Posted tagged ‘humidity’
July 23, 2013
The paper says thunder showers today, not the probability of showers, but real rain. When I was out on the deck with my coffee and papers, it was humid and thick. I could feel the moisture in the air. Luckily a breeze was strong enough to keep me from wilting. I decided not to bring my laptop into all that humidity so I came back inside which doesn’t have the benefit of that breeze. The room is close.
The birds flew in and out at the feeders while I was there. Because no birds were at the suet feeder, I checked, and found it empty so I brought out a new cake and filled it. This one is peanut butter. I hope the birds are appreciative. No amorous doings on the deck or in the yard this morning. I do think I saw a red spawn lounging on a limb having a cigarette.
Hyannis will be filled today, and I have a doctor’s appointment there. This is when I wish I was Samantha and could wiggle my nose and be anywhere or had floo powder like the Weasley’s and Harry Potter. One toss in the fireplace, and I’d be there.
The entire neighborhood sounds deserted. I hear a bird now and then but no voices. I wonder where everyone went.
It is getting lighter out so now I’m going to start cursing the Cape Cod Times weatherman. I want that rain and that thunder. I’m hoping I can be outside and stay dry under my umbrella while it rains all around me. I love the sound of rain hitting that umbrella. In Ghana, it was the sound of rain hitting the tin roof of my house and my classrooms. The sound was so loud it made teaching nearly impossible. That is one of my strongest memories of the rainy season in Ghana. It is also one of my favorite.
My friends Bill and Peg are going to Ghana in September, and I am totally jealous. My having been there the last two years doesn’t count. Peg hasn’t been since 1972, but Bill was there on business sometime in the mid 1990,s, but he didn’t make it to Bolga where we all lived. I’ve given them my tour books and my phone, and I’ll give them our students’ numbers. They, as I was, will be surprised by the size of Accra and the huge number of people and how unfamiliar it all looks. Bill has a map from 1970 so he’s going to look for our favorite places and for the Peace Corps hostel which I couldn’t find. He has promised to take pictures. Bolga, though much bigger, will still feel like home to them.
My life has been so amazing yet here I am complaining about staying home this summer. I do have Grace (if she gets her visa) to look forward to in August and Bill and Peg will be down in October. I suppose I’d best stop carping though I am still jealous of Bill and Peg!!
Categories: Musings
Tags: Back to Ghana, deack, Ghana, Harry Potter, humidity, magic, rainy season, Samantha, sounds of rain, thunder showers, tin roof, Umbrella
Comments: 15 Comments
July 22, 2013
Today is sunny and really humid but much cooler than it has been. My windows and doors are open to the world. Gracie loves the freedom of going in and out on her own. I met my friend for breakfast though it was a mad dash to get there. I woke up at 8:45 and 9:00 is our usual meeting time. I multi-tasked: brushed my teeth while I was getting dressed and let the dog out while I was trying to find my sandals. I left my glasses home in the rush, but the spare pair was just fine. I made it in 17 minutes. To some people on the route I was a red flash they weren’t sure they saw.
When I was born, it was around 2 in the morning. My father was the only person in the waiting room. The nurse asked for Mr. Ryan as if it there was standing room only with crowds of men pacing the room. He saw me right away, minutes after I had been born, then rushed to my grandparents’ home to give everyone the news. The Duchess of Cambridge is in labor. Media trucks, cameras and reporters are outside the hospital waiting for the birth of the next heir to the throne. Tradition dictates that the news of the birth will come from an easel erected at Buckingham Palace. I didn’t have photographers or crowds waiting for my birth, but I had my Dad who rushed to make the announcement: the first grandchild had been born.
Today is dump day, finally. Gracie, of course, is coming. She loves our dump trips. She hangs her head out the window and takes in all the aromas. I never can smell anything. It’s definitely a dog thing.
Around 3:30 this morning, I heard Gracie’s bells. They were so loud I knew she was swinging them back and forth on the doorknob: her frantic attempt to wake me up. I came downstairs and let her out. She ran to the back and started to eat grass so I knew she had an upset stomach. I stayed on the deck. It was lovely and cool so I sat for a while. No lights were on in any house, and Gracie stayed in the way back so she didn’t trigger the dog lights. After a time, I came back inside. Gracie didn’t, and I started to get worried so I put on flip-flops, grabbed my flashlight and went looking. I found her right away still munching on grass. I called her inside and gave her several spider plant fronds. She chewed every one of them then got on the couch and started to fall asleep. It was around 4:30 by then so I went upstairs to bed, and she eventually followed and fell asleep. This morning she is fine. I’m really tired.
Categories: Musings
Tags: announcement, birth, dump, eating grass, first grandchild, heir to the throne, humidity, Kate, morning breakfast, my dad, sick dog, smells, spider plants, sun
Comments: 24 Comments
July 21, 2013
A cooler day with no sun but lots of humidity is today’s weather. I turned off my air and opened all the windows and doors. The house needed the fresh air after being closed up the whole week. It. looks like it rained for a few minutes earlier this morning. I was expecting thunder showers and am disappointment by the rain’s poor showing. Gracie and I are going to the dump today.
Yesterday I bought some vegetables at a couple of farmer’s markets. I also bought some balsamic vinegar, olive oil and corn chowder base. It was in the early morning, but the heat became too much too quickly so I hurried home to the cool house where I did two loads of laundry. Last night I had dinner at my friends’ and neighbors’ house and got home around ten. It was by far my longest and most productive day in over a month. Today I’m pretty much done in. I see the dump, a shower and a nap in my future.
I remember when I was twelve I had a white visor I wore all the time. It was like a girl’s version of a baseball cap. I have a few pictures of our family vacation that year, and in every picture I’m wearing the visor. In one picture I am leaning against a tree and have a hand in my pocket and one leg bend at the knee resting on the tree trunk. The white visor is, of course, on my head. It was obviously posed, but in it I see the first glimmers of a teenage me. I think it was the pose I chose and the look on my face. I wasn’t a little girl any more, and I knew it, white visor and all.
When I’d meet relatives I hadn’t seen in a long while, usually my parents’ aunts and uncles, each identified me as George’s oldest or Chickie’s oldest (the name my mother was known as since she was a little kid). I don’t think any of them ever knew my name. They identified me by the parent to whom they were related and my birth order. Just after I got out college for the summer, the one before my senior year, a car stopped by the house. In it were Aunty Madeleine and Aunty Clara, two of my mother’s aunts, my grandmother’s sisters. They asked for my mother. I explained she and my father had gone away for the weekend. They stayed in the car, and we conversed through the window. Aunty Clara right away wanted to know who was taking care of us. I told her I was. She was shocked and couldn’t imagine my parents had left us alone. I told her I was nearly twenty-one and quite old enough to babysit for a weekend. She didn’t say anything, just frowned. Aunt Madeleine said good-bye, and they drove away. I don’t think they even knew who I was. No one asked if I were Chickie’s oldest.
Categories: Musings
Tags: aunty, birth order, cooler day, couldy, dinner with friens, family, farmers' market, fesh vegetables, humidity, nap, pre-teen, relatives, tired, visor
Comments: 13 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 14, 2013
The house is already warm. I’m in the coolest room, and even here the humidity is creeping through the two open windows. Poor Miss Gracie is panting and has taken refuge in her crate. Soon enough, though, we’ll all be cool behind closed windows and doors with the AC blasting.
Tomorrow is supposed to be the start of the heat wave. I guess today is a dress rehearsal. This has really been a dreadful summer. We had weeks of rain, and this will be the third heat wave, though the cape’s has had only a pseudo heat wave because the ocean keeps us a few degrees cooler than off-Cape so we haven’t hit 90˚, just the high 80’s.
Last night it rained. I was outside with my friends when it started. At first it was a light rain then it was heavy enough to be heard hitting the umbrella and then we started to get wet. That’s when the evening ended. It was still raining when I went to bed, and when I woke up this morning, everything was still wet. I loved walking through the wet grass in my bare feet when I got the papers. I even left my footprints on the front steps.
My sister Moe spent her entire childhood with stubbed toes, and it didn’t matter whether or not she was wearing sandals. Her big toe never healed until it was time for shoes again. I always think it strange when odd memories like stubbed toes surface. It is an inconsequential memory which was probably buried as deep and as far back as my memory drawers go, but here it is. It makes me wonder what else is back there just waiting for its turn to surface.
My friend Maria and I joined St. Patrick’s drill team at the same time. I was ten and she was eleven. We were in the junior drill team which had a Saturday morning practice. It was in the old armory close to the square. On the first floor of the armory were several rooms and I remember lots of flags. One of the rooms had a pool table, and that’s where we’d often find the caretaker. The second floor was where we had drill practice for as long as I was in the drill team and longer than, but I don’t know how long. It was one huge room with windows on both sides, and it had a wooden floor. Because of the size of the room, we had to learn our competition maneuver in pieces. It wouldn’t be until warm weather that we could use a field and put all of the pieces together. I remember those Saturday mornings and learning first to stand at attention and parade rest. Then we learned to march in rows and lines. Maria and I laughed a lot, and we got in trouble for it a lot. It would be a year later that we were both moved to the senior drill team. Most of its members were much older that I: many were over sixteen and a few at eighteen were in their last year. I wasn’t ignored, but they and I had little in common. I was only eleven.
I remember going to an after competition party to celebrate the drill team having placed second. Most of the older girls brought their boyfriends, and I remember feeling out-of-place. That party was at a house which still stands. It is now a vet’s office and a day-care center for dogs. When I pass it to go to my sister’s house, I remember that party.
Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: bare feet, being young, competiton, drill team, Heat Wave, humidity, memories, St. Patrick's, stubbed toes, wet grass
Comments: 20 Comments
July 13, 2013
Sometime during the early morning it must have rained. The sides of the street were wet when I went to get the papers. The day is still damp and cloudy, but I like it. Though humid, the air is cool. Tomorrow will also be cool but starting Monday it will be back to the closed windows and air conditioning. The prediction is for temperatures in the high 80’s.
My landscaper and I chatted today. He loves taking down trees and clearing yards. He said the side front lawn is being taken over. Just beyond it is an area left untouched and filled with trees though a row of day lilies separates it from the lawn. Sebastien pointed to branches hanging over the lawn. “Those need to go,” he said and smiled. I had to agree. Some are dead, and the rest drop leaves and pine needles on the lawn. Another branch from a side pine is also dead, and he’ll have that cut down as well. He gave me the bird’s nest, beautifully constructed and with branches hanging below it. There were pieces of plastic mixed into the construction, and I saw that frond I had left on the lawn intertwined with small branches. A few weeks back I thought I saw the parents and the baby so I checked later and the nest was empty. Now the forsythia can be trimmed.
I have one errand today then the rest of the day will be dedicated to reading and lolling about on the couch eating bon bons. I am not even going to make my bed. It will only get messed again tonight
Okay, I saw the worst science fiction movie ever the other night, one made by the syfy channel. It was Sharknado. Yup, sharks were swimming inside funnel clouds which had picked them out of the ocean and then dropped them into swimming pools, city aqua-ducts and on streets. No one was safe. The man scoffing our hero’s warning that sharks were in his pool got eaten. It served him right. I love watching the sharks swimming inside the funnel clouds, but my favorite part was at the end. Our heroine got swallowed, and our hero with a chain saw in hand got swallowed on purpose. The shark was lying on the sidewalk when all of a sudden you could hear the chain saw coming from the inside and then you could see the blade making a long slit in the side of the shark. Our hero cut a large enough hole to drag himself and our heroine out of the shark. All was well.
Categories: Musings
Tags: bad movies, catbird nest, coolness, dead trees, humidity, rain, Sharknado
Comments: 31 Comments
July 9, 2013
Today is dark with a gray sky. The humidity is high but not unbearable as there is a slight breeze, and a breeze is welcomed however small. The paper says rain with thunder and lightning. I am already looking to it. I love storms, and we do need the rain. This morning I have a doctor’s appointment for a wound check and yesterday the physical therapist signed off on me. That means I can now drive. I can be part of the world again.
All the windows and doors are opened, but I don’t hear anything, a random bird now and then but that’s all. I wonder where everyone is. This small street has kids, lots of kids: eight of them under seven years old, and I don’t even hear them. Not even a dog is barking which is also unusual. Maybe my invitation to wherever everyone has gone got lost in the mail.
It seems strange not to be traveling this summer. The last two summers I went back to Ghana, and if I had the money, I’d go again. I plan on austerity being my life style for the next year so I can save enough to go to Ghana again. Even after 40 years away, it seemed like home, and that connection is even greater after having been back a second time. Most interesting of all was meeting my former students many of whom are now retired and in their early 60’s. They refused to call me anything but madam or Ms. Ryan. I was and still am their teacher.
In the summer of 1969, I trained in Ghana to be a Peace Corps volunteer from June until early September. We had no phones, no televisions and no computers so we knew nothing of what was happening in the world. Letters from home were newsy but only about the family. One place where I stayed during training had a radio, and we listened to Voice of America and the moon landing. That was it for the entire summer. I, who used to read the paper every day, didn’t even care. None of us did. At night, we played cards and drank a few beers (I had coke-hate beer) at the local spots and the wide world never intruded. We didn’t even notice. All of us were too busy learning a new language and learning to live in a culture so different from our own.
Now I read two papers, am on my computer every day, carry my cell phone everywhere and watch news on TV. Sometimes I am very sorry I am so connected. The world at large intrudes on my life. Every bad thing that happens is blasted everywhere all the time, often the whole day on TV. I watch and am saddened by so much tragedy. Sometimes I long for that summer when I knew so little of what was happening in the world. I was blissful and ignorant.
Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: austerity, Ghana, humidity, lightning, money, new language, news, Peace Corps, quiet day, rain, teacher, thunder, training
Comments: 10 Comments
July 6, 2013
Boston is officially suffering through a heat wave. We aren’t because the cape is a few degrees cooler. Today will be 88˚, but the humidity is making the weather even more unbearable. Walk around outside and it smothers you, draws the life right out of your body. I, however, will never suffer that fate. I have become a hermit in the comfort of my air-conditioned home. Yesterday I went out about three times to the deck. The first time was to water the plants and the other two times were to warm up my feet. Yup, the AC forced me to put on socks. I felt sort of silly.
Gracie loves being in the cool house. She goes outside and squats then runs right back to the door to be let inside. The cats, however, have a different take on the AC. They find sun spots on the floor from the windows and sit there taking in the warmth. Fern, especially, misses the warmth. Usually in the morning she would lie in the sun streaming through the front door and sleep so deeply I could hear her small snores. The poor babies will have to wait a bit before it is cool enough to turn off the AC and open doors and windows.
Where I lived in Ghana was about as far from the ocean as you could get and still be in Ghana. The only fish you could find in the Bolga market was smoked and dried and looked disgusting, almost leathery. I didn’t even try it. It always seemed a bit strange to me that many Ghanaians actually preferred the dried fish to fresh. I used to think it was because they didn’t get fresh fish, but Grace, who lives in Accra, which is right on the ocean, buys dried fish. She won’t eat it fresh, thought the whole idea was a bit disgusting, but for those of us who love fish the Ghanaian seaside is like paradise. Some of the best fish dinners can be bought at small thatched huts along the shore. The huts have a few tables with benches, always a bit unsteady on the sand, and brightly colored umbrellas with beer logos to shield diners from the hot sun. The owners, who are generally the cooks, buy the fish right off the boats. The fish is usually wrapped in banana leaves and cooked over charcoal. The taste is amazing. Red snapper is my favorite.
In Togo, a country bordering Ghana, I had my first taste of barbecued lobster. It was dinner on the patio of a fairly large, sort of posh hotel, where we could never afford to stay but eating on the patio was within the budget of a Peace Corps volunteer: translation-it was inexpensive, maybe even cheap. My friend Ralph and I sat under an umbrella and watched as the lobster was cut down the middle then cooked. It was delicious.
Our mid-tour conference was at Dixcove, a neat little fishing village down the coast from Accra. We stayed in small cottages right on the ocean. I don’t remember anything about the technical parts of the conference, but I remember the rock lobster. We’d went to the village and paid a few guys small money to dive for the rock lobsters then we paid to have them cooked. Eating them was a divine experience I’ll never forget.
Categories: Musings
Tags: AC, barbecued lobster, Bolga, cats and the sun, charcoal cooking, Dixcove, dried fish, fish huts, Ghana, Heat Wave, humidity, red snapper, rock lobster, seaside huts, socks, Togo
Comments: 12 Comments
August 11, 2012
Yesterday it rained. Last night it poured. I was at the Cape Playhouse to see Kiss Me Kate when the heavy rain started. It pelted the roof so loudly I saw most of the people in front of me look up as if they were expecting to see drops falling. After what seemed like a long time, the heavy rains were finally quiet. By the time the play was over, the ground had absorbed most of it.
This morning we still have rain, small intermittent drops of rain. Condensation is on the outside of my windows from the AC interacting with the humidity. It’s what I call the glasses effect. When I leave the cold car, my glasses fog over and I can’t see. I stop and wipe them before I bump into someone or something. It always amuses me a bit.
In the summer, my mother was reluctant at first but after a while was only too happy to let us out of the house when it rained. When we were stuck inside, boredom settled in quickly then the fights started, the he called me this and she called me that sort of fight. My mother always yelled for us to stop, and that worked for a few minutes but then back we’d go to sniping at each other. We’d ask if we could go outside, and she usually agreed. With us gone, peace was restored in the house.
We’d put leaves or paper boats in the gutters and watch them float down the street. We’d whip branches and soak each other. Sometimes we’d take our bikes and ride as fast as we could through puddles so the spray would fly into the air on each side of the bike. We got soaked.
When we’d go back into the house, my mother would make us take off our sneakers then she’d send us upstairs to change into dry clothes. Our feet were usually so wet we always left footprints on the wood floor. I always liked that part.
Categories: Musings
Tags: condensation, getting soaked, humidity, rain, steamed glasses
Comments: 15 Comments
July 24, 2012
I thought I heard rain this morning, but I just turned over and went back to sleep and slept in. I didn’t wake up until 9:30. I even went to bed early for me last night so this was a where’s my prince sort of deep sleep. It wouldn’t have surprised me to see the Seven Dwarves standing by my bedside. The streets were damp when I went to get the paper so it had rained, and that little rain brought us a cloudy day and thick humidity. The sun is appearing infrequently as if it doesn’t really care one way or the other. The paper predicts a hot day.
Sounds are always muted in the humidity. The thickness of the air drowns everything and brings a sort of lethargy. Even the leaves on the oak trees barely stir. The house is cloudy day dark and the window here does little to lighten the room. It’s morning nap time for Fern, Maddie and Gracie. The loudest noise in the house is the tapping of my fingers on the keyboard.
When I lived in Ghana, I had a Honda 70. It was the demure moto, as the Ghanaians call motorcycles, for a woman who always wore a dress. My first year volunteers weren’t allowed motorcycles, but when that changed my second year, I bought one. My first trip, just after learning to ride it, was the hundred miles from Tamale where I bought the bike to Bolga where I lived. I loved that ride. It was a freedom I had never felt in a crowded lorry with every seat taken, people sitting in the middle on small stools and a few chickens and goats along for the ride. That moto gave me the freedom to take back roads leading to the small villages which ringed Bolga. I always brought a canister of extra gas. My friends and I would usually go together; Bill took the baby Kevin safely tied in a backpack and I took Peg his wife on the back of my bike. We’d often bring lunch and stop for a picnic. Those were fun days as we found ourselves in amazing places. Once some guys hauled our bikes across a small pond and we sat by a village watering hole to have lunch. Small boys stood around and watched us. The guys at the pond waited for us to finish as we had given them half a cedi for one way and told them we’d give them the other half if they waited to take the bikes back. That was a lot of money in those days. Another time we went to Tongo. We had brought a small charcoal burner and hot dogs that came in a can to cook almost like at a real barbecue. We set up the burner on a rock. A bit later a man came and yelled at us in FraFra. The small boys in school uniforms who had been standing around and watching us translated. The man wanted money to appease the gods on whose rock we had rested the burner, but the rock had bird poop on it so we didn’t buy his story figuring it was another scam for money. His response was something along the lines of misfortunes would follow us, but that too we ignored. We finished and packed up to leave. Not far from the rock, Bill’s bike stopped suddenly for no reason. We looked at each other wondering, but Bill’s bike restarted with no problem. We were just glad the old man hadn’t seen it.
Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: Bolga, Honda 90, humidity, Motos, Peace Corps Ghana, rain, sacred rock, Tamale, Tongo, villages
Comments: 8 Comments
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