Posted tagged ‘games’
December 20, 2016
The sun decided to make an appearance today. I guess it is a bit of a reward for surviving the cold of last night. Today is about 40˚, warm for the depths of winter.
My mother never disappointed us at Christmas. When I was really young, Santa always brought me something from my list. Under the tree, they’d be my big gift, a new game, books, and even clothes. I loved the clothes as they were what everyone was wearing. I remember some of my favorites over the years like the white fluffy sweater, the gold necklace, the ski pants with the loops, the over the head parka with a zippered pocket across the chest, and a wool skirt. The books were classics or mysteries. The games were ones the whole family could play. Santa didn’t take the time to wrap our gifts. They were arranged under the tree. I remember looking over the banister as I walked down the stairs and being thrilled and excited. I might have even squealed with joy.
We had Christmas stockings when we were young, but when we were adults, my mother used all sorts of pseudo stockings like a basket, a really neat shopping bag or something old she’d found like a coal hod. She wrapped every stocking stuffer which heightened the excitement so I always wrapped every stocking stuffer for her and later for my sisters. Now I do the same for my friends. I am a wrapping phenomenon at Christmas.
My dad was never all that excited about Christmas. He would reluctantly open his presents long after the rest of us had finished. When he was a kid, Christmas was not a big deal. It was socks and underwear. My mother, though, loved Christmas and my dad just went with it. He always told my mother not to mention what she’d spent. He had a favorite part of Christmas, the food. He loved all the goodies and would make himself a plate and pour a glass of milk to take into the living room so he could nosh and watch.
Today has no lists. I’m going to hang around the house, maybe do laundry, but the laundry bag is still upstairs. It needs to sit in front of the cellar door for a couple of days before I get to it or I need to run out of underwear, whichever comes first.
Categories: Musings
Tags: baskets, Christmas, clothes, cold, games, list for Santa, parka, ski pants, stocking stuffer, sun, toys under the tree, unexcited, unwrapped gifts, wrapped gifts
Comments: 10 Comments
December 17, 2016
It was nearly 4 when I fell asleep. Gracie, however, had no problem as she was snoring away as soon as she hit the mattress. It snowed a bit last night, but I missed the best of it. I woke to rain. The snow is now slush, the sort where you leave deep footprints when you walk through it. Both today and tomorrow will be warm which is a good thing as the slush won’t turn to ice. I’m staying home. I’m going to turn on all the Christmas lights, watch Hallmark movies and enjoy a lazy Saturday.
My friends came to dinner last night. It was a wonderful evening. The meal was great says the cook. The conversation was funny. We just sat at the table a while after dinner. I love to do that, just sit and talk. My friend did all the clean-up which I completely appreciated as it takes a while to make the dinner, clean up as you go along then clean everything. Her doing the dishes was a gift. We then played a word game and sat in the living room so we could enjoy the tree. I had a come from behind victory. We also exchanged gifts. Usually we don’t get together for presents until after Christmas so we figured early was due. I was thrilled with my present, an Amazon Echo and a speaker. I’ll play with Alexa today. My friends too loved their presents, and my friend Claire, the dishwasher, especially loved her present from Ghana.
Woolworth’s and the annual parish Christmas fair were my go to places to buy gifts for my parents then my sisters and brother if I had any money left. My mother was the consummate actress. When she opened my gift, she always looked so excited and happy. I was thrilled that I’d found just the right gift at such a bargain, usually about 50¢. My father loved his handkerchiefs, white ones, Woolworth’s best.
My favorite of all the Christmas movies is A Christmas Carol starring Alastair Sims. It hasn’t been on yet so I keep looking. I watched the old Miracle on 34th Street the other night. The book is dated 1947 the same as I am so that makes it special. The old Bishop’s Wife is another favorite. Come to think of it, even the worst of Christmas movies are favorites of mine.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Christmas lights, Christmas tree, Clouds, Echo, exchange gifts, games, great meal, lazy Saturday, pork, slush, snoring dog, Snow, warm, word games
Comments: 2 Comments
August 15, 2016
My doors and windows are open. I have rejoined the world if only for a while. There is a breeze coming from the north, the window behind me, keeping the den cool, and the sun is still working its way around so it’s also dark. The weather report is for heat but less humidity so I’m taking advantage and giving the house some fresh air before the onslaught of the heat.
My life of late has been boring. Staying inside the house doesn’t make for adventure, for stories. I do have to go to the dump, but that’s not a plot line for a good story. It’s just trash.
My neighborhood is quiet. I have no idea where the kids are. There are 9 of them on this street. I’m thinking it’s difficult to hide them all. Perhaps their parents are using gags and tricking the kids into thinking it’s a game. When you’re little you believe everything your parents tell you. That’s why I didn’t eat Chinese food until I was around ten or eleven.
I’ve tried salmon a couple of times but I still don’t like it. It’s the only fish I haven’t liked. No respectable fish is pink and why don’t you pronounce the l?
I make a great chili. It is a recipe from my brother-in-law. In his recipe, Rod has beans listed. For my copy, he also has a footnote: if making chili for me, don’t add the beans. I have never made chili with beans. My defense is that real chili has no beans.
I eat a lot of chicken. It’s not all that expensive and chicken recipes number in the millions. I like chicken thighs and think they are the tastiest part of the chicken.When I go out for a casual dinner, I usually order a cheeseburger.
When I go out for a casual dinner, I usually order a cheeseburger with onion rings on the side, but one pub where I eat doesn’t make onion rings at night, only during lunch, so I order French fries. I don’t eat my fries with ketchup; instead, I dip them in mayonnaise. I seldom use salt, but I do salt my fries. They seem to taste better that way.
My mother told us stories about World War II and rationing. She said they seldom got butter so they used oleo instead. It was white but it came with packets of yellow to make it butter-like. When I was a kid, my mother never bought oleo. Having it in the war was enough for her; instead, she always bought butter. My sisters and I still do.
I remember a lunch at a friend’s house. She made sandwiches with salmon and dessert with peaches. I ate both of them out of courtesy. It rates as the worse lunch in my memory drawers.
Categories: Musings
Tags: boring, cheeseburger, Chicken, chili, cooling breeze, dump, fries, gags, games, Hamburger, old wives' tales, onion rings, open windows, parents, pink, quiet, salmon, salt
Comments: 10 Comments
July 5, 2016
Yesterday was a perfect July 4th. The weather was wonderful with a breeze strong enough to blow plates and napkins off the table. We had a barbecue which started with appetizers I had brought. One is a favorite, muhammara, which I learned how to make when I was in Marrakech. The other was brand new: a feta dip. It bumped the muhammara as the favorite. We played games, and I was the only one not to win a game. I got pegged the loser. Dinner was wonderful. We had chicken and sausage and pasta salad. A blueberry dessert topped off the meal. During dessert, we watched the Pops at the Hatch Shell. I think John Adams would have loved our celebration.
I woke up to the sound of rain. It was welcomed as it hasn’t rained in so long. At first it was just a few drops then it became a real rainstorm. The house was dark. My papers in double plastic got a bit wet and so did I when fetching those papers from the front yard.
Since then the rain has stopped and it is beginning to get lighter. It is supposed to be humid today. The heat wave starts tomorrow. Here on the cape we’ll be cooler thanks to the ocean surrounding us.
This is a busy week for me. I actually have a few events on my usually empty dance card. First up is a concert to hear Ladysmith Black Mambazo. On Friday I have another play at the Cape Playhouse. It is The Music Man. I think I’m going to need a few naps!
My first play was at a theater in the round at the Melody Tent in Hyannis. It was The Unsinkable Molly Brown with Debby Reynolds. I was hooked. I found plays amazing. This led to a long time subscription seat at the Playhouse. I think it’s been twenty or twenty- five years.
I remember a Saturday entertainment night at my school in Ghana. The USAID guy had left a projector and a cartoon about food and germs. My students were so amazed by the cartoon they missed the message. They oohed and ahed that the fly looked so real. They didn’t notice it flew from the outhouse to the food on the table. They were as delighted with that cartoon as I had been with my first play. I learned that everything is indeed relative.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Barbecue, Cape Playhouse, cartoons, Chicken, full dance card, games, July 4th, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Pasta salad, rainstorm, the Boston Pops, The Music Man
Comments: 12 Comments
July 4, 2015
I just love birthdays and today is the grandest of them all. Happy Birthday, America.
On July 3rd 1776, John Adams wrote a letter to his wife Abigail. In it, he predicted the celebrations for American Independence Day, including the parties:
It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other.
The problem was he expected July 2nd to be Independence Day as that was the day the Second Continental Congress voted for independence, but the signing ceremony for the Declaration of Independence didn’t happen until two days later so because July 4th appears on the Declaration, it became the date we celebrate Independence.
I know some people complain that the meaning of the day is lost in the barbecues and the fireworks, but they have forgotten John Adams’ hope. We are celebrating exactly as he wished. Flags are waving everywhere. Families get together to celebrate and to break bread, albeit hot dog rolls. Fireworks illuminate the sky. Baseball is played on small town fields and in huge stadiums. Drums beat the cadence in parades. We sing rousing songs celebrating America and our freedom. We also sing heartfelt songs about what America means to us. We are many sorts of people, we Americans. We don’t all look the same, eat the same foods or dress in the same way, but we all celebrate today and we share a love of country. Happy Birthday, America, from all of us Americans.
Categories: Musings
Tags: America, fife and drum, games, Happy Birthday, Independence Day, John Adams, parades, parties, Sports
Comments: 18 Comments
March 9, 2014
Today is another pretty day though nowhere near as warm as yesterday when we got to 49˚. The sun this morning is bright and the sky is a dark blue, but the air is chilly. It’s only 37˚, the new average temperature for this time of year. I was outside on the deck chasing red spawns away from the feeders and watching Gracie running in the yard, but I got cold and came back inside to a hot cup of coffee to warm the innards as my mother used to say.
I easily fall into a Sunday mindset and find myself lingering over the newspapers. I am one to read from front to back, each section in turn. It relates, I suspect, to my need for straight pictures, alphabetical herbs and spices and things in their rightful places. That last one helps me to find what I have lost. I know where to look, where it ought to be and most times that’s exactly where I find it. Peculiarities are sometimes a good thing.
I am still a gas hog. The report came in the mail yesterday. I think it strange as from eleven at night to eight in the morning my house is only at 62˚. During the day it is always at 68˚. I wonder if my neighbors sit with afghans around their shoulders and on their feet and knees so their thermostats can be kept at lower temperatures. I can imagine them exhorting each other: walk around, flap your arms, get another blanket and stop complaining.
It is Amazing Race night. I am doing desserts this week, and we’re having brownies with hot fudge and vanilla ice cream. Just think about it: an evening with friends, one of my favorite shows, fun games, appetizers and dessert. What a wonderful way to start a week.
Categories: Musings
Tags: alphabetical herbs and spices, blue skies, brownies and hot fudge, chilly morning, games, gas hog, ice cream, straight pictures, Sunday mindset, sunny day, The Amazing Race
Comments: 12 Comments
March 2, 2014
It wasn’t as cold as I expected when I went to get the papers this morning. It was 39˚ and felt warm. Today I have good weather news. The snow storm we are expecting has changed direction and is predicted to be only 2-4 inches down from 6 to 8. That is sweeping snow, not shoveling snow.
When I’d visit my parents for the weekend, my Dad would go out and buy the Sunday paper and a dozen donuts. He never remembered my favorite donut, but he bought enough choices so I was content. His favorite was plain. He would always butter the donut before he ate it with his coffee. My dad preferred instant coffee instead of brewed. I never understood that. Sunday was his day to make breakfast. He always used the cast iron skillet and kept a over his shoulder as he cooked to wipe his hands. I can still see him at the stove. This time of year he wore corduroys, long sleeve shirts and brown suede shoes from L.L. Bean. He’d cook the bacon then ask how we wanted our eggs. He was adept at over-easy. Waiting for my breakfast was the best time. My dad and I would talk about all sorts of stuff though politics were never among them. We were polar opposites. After breakfast, we’d play a few games of cribbage. We always played cribbage every time we got together. Sometimes we’d play 5 or 6 games. The number of games depended upon whether he was winning or losing. A higher number of games meant he was losing, and we’d play until his luck changed though he always said he won by strategy while I won by luck. I loved to tease him when I won. Skunking him was the best of all, and it drove him crazy.
Games were so much a part of my growing up. We played them all the time. My parents taught my brother and me whist so they could each have a partner. My aunts and uncles would come up to the house on Friday nights, and they sit around the kitchen table and play cards. My dad was too funny as he always harassed them when he won but all in good fun. The kitchen would be filled with smoke and they’d each have a drink. They were the high ball generation.
Those nights are etched in my memory drawers. I can still hear the laughter and my father’s voice. I can hear my mother laughing along with my dad, and I can hear my aunt demanding the cards be dealt especially if she lost the last hand.
Categories: Musings
Tags: bacon and eggs, Cribbage, donuts, family games, games, my dad, Sunday breakfast, sweping snow
Comments: 10 Comments
May 20, 2013
Last night it rained, not a furious rain falling in sheets but a steady drop by drop rain. I had my bedroom window opened, and I fell asleep to the sound of the drops. This morning when I woke up, the day was cloudy and damp. Since then the sun has taken over the sky and brightened the day. It’s a pretty morning.
The window view from here in the den is one of my favorites. The branches of the tall oak tree fill the window, and I get to watch the tree change every season. The leaves now are young and a bright green. Hanging off a couple of the branches are bird feeders, and I get to watch the birds zoom in and out or stay for a while at the suet feeder. The winter view through that window is bleak. I can see only bare branches and dead leaves fluttering in the wind. When the first buds appear, it’s time for a celebration as I know the tree will soon be full and beautiful. It’s almost there now.
Sometimes I ponder my life and every time I do, I realize how lucky I have been. First of all I had great parents though I didn’t always appreciate them, especially when I got sent to my room or yelled at or had a slipper thrown at me by my mother who had absolutely no aim. She never once got any of us. We always ducked if it came close. I got to wander my town and go to the zoo or the swamp or play in the woods. I had a bike which took me even as far as East Boston to see my grandparents which scared the bejesus out of my mother as we had to travel on Route 1A, a busy highway which didn’t always have sidewalks. That bike was one of my childhood joys. My parents took us to museums which developed in us all a love of museums. They let us dream our dreams. I went to college and had no debt when I graduated because my father thought it was is responsibility to pay for school. My parents once told me they never thought any of their kids would go to college as no one in our whole family had ever gone. They were thrilled one of us did and so was I as I had chosen well. I loved Merrimack. The Peace Corps was the defining moment in my life which gave me a love of teaching, two years living in Africa of all places and friends for life.
I have traveled many places in the world and have filled my memory drawers with those adventures, those vistas, the bumpy roads and crowded busses, the tastes of unknown foods and the joy of seeing all those pictures from my geography books come to life. Every year I went somewhere foreign, somewhere to satisfy my wanderlust. I got to retire early and since then have been to Africa three times: once to Morocco and twice to Ghana. My retirement has been so much fun: greeting the sun on the first of spring, sloth days, game nights with my friends, sitting on the deck doing absolutely nothing, movie nights and on and on and on.
Every now and then, like today, I give thanks for the life I have been privileged to lead. I don’t ever want to forget that.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Africa, bike, college, Dreams, games, Ghana, life, love of life, Luck, Morocco, museums, pondering, retirement, thanks, travel
Comments: 4 Comments
May 12, 2013
I woke up to the sound of rain, a gentle rain. I stayed in bed a while and listened. I could also hear Gracie’s deep sleep breathing and every now and then a sigh. Today is Mother’s Day. It is the day I honor my mother and my memories of her. Last week my friend and I went out to dinner. She mentioned it was her mother’s birthday and how much she still misses her. She said no one told us it would be this hard.
Every year I post the same entry about my mother. At Easter this year my sister and I laughed about the curses she inflicted on us: the love of everything Christmas and never thinking you have enough presents for everyone, giving Easter baskets overflowing with candy and fun toys and surprising people with a gift just because.
My mother had a generosity of spirit. She was funny and smart and the belle of every ball. She always had music going in the kitchen as she worked so she could sing along. She played Frank and Tony and Johnny and from her I learned the old songs. My mother drew all the relatives, and her house was filled. My cousins visited often. She was their favorite aunty. My mother loved to play Big Boggle, and we’d sit for hours at the kitchen table and play so many games we’d lose track of the time. Christmas was always amazing, and she passed this love to all of us. We traveled together, she and I, and my mother was game for anything. I remember Italy and my mother and me after dinner at the hotel bar where she’d enjoy her cognac. She never had it any other time, but we’re on vacation she said and anything goes. I talked to her just about every day, as did my sisters. I loved it when she came to visit. We’d shop, have dinner out then play games at night. I always waited on her when was here. I figured it was the least I could do.
My mother loved extreme weather shows, TV judges and crime. She never missed Judge Judy. She also liked quiz shows and she and I used to play Jeopardy together on the phone at night. She always had a crossword puzzle book with a pen inside on the table beside her chair, and I used to try to fill in some of the blanks. On the dining room table was often a jig saw puzzle, and we all stopped to add pieces on the way to the kitchen. My mother loved a good time.
She did get feisty, and I remember flying slippers aimed at my head when I was a kid. She expertly used mother’s guilt and, “I’ll do it myself,” was her favorite weapon. We sometimes drove her crazy, and she let us know, none too quietly.We never argued over politics. She kept her opinions close. We sometimes argued over other things, but the arguments never lasted long.
I still think to reach for the phone and call my mother when I see something interesting or have a question I know only she can answer. When I woke up this morning, my first thought was of her, and I cried a little.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Big Boggle, Christmas, games, missing my mother, Mother's Day, rain, Shopping, usic
Comments: 19 Comments
April 21, 2013
Last night was cold, and today is chilly though the sun is warm. I envy Fern who is sprawled on the mat by the front door in the sun. Her fur is hot to the touch. Cats know how to live.
My tulips have bloomed. Their bright red is eye-catching. The hyacinths are pink and white and purple and are in the front garden where everyone can see them. My neighbor called and thanked me. She said she looks out her front window often to see how beautiful the colors in the garden are.
I only remember pansies from when I was a kid. They were the only flowers my father planted in the small garden near the front door. I loved their faces. To me they had eyes and mouths and different expressions and they all looked like they were wearing bonnets. I expected them to break out in song. Their voices I figured would be high like the voices in the old cartoons. They’d sing and bob their heads in unison.
When we were really little, my dad would lie on the floor and raise his legs just a bit. We’d get on his feet, stomach first. He’d then raise his legs all the way and up we’d go as high as his legs would take us. He’d hold our hands and spin us using his feet. We’d laugh the whole time. The worse part was we had to take turns. Even this ride had a line.
I loved it when the whole family would jump into the car for a Sunday ride. My dad would pick back roads, and we’d see farms and cows and sometimes horses. My brother and I each had a window. On warm days I’d open the window, and stick out my hand so the wind could blow it.
When I was growing up, my parents did all sorts of stuff with us. I doubt they knew how important all of it would become, how it would become part of who we are now. They gave us a love for museums, the fun of taking a ride with no destination, and the best of all, playing games together at the kitchen table. Tonight my friends and I will play Phase 10 and Sorry, a game I’ve been playing since I was six.
Categories: Musings
Tags: cats, cold day, family fun, feet, games, garden, hyacinths, pansies, rides, sun, Sunday, tulips
Comments: 14 Comments
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