Posted tagged ‘heat’
September 25, 2014
I am back to myself again. The only aches and pains come from age.
The morning is dark, almost ominous. Everything is still. The house was cold when I woke up, down to 64˚. I broke my no heat vow. The house is now comfortable, and I am in my winter garb including slippers and a sweatshirt. I’m thinking it might be time to replace the back door screen with glass. That’s where Gracie’s dog door is, and when it’s cold, I have to keep the inside door shut, and Gracie can’t come and go at will. I’ve added that to my to do list for today. I’m also going to put a blanket on the bed. I was cold last night, and I know Gracie was too because she was leaning against me. It wasn’t comfortable.
Duke, the boxer I grew up with, was not allowed on furniture, including beds, but he always figured that only held true when we could see him. At night he’d sleep on the couch. We could hear him getting off when we walked down the stairs in the morning. When we went somewhere and Duke was home alone, the bedspreads would miraculously get circles in the middle, the sort a dog makes when turning around and around. We never did catch him at it. He was one smart dog.
Yesterday was computer day from hell. My Mac screen stayed black. The keyboard lit and the cursor worked, but the screen would die just after the apple appeared. I went crazy. I got my iPad and went hunting. One site told me to hold the shift key so it would open in safe mode. That didn’t work. I’d read my book for a while, but I kept stopping to stare at the computer. I hate computer problems, and I have this overwhelming need to solve them. I’d put my book down and try something else suggested by some poor computer illiterate with the same problem. I went from forum to forum. I felt like Diogenes wandering with my lamp looking not for an honest man but for a solution. I actually found one. It was five steps, and the woman who posted it had gotten the solution from Apple. The comments after the steps were from people thanking her which gave me encouragement and also let me know the problem was not the machine. It was a glitch from an Apple system automatic update that never quite got past the login screen. When my desktop appeared, I was Rocky running up the stairs of the art museum in triumph: computer 0, me 1.
Categories: Musings
Tags: animals on the bed, dark day, Dog, furnace, heat, off the bed, rain, Storm door
Comments: 12 Comments
September 20, 2014
Being under the covers did no good. They were too skimpy and the house was too cold. I jumped out of bed, put on my slippers, my sweatshirt and my around the house pants then ran downstairs and turned on the heat. It was 62˚. I got my coffee and warmed my hands around the cup. Soon enough the house was cozy.
When I was a kid, I could make something out of nothing. Life was an adventure. A walk became a trek or a safari. The train tracks were a trip into the unknown. The woods were deep and harbored creatures which shied from humans, but we knew they were there. The old fallen tree trunk was a spaceship or even a pirate ship. A tree branch was a sword. We followed paths we’d never been on before. They were narrow and overhung with branches you had to hold and push aside. If you let go of the branch, the person behind you got whacked. That was never a good idea.
My life is still an adventure. I’ve been lucky in that way. I don’t see spaceships any more, but I have seen parts of the world I could never have imagined. I remember the house in Ecuador where Guinea pigs were running around then I found out they were a popular dish called cuy. The bus stopped in the Sierra Nevada mountains for lunch, and I had the best trout I have ever eaten. The other passengers pointed to it on the menu to make sure we ordered it. Sunsets give me pause everywhere. A starry sky is one of the most beautiful of all sights. I saw the Andes covered with snow. I saw bananas and pineapples growing. I have been to Africa.
When I was eleven, I vowed I’d see the world. I still have places to go, but I’m working on it. I love adventures.
Categories: Musings
Tags: adventure, Africa, cold morning, Ecuador, Guinea pigs, heat, imagination, pineapples and bananas, starry skies, sunny day, sunsets, the Andes, trout, woods
Comments: 10 Comments
February 9, 2014
The sun was shining while we were having a small snow shower earlier. It was kind of pretty. I stood at the door and watched as if I haven’t had enough snow already this winter. I think, though, it was the gentleness of this snow which drew me to watch. The flakes were wispy and tiny. The storm lasted but a heartbeat. Clouds took over, but the sun is breaking through them, and the day is brightening again. I’d like some sun.
I have decided that getting older has given me the right to even greater creature comfort. When I was younger, I tolerated extremes of heat and cold. Now I crank up the thermostat in winter and turn on the air-conditioner in summer. I stay in warm cozy clothes on the coldest of days and hunker down at home. My meals are a mishmash of whatever is in the house. Rice Krispies aren’t just for breakfast any more and adding a banana raises that cereal to new heights. Yesterday I had a messy grilled cheese sandwich, comfort food at its best. I added avocado and bacon. That sandwich was like manna from heaven. I don’t know what is on the menu for today, but I do have a couple of sweet potatoes and some pastrami so maybe a sort of hash.
I started reading the Stephen King. It is fine for downstairs reading, but because of its size, the book is unwieldy for reading in bed so I’ll have to choose a new upstairs book. When I worked and drove more, I also had a car book which doubled as my lunch time book. On long trips, I listened to an audio book. That always made the time go so much faster. I remember trips to Europe in the summer and trading books with other backpackers. I also remember trying to find the only English language bookstore in some cities; Quito was one of them. When I went to Ghana, I filled my iPad with e-books, and I read several of them while I was there. I do love the feel of a real book, but sometimes a real book is not practical and travel is one of those times. My iPad is right up there at the top of my packing list, and I doubt anything will unseat it as number one.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Air conditioner, avocado and bacon, cozy clothes, creature comfort, E-book, grilled cheese sandwich, hash, heat, Rice Krispies, snow shower, sun, upstairs book'downstairs book
Comments: 10 Comments
October 27, 2013
If you looked up fall in the dictionary, they’d be a picture of today. The sun is shining, the sky is a pale blue and the breeze is brisk with a bit of a chill. Fall is in full burst. My front yard is filled with fallen leaves and pine needles. The grass doesn’t needed mowing any more. Yesterday my irrigation system was shut down for the season, and today I’ll clear the water from my back yard hoses. It’s time to close down the deck for the season though I’ll save a place to sit on a sunny day, my big wooden chair. I love fall, but I find it sad when fall begins to move toward winter.
Summer is always exuberant. It is warmth and colors and the sweet smell of flowers wafting through the air. Every morning I’d get the papers and then stop to look at my front garden. I’d lean against the car and marvel at the beauty of the flowers. I always noticed a few empty spots and would get excited at needing to buy new flowers. I can never have enough flowers. I’d finally pull myself away and go into the house, get my coffee and go outside on the deck. It takes me a long time to read the papers when I’m outside. I stop and watch the birds at the feeders and Gracie in the backyard. I listen to the singing. I raise my face to the sun and close my eyes. Summer fills me.
Fall always seems to have a faster pace than summer, and I think of October, nearing its end, as the bridge between fall and winter. Fall has a unique beauty when the leaves turn, and the trees are filled with color, muted color. My garden celebrates the season with fall flowers. The plants I put in last year were in full bloom this fall, and I was surprised as I had forgotten planting them. This year I added three more fall flowers, and they must have been happy to be planted as they bloomed a week or two later. Of all the seasons fall surprises me the most. The days are sometimes as warm as summer while the nights get downright cold. The sunlight slants in an odd direction. Darkness comes earlier and earlier.
My heat comes on in the mornings now. I can hear it as I’m waking up. The days seem to be warm enough to keep the furnace at bay, but I doubt that will last too much longer. Winter is coming.
Categories: Musings
Tags: chill of the day, closing down the deck, coming winter, darkness, deck, fall flowers, fallen leaves and pine needles, flowers, furnace, heat, lovely fall day, newspapers, October, slanting sunlight, summer, warmth and color
Comments: 23 Comments
July 20, 2013
Unless they are all part of a vast conspiracy, the weather people are in agreement that today is it for this heat wave. Starting tomorrow, we can leave our caves and go outside to see the world. We can stop thinking we are all extras in an end of the world movie.
I remember the old days when you could buy the best seats in Fenway Park on game day. As kids, we took a bus and then the subway to Fenway to sit in the cheap bleacher seats for a Saturday afternoon game. In those days, there were a lot of afternoon games. My first night game was when I was 13 or 14. I’ll never forget how beautiful Fenway Park looked under the lights. The grass didn’t even look real. When I was in college, I went to many early season games, before college ended for the year and I had to go back home to the cape. Most of the games I saw were in May. My friend, who always got free tickets from his father, used to bring a picnic lunch his mother had packed for us. There were sandwiches, sweet and sour cucumbers, sliced carrots and always cookies for dessert. We had great seats every game: close to the field and to the Red Sox dugout. The park back then was never full or even half full. The Red Sox were not a big draw. They seldom ranked high in the standings, fourth was a good year, but I didn’t care. I loved baseball, and the Red Sox were my team.
It is really true that hot dogs taste better at ball parks. “Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jacks,” is still true for peanuts in the shell. I love the odd shapes of those shells, and how if you’re lucky you might just find one with three peanuts. The key, though, is cracking them without losing a peanut. As for other ball park food, I’m also partial to sausages with fried peppers and onions in a roll. As for drinking, I’m not a beer drinker which is probably sacrilege at the park, but a diet Coke works just fine for me.
Most years I take in a game or two. This year I haven’t been to one yet. I feel deprived. I’m thinking sometime in September when the weather is perfect for baseball. Go Red Sox! Hang in there. I’m coming!!
Categories: Musings
Tags: afternoon games, Baseball, best seats, Fenway Park, heat, hot dogs, peanuts, picnic lunch, Red Sox, sausages
Comments: 15 Comments
July 19, 2013
If this wasn’t real life but rather a cheesy science fiction movie, parts of the Earth would now be on fire, a cosmic punishment for abusing the elements. One scientist, ruggedly handsome, and a smart and beautiful female TV news anchor would save the Earth from itself and in the process fall in love. At the end of the film, people would be slowly coming out of their refuges, and our main characters would kiss. Fade out.
Today will be the hottest day of this heat wave. The forecast for the cape is only the high 80’s, but it could reach 100 in the rest of the state and even higher when you factor in the humidity. This is so unusual for us, already the third heat wave of the summer. I have no intention of leaving the house except to go to the deck to water my flowers, and I won’t do that until early evening.
Watermelon is summer. When I was young, my mother would cut slices, and we’d eat right down to the white next to the green peel. I remember the juice would drip down my fingers, and my hands would be really sticky as was my face where the sides of the watermelon touched it the further down to the peel I ate. I had watermelon the other day, the adult version; it was already cut but just as delicious and oh so sweet.
Corn is summer, especially sweet corn. We had it for dinner many nights when I was growing up. My father was the best corn eater I ever saw. He ate it row by row and never missed a kernel. He was a human typewriter. He’d eat each row then move to the next like the carriage of a typewriter moved on to the next line.
Popsicles are summer. Often when Johnny, the ice cream man, came my mother didn’t have the money for us to get ice cream, but she had enough for all of us to get popsicles. I was partial to root beer, but I also liked cherry and orange. The key to eating a popsicle was to keep up with the drips. That meant a lot of licking at the bottom while not ignoring the top. I remember my little sisters couldn’t always keep up with the melting and would sometimes have colored drip lines down their fingers and hands. Orange line seemed to be the most common. The popsicle was great until you neared the end. When you’d eat the bottom of one side, the other side would sometimes fall off the stick. If it fell in the grass, it was still okay to eat. The dirt, though, was a different story. That popsicle remnant was gone forever.
Stay cool and eat ice cream!
Categories: Musings
Tags: heat, Heat Wave, humidity, ice cream, popsicles, sticky fingers, sweet corn, watermelon
Comments: 15 Comments
July 18, 2013
Yesterday I went on the deck to fill feeders and water plants. That was my only visit to the outside world. Today it may reach 90˚ here on the cape for the first time all summer. The rest of the state is in an official heat wave, 90˚ weather three days or more. Today is day four. I have to go out, a no choice errand. I’m already dreading the trip.
I have become intolerant of too much heat and too much cold. Maybe it is because I am so much older than I was. My mother used to keep her heat so high in the winter the rest of us wore t-shirts. When I lived in a hot country, I abided the heat. I had no choice. Now I leave the air-condition running. I think today is day three. My feet get cold so I put on slippers. I think having cold feet in the middle of a heat wave is a wonderful thing.
None of my windows have shades. I have never liked them. I might have gone with blinds, but I didn’t think of them, and I probably would have put them only in the two bathrooms. The windows in the den here and the ones in the dining room have nothing, not even curtains. The window in here facing east is my favorite view of all the windows. From it I can see the trees in the backyard, the bird feeders and the now opened red umbrella on the deck. If I were a painter, I would use water colors to paint my view. The living room lace curtains came from Ireland. I bought them in a store in Dublin. The rest of the rooms have a variety of curtains: valances, full curtains and half curtains with valances. The ones in my bedroom came from India. I bought them on-line. The ones in the guest room came from Bradlees, a store no longer in existence. Soon the upstairs bathroom will have curtains made of cloth from Ghana which matches some of the cloth in my new shower curtain. Grace said she saw the cloth in Accra at a market and will buy it for me. That’s kinda neat when you think about it: there’s the Ghana connection still so strong and the market and cloth and my former student who is 60 or 61 and happy to shop for me but won’t call me by my first name. I am Madam or Miss Ryan.
When I was young, I lived in a cave, not a real cave but a darkened house which resembled a cave. My mother put the shades down in every room to keep out the heat. I remember walking outside and not being able to see because of all that sun. We had morphed into moles.
Categories: Musings
Tags: air-conditioning, Bradlees, cold feet, curtains, Ghanaian cloth curtains, heat, Heat Wave, Indian curtains, intolerant of heat, lace curtains, moles, shades, windows
Comments: 16 Comments
July 7, 2013
It was only a couple of weeks back when I complained about what seemed to be endless days of rain. Now I get to complain about endless days of heat. The weatherman says thunder showers maybe today but probably tomorrow. I’ll keep checking the sky with my fingers crossed.
I get to go out today. Gracie needs biscuits and dog food, and I need ant traps. The buggers found an open box of confectionary sugar and multiplied in numbers gorged on the sugar. I plan on no less than total annihilation.
We lost electricity last night for about two hours. All of the neighborhoods around me were dark. It started around 9:30. I fell asleep on the couch and was jolted awake by the TV when it came back on. I haven’t read the Cape Times yet to find out the reason but overload is a good possibility.
This morning I filled a few of the bird feeders. More of them still need filling and the suet feeder is empty. The deck plants will need water again so I’ll take a deep breath and go out in the heat of the day. I was barefoot at one point on the deck yesterday, and my feet were burning as if I were walking across beach sand.
As if great whites weren’t enough, now Portuguese man o’ wars are being seen close to the beaches on the Vineyard. Lifeguards scooped up around twelve of them. The man o’ wars are weird-looking: purple with what looks like a balloon at the top, and they have quite a sting. They drift with the current buoyed by the balloon.
This has been a boring few weeks for me. I haven’t seen anybody, and my one trip was to the dump. I am so excited about Agway today. I get to talk to people.
Short post today-being housebound has caused me to be a bit unimaginative. It’s a good thing I’m not going to a cocktail party. I’d have absolutely no patter. “What do you think of the heat?”
Categories: Musings
Tags: boring, heat, man o' war, no electricity
Comments: 16 Comments
July 5, 2013
Yesterday was a quiet July 4th for me. I watched the Sox win from the comfort of my air-conditioned house. At game time it was 92˚, and I couldn’t imagine sitting in the bleachers in all that heat. Fenway must have been awash with sweat. Last night I could hear the sounds of firecrackers from all over the neighborhood. I watched Independence Day. That and Jaws are my traditional July 4th movies, “You yell ‘Shark,’ we’ve got a panic on our hands on the Fourth of July.” Last night I watched the Boston Pops on the esplanade. All in all it was a good day.
My father loved to fish, mostly in the winter for smelt. He also dug quahogs. He’d fill his basket, bring them home and open the shells. My mother would make stuffed quahog, put the stuffing into the shells, and we’d have some right away while she froze the rest. I loved smelt though they were so small it took several to make a meal. Baked, stuffed quahog is still a favorite of mine.
My mother didn’t serve fresh fish when we were growing up. I remember meatless Friday nights and having French fries and fish sticks for dinner. As we got older, my mother got a bit of courage and started serving fresh fish. She started with a casserole, sort of fish in disguise, and we ate it up. That casserole also had shrimp, and I remember it was heavenly. We’d ask for it often. I still make every now and then, but somehow it just doesn’t taste the same as my mother’s. I swear she had a golden touch.
I love fish and shellfish. Lobster is one of my favorites. Sometimes when I’d visit my parents for the weekend, my dad would take my mom and me out to dinner for twin lobsters. The only problem was there was nowhere to hide. Sitting beside or across from my father made you a target, and you knew there was no way to avoid the squirts as my dad devoured his lobster. He was the best lobster eater I’ve ever seen. Even the small amount of meat from the legs got eaten. He was also one of the noisiest as he sucked the meat from those legs and hmmed his way through the lobster. When he was finished only shells were left, never a trace of lobster meat.
My sister and I learned to eat lobster by watching our dad. We are also messy, and we are never quiet. We eat every piece of meat, even from the legs. We pride ourselves on our prowess in devouring a lobster. Without question, it is one of the best life lessons my dad taught us.
Categories: Musings
Tags: devouring lobster, Fish, fish sticks, heat, July 4th, lobster, quahogs, Red Sox, shellfish
Comments: 14 Comments
May 26, 2013
The house was winter cold this morning. I actually turned on the heat to warm it up. 61˚ is just too uncomfortable, and I refuse to dress in layers inside the house. My cousin in New Hampshire had snow. The weather has gone topsy-turvy. My sister in Colorado had her air conditioning blowing at full force. Hope, however, springs eternal. If the weatherman is right, tomorrow will be 68˚.
Turner Classic Movies has been my go to channel all weekend. World War II has been the subject of most of the films. Yesterday seemed to be submarine day. Today I get to go back to Bataan, and I just watched John Wayne, the captain of a German freighter, being chased by a British destroyer at the start of the war. Yup, John Wayne was a German, but a good German.
I do need to go out today and I fear the roads. It may not be raining but it is cloudy and damp. I suspect people will be looking for something to do, and they need to ride up and down the main roads to find it.
It’s time to decide my theme for summer movies. Last year it was movies made in Boston. This year I’d go with B science fiction, but I don’t think those movies would get a warm welcome from some members of my audience. July 4th is, of course, reserved for Jaws and Independence Day. I am not a fan of musicals so they’re out except for West Side Story. I’ve always liked that one. Westerns are also not among my favorites though She Wore a Yellow Ribbon is one I could watch, and there’s always Blazing Saddles which makes me think of a Mel Brooks medley of movies. Young Frankenstein always makes me laugh as does The Producers. I’m thinking to put them on the marquee. I love old movies, black and white movies, but they don’t have the best sound for the projector, too low for a couple of people.
For the first film of the season, whatever it is, we’ll have the red carpet and dinner, a deck dinner from the grill. I’ll put out my movie signs and get the popcorn ready. All I need is summer.
Categories: Musings
Tags: cold, heat, John Wayne, Mel Brooks, movies on the deck, popcorn, Snow, summer movies, tourists, Turner Classic Movies
Comments: 12 Comments
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