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“Junk is something you throw away three weeks before you need it”

November 30, 2017

Today is a winter’s day. The sky is gray and there’s a cold breeze. This comes on the heels of 60˚ yesterday, a lovely fall day, a September sort of day.

I always think of winter as a grizzled old man with his beard covered in frost. He’s a bit of a bully who shoves aside the warmth of fall. By late evening yesterday the temperature was down to the 30’s. My heat was cranking to keep the house warm. My feet were cold.

My cleaning couple can’t come this week so they’ll come in two weeks. I am horrified. That means I have to do a bit of cleaning. I’ll have to remember where I left my vacuum.

I did nothing yesterday, and I had planned to do nothing today, but now I’m making a list which already has dusting, vacuuming and bathroom cleaning on it. I hate my list.

Yesterday a man robbed a bank in Revere and jumped into his car, a Cadillac of unknown vintage, and took off. He was followed by an off-duty police officer who lost him, but he was found by Boston police who gave chase down Route 1. The robber ditched his car near TD Garden and the Museum of Science. He took off on foot. Officers were hunting for him and were searching a parking lot framed by some porta-potties when they realized one of them was occupied. The suspect was hiding out inside it, and they took him into custody. The bank robber had locked the door of the porta-potty. I suppose he was thinking the lock gave him privacy. It didn’t. When he slid the lock, a red occupied indicator appeared on the outside door. That’s what the police saw.

My mother had a junk drawer in the kitchen. It held all sorts of stuff; need an elastic, matches or assorted loose crews and nails, just check the junk drawer. I found a lonely die in there once, saved I guess in case its mate appeared. Sometimes the drawer had odd shaped stuff which prevented closing it. Cleaning the drawer was never an option. If you just shifted and held down some of the stuff, the drawer would close. That drawer followed us on two different moves, its contents intact. My mother’s credo was you never know what you have until it’s needed, and when it is, the junk drawer will have it.

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“You can’t eliminate the dust, only move it somewhere else.”

November 1, 2016

Maddie is missing Fern. This morning, around 5, Maddie just kept meowing in the deep, throaty meow she has. She never did that before this. I called to her, but it took a while before she settled down and was quiet. Now she is sleeping on the back cushion of the couch in the living room, one of Fern’s favorite spots. This is the first time Maddie has slept there. She and Fern had been together the whole of their lives.

Good thing I bought my favorite candy bars to give out last night as I have so many left over. I should put them away just as I did the anise bears. I never did find them.

Today is a beautiful day, sunny and bright, in the 50’s. Last night was really cold, and I think we had our first frost, but by the time I got outside this morning, the frost had pretty much melted. The car windows, however, were still wet and opaque.

My house is really dusty, especially the bookshelves. When I worked, I tended to get far more housework done in less time. Now I figure I have all day today or all day tomorrow or even next week to finish. The key is not to mind the dust. Proudly I can boast I have mastered the art of ignoring it.

Yesterday I changed the bed. The sheets had been sitting on the chest at the foot of the bed for four or five days. I have also learned to ignore them, but a new bedspread and shams arrived so I was eager to put them on the bed and figured I might as well change the sheets at the same time.

After reading what I’ve just written about being a sloth, a happy sloth, I decided to describe what I do all day. Well, you know I start the day with two papers and two cups of coffee. I then get to my e-mail and after that, I write Coffee. Depending upon when I got out of bed and how active my muse is, it could be late morning or even early afternoon before I finish. If I have no errands, I stay in my comfy clothes all day. Sometimes I read the day away or watch programs I DVR’ed. I go through magazines and cut out recipes I probably will never try despite my good intentions. Lately, I have been browsing catalogs with Christmas in mind. Notice, cleaning is not mentioned. Neither is laundry which gets done only when the bag is overflowing or I am close to running out of unmentionables. I have also left out showers, brushing my teeth and making my bed. I will mention that I sometimes enjoy an afternoon nap which is the reason I don’t make my bed. I figure I’d only mess up the bed again if I napped or maybe I should say when I napped.

I retired twelve years ago so I have perfected a variety of ways to spend my days. I am no longer feeling any guilt at what I don’t accomplish. Dust always returns.

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“Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice.”

November 20, 2015

The rain started last night and is just now stopping. It has left behind yet another dreary day. It is 56˚ and as warm as it will be for the whole coming week when we’ll drop to the 40’s every day. I’m inclined to stay close to hearth and home.

Watching the Macy’s parade dates back to when I was five or six. I remember sitting on the floor in front of the TV eating snacks. My mother always put out mixed nuts for us to crack and eat, tangerines and M&M’s. We had those silver crackers and matching forks to pull out the nuts. Brazil nuts were my favorites. I liked tangerines because they were so easy to peel. I just didn’t like that they had nuts. Those I’d spit into my hand then put on my plate. I never missed color. Black and white was all we knew, but the parade still had magic from the floats, the sounds of the bands and Santa arriving at the end.

When my mother baked, the windows in the kitchen fogged. At night the window water would freeze in a thin layer like on our car windshields except it was inside the house. Sometimes the window ice looked like mountains ridges, some higher than the others. The ridges, though, never went beyond the middle of the window. I used to like to scratch pictures or messages on the ice with my fingernail, but once the heat kicked in, it didn’t take long for the ice to melt.

Our first frost came the other day. When I went to get the papers, I noticed my car windshield was wet, and the part of my neighbor’s front yard filled with mulch still had its layer of frost. When I went out about an hour later, the frost was gone.

I always hated scraping my car windows. It was early in the morning, around 6:15, still very dark and cold. Now, I seldom go out all that early so the frost has usually melted. When people ask me about the best parts of being retired, I’ll have to remember to tell them about never having to scrape a window.

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“Home is where we should feel secure and comfortable.”

November 19, 2015

In The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe it is, in the beginning, perpetually winter. We are in a similar state, less extreme but still perpetual. Every day is cloudy. The daytime temperature is always in the 50’s. When the days are windy, the trees lose more and more brown, crumpled leaves and become even barer. We’ve had our first frost. The few flowers which still brightened my garden are gone. Overnight the bird bath water acquired a thin layer of ice which slivered when I broken it with my hand. I, however, have stopped whining about the weather because whining seems to make it worse. I’ve adopted a ho-hum philosophy instead.

This morning has been productive. My bed is already made and the first wash is done. It happens that way. All of a sudden I get a blast of energy, and I do stuff around the house. I keep eyeing my low cabinet in the kitchen, but it would take more than a blast to get me to organize it. It would take a miracle. I know miracles happen because I finally organized my closet a while back. I’m thinking maybe it is better to start small. The cabinet under the bathroom sink would be a great first endeavor. I think I’ll give that one a try.

I love my house and did from the first moment I walked in the door. This was, of course, before HGTV so words like open concept, window treatment, bonus room and en suite master did not exist in the common vocabulary. I wanted lots of wood, a downstairs bedroom/den and a dining room. This house has them all. The floors are wide pine planks, now faded and scratched in the same way floors in historic houses are. The downstairs bedroom is the den I wanted so the TV didn’t have to be in the living room. I have a wonderful dining room. It is painted nutmeg, my favorite of all the colors in the house. It is open to the kitchen. The archway between the rooms is outlined in pine. The fireplace is on the left side of the large wall in the living room because the builder didn’t want to have two small corners. My yard is huge or rather Gracie’s yard is huge. I really love this house.

There are only two things I would add. The first is a screened front porch. That’s where you get to greet the neighbors. The second is a pantry. Everything I need would be right there, and I wouldn’t have to move stuff to find what I want. The cabinet I avoid scares me a bit. Moving one thing means several others will fall. I could be buried and not found for days. In a pantry order is easy.

I really have no intention of ever living somewhere else. I’m quite content with my back deck and my totally disorganized cabinet.

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“…freshly cut Christmas trees smelling of stars and snow and pine resin – inhale deeply and fill your soul with wintry night…”

November 30, 2013

When I went to get the papers, I saw the tips of the grass sparkling in the sun and my windshield covered in frost. It was a cold night. The sun, here earlier, is now hidden behind a cloud. I think it will do that all day long: in and out, in and out playing its own little game of peek-a-boo. It isn’t warm this morning. It’s 34˚.

The days between Thanksgiving and Christmas always seemed the longest stretch of time. The first couple of weeks after Thanksgiving were just like any other weeks only colder. They gave no hint of what was coming. The first signs of Christmas slowly began to appear. A few houses had lights, and the stores uptown put their Christmas decorations in the windows. Then the fire station was outlined in lights and Santa was climbing the chimney. The lampposts were decorated up and down the street, and the stage for the carolers was placed right on Main Street in the square. Just seeing all those decorations used to get me excited for Christmas, and the closer it got, the more excited I’d get.

My parents would finally buy the tree. It aways went in the corner where the TV usually was. The tree had to sit there for a while so the branches could fall. Those trees of my childhood were never all that full. There were empty spaces, but that made it easier for small hands to decorate the tree without mishaps. My father did the lights first. He wasn’t a patient man, and those lights drove him crazy. He’d check the sets one bulb at a time for the bulb that was out. If two were out, lighting that set was an impossibility until my father replaced every bulb. He’d then check the ones he took out and used the good bulbs for replacements. My father had no artistic sense. He’d just put those lights on willy-nilly. It always sort of horrified my mother who would then move the lights around until they looked symmetrical about the tree. She’d next drape the silver garlands on the branches. Then it was time to decorate. My mother put the big, beautiful bulbs on the top branches. We weren’t allowed to touch those. I have one of them my mother gave me, and I always put it on a top branch and think of my mother when I do. We’d pick an ornament out of the box and it was always filled with memories. We’d put it wherever we wanted or my mother would suggest a bare spot needing an ornament.

I loved decorating the christmas tree. Every night after that, I’d lie on the floor for a while and look up at the lights through the tree. They always looked magical to me.

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“June suns, you cannot store them To warm the winter’s cold..”

November 23, 2013

The weatherman says to expect a cold front starting tomorrow. I just bought a new hat, a wool knitted hat with ear flaps, so bring on the cold. I think I’m going to look quite fashionable.

This morning I watched leaves fall one at a time from the big oak tree by the deck. They fluttered as they fell. I watched the birds at the feeders, mostly drab gold finches, eating thistle and sunflowers seeds. When Gracie comes in from outside, her ears are cold. The other morning a thin layer of ice-covered the water in the bird bath. I don’t hear people outside any more. Winter is coming.

Winter brings back memories. I remember the hissing of the radiators in the house where I grew up and how the windows in the morning sometimes had a thin layer of ice on the inside. I’d use my nail to write my name. We always wore warm pajamas and sock slippers. For breakfast my mother made oatmeal and added milk and sugar. The walk to school was quickest in winter. The worst part of the walk was passing the field where the wind whipped across and seemed to go through every layer of my clothes to touch my bones. Getting to school was always welcomed. It was warm.

In winter there was never enough space in the cloak room outside my classroom. Winter coats were bulky and the hooks were small. I’d stuff my mittens and my hat in my sleeves then try to get my coat to hang. Sometimes it stayed on the hook while other times it was held up by the coats around it all jammed together. On the coldest days I’d leave my sweater on. The nuns didn’t care. They sometimes wore black ones with buttons.

Getting coats to go home was always done in rows. The nun would announce our row, and we’d get our coats and bring them into class and get dressed there while the other rows went and got theirs. Sometimes the nuns had to zipper coats. They never seemed to mind. I conquered zippers early though sometimes it took two tries. The hat came next and the mittens last. We’d stand in a line in the classroom until the bell was rung to dismiss us then we’d walk to the door and into the cold.

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“Autumn is marching on: even the scarecrows are wearing dead leaves.”

November 18, 2012

When I went to get the papers, I gasped a bit for breath not expecting it to be so cold. Frost had iced the lawn and covered the car windows. I hurried back inside, had my first cup of coffee and settled in for a while to read a bit of the paper, but I couldn’t linger as I had to leave earlier than usual to go out for breakfast, even before my second cup of coffee, so I could scrape the car windows. I rummaged through the trunk and found the windshield scraper then went from window to window. I even scraped the window for Gracie. I hated every minute of scraping those windows not because of the effort but because of the significance. That frost is winter’s first assault.

On the way home I noticed lawns being raked mostly by men wearing warm jackets. A few joggers were out running, and they were wearing mittens. One woman, walking her dog, didn’t seem at all phased by the weather. She had on a long sleeve t-shirt and shorts. I was impressed by her hardiness.

The day is pretty with bright sun and a steel-blue sky, but the strong breeze blowing the leaves left on the trees has me thinking the day looks far better from inside rather than outside. When Gracie goes out and stays a while, her ears are really cold when she comes back inside.

When I was young, we never did much on a Sunday. After church we’d hang around the house and maybe watch a TV movie while my mother prepared then cooked dinner, and sometimes we’d sit or lie on the living room rug to play a few games while my father read the paper. He always sat in the same chair by the picture window, and I can still see him holding the paper in front of him. My father read his paper not as a whole but section by section. He’d finish one section then add it to the pile he’d started on the floor beside the chair then he’d pick up the next section and start reading. He always left the sports pages until last.

I read the Sunday papers much like my father did, section by section, and I put each finished section in the recycle bag I keep by the table here in the den. The one difference is in the last section to be read. I always save the travel pages.

 

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“I did not have three thousand pairs of shoes, I had one thousand and sixty.”

November 6, 2011

This morning the frost was on the pumpkin, the lawn and the windshield. The tips of the grass glistened in the sun and cracked underfoot when I went to the driveway for the papers. Before I left for breakfast, I had to get the scraper from the trunk and scrape the windshield. It was the first frost of the season. I could see my breath in the morning light.

The day warmed quickly, and by the time I’d finished breakfast, it was already in the 40’s. Now it is 51° and feels almost balmy. Everything is relative.

The sun looks different in the fall and winter. From here in the den, I can see it shining through the oak tree just as it shined all summer, but it looks cold, almost wan. It provides only light now and even its light lasts just a short part of the day. I try and keep the darkness at bay. On the deck is a small fir topiary which stays lit all night. In three different parts of the yard, white lights are lit from six to midnight. They give a bit of comfort and shine through even the darkest of nights and are my reminder that winter is but one of the seasons.

I’m wearing my warm slippers, part of my cold weather uniform. Nothing is worse than cold feet. Cold hands are easier to get warm, but cold feet seem to chill the whole body. My socks have come out of storage as have my winter shoes. My sister and I were talking last night. She asked what I wanted for Christmas. I said I had no idea. She asked if I needed shoes. I said I had my winter shoes, still good for five or more years, and my summer sandals, also good for a few more years so I was covered for shoes. I thought about it later and chuckled a bit. My life is two pairs of shoes, and they are more than sufficient.

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