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“Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.”

November 2, 2017

The days have been getting cooler, not cold yet, just cooler. The nights, though, are chilly, cold enough for an afghan. The other night my heat went on even though it is set to 65˚.  Soon, the afghan will not be enough to keep me warm.

I was out yesterday for one chore and two stops for shopping. At the first stop, I bought a Christmas present for a friend. The next one was the Italian store where I bought mortadella, fresh bread, pasta and sauce. When I got home, I was in a shopping mood and bought a few more Christmas presents on line. One bed in the guest room is filled with gifts so I have to start writing them down to see what I have and what I need. After all, it’s November all ready.

Gracie is not doing well. Her back legs are much worse. I am scared for her and for me. I hope there is something we can do as she is otherwise fine. She eats, demands treats and gives kisses. We have an appointment at the vet’s tomorrow.

I can’t watch the news anymore. The anxiety of what might be next has me watching Netflix and YouTube. This morning I’m watching Space Probe Taurus from 1965. It is awful. There they are, a crew of three men and one woman, in a space ship with several rooms and lots of space. The control room is about the size of my downstairs. So far two of the men have hit on the woman scientist who was expected to prepare dinner, well sort of dinner. Pills substituted for food. One scientist had lobster Newburg, another had fillet mignon with mashed potatoes and gravy. Right now their ship is stranded underwater on an alien planet and is surrounded by creatures the woman declared were ugly and frightening. They actually look like crabs. The crew is trying to free the ship from the water. One guy is going out in scuba gear. He is being followed by a humanoid looking creature and has no idea of the danger. I’m sitting on the edge of my seat!

My dance card is pretty empty for the next few weeks. Sundays are the only days with any entries, game nights. Last Sunday we decorated Day of the Dead sugar cookie skulls and then managed to play one of our games. The skulls were our best artistic endeavors to date. It seemed a shame to eat them, but I did.

I love my life even when I have an empty dance card.

Categories: Video
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“There are two kinds of fears: rational and irrational- or in simpler terms, fears that make sense and fears that don’t.”

September 28, 2017

Sometime during the night it rained. I slept through it. The street and the yard were still damp when I woke up late, close to ten. The air is wet, humid. The sky is gray. There is a breeze but it does little to clear the air. Today is the last day of the heat, according to the weatherman. Tonight the temperature will go down to the low 50’s.

I filled all the bird feeders this morning. The bottoms of a couple of them had mold and the seeds were in a clump. I cleaned every one. Last I checked, the bird weren’t back yet.

Huzzah! Huzzah! The first load of laundry is in the washer. A second load sits on the floor waiting its turn. I can’t remember the last time I had so much laundry. These two full loads are testaments to my sloth.

In Ghana, I had my laundry done when I lived there and when I visited. During training we found women in the nearest village to do the laundry. Everything was washed by hand in buckets. The irons were heated with charcoal. It was the same forty years later.   On my last trip, shirts were 2 cedis, about fifty cents. Pants were four, a whole dollar. I came home with clean clothes.

I do everything I can to do nothing. My house gets cleaned and my yard is kept neat, except for the back which no one sees, and my groceries get delivered right to the kitchen. If I could afford more, I’d have my laundry done while I sat and ate bonbons.

I need bread, and I could go to the dump though I’m thinking tomorrow is the better day Just because I don’t want to go today.

I don’t mind clowns or bugs. I have a black cat. Heights don’t make me dizzy, but rides which go around and around make me throw up. Stopping at the top of a Ferris wheel isn’t a problem for me. I like the view. I don’t get the fear of spiders, but scorpions are a different story. Once I had a scorpion roaming on my living room floor, and my student killed it with my sandal. She asked permission first. I said yes because scorpions bite. Sometimes I hear noises I can’t explain. They give me pause. I lower the TV and listen. Usually I don’t hear it again. If I did, I’d pass it off as an animal or a bird. That’s the easiest answer and the one which doesn’t make me afraid.

Categories: Musings
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“If I’m out of town and I’m in a situation where I have to be creative, it has to be hot dogs because that’s my comfort food.”

July 23, 2017

The song of the morning is “What a Difference a Day Makes.” We have a breeze. The humidity is much less than it has been the whole week. I have doors and windows open. The air from the window behind me is even a bit chilly. Earlier I did see a bit of blue but now the sky is gray. It is only 72˚ and the high will be just 75˚. That’s delightful, gray skies or not.

Sometimes, when I wake up, I have no idea what day of the week it is. It’s not all that important in the scheme of things, but I admit to being somewhat curious. Mostly what I did the day before is the key, but if it was a sloth day, I have to think a bit harder. It was so much easier when I worked. The days never blended together. Which day of the week made a difference then. It doesn’t anymore.

I was busy on the deck yesterday. I replaced dead with living plants in the smallest pots. I watered all the plants and filled the bird feeders. The birds seem to prefer the feeders hanging from tree limbs. I still need to get the fountain working and put the new lights on the deck rail for the spawns to eat.

I’m beginning to feel like Old Mother Hubbard. My cupboards are bare. When I open the fridge, I’m blinded by the light as the fridge is mostly empty, but I have some cheese so all is not lost.

I think the kids in my neighborhood have been kidnapped. My advice is not to pay the ransom. The quiet is wonderful. I hear only the singing birds. If this makes me a crotchety old lady, then so be it.

I really like hot dogs in toasted rolls. They are best grilled or fried though I’ll even eat them boiled. At Fenway they do both. First the dogs are boiled then fried. I’m not a fan of kraut on my dogs, but I do like chopped onions. I’m a mustard and piccalilli aficionado but relish will do. I like all sorts of mustards though yellow mustard is low on my list. When I was a kid, yellow mustard was all we had. No one ever used ketchup on a hot dog. It was for burgers, one of my all time favorite foods. I, however, am partial to mayonnaise on my burgers. I even use it with French fries.

I haven’t had seafood for a while. I’m thinking scallops or fish and chips. I have to go out later so I’m going to treat myself at Captain Frosty’s. Their onion rings are the best. I’m already salivating at the thought.

Categories: Musings
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“If anyone does not have three minutes in his life to make an omelette, then life is not worth living.”

February 26, 2017

Today is a bit cooler than yesterday, but it is sunny and bright with only a few clouds moving across the blue sky. It is a pretty day.

It was a leisurely morning. I had an extra cup of coffee and read most of the Globe. I’ll get to the Cape Times later.

I really love breakfast, especially eggs and bacon. When I go out, I get my eggs over easy and my bacon crisp. Nothing is worse than undercooked bacon. I also order rye or wheat toast, a necessity for sopping up the yoke spread on the plate. When I have nothing defrosted or planned for dinner, I always have eggs. Sometimes I make omelets with cheese and jalapeño and maybe a bit of ham if I have any. Most times, though, I cook my eggs over easy. I usually break a yolk.

When my parents and I traveled together, my father hated breakfast in most countries, England and Ireland being the exceptions. He said he didn’t want lunch for breakfast, didn’t want the cold cuts and cheeses my mother and I loved. In the Netherlands, at one hotel, they served an egg in an egg cup. My father was gleeful. He took his knife to lop off the top of the egg but the egg shell stayed intact. He tried again which was when he noticed the shell was broken. It was a hard-boiled egg. My mother and I felt bad for him. The poor man had such a look of disappointment.

I always had two eggs and two pieces of toast for breakfast in Ghana. The eggs were fried in peanut oil, groundnut oil to the Ghanaians. It added a wonderful taste to the eggs. When I came home, it took me a while to get used to the bland fried eggs.

I love deviled eggs. My mother made them for almost every barbecue. My friend Clare often makes them. I never make them myself, and I haven’t any idea why.

It is almost Cadbury egg day. The fried egg chocolate was the one I used to eat until the caramel and the chocolate eggs appeared. They are my favorites. In my Easter basket one year, my mother tucked in a small Matchbook size of the Cadbury creme egg car. It sits on the shelf in here next to the Spam car.

Okay, all this talk of eggs has made me hungry.

Categories: Musings
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“The end-of-summer winds make people restless.”

October 9, 2014

I swear it was sunny when I went outside to get the papers. Now it is cloudy and dark. The trees in the backyard look stark against the grey sky. It is cooler than it has been. I have no complaints, though, as it was 70˚ yesterday. I went about my errands with the window down. I had a list and missed nothing, even got my flu shot.

I have been restless and don’t know the reason. I go from being on-line to reading to cleaning and finally to wandering the house looking for something to do. I have polished and dusted. I have swept the kitchen then wet mopped the floor. My timing, though, is bad. My cleaning couple come today.

I don’t remember watching my mother clean the house. She did it while we were in school. I have no idea as to her routine. I just know the house was clean and the beds were made when I got home. In the late afternoon, my mother would start to work on dinner. I remember her standing by the sink peeling potatoes. It is always 16 Washington Ave in my memories. That is where I spent most of my growing up years. Here and there are memories of earlier and later places, but I can still remember every room at 16 Washington Ave. I remember looking out the picture window at the rain or the snow or the wind blowing leaves down the street. The television was in a cabinet. There were two closets downstairs almost right next to each other, and I always wondered why the builders did it that way. The first, the larger of the two, was where the coats and boots were kept. My dad would come home from work, take off and then hang up his topcoat and put his hat on the shelf. The other closet, in a nook, wasn’t as deep. The ironing board and iron were there, and my mother used to hide Christmas presents in the back. That’s all I remember about that closet.

We always said Washington Ave, never Washington Avenue. I don’t know why.

Categories: Musings
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“Listen! the wind is rising, and the air is wild with leaves, We have had our summer evenings, now for October eves!”

October 5, 2013

The Cape Times gave me a chuckle this morning. The Sox beat the Rays 12 to 2, but the headlines on the Times sports page announced Breakthrough for Sandwich who beat Falmouth in football. The Sox were relegated to the bottom of that first page.

It rained yesterday and must have rained again in the early morning as the streets were still wet when I woke up. I’m not complaining as we haven’t had rain in a while. Today will also be chillier, in the 60’s. Again, I’m not complaining. This is, after all, October.

The houses around are all decorated for fall. Corn stalks stand next to front doors, pumpkins are on steps, a few stuffed Draculas sit waiting for victims and colorful gourds fill baskets. My neighbors across the street always put out a scarecrow and some pumpkins. My front step has a basket with gourds and I have hung out my fall flag, the one with apples. This is such a pretty time of the year.

Today syfy is presenting scary monsters like the boogeyman. My sister always thought he lived under her bed. Lots of kids did. If he wasn’t under the bed, everyone knew he was hiding in the closet. The boogeyman only came out at night. Things just aren’t scary in the light of day. If I hear a noise and the dog barks, I throw caution to the wind in the daytime and throw open the front door to see what might be going on, something which made Gracie bark. At night I proceed far more slowly. I turn the outside light on and look out the windows at the top of the door. Gracie is usually right behind waiting for that door to open. She’s as curious as I am. When I open the door, we never see anything.

I remember one night when Maggie, another Boxer of mine, jumped out of bed, stood at the top of the stairs and barked her scariest, deepest bark. I jumped out of bed and turned the hall light on and was ready to go downstairs. Just as I did that, Maggie turned around and jumped on the bed. She had scared the bejesus out of me but there she was unconcerned and back to sleep. I wondered if maybe a fox or a coyote had walked by the house. I never thought about the boogeyman.

Categories: Musings
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