Posted tagged ‘humidity’
September 1, 2016
Earlier this m0rning I heard kids playing, a dog barking and the rain falling on the leaves. Now all I hear are the birds. I know it is still raining because I looked out the back door and saw the drops, but they are too little to make any sound. I turned off the air conditioning this morning, but I doubt being without air conditioning will last long. It is so humid you can cut it with a knife, as my father was wont to say.
The morning hasn’t started well. Fern and Gracie woke me up by staring at me close to my face. Fern’s whiskers tickled and Gracie had hot breath. I got up. Later Fern was sick a few times. I think it was the cat food. I have to go to Agway for dog food so I’ll pick up some different food for Fern to try. She is too skinny. I worry.
My neighbors drove their daughter to college on Monday. She is a freshman. Last night my neighbor called and told me she has been crying since Monday. Her daughter has called and is also crying. I don’t remember being that homesick at college though I do remember homesickness in Ghana. The big difference was I could call my family and go home for weekends as my college was only a couple of hours away while Ghana was almost eleven hours away by plane and mail took two weeks. Phone calls were out of the question.
I got over being homesick. I think being so far away and so disconnected made it easier to see Ghana as home.
It is less than two weeks until my trip home. I have made lists. One is what I need to buy while the other is what has to be packed. The countdown doesn’t begin until one week from my flight. It is getting close.
Categories: Musings
Tags: college, cut it with a knife, dog barking, eleven hours by plane, Fern and Gracie, homesick, humidity, Peace Corps Ghana, rain, woken up
Comments: 8 Comments
August 14, 2016
Big surprise: today is hot, already 88˚, and combined with the 70% humidity it feels like 100˚. I was on the deck earlier checking the plants. They have to be watered again, but I’ll wait until later in the day hoping it will be cooler.
When I arrived in Ghana for Peace Corps training, I knew nothing about Africa. The books and mimeographed materials from Peace Corps didn’t do much in helping me understand where I was going. Knowing there were two seasons, rainy and dry, had me picturing what rainy and dry look like here, that was all I had for reference. Descriptions of Ghanaian culture were like excerpts from a geography book. I read about the different tribes and where they lived. The country was divided into regions, a bit like our states.
Before we left Philadelphia for Ghana, I found out I was going to be posted in the Upper Region, only a place on the map to me. The Upper Region spanned all the way across the whole top section of Ghana from east to west. I was to be posted in its capital, Bolgatanga.
When I went to Bolga for a week during training, it was the rainy season when everything is green, and the market is filled with all sorts of fruit and vegetables. I figured that would be Bolga all the time. I was totally wrong.
When training was over, I made my way home, to Bolga. I stopped overnight in Kumasi, about the halfway mark. I always added an overnight so I could visit friends along the way. The trip from Accra to Kumasi was a wonderful train ride. From Kumasi to Bolga was a bus or lorry ride, always hot and always crammed with people.
Bolga was still in the rainy season when I moved into my house. The rains stopped a month or two later. Everything dried. The ground split. Nothing stayed green. My lips and the heels of my feet split. I walked on tiptoes. I learned to take bucket baths. My meals never varied. Breakfast was two eggs cooked in groundnut oil and two pieces of toast. Lunch was fruit. Dinner was beef cooked in tomato broth, a necessity to make the meat tender, or chicken. Yams were the side dish, sometimes in a mash and sometimes cooked with the meat. I always drank water except in the morning when I drank instant coffee with canned milk.
I never minded the same meals or the dry season. I was astonished every day that I was living in Africa. I loved Bolga whether rainy or dry. My friends and I would often look at the sky and say it looked like rain. That was a joke, and we never got tired of it. We knew the rain was months away. If we found something new in the market, it was cause for celebration. If we didn’t, it didn’t matter.
In about five weeks, I’ll be back home in Bolga.
Categories: Musings
Tags: 88˚, beef, dry season, Ghana, Ghanaian regions, hot, humidity, Kumasi, looks like rain, onions, Peace Corps, rainy season, Train, Upper Region, yams
Comments: 9 Comments
August 13, 2016
This morning I felt like a mole stepping into the sunshine after living underground for too long. I shielded my eyes on my way to the driveway to get the papers. I was blasted even in that short while by the heat and humidity. After getting the papers, I ran back into the house, into the cool darkness.
Last night I had to go to Stop and Shop to pick up a few things Peapod couldn’t deliver as the warehouse didn’t have them. It was close to eleven o’clock. I walked inside and had to look around as the store had changed considerably. I went from aisle to aisle reading the signs until I finally found what I wanted. That one short shopping trip reminded me why I use Peapod.
I love cheese, all sorts except blue cheese and gorgonzola. When I was a kid, my mother always bought Velveeta. It made the best grilled cheese sandwiches. I still buy it to make a quick dip with salsa, jalapeños and sometimes crumbled hamburger. I haven’t a favorite cheese so I usually buy a variety of cheeses. We have a new store which carries Italian cheeses many of which are unfamiliar so I usually need a taste before I buy. Any sandwich I make aways has a cheese of some sort. I even spread Brie. Crackers and cheese are a favorite snack of mine so I always have crackers in the cabinet. When I was in Ghana, there was no cheese. Even now it is scarce and expensive. Obruni stores, as in white man stores, do carry it, and you can find it in Accra. Ghanaians don’t eat cheese. Now I wonder why my mother never sent me Velveeta. It doesn’t need to be refrigerated, being processed cheese.
With my trip to Ghana getting closer, I’m thinking of all the Ghanaian food I’ll have, all my favorites. I’m also thinking about the Middle East restaurants which used to be all over Accra but are now difficult to find. Luckily, down the street from my Accra hotel, is a Middle Eastern restaurant where I had dinner the last time I stayed and hope to visit again. The safari lodge where we’re staying has a combination of European food and Ghanaian. In Ghana I am a European which just means white to Ghanaians. All this talk of Ghanaian food has my mouth is salivating for kelewele, Guinea fowl and, yup, even fufu.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Brie, Cheese, crackers, grilled cheese., heat, humidity, Mexican dip, mole, Peapod, salsa, Stop and Shop, sunshine, Velveeta
Comments: 16 Comments
August 9, 2016
This is a sort of solitary confinement. I sit behind closed windows and doors. The house is just too comfortable to leave. Today will be in the low 80’s. It will get humid tonight as rain is predicted for tomorrow, but I have become a skeptic. We are in the dry season, no longer in summer.
Where in the world is Fern? That was last night’s game. I was upstairs in the AC when I heard a commotion downstairs. When I went to investigate, neither cat was around. I went looking. I found Fern under one of the guest room beds, her safe place. She wouldn’t come out. I put her treats down and then later checked to see if she had eaten her tidbits. Nope, Maddie was eating them. Fern had moved to the other side of the bed. I left her there.
Last night I checked under the bed, no Fern. I called her and shook the treat bag. She didn’t come. I went to bed but during the night woke up and called Fern again. I turned on the bedroom light to go hunting. Fern was on the bed beside me. I had missed her. She got treats and ate all of them. When I woke up, though, Fern was gone. She has since surfaced and is sleeping on the couch.
I got to cross off one of my trip essentials. I saw the doctor and got anti-malarial pills and pills for my back should it cause problems, or maybe I should say when. My list is getting smaller.
The Great Whites have found a summer home here on Cape Cod. They enjoy the sun and surf. They eat al fresco and usually order seal. The other day, though, a party of six dined on a whale carcass, a minke whale carcass. Three beaches were closed as the sharks were close to shore. Be vigilant was the advice to swimmers. I saw Jaws, vigilance sometimes isn’t enough.
Categories: Musings
Tags: anti-malarial, cape cod, cat treats, cats, great white whalse, hiding, humidity, low 80's, minke carcass, rain, seals, solitary confinement, treats
Comments: 14 Comments
July 25, 2016
It is change the air day so the AC is off for a bit, a short bit as the house is getting hot too quickly. There is a breeze, but it is doing little good. It might thunder shower this afternoon. That would be a most welcomed storm.
I have a couple of errands I can do today or I can wait until cooler weather. That might be Friday or Saturday. My friend Peg, one half of my Ghana travel mates, reminded me I need to get used to the heat. I remember the last time I was there every time I did anything I was soaked from sweat. The dry season is easier to get used to as the rainy season brings the humidity. We’ll be there at the tail end of rain.
It seems the older I get the less tolerant I am of weather. I hate the heat in summer and the cold in winter. The AC is now on days at a time. In my earlier life, I didn’t even have a fan, and I was always comfortable. All winter I now wear a sweatshirt even though the heat is on 68˚. I used to need only a long-sleeve shirt. My mother always kept her house far too hot in the winter. My sister and I wore tee shirts and complained. Now we both understand.
I have stuff to do on the deck like check lights, put the adapter on the umbrella and water plants. These are wonderful intentions but that’s what they’ll stay, intentions. I use the heat as my reason, not my excuse.
Across the top of one chair was a spider’s web. When I was going to clean it, I noticed many tiny spiders were attached to the web. In August my house is inundated with baby spiders. Now I understand why. In that one web were about twenty not ready to be born babies. I left them there. I’ll complain about all the spiders, but I just could’t bring myself to swipe away that web. It was sort of neat to see.
Categories: Musings
Tags: 68˚, AC, baby spider, change the air day, cold, Consumer Cellular, hot, humidity, spiders, sweating, thunder shower, web, winter
Comments: 18 Comments
July 18, 2016
The gypsy moths are everywhere. They are brown and small. They flit from spot to spot. When I opened the back door for Gracie to go out, there were three hanging around the screen, but they didn’t stay long. The males are hunting for a mate and are flying to find the females who are too heavy to fly. The female moths exist only to reproduce once with the male moths After they lay their eggs, moths of both sexes then die. I figure it is no wonder that they spend so much time flitting.
I am still in my house behind closed windows and doors with the AC at full blast. It is far too humid to be out. The forecast is for a heavy thunderstorm tonight. I am skeptical.
Going to the market is on my short to do list. I am out of bread and fruit. Watermelon is my favorite fruit right now. It is perfect for hot summer days. When I was a kid, my mother gave us slices. We had to eat it outside as watermelon slices are messy mostly because the rind always curved because the watermelon was oval. My cheeks got wet from the juice, and it often dripped down my arm. I read that the Japanese started growing square watermelons about ten years ago. I first I thought how strange they’d be then I realized the shape doesn’t matter. It’s the fruit inside. I also need bananas as I have a new box of Corn Flakes, a boring cereal which definitely needs a lot of help.
When I still worked, I had far less time but got everything done. On the weekend, I grocery shopped, went to the dump, did my laundry, changed my bed, watered the plants, prepared lessons and corrected papers. Now I am the queen of delay. When I do a single chore on any day, I feel accomplished. My laundry has been leaning against the cellar door for a few days. I don’t care. Maybe tomorrow I’ll do a wash. But then again, maybe I won’t.
Categories: Musings
Tags: AC, chores, Corn Flakes, going outside, gypsy moths, humidity, juice down my arm, Laundry, moth eggs, reproduction, Shopping, watermelon
Comments: 15 Comments
July 2, 2016
My wish was granted. Last night it was a mighty storm. The thunder started way off with small rumblings then it got closer and louder. The lightning lit up the room. One thunder clap was right over my house. All three animals looked up as if the roof was falling. Mother Nature celebrated the 4th just a bit early, and her display was spectacular.
The air is cool this morning with a slight breeze, but the humidity will return later. I have opened all the windows. This room, my den, is always wonderfully dark and cool in the morning as the sun doesn’t hit it until the afternoon.
My mother always put the shades down all summer. She said it kept the house cool. She also made a pitcher of Zarex most days and left it in the fridge, but she hated it when we opened the fridge door as we generally stood there by the door to check out the fridge. She said we were letting the cold out.
Weekdays in the summer we entertained ourselves. We’d bike ride totally mindless of the heat or we’d spend the day at the park on the field across from the bottom of my street. On those days we’d go home for lunch which was always a sandwich, usually bologna. I don’t even remember what other cold cuts my mother bought. To my sandwich I’d add hot peppers which I had cut in half. Mustard was my condiment of choice; of course, it was always yellow mustard. The bread was always white. I don’t remember any specific dessert, but my guess is it was Oreos, a wonderfully portable dessert. I still love my Oreos, but once I went crazy and bought peanut butter Oreos. They were pretty good though really what’s not to like about peanut butter, but I’m a traditionalist prone to buy the original though double-stuffed is always tempting.
Categories: Musings
Tags: biking, bologna, cool morning, humidity, mighty storm, oreos, park, shades, summer weekdays, thunder and lightning
Comments: 17 Comments
September 20, 2015
Today is dark and damp with the humidity at 80˚. It rained for all of three minutes, stopped for a long while then rained again for a few minutes. I think that will be the weather for the day, on and off rain. I have no urge to do anything constructive except take my shower which I suppose could be construed as constructive.
Tonight my friends and I are going out to dinner, a celebratory dinner for my friend’s birthday. I’m looking forward to the festivities.
My memory drawers are so filled I can’t even close some of them. Momentous events and whole experiences fill most drawers, but my memory drawers also save picture memories, single snapshots, and I sometimes wonder why. I remember my fourth grade lunch box was red plaid. I don’t remember any other lunch boxes. I have no memories of my school shoes, but I remember my sneakers, my play shoes. My favorite pair of dungarees had a flannel lining. The cuff had to be rolled once as the pants were a bit long. I was young and the waist of those pants was elastic, no snaps, no buttons. I remember one part of our walk to church early Christmas morning. It was still dark. I remember walking on the sidewalk and across the railroad tracks but that’s all. Arriving at church and the walk home are lost somewhere way back in one of those drawers. I can close my eyes perfectly see the cloakroom outside my first grade classroom. I remember the thick, painted walls in the rectory cellar where I spent my third grade. From high school, I remember where my freshman locker was, and I remember a before school practice for one of the Christmas pageants. I was sitting in the middle of about the third row. Once I got detention for talking on the stairs, one step away from the cafeteria where I was allowed to talk. I know exactly where that happened. I can even see the nun turn and tell me I had detention, but I don’t remember who the nun was.
In Philadelphia, at Peace Corps staging, we were together for about 5 days before leaving for Ghana. I remember standing in line for check-in. I remember sitting on the rug on the top floor with my back to the wall and reading The Naked Ape. Why I was on the top floor and not in my room escapes me. I don’t remember leaving for Ghana. I do remember after a stop for fuel in Madrid my seat belt got stuck and I couldn’t get it unstuck so I didn’t wear it for take-off from Madrid or for landing in Ghana.
Memories are so many things. Some makes us nostalgic, other makes us sad, some fill us with wonder. I always think the best ones keep those we love close to us whether they are here or not.
Categories: Musings
Tags: cloak room, damp, dark day, dungarees, fourth grade, high school locker, humidity, lazy day, memory drawers, picture memories, seat belt, single snapshots, sneakers, third grade, walking to church
Comments: 10 Comments
September 8, 2015
Yesterday Boston set a new record for the day’s high temperature at 92˚. Happily we were much cooler thanks to the sea breeze. Yesterday’s leave the cape exodus of tourists was backed up for 6 miles to get over the bridge. I think I would have gone crazy sitting in my car for that long.
Nothing outside is moving. The air is thick with humidity. My street is so quiet it could be an after shot in an apocalyptic movie. The breeze we had yesterday is gone. Today feels more like a day in August, a dog day. It was already so hot in the house, 78˚, that I turned on the AC. When Gracie came inside, her whole body seemed to be panting, but the cool air now has her quiet and sleeping.
September is a neither nor month. It is neither summer nor fall but can be either. Last week it was in the 50’s at night. Last night was close to 70˚. Boston may have another heat wave, three straight days in the 90’s, but by the weekend it’ll be back to the 50’s at night. The temperature doesn’t really matter. September is still my second favorite month.
I had two whole paragraphs written about people who drive me crazy because they are ill-mannered and impolite, but I ditched them as they made me sound like some old lady. I imagined myself stooped, carrying a cane and wearing generic frame glasses. I’d be wearing flowers on my clothes and smelling like lilac. I’d have expectations for other people and mumble when they didn’t meet them. That’s why those paragraphs disappeared.
Nothing much to do today. I think I’ll just read and do a couple of chores to make me feel accomplished. I have already cleaned the two cat boxes, a gross chore. I do need to wash the dog’s bedding and today is as good a day as any. I’m going to order in for dinner. I’m thinking a sub, maybe sausage parmesan. That will be the big decision of the day.
Categories: Musings
Tags: AC, apocalyptic movie., cat box, chores, dog bedding, hot, humidity, long wait over the bridge, nothing is moving, old lady, stir crazy, sub sandwich
Comments: 6 Comments
August 30, 2015
The house feels hot and a bit clammy. The humidity has returned. Gracie just sits in front of me and pants. If I were a dog, I’d do the same thing.
When I was a kid, I was a morning cocoa drinker. Two of my siblings were tea drinkers. My mother would put a nice tea pot on the table rather than putting the teabags in mugs. For my cocoa, she’d mix the powder with some milk, stir it together then add the water. Some mornings she made eggs. Other mornings we had cereal. We always had toast. She sometimes made soft-boiled eggs and put them in yellow, chicken-shaped egg cups. She always lopped off the top of the eggs. I loved how she used to cut the toast. It was the perfect size for dipping into the eggs. Oatmeal was common in the winter, the old-fashioned kind which took some time. My mother kept a good variety of dry cereals, including each of our favorites. I never gave those breakfasts much thought. It never occurred to me how early she had to get up. Not only did she make our breakfasts but also our lunches, great lunches, the envy of our friends. We never said thanks. We finished breakfast, grabbed our lunches, kissed her good-bye and ran out the door. Kids just don’t think sometimes to say thanks for the every day.
There is a slight breeze as I can hear my chimes now and then. The birds are noisy. I don’t hear any people.
I have nothing to do today except maybe the laundry still sitting by the cellar door, but it doesn’t bother me much so it may sit there a while longer. I am not even dressed yet. I don’t care. There is no urgency in putting on clothes. I do love this life of leisure.
Categories: Musings
Tags: cereal, cocoa, egg cups, Eggs, good breakfast, heat, humidity, lunches, school days, tea cocoa, Toast
Comments: 14 Comments
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