Posted tagged ‘fog’
September 17, 2017
I apologize for yesterday, and I thank you for worrying as I know I usually let you know. I slept later than I intended and had time for getting dressed, a quick cup of coffee, feeding the animals and taking Gracie out. It was International Festival Day at the local college, and I was at the Peace Corps table all day. Luckily I had packed what I wanted to use to decorate the table so I just grabbed the stuff and left. When I got home, I napped.
A couple of people who stopped at the PC table were surprised to find Peace Corps still existed. I guess we don’t do a great job advocating for ourselves. One man stopped and asked me if I knew who he was. I did, just by his question. Twice before I had met him, asked his name and country of service. Each time he answered a bit testily that he was with me in Ghana. I still didn’t recognize him this time either but said, “Gary?” and he smiled. I had guessed right.
It is a bright, beautiful day now, but it started out foggy, a fog which hovered around the lower limbs of the trees and atop the roads, covered the bridge and hung just above the ocean. When I was a kid, that was the scariest fog. It hid the sidewalks. Noises were amplified and footsteps echoed. We’d run if we heard someone behind us. We never knew who or, even worse, what was behind us. It could have been the man with the hook or some mass murderer looking for another victim so we ran as fast as we could. It never occurred to us the footsteps might be from something benign. In the fog it could only have been something scary and evil.
The paper today had a page devoted to Marshmallow Fluff which is celebrating its 100th anniversary. About 7 million pounds of Fluff is sold each year which is mind boggling given how light Fluff is. Fluff has only 4 ingredients: corn syrup, sugar, dried egg white and vanilla. When I was growing up, we always had Fluff in the cabinet because a fluffernutter was a quick snack: thin on the peanut butter, thick on the Fluff. The only problem was being careful not to tear the soft bread when slathering the Fluff. 50% of all Fluff is sold in New England and Upstate New York. I still keep Fluff in the cabinet. I never know when I might just want a quick snack.
Categories: Musings
Tags: 7 million pounds, eerie, fog, footsteps, ghosts, International; Festival, Marshmallow Fluff, noises, Peace Corps, running homr, serial killer, sun, the hook
Comments: 14 Comments
February 25, 2017
Today is far warmer than I expected. It’s a sit in the sun day because tomorrow will be colder, back down to the daytime 40’s, to our usual February weather. This morning there was some fog. I couldn’t see more than an outline of my neighbor’s house. After I got the paper and yesterday’s mail from across the street, I stayed outside a while just to take in the warmth, the fog and the songs of birds.
The aroma of wood smoke is one of my favorite smells. The guy in the house on the next corner has been burning wood in a rusty metal barrel. At first I though a house fire then I saw him putting more wood in the barrel. He’s the same neighbor who thought Gracie was a wolf when she jumped the six-foot fence into his yard to go after his dog. I’m thinking he doesn’t have a permit to burn wood. but I don’t care one way or the other. I like the wood smoke. It is one of my strongest memories of Ghana where wood charcoal is used for cooking every meal.
I had a portable cassette recorder in Ghana. The tapes stuck all the time because of the humidity so mostly they had to be rewound by hand using a Bic pen. I didn’t have a huge number of tapes, but I had my favorites including PP&M, CSN, Simon and Garfunkel, and Joni Mitchell. I think I played music every night. The adaptor had a red Christmas light size bulb attached so I could play without a converter. I could plug the cord directly into the wall. My friends Bill and Peg and I got together every night. We had dinner outside in their small courtyard. After their one-year-old went to bed, we played games. Password was our only actual comes in a box game, and we played it over and over and never got bored. We had the cards memorized through repetition so we sometimes changed the game. There were contests like the winner is the one who finishes the whole card first. That kept life into the game and kept us occupied.
I lived alone for the first time in Ghana. It was quite an adjustment getting used to being alone in a place so different, so far from home. My PC friends weren’t close to me geographically. (They were a letter away, no phones back then). I was teaching for the first time and not teaching well. My students didn’t understand my English. I was frustrated and lonely but determined. It took time. I did my best and so did they. Finally, we understood each other, and I was teaching, really teaching. I loved going to town and the market. I filled my days with teaching and my nights with music and books.
After my first year, Bill and Peg moved to my school, and we lived in a duplex. I loved having them near, being with them, and I also loved my quiet times, my alone times. We gave them to each other.
Categories: Musings
Tags: 40's, adaptor, barrel, bird song, cassette recorder, converter, courtyyard, fog, Ghana, living alone, outside dinner, Password, warmer, wood charcoal, wood smoke
Comments: 6 Comments
June 13, 2015
Yesterday in the late afternoon when I went to get my mail, I noticed the fog rolling in, a hazy mist moving down the street. The air got chilly and damp, but I stayed outside drawn by the fog. The end of the street began to disappear and was soon lost in the mist. Later, in the early evening, I went to the door to check the fog and found it was raining, a gentle rain so quiet I never heard it.
This morning was overcast and damp. It reminded me of vacation mornings near the ocean. I was usually the first awake and the first to go outside. Everything was quiet, no one else was stirring so the world belonged only to me. I had that same feeling this morning only I was sharing the world with Gracie who stood beside me patiently waiting so we could go inside.
The morning breeze has blown away the clouds, and we have sun and blue skies.
The TV has been bountiful for me this morning. The first gift was a film called Satellite in the Sky. I won’t even get into the special effects except to say it was 1956 so just imagine the smoke and the fire from the engine, the missing weightlessness and the arrays of buttons and switches. The plane, sort of a rocket ship, carried a full crew and a stowaway, a woman reporter. Luckily she had found the perfect hiding place where she also found a uniform which fit her as if it had been sized. She added a scarf around her neck for the sake of fashion. After she was discovered, her next scene was when she brought coffee to the crew. Now the ship was complete with a stewardess. Later she also brought sandwiches. She and the captain, originally at odds about the ship, both agree that the Tritbonium Bomb strapped to the bottom was wrong. A kiss sealed their agreement.
The second gift was one part of The Batman serial from 1943. The only actor I recognized was J. Carrol Naish as the villain, a Japanese spymaster named Dr. Daka. He had a machine which turned people into willing to do anything live zombies. After their transformations, they all wore contraptions on their heads which looked like colanders with antennae. It was through these contraptions the zombies received Dr. Daka’s orders. My favorite tidbit is The Batman (always The Batman) and Robin usually rode in the limo driven by Alfred, even when as The Batman and Robin. Their hero outfits were worn under their clothes. The bat cave was accessed through the grandfather’s clock in the spacious living room. This week’s episode ended when The Batman, a captive locked in a wooden box, is dropped to the hungry crocodiles. The last thing you hear is a scream. Will The Batman be saved or he is really lunch meat? You’ll have to wait until next week to find out!
Categories: Musings
Tags: 1956, Alfred the butler, blue sky, buttons and switches, dampness, Dr. Daka, fog, gentle rain, mist, overcast and cloudy, Satellite in the Sky, sunny, The Batman 1943, Tritbonium Bomb
Comments: 6 Comments
June 12, 2015
The morning is lovely. Earlier I met friends for breakfast at a spot on the water. To get there I took the long way around on the road which hugged the seashore. The houses along the sides of the road are big and beautiful with gardens to match. A couple of the bigger houses are well hidden behind high bushes. Some are gated.
As there is no breeze for a change, the water was still. The fog was thick enough to hide the ocean beyond the breakwater. When I arrived at the restaurant, it was high tide, and I could smell the salt water. I took in deep breaths as if to memorize the smell. Boats came and left by way of the channel. One excursion boat was filled with kids in life jackets, a school group we guessed. Good for them! It is a perfect day to be on the water.
The sun is shining, and it is already warm, 76˚. After today, though, the days will be cooler, and even a couple of nights will dip to the 50’s. The weekend will be dry. June on Cape Cod is unpredictable.
Today all is quiet. Not a lawnmower or blower disturbs the songs of birds. This room is still shaded and cool. The sun won’t be here until the late afternoon.
I am barefooted. That is the summer standard in the house and on the deck. When I was a kid, I went barefooted all the time. My feet were calloused and even the hot sidewalks had no effect. I loved the feel of cool grass between my toes. In Ghana I wore sandals all the time, but my feet still each became a giant callous impervious to everything including a lit match. Why a lit match? It was a test, a silly test, to determine exactly how tough my feet had become. The match did not even bother me at all.
I have a couple of places I need to go, but I am reluctant to leave the cool house for the hot, busy road. I guess, though. I’ll just have to bite the bullet.
Categories: Musings
Tags: 76˚, bite the bullet, breakfast, breakwater, calloused feet, channel, cool nights, fog, going barefoot, grass between your toes, natural sounds, quoet day, salt water, smell of the ocean, still ocean, warm day
Comments: 17 Comments
March 26, 2015
I apologize for not writing today. It was way out of my control. I could not get on-line this morning around 10:30. I was on-line earlier so I was perplexed as to what had happened. I waited as sometimes Comcast does a bit of maintenance and shuts down for a while. By 1, I knew it was a problem for me; of course, I called Comcast and spoke to a variety of people. It was person number 4 who gave me a way to check to see if it was the router or the modem. I was rooting for the router (good alliteration) as they would have had to send me a modem. It was the router.
To make an entire afternoon a short story, I went to Radio Shack and bought a router. My MAC would not recognize the start-up disc but I was able to click something to chat with a Linksys tech. He and I chatted and he \gave me two pages of instructions as I had to reconfigure the router. The first time didn’t work, my mistake. The second time did. IT was 4:30.
I was patient and barely cursed during the whole afternoon.
Today has been a foggy day. It was warm, and there is still snow so the fog swirled around the trees and, when coupled with the gray sky, seemed to surround us. It rained in the afternoon, a bit of rain then heavy rain then back to a bit. After the rain the fog returned. Gracie and I were out doing some errands. My company, Francisca, was gone the whole day selling her Bolga baskets and missed a ride by the ocean in the fog, one of the best of all reasons to live on the cape.
Sorry about the rant today and the short post. I promise I’ll do better tomorrow.
Categories: Musings
Tags: a million steps, Comcast, fog, interact access, rain, Router
Comments: 14 Comments
July 29, 2013
Last night it rained a bit, but today is sunny. The paper forecasts a chance of showers and temperatures in the 70’s. It seemed pretty warm when I went out for breakfast. I had the car air going but I had also opened a window. I wanted a bit of fresh air. When I got home, this part of the house felt cool. The sun hasn’t yet worked its way around.
My peace and quiet is gone. I can hear the new renters next door. They sit on their little deck, and their conversations are perfectly clear. Gracie isn’t used to strange sounds from next door so she gets up and checks every time a car moves or a door slams. One of the ladies next door was born in Maine, not in May, and she said it so loudly Gracie ran out back and barked. I am considering that an intruder alert.
My dance card has a few entries this week. On Wednesday is a play in Chatham and on Thursday friends are coming to dinner, my first entertaining gig of the summer. I should have fireworks!
I love most fish and shellfish. Salmon is an exception. Pink fish is unnatural. I also don’t like oysters, especially on the half shell. They can’t slide down fast enough. Steamed clams do have a bit of a resemblance to those oysters but steaming them then washing them in broth and dunking them in butter makes those clams quite tasty. My father, sister and I would sit at the kitchen table eating steamers. That always grossed out my mother who wouldn’t even eat fried clams with bellies. What in the heck kind of New Englander doesn’t eat clams with bellies? I only like fresh tuna; the stuff in cans is disgusting no matter what you add to it. Crabs are a lot of work. but I love crabmeat. We used to go down to the rocks and pull off the mussels just under the surface then we’d steam them and devour them. Nothing was as fresh as those mussels.
I haven’t been clamming in years, but I still vividly remember one Sunday. We were on the Brewster flats when the fog started to come in, and it came in quickly and scared the heck out of us. We grabbed our shovels and baskets and ran to the shoreline which, in only a short time, we could barely see. A few more minutes, and the shoreline would have disappeared, and we would have been stuck in the fog not knowing in which direction to walk. Yelling would have been useless. The fog distorts sound. When we got to the beach, we sat in the sand and watched the fog rolling in and covering everything. You couldn’t even see the water. We were lucky that day. We filled our baskets, got safely to shore and had steamers for dinner.
I love the fog, especially in the mornings coming off the water. That Sunday was the only time I have ever been afraid of fog.
Categories: Musings
Tags: clamming, clams, conversationsfish'shellfish, fog, mussels, noise, rain, renters, salmon, steamers, sun, tuna
Comments: 11 Comments
April 22, 2012
Today is foggy and damp with rain expected. I noticed stalwart golfers when I drove pass the course. Some were pulling their clubs while others rode golf carts with the striped awning tops. In the fog, I could only see the golfers closest to me. The others were mere outlines. When I crossed the bridge over the river, the houses along its banks were barely visible. It started to rain a bit as I turned onto my street.
As I was driving home, I saw a car with only one lit headlight and right away I said padiddle out loud which surprised me as I hadn’t given the padiddle game a thought in almost forever. My padiddle had to have come from the furthest reaches of one of my memory drawers and was automatic as if I’d played the game only yesterday. When I was a kid, we played padiddle only at night because no cars back then had daytime running lights. I remember the first person to yell padiddle had to touch the ceiling faster than anyone else to win the game. We used to get points, and, obviously, the winner was the one with the most points. When I was younger, the winner got to punch one of the losers in the arm. When I was older, the last person to hit the ceiling had to remove an article of clothing. We never did play that game to its finish.
Padiddle reminded me of, “Jinx, you owe me a coke.” That came into play when two people said the exact same thing at the same time. The easy version ended there, but sometimes you got a punch if you didn’t say it first and other times you were jinxed and couldn’t talk. I don’t remember ever getting that coke.
I love seeing rock, paper, scissors still being used, even if it is in TV commercials. That game was the almighty arbiter when we were kids. It started when your closed fist was banged three times on the palm of your other hand then out came either rock, paper or scissors. If you won, there was a set action. If paper, your out-stretched fingers, won, it covered the rock, your opponent’s fist; a rock hit scissors which meant the scissors were now broken and had lost. In turn the scissors cut the paper and won. Most times we did two out of three.
Out of the memory drawers filled when we were kids come the most amazing things. I haven’t thought about jinx or padiddle in years, but out they came today as if it were just yesterday I punched my brother.
Categories: Musings
Tags: fog, Golf, jinx, Padiddle, rain, you owe me a coke
Comments: 29 Comments
October 29, 2010
Yesterday was warm but sunless. The sky was light gray and cloudy. The mid-cape highway was foggy. Some of the bridges and low lying spots had disappeared, swallowed by the fog. Nothing was ahead of me but thick banks of gray. I thought it was perfect weather for a few days before Halloween. I wouldn’t have been surprised if something had lunged out at me of the fog. When I crossed the bridge, I couldn’t see the canal. There was just thick fog. As I got further away from the Cape, the clouds started to disappear and the day got warmer. Boston was beautiful. It was sunny and warm with temperatures close to 80°. On the way home, close to the Sagamore bridge, the fog reappeared, the sky went gray and it sprinkled a bit.
Today is colder than it has been all week. Tonight will be in the 30’s.
We kids who went to Catholic schools had extra holidays though I suppose calling them holy days would be more accurate. All Saints’ Day was a favorite of ours, and it had nothing to do with religion. It was the day after Halloween. We got to trick or treat later, stay up well beyond our usual bedtimes and devour all that candy without having to worry about school the next day. Mass was a small price to pay for all that.
When I was a kid, some people handed out individual candies in small trick or treat bags twisted at the top. We always thought they were the cheapskates who bought just one bag of candy and divided it. The best hauls were five cent bars, but they were a rarity. Apples were the worst except for the house where they always stuck a nickle in the apple. We tended to toss all the apples as too heavy and unwanted. Once in a while we’d get homemade cookies decorated like ghosts or witches. We usually ate those to save them from getting broken. They also fortified us for the rest of the journey.
Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: All Saints, fog, Halloween
Comments: 11 Comments
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