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“August rain: the best of the summer gone, and the new fall not yet born. The odd uneven time.”

August 26, 2017

Today is a carbon copy of yesterday. Carbon copy? Where did that come from? I haven’t seen a carbon copy for years. It has gone the way of the phone booth.

Last night got really chilly. I grabbed the afghan, snuggled under it and fell right back to sleep. When I woke up, the morning still had a chill, especially the backyard as the sun doesn’t get there until the afternoon. The first cup of coffee was especially inviting this morning,

Peapod came this morning, and all the groceries are already put away. I noticed I bought hot dog buns but no hot dogs. I also forgot toilet paper. I swear I looked and chose the paper I wanted, but obviously I didn’t; however, I did remember the Twizzlers. I do have priorities. I’ll just have to hit the grocery store later.

Artichokes are ugly. They are also too much work to eat. I sometimes wonder who was brave enough to taste one for the first time, and how long did it take to figure out how to eat it?

When I first started eating brie, I didn’t like the brie mold. I’d dig around underneath it and leave a gaping hole, sort of like eating the pie filling and leaving the top crust. It took a while before I realized the mold was tasty.

The world knows I hate beans. Where that came from I have no idea. Even as a kid I didn’t like beans. Our Saturday night baked beans never touched my plate. I look with distain at most beans, but one type makes me grimace, makes me crinkle my face in disgust. That would be refried beans. I can never get pass how they look. They are gross.

I love kitchen tools. My favorite is my juicer. It is orange metal and is the easiest way ever to get lemon or lime juice. I also love my avocado skinner, parer and my corn cutter which takes the kernels off the cob. I have this amazing little wheel which you roll and it minces garlic as it goes. I bought onion glasses but they didn’t really help all that much. Now I buy chopped onion to save myself. I have a mandolin, but the first time I used it I cut my finger so I don’t use it so much. I have knife sharpeners, but I can never seem to get them to work. Most off my knives are depressingly dull. On my sometime in the future to do list is to bring a few knives at a time to be sharpened. Lord only knows if my fingers will be safe.

Last night I was standing outside the Cape Playhouse before going inside. It was only 7:30, and it was already getting dark. I wanted to scream. Summer is too quickly coming to an end. Labor Day, the traditional end of summer, is next weekend. It’s time to accept the seasons are changing and it’s time to bring the sweatshirts out of the guest room closet.

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“It’s in the singing of a street corner choir. It’s going home and getting warm by the fire. It’s true, wherever you find love, it feels like Christmas!”

December 9, 2016

 

Last night was freezing. Gracie slept right beside me with her head on my arm. I guess she needed the body warmth. We have sun today, but I’d gladly trade it for a warmer day. The temperature is in the 30’s and will go down to the 20’s tonight. At least we won’t get snow.

Al my Colorado presents are wrapped. The bin holds only unwrapped Cape presents, and I have time yet. Today is busy. Gracie and I are going to the dump then to UPS. I also need to get a Dunkin’ gift card and a few groceries. I have to make fudge for my sister. I’ll be seeing her tomorrow and the fudge is a tradition, a gift she loves. Tonight I’ll watch Hallmark Christmas movies and write out my Christmas cards. I have my Edward Gorey cards, special ones for the family and a few I bought in Ghana. The tree is postponed until Sunday. I am disappointed.

This end of the street is dark, no Christmas lights, except for my house. One of my neighbors does have a white light in each window, but that is it. At the other end of the street three of the houses have lights. And on the next street, one of the houses is amazing. The lawn is filled with lights and lit figures of Santa and his reindeer. The house is outlined. All the trees are ablaze with light. It is the best house in the neighborhood.

When I was a kid, the square at Christmas always had carolers the nights before Christmas when people were shopping. The John Hancock Company gave out free soft cover books of carols, and they were passed out each night to the carolers. I remember one cover had a church with a lit stain glass window. Another cover had three choir boys wearing white gowns and red bowties. I still have a couple of books, one of each cover. I remember singing in the square. We stood on a platform right in front of the drug store and the Children’s Corner. I was in the fifth grade. We probably weren’t all that good but we were enthusiastic. I remember it all.

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“Nothing reminds us of an awakening more than rain.”

April 12, 2016

Today I started early with a nine o’cock meeting. When it had finished, I went to the bank, the post office and the grocery store. I got home after eleven and had another cup of coffee while I read my second newspaper and my e-mail. It was while I was reading the local news I realized how tired I was so I decided to take a morning nap. Gracie must have felt the same way because she joined me upstairs. We just woke up. Gracie, though, is now back to napping, and I’m still tired.

When I looked out the window this morning, I saw a cloudy, ugly sort of day. When I went outside to leave, I was surprised at how warm it was. My car said 55˚, almost balmy for this time of year especially with no sun. I knew it was supposed to rain during some part of the day and it did just as I arrived home. All I would have needed was four more minutes so I could have gotten the dog, my packages and me inside without getting wet.

The easiest way to describe the weather is to say it’s a rainy day, but that’s just the beginning. What sort of rain? All rain storms don’t fall from the sky in the same way, but they do have two things in common: they get you wet and all the rain ends up in the same place, down. My favorite description of rain is one my mother used to use. She’d say it was spitting rain, and I knew exactly what she meant. The earlier rain I got stuck in was heavy. My mother would have called it a deluge. Sometimes rain is torrential. Other times it rains cats and dogs. Sprinkling is the lightest of rains. Coming down in buckets is just the opposite. I remember the rain falling on the long windows when I was in elementary school. The drops would hit the windows then drizzle down until they disappeared. When the wind is great, the rain falls sideways. Some storms have pounding rain. They are probably my least favorite because I always get so wet.

My favorites of all storms are in Ghana at the start of the rainy season. After months of no rain the sky turns almost black and the clouds darken the day. All of a sudden the wind and the rain start with unbelievable ferocity. Trees bend under the onslaught. Lightning strikes jaggedly across the sky. I once saw it hit the ground. The dry, hard earth can’t absorb the rain so it forms rivulets which run and make furrows on the ground. Sometimes the rain is so magnificent I can’t catch my breath from the awe of it. I stand and watch until the storm wears itself out and the sun comes back. I know the dry season is over and it will rain just about every day, but it is this first rain which I’ll remember.

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“Forget about being world famous, it’s hard enough just getting the automatic doors at the supermarket to acknowledge our existence.”

March 3, 2012

Gee, it’s raining. What a surprise! I was shocked when I woke up and saw yesterday and the day before and the day before that outside my window. The difference is today is warmer at 50°.

It’s sci-fi Saturday when I get to watch a whole day of TV filled with creatures whose main diet is man. Right now Manticore is picking out his entrée having already enjoyed several appetizers, nearly a whole village full.

I have to grocery shop today, my least favorite thing to do. I’ll go up and down the aisles filling my cart while in a stupor hoping to avoid conversation and the carts parked willy-nilly in the middle of the aisles. My list of what I really need is even boring, mostly household cleaning items. I can barely wait for the dishwashing liquid aisle.

You might have figured I am feeling a bit languid today. If my fridge weren’t empty, I might postpone the shopping, but I’m stuck hitting the aisles if I want lunch or dinner. Where is that housekeeper I ordered?

I used to love to shop in the market in Ghana. It was filled with colors and sounds and chattering in a language I didn’t understand but loved hearing. First, I’d make my usual stops: the beef meat market, my vegetable lady, the egg man, the pick out your chicken line-up and then I’d wander. I never knew what I might find. Some days I’d buy cloth to have a dress made. Once I found a watermelon. Usually I’d just fill my bag with onions, tomatoes, maybe garden eggs and a yam. I’d  greet everyone,”Sanda kasuwa,” (I greet you in the market), and they’d return the greeting. I was a usual sight so no one took special notice of this white woman wandering the market.

I loved market day. It was every third day, and I’d go if I could. Now I get stuck shopping in the dullest of places: Stop and Shop. I know their meat will never turn green and I won’t find a partially formed chicken when I break an egg but where’s the adventure?

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“Mothers are the necessity of invention.”

January 31, 2012

The day is warm by winter’s usual standards. It’s 49°, but there is a little breeze which makes the day feel colder. On days like today I’d love a jacket like the ones I had as a kid. With those, each sleeve had a jersey cuff inside which kept the wind at bay, and all the jackets had hoods attached. Nothing is worse than ears which are red and frozen.

We always walked to school and never thought twice about the weather. Most families had only one car, and it left early to work with the dads. In my neighborhood, the only woman who drove was a widow who had no choice. The other mothers walked to do most of their errands. The only exception was the weekly groceries. It was a Friday tradition in my house for my Dad to drive my mother to the supermarket. I never went, but I’m willing to bet my dad waited in the car. Grocery shopping was a woman’s job.

When I was a kid, there was a clear delineation between household jobs for men and for women. I didn’t know any mother who had an outside job. Every mother in my neighborhood stayed at home and took care of the house and kids. Every morning the fathers, wearing suits and fedoras, drove to work. In the winter they shoveled and switched to snow tires, in the summer they mowed and trimmed the bushes, in the spring they planted and changed tires again and in the fall they raked and burned the leaves. They took down and put up the storm windows. They got the oil in the car changed and picked out every new car. On warm Saturday mornings, they washed those cars. They read the papers on Sunday mornings and watched football on Sunday afternoons. They were the threats our mothers used to keep us in line. Everything else our mothers did.

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“Heap on more wood! the wind is chill; But let it whistle as it will, We’ll keep our Christmas merry still.”

December 19, 2011

Last night dropped to the teens, as low as 14°, but, luckily, I was home warm and cozy wearing slippers and wool socks to complement my usual nighttime winter ensemble. Today feels warm at 39°. If the wind would disappear, it would feel even warmer. It’s strong enough to sway the big feeder and take the birds for a ride. I’d get car sick if I went back and forth that many times.

I never did get to the grocery store with my list but, instead, I went to a smaller store to pick up cat food and paper towels; however, I can procrastinate no longer and will leave for the Stop and Shop as soon as I finish here. I need to do my Christmas baking.

December 23rd was usually when we got out of school for vacation. We went to school the same as usual that morning, but it was never really a usual school day. We were far too excited to learn anything so the nun, knowing she was facing a losing battle, would vary the activities. In the morning we’d color Christmas scenes and make Christmas cards for our parents. In the afternoon we’d have a party.

My Christmas cards were seldom works of art. Most had a tree on the front because trees were easy to draw and decorate. I used a yellow crayon to make garlands because the white crayon was never any good to use. You couldn’t see it. You could feel it but not see it. I made dots of color for the lights but never ventured into ornaments. They would have looked like blobs. My inside messages tended to be on a slant and sometimes I ran out of space and had to loop my words. My mother made a big deal oohing and ahhing when I gave her my card. It was as if I had given her a real masterpiece. I always felt proud.

Christmas Day is a Sunday this year. When I was a kid, I loved it being on a Sunday. It was like cheating a little as it counted twice. It was both a Sunday mass and a Christmas day mass. We often went to the very first mass of the day walking to church in the cold darkness so we could hurry home to play with our new toys. I remember thinking we were the only people in the world awake that early. All the houses were  dark, but, on the way home, the sky was light and the people were awake. We could see tree lights shining when we looked at the windows as we quickly passed by them. We were in a hurry to get home.

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“When you give a lesson in meanness to a critter or a person, don’t be surprised if they learn their lesson”

August 14, 2011

Today is heavy with humidity. It has the look and feel of rain which won’t come, but its possibility will hang in the air all day. Nothing stirs, not a leaf, not a spawn, not a dog named Gracie. I’m already thinking nap, and I only woke up a couple of hours ago.

Yesterday I went grocery shopping. I was out of cat food, the only thing which forces me to shop. The aisles were filled with abandoned carts leaving no room on either side to pass. The cart owners were checking shelves and jars up and down the aisles. I moved a couple of carts to give me space and got such looks you’d think I was abusing children or small animals.

Sunday by its very nature is languid. On the seventh day he rested seems still to be a piece of the day. I went to church, stayed close to home and ate a big Sunday dinner. It was the same every week, and I think remnants of those Sundays are still part of my every Sunday. Seldom do I go anywhere other than breakfast. I do a wash every now and then, but that’s a leftover from my working days when I stayed home, changed the bed, did the laundry and corrected papers every Sunday afternoon. I also took a nap.

Elaine Clapper was always the target in my class. Every kid, make that mostly every boy, said she smelled. That Elaine was not especially attractive or smart or funny made her an easy target. The teasing was covert: laughing behind her back or pointing at her as she walked away. Most kids had little to do with Elaine. She was usually isolated. I think we girls were afraid of being drawn into her circle and becoming another Elaine. We all said hi, but that was the extent of our interaction. Once I invited her to my house. I don’t know why. I think I just felt sorry for her. She came. I have no recollection of how we spent the afternoon. I never invited her again. She went to the local high school, and I didn’t. I never saw or heard about Elaine Clapper again. I wish I were braver back then.

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