Posted tagged ‘errands’
October 24, 2016
I was snuggled under the covers, and Gracie was right beside me with her head on the other pillow. She is my thermometer so I knew the house was cold, but I got out of bed anyway. The temperature was down to 63˚. I turned on the heat for a bit. I also put on socks and a sweatshirt. This is the time of year when the house is colder than outside. Last night it rained. I heard the drops before I fell asleep, but the morning was sunny. The day is rather pretty.
We have a couple of errands today. The most important is for dog food. Gracie seems to expect to eat every day, and I always oblige. When she’s ready for dinner, she sits in front of me and stares. Sometimes she is hungry early and other times much later. I used to keep her to the clock, but I realized I eat when I’m hungry and so should she.
When I got home from Ghana, I was really worried about Fern. She seemed so delicate. I could feel her bones when I patted her, and she didn’t have much energy. Lu, my house and pet sitter, said Fern didn’t eat much. I knew she had gotten her medicine as another pet sitter came by every night to give it to her, but usually she is quite the eater. I started giving her treats, lots of treats, and I bought several cans of her favorite food. Fern has bounced back. She demands treats and eats her canned food. Yesterday she wouldn’t let Gracie go by her. She just sat in front of Gracie immobile and threatening. Gracie went the other way. That’s my Fern.
I’m thinking I need to do a bit of baking. Apples and pumpkins are two stars of this season. Time to go through my recipes.
I have been avoiding it, shutting down the deck. It seems like giving up, giving in to the change of season, admitting winter has its toe inside the door. Turning on the heat this morning was another admission that summer is really over and fall is starting to pack.
Categories: Musings
Tags: 63˚, apples, canned cat food, cold house, errands, feisty, medicine, pumpkins, rain, sick cat, socks, sunshine, sweatshirt, thermometer, treats
Comments: 11 Comments
September 18, 2016
2 days to go!
Yesterday I got some errands done and had game night with my friends. We also watched two awful science fiction movies. My house/pet sitter came by to learn what she needed to do. It will be easy as she has stayed here before, and her son and daughter-in-law have been cleaning my house for ten or eleven years. Today Fern’s visiting nurse comes by to learn what meds Fern has to have. She is actually a pet sitter, but I like to think of her as Fern’s personal home nurse.
Yesterday I got some errands done and had game night with my friends. We also watched two awful science fiction movies. My house/pet sitter came by to learn what she needed to do. It will be easy as she has stayed here before, and her son and daughter-in-law have been cleaning my house for ten or eleven years. Today Fern’s visiting nurse comes by to learn what meds Fern has to have. She is actually a pet sitter, but I like to think of her as Fern’s personal home nurse.
Rain is definitely coming. The day is getting more humid. The breeze is intermittent but strong. I can hear the rustle of the leaves and the chiming of the bells every time it blows. It is a north wind.
I have to go to Stop and Shop today to pick up a few things. Before I go, I’ll have to remind myself to practice patience. People don’t take kindly to having their carts pushed out of the way even if they are parked in the middle. The slowest of all shoppers who walk down the middle of the aisle drive me to distraction, but I will curb my tongue and clench my jaw and say nothing though every fiber of my being wants me to yell, “Move it.”
Suitcases are upstairs, a few shirts are folded and some toiletries are on the bureau. It looks like a trip is in the offing!
Categories: Musings
Tags: carts, errands, game night, housesitter, humid, leaves blowing, pet sitter, rain, Science fiction, Stop and Shop
Comments: 16 Comments
September 17, 2016
3 days and counting!
The perfect weather continues. It is as if Mother Nature is apologizing for all that heat in August. The days are warm and the nights cool, even cold. If I were given the power to control the weather, I would first make it rain then I would create days just like today.
All over my table are sticky notes. Some are related to my trip like a list of passwords and a list of things to pack I might not remember like the travel toilet paper, an essential in Ghana, another is new TV programs I want to DVR while I’m gone. The list of stuff I need at Stop and Shop keeps getting bigger. Today I added a small notepad and AA batteries.
Yesterday I set a new record at Agway. I bought everything the cats and Gracie need while I’m gone. I spent $223.00. A brass band accompanied me to the car. The band major twirled his baton as I filled the trunk. Most of the stuff is still there. Leandro, one-half of my cleaning couple, is coming today with his mother Lu, my pet and house sitter. Lee is always quite happy to bring the heavy stuff into the house. I, however, had to drag the heavy dry dog food, a can of dog food, three cans of cat food and a bag of treats into the house this morning. My back is moaning quite loudly.
The street is quiet this morning for a Saturday. I wonder where all the kids are.
Learning new things is fun for me. I have this weird memory which holds on to facts and information seldom needed. That makes me good at trivia. Once I was quite able to remember Ernie the Keebler Elf and Thimble Theater, where Popeye first appeared. My team accepted Ernie but not Popeye. I forget which character they chose, but they were wrong. Coming up with Popeye is what I mean by a weird memory.
My sister is getting tired of me talking about Ghana. She doesn’t get it, how important the country is to me. I have all these memories rushing to the front from the back drawers of my memory cabinet. I’m almost gushing.
Well, according to my list, I have much to do. I need to be off and loping, not running-I am passed that.
Categories: Musings
Tags: animal food, errands, memory, Mother Nature, perfect weather, Popeye, school, sticky notes, Trivia, warm day
Comments: 11 Comments
August 29, 2016
This morning I was forced to go to Dunkin’ Donuts. I had no coffee and no cream so Gracie and I jumped into the car and drove off for my morning elixir. When we got there, the outside line was long, but I had no choice. I hadn’t bothered to get dressed or even brush my teeth. Gracie didn’t mind the wait. She just poked her head out the window and took in the neighborhood and its smells. I listened to the radio. The line went faster than I thought it would. I was happy.
Today is already hot and humid so I am back in my fortress having shut the windows and doors and turned on the air conditioning. There are clouds but they do nothing except to obscure the sun. Rain is not in the forecast for the next couple of days. The weekend, though, will be lovely with daytime temperatures in the low 70’s and nights in the mid 60’s. It is the Labor Day weekend, the traditional last hurrah of the summer.
My sister started work today. She is a pre-school teacher in Colorado. When I spoke to her last night, she was going to take a shower so she could get to bed early. I remember my mother sending us to bed early and reminding us we had school the next day. I also remember moaning and groaning and dragging my feet upstairs.
When I was a kid, I never kept track of the weekdays. I only knew when it was Saturday or Sunday. On Saturday my father was home. He did errands uptown and mowed the lawn. On Saturday nights he often barbecued. Sometimes we went to the beach all day Saturday or the drive-in on Saturday nights. Sunday had the only consistently distinguishing event, going to mass which also meant a change in wardrobe from shorts and a sleeveless shirt to a dress or a skirt and a blouse. After mass, the day was back to casual. We didn’t have Sunday dinners during the summer. It was more of a catch as catch can. Mostly it was sandwiches.
I think my favorite weekends were in Ghana, especially the Sundays. There was a service in the dining hall where the furniture had been reconfigured to look more like the inside of a church. The students wore their Sunday clothes. Each of the four classes had a different fabric for their traditional three piece dresses, their Sunday best. They wore a top, a skirt to their ankles and a cloth wrapped around at the waist. After the service, the older students could go to town. Visitors were allowed. A photographer wandered around taking pictures, always in black and white. I have a few of the pictures given to me as gifts. When I went to town, I could see the students walking in groups and stopping at kiosks to buy personal items like powder. Others went to the market to load up on snacks to keep in their school trunks, especially gari, made from cassava and easily stored.
Being retired, my days tend to run together. I sometimes have to check the paper to see what day of the week it is. My chores and errands aren’t confined to a single day. I don’t ever have to go to bed early.
Categories: Musings
Tags: air-conditioning, Beach, Clouds, coffee, cream, dunkin-donuts, early to bed, errands, fortress, Ghana, hot, Labor Day, long line, Mass, no coffee, Peace Corps, Sandwiches, Saturday, school day, Sunday, wardrobe change
Comments: 11 Comments
August 25, 2016
Yesterday was perfection. It was sunny, cool and dry. Today is August weather, humid and hot. The sun comes and goes. It hides behind the clouds, but the clouds have no rain. They just obscure the sun. The weather report says maybe tomorrow for the rain. I am skeptical.
Yesterday I went to Hyannis. I couldn’t believe the bumper to bumper traffic heading to Main Street. Why weren’t those people on the beach?
I actually got a few things done yesterday. I had a doctor’s appointment, got my hair cut, changed the bed and watered the plants. That’s the most I’ve done in a single day for a long while. It was all because I had read an article which said that you should have only five or fewer things on your to-do list. You prioritize the items, start from the top and what you don’t finish goes on the list the next day and you only add an item if you have fewer than the five. Having this list requires you to single task, to focus. The whole story is here: https://getpocket.com/a/read/1389934087
It is time to Peapod. The larder is empty. I don’t think I can have eggs one more night even with bacon.
I am so very late today as I made my bed, did an errand, called and spoke to my sister as it is her birthday, tried to fix a couple of lamps and started my laundry. Lee, one half of my cleaning couple, came and he fixed both lamps for me as I couldn’t. Come to find out I can fix a split infinitive or a dangling participle but not a lamp.
Categories: Musings
Tags: chores, cloudy, errands, fix it, hair cut, hot, humid, Hyannis, late, prioritize items, sunny, to do list, traffic
Comments: 4 Comments
August 12, 2016
I didn’t leave the house yesterday except to water the plants on the deck. That has become a daily chore. The plants dry and wilt from the sun and the heat so I feel guilty unless I water them. I do have to go out today, but I figure the traffic will be light. Tourists will be wherever they can feel cool, and I doubt in cars and on the road won’t be their choices. The weather report has the possibility of rain here today and tomorrow. I don’t believe it.
Before I had AC in the house, I used to go to a matinee and sit in the air conditioning to watch a movie. It was a wonderful way to spend an afternoon.
In the paper today was an article about Massachusetts investigating the possibility of changing time zones from Eastern Standard Time to Atlantic Standard Time. People are dreading winter when the sun sets at 4 o’clock, and it sometimes starts to get dark at 3. We already fall back and spring ahead so changing wouldn’t be all that unfamiliar. The only drawback was being on a different time than New York and Washington. Someone suggested Massachusetts Savings Time but that seems a bit ego-centric.
I’m not doing much in the heat, but there isn’t really a whole lot to do. I have a couple of cabinets needing to be organized, but cabinet organization is really far too deep on my list to consider. It seems more like a winter chore.
When I worked, my life was far more departmentalized. My daily stuff mostly revolved around work. I got up at 5 or 5:15, watched the early news as my papers weren’t delivered yet and had two cups of coffee. I left for work around 6:20, arrived by 6:30 and then organized my day. I got home around 4. I read the papers and my mail, made dinner, showered and went to bed no later than 10. Monday to Friday never really varied.
The weekends were for cleaning the house, doing the laundry and going to the dump. Friday and Saturday nights were empty dance cards waiting to be filled.
Now, despite having all the time in the world, I run out of time. My lists seldom get finished so I move the undone items to the next day. I do the same thing every day so I always have a never ending list, but I have learned not to care. It took some time but I’m now quite comfortable with lazy days, with being a sloth and with unfinished lists.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Atlantic Standard Time, chasing time zones, chores, departmentalized, dry and hot, dump run, errands, fall back, Laundry, lazy days, plans, possibility of rain, run out to time, sloth, spring ahead, watering plants, work
Comments: 8 Comments
July 26, 2016
I’m close to screaming in frustration. Today will be hot yet again. That the humidity will be less is small consolation. I have the AC off for a while, but the temperature in the house has risen three degrees already so soon enough I’ll be stuck behind closed doors and windows. I did finish one of my errands yesterday, but that still leaves one more for today.
The kitchen in the house where I lived the longest was tiny. When the oven was lit, the kitchen quickly got hot and stayed that way long after dinner was finished. My mother, during the summer, cooked on the stove top. She made stuff like pasta, hamburgers, fried dough and even hot dogs. She never grilled. Her dinner sides were sometimes potato salad or pasta salad. She never made a green salad. Dessert was always a maybe dependent on what was in the house. It could have been cookies, Oreos of course, or ice cream or a popsicle. My favorite popsicle was root beer followed by a close second, cherry. If neither was available, an orange would do just fine.
Some people I know don’t ever eat leftovers. I don’t get that. Some food tastes better the next day. My chili is always best the day after I make it so I usually make it the day before I need it. That way any fat gets skimmed. I like leftover pasta. Add fresh garlic bread, some cheese and you have a perfect meal.
Winter has comfort food. It keeps us warm and brings back memories. Summer has hot dogs and hamburgers best cooked on a grill. You have to toast the buns.
My mother used to make piccalilli every fall when there were green tomatoes. She made New England style piccalilli with those green tomatoes, red peppers, onions, brown sugar, cider vinegar and some spices like mustard powder and a few others I don’t remember. She’d give us all a couple of jars. I’d use it sparingly so it would last longer. I swear a hot dog with my mother’s piccalilli was perfection in a bun.
Categories: Musings
Tags: AC, Air conditioner, cherry, comfort food, errands, hamburgers, hot, hot dogs, hot kitchen, ice cream, leftovers, oreos, oven, pasta, popsicle, Potato salad, root beer, stove top
Comments: 14 Comments
March 7, 2016
This morning was hopeful. I saw my first crocus in the front garden. It is bright yellow and is the only color I can see. The sun was shining when I woke up. The birds were in and out of the feeders. The coffee was delicious. Now, a mere three hours later, it is cold and dreary. I don’t know where the sun went, but it disappeared quickly. The crocus is closed. The world is back to being grey and dreary.
I spend two hours with my neighbor. We chatted about foods, relatives, weather and the verb doesn’t. She seems to prefer don’t as in he don’t. I told her I’d start charging her money for all the times she uses the wrong verb. My grandmother and my father used don’t all the time and they were born in this country. I might be fighting a losing battle.
Gracie and I are going out later. She is out of canned food, and I am out of bread, two essentials for our lives. Lately I have been into naan. Gracie has been into whatever I feed her.
When I was a kid, our boxer, Duke, ate two cans of food every day. Back then it was horse meat. It smelled gross. I hated when it was my turn to feed Duke. I’d turn my head away as I was spooning his dinner into his dog bowl. Duke loved his dinner.
My electric can opener is among the missing. I moved it from the counter and now I can’t find it. I am back to using the old silver can opener where you turn the wheel around the cover. It works great except on the larger cans. With some cans I use a churchkey mostly when something to be poured is in the can. I also keep a churchkey in my car. It is one of those things you need when you don’t have it.
Every time I travel I take my Swiss Army knife. It has every possible gadget I might need on my journey. It used to be with me but now it travels as cargo being a weapon and all. I’ve have it forty-seven years. The tweezers and the toothpick are missing, but other than those, the knife is in perfect condition. I have a really small one I keep on my keychain. It comes in handy.
On the Amazing Race last week one of the tasks was to put together a Swiss Army knife. It is done by hand piece by piece, blade by blade. Now I know why they are so expensive. When the teams were leaving for Switzerland, one team member wanted to know what language is spoken there. Swiss, of course, was the answer. The best question of the season so far was also last week. In what country is Switzerland?
Categories: Musings
Tags: Bread, Can opener, canned dog food, churchkey, coffee, color, Crocus, dog food, don't or doesn't, errands, hopeful, horse meat, moring, sun, Swiss army knife, Switzerland
Comments: 20 Comments
March 4, 2016
The snow is already covering the tops of branches. The roads are wet, and I think they’ll probably freeze when the temperature goes down this afternoon. Gracie and I finished four errands, and I couldn’t wait to get home. It’s cold.
The dump was fairly empty. Smarter people than I stayed home cozy and warm. I was the only one in the hardware store which does make sense. I guess whatever you need in a hardware store isn’t always immediate during a snow storm. The cat food stop was a necessity. Agway didn’t have many people either. My last stop was to buy lunch. I bought chicken noodle soup, the ultimate comfort food. Rita, the magician of soups, uses egg noodles, huge cuts of carrots and lots of chicken. I even bought two.
On days like today my mother often packed soup for our lunches. She’d fill the thermos bottles and make sure we had plenty of Saltines. Most times the soup was either tomato or chicken noodle. I liked eating from my thermos. I’d slowly and carefully pour the soup into the cover trying not to splash then I’d put the stopper back to keep the rest of the soup hot. I’d crumple the crackers into the soup. They sucked up all the liquid but that’s how I liked it. My mother also packed desserts, usually cookies. I was never big on fruit for lunchbox dessert. I always thought fruit was a snack. Dessert needed sugar and maybe chocolate.
We’ll only get a couple of inches of wet snow. I keep looking out the window watching it fall. The flakes change direction. Now they are from the north. A while back they seemed to come straight down. Because there is no wind, the flakes aren’t frantic. They fall slowly, individually.
All the bird feeders are filled, and I threw some on the ground under the deck. There were a few goldfinches still clad in winter drab dining al fresco this morning.
I feel a nap coming on!
Categories: Musings
Tags: chicken noodle soup, Chocolate, cold, comfort foods, crackers, dessert, dump, errands, fruit, hardware store, Snow, soup, thermos bottles, tomato soup.
Comments: 25 Comments
January 15, 2016
It is warmer today than it has been. I didn’t gasp from the cold when I went to get the papers. It is around 40˚ and will even be a bit warmer tomorrow; however, the cold will be back with a vengeance on Tuesday so these warm days are a bit of a gift from fickle Mother Nature. Gracie and I have a few things to do today so I’m glad for the winter warmth.
My heat is forced hot air. I hear the blast when the furnace goes on. When I was growing up, we had forced hot water. I used to love the sound of the radiators. It was comforting in a way. A few years ago I lost electricity because of a winter storm. My house was 37˚ before the heat came back on. I don’t ever remember losing electricity in the winter when I was a kid. I remember we lost it during a hurricane when a tree fell on the wires, but that was in late summer. I never felt inconvenienced. I doubt kids do. Most things become an adventure of sorts. Having to use candles for light and the barbecue for cooking was a kind of camping, but at home with comfy beds and no mosquitos. I thought it was great fun.
I still love adventures. Around here I go for rides down roads I’ve never been on before. I take all lefts or all rights and am always surprised by what I see. I went to Morocco on my own, and that was an adventure. I did all right turns in the souk one day. I loved everything I saw and found. At one point I had no idea where I was, but I didn’t care. I knew I’d eventually find my way. I just had to choose a direction.
I love my life, but sometimes I wish I had more money to travel. I want adventures in places I’ve never been before. I want to get lost.
Categories: Musings
Tags: 40˚, adventures, Barbecue, errands, indoor camping, left turns only, lost, Morocco, no electricity, rides, right turns only, souk, warmer, winter warmth
Comments: 6 Comments
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