New England word for chocolate sprinkles). I liked the harder, outside edges.
Bananas were my favorite fruit. They were the easiest to eat. Just peel. I also liked them on my cereal though they always sank to the bottom. My mother used to peel the apples for us because we didn’t like the peel. I didn’t mind it when I got older. She’d cut the oranges into eighths and take out the seeds. We loved watermelon but ate it only in the summer. I don’t think it was available winters. I didn’t like the seeds in grapes. We used to pick pears off the tree in the next yard. I think they were never as I remember them being hard to bits. Blueberries came in a pie and strawberries in a shortcake. Pineapples and coconut came later. I think coconut is my favorite now.
I think my laziness dictates my meals. I don’t often make dinner. Lunch is a sandwich or hummus, or something equally easy. Cereal is sometimes dinner. I’m into Frosted Flakes, and I still add bananas.
Categories: Musings
Tags: afghan, apples, bananas, blueberriees, brownies, cold, dance card, dump, fruit, heat, hot dogs, house stuff, jimmies, oranges, piccalilli, toasted buns, trash, vegetables, yellow mustard
Comments: 15 Comments
April 18, 2017
Today is cloudy and chilly. We are back to the 50’s with a high of only 51˚ and a low tonight of 36˚. I have nothing planned for today.
This has been a bad morning for Gracie. She slid on the kitchen floor and fell. I pulled her up by the halter, but she was wild and wide-eyed and it took a bit to settle her down. She panted for quite a while. She is now resting on the couch. I have moved the treads from the indoor stairs and placed them all around the kitchen floor and right in front of the dog food and water. The tiled floors in the kitchen and bathroom are tough for her with the slipping of her back feet so I’m hoping she’ll get used to the treads in both rooms.
I am now permanently sleeping on the couch. It is actually comfortable for both of us. Gracie doesn’t have to worry about the stairs, and she can sprawl at one end. The couch is good for my back, and I get to lie in bed and watch TV. The bathroom is close and so is the kitchen so my immediate needs are easily met. I do this because it is best for Gracie. That is the least I owe her for all the love she gives.
I guess all the anxiety about Gracie has taken its toll on me and left me with a malaise I can’t seem to shake. I hope today is just a bad day not the beginning of everyday.
Categories: Musings
Tags: 51˚, adjusting, cloudy, cold, couch, dog panting, Gracie, slipping
Comments: 20 Comments
March 24, 2017
Snow flurries this morning dashed my hopes for a spring-like day; instead, it’s still winter, cloudy and cold. Rain is expected later. Right now it is 37˚. The sound of big wheels woke me up this morning. The boys from down the street were out riding early, before the bus. I cursed their mother. I tried to get back to sleep, but the buzz of saws kept me awake. I cursed them too. When I got downstairs, I realized the saws were in my backyard. My landscaper and his guys were cutting down dead pine trees and lopping dead branches from other trees. Because my back gate was open, I took Gracie out front. She was quick. I was grateful.
All of my errands got finished yesterday. I expected crowds at my house clapping and dancing for me and my achievements. I have no to-do list. I do have an appointment to get my eyes checked. This is the month for doctor’s appointments for me.
I am watching 12 Days of terror, a low budget Jaws-like movie with similar plot details, like a great white shark menacing the shoreline. So far one victim was screaming as he was being pulled back and forth in the water. His dog kept barking. The swimmer had a huge bite wound and did not survive the attack. The lifeguard, who pulled the swimmer from the water, said it was a shark bite and wanted the beaches closed. The mayor didn’t agree. A state commissioner thought it was a torpedo from a u-boat. Now that’s a strange new twist. I’m watching and hoping for Quint to scratch the blackboard.
Fin and humpback whales come to Cape waters every summer. Whale watching boats out of Provincetown take tourists out to sea hoping they’ll find the whales. They are seldom disappointed. Further down cape, great white sharks are the attraction. Last summer some beaches were closed after as many as six great whites were spotted feeding on a whale carcass. Scientists agree it’s not a matter of if, but when, there will be a fatal attack on Cape Cod.
Jaws is one of my July 4th movies on the deck. It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve seen it. The shark music is all I need to hear to get the adrenalin pumping.
Categories: Musings
Tags: 12 Days of Terror, adulation, cold, dead trees, errands, Jaws, lifeguards, Quint, Shark attack, snowy, trimming trees, u-boat, whales
Comments: 8 Comments
March 23, 2017
Cold, it’s bone chilling cold! Last night I took Gracie out and she just walked around. I kept exhorting her to pee, but she preferred to sniff the ground and check out the house next door. I got so cold I couldn’t take it anymore so we went inside to the warm house. She got up on the couch and went to sleep. A couple of hours later I took her down the back stairs to the yard. I have to lead her down any stairs as she is afraid ever since her fall. I face her and go down the stairs backward holding her halter. That works just fine, and it only takes a couple of minutes. I figure that’s a small price to pay for a loving, funny member of the family who happens to be a dog.
I’m looking for adulation accompanied by a drum roll. I have finished all my inside chores. The laundry is put away, the bed has clean sheets and the litter is changed. I even went to Agway this morning for all my pet supplies. My to-do list is much smaller and only has a couple of errands left.
Mothers bend the truth. Think back to all those warnings our mothers gave us. I never swallowed gum fearful of that giant gumball forming in my stomach. A certain look could make my face freeze and going outside with a wet head could cause a cold.
Some things my mother said were downright silly. I didn’t ever think money grew on trees, and I didn’t at all believe huge potatoes could grow in my dirty ears. After she said that once, I laughed. Big mistake! I ended up in my room. She, after all, was the boss.
I don’t remember what the warning was but my sister told her grandsons they had to be potty trained by the time they turned three. They were. One was even earlier than three. My sister is following in my mother’s footsteps.
Categories: Musings
Tags: adulation, bending the truth, change the bed, chores, cold, Dog, down stairs, drum roll, gum swallowing, Laundry, litter, money growing on trees, mothers, pee outside, to do list, wet haeds
Comments: 12 Comments
March 16, 2017
Last night I was freezing though I was only outside for about 5 minutes. It was Gracie’s last trip before bed. She sniffed the air, checked out a couple of sounds and walked around outside the fence. She didn’t seem at all inclined to do her duty. I begged. She ignored me. I begged again. She sniffed the ground, but that was it, no squatting. It was the end for me. I brought her inside. We went to bed. She slept the whole night, but I got up once.
When I was a kid, my room was upstairs on the left. The bathroom was also on the left. The stairs were a quick right turn from my room. In the small hallway outside my door was the dirty clothes hamper and the linen closet recessed in the wall. When I was 10, I walked out of my room and turned right. I fell down the stairs. You’d think the sound of me falling would wake someone up. It didn’t. Either I fell quietly or my family slept like the dead. That is an important memory for me, a milestone of sorts. It was my first fall down stairs, the first of many.
Yesterday we didn’t go to the dump. It was because of the weather. The dump is generally cold, and if it is a windy day, like yesterday, the dump is as cold as Siberian steppes. The wind whips and freezes you to the bone. This morning I brought the trash to the car. I decided to bite the bullet and go despite the cold, 33˚ which will be the high today.
My front yard is still covered in branches from the huge pine tree branch which fell on the lawn. The small stones from my front parking space are on the street and in the garden. They were moved around by the plow. My back yard has several different size branches lying where they fell during this winter. One skinny pine tree breathed its last. Another leans and its future is doubtful. Winter is harsh.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Bathroom, bedroom, cold, doggy duty, dump, fallen branches, falling down stairs, Lawn, outside, small branches, Snow, stairs, Stones, stones in the road, sun, winter
Comments: 4 Comments
March 3, 2017
Winter dropped by last night to remind us not to get giddy about spring. It will have to be patient, to wait its turn. I saw daffodil buds yesterday in my garden. They are still all green but soon enough they’ll flower. I figure winter is beginning to feel rushed.
The swamp around now would still have ice as the water wasn’t very deep. The remaining ice was mostly in the back on the shaded channels which ran between trees and what we called islands. We’d go as far back as we could. In some places we’d walk on the ice and stoop under the trees while in other places we’d have to go on all fours. We explored in the summer too but then we risked getting wet as we had to jump from island to island.
When I was a kid, we were explorers. We walked or rode our bikes all over town. We had favorite places like the field where the two horses grazed, the tracks which both ended and kept going, the zoo, and the dairy farm. I never got tired of trying the catch the horses, but I’m glad I didn’t. I watched the cows.
Growing up when I did was a gift beyond measure. It meant summers of riding my bike, walking all over town or sleeping outside. We were never afraid. Our mothers had taught us to refuse anything a stranger offered so they figured we were safe enough. They were right. I don’t even remember any strangers.
The first time I went to the movie theater at night was an event. I was 10. The movie was a fund-raiser for my girl scout troop. I remember walking around wearing my uniform and feeling important. My parents bought tickets as did most of the other parents. I don’t even remember what the movie was. I just remember feeling older as if I’d just passed a milestone.
Today is cold, 34˚. It is a sunny day which belies the cold. Tonight the low will be 17˚.
Categories: Musings
Tags: cold, cows, daffodils, explorers, horses, ice, spring, stooping, strangers, Swamp, winter
Comments: 6 Comments
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