Posted tagged ‘rain’
April 17, 2015
We have rain, but the day is still warm. I consider anything over 50˚ warm. Gracie balked at going out this morning, but I told her to bite the bullet and she did and went out. I can’t remember the last time I heard anyone say bite the bullet but oddly enough it was a fill-in for the Globe crossword puzzle this morning. Strange coincidence.
We played outside all summer. In the cooler afternoons we usually played whole group games on the grass behind our houses. Anybody could play. Other than in red rover, age and size made no difference. It was the only time the big kids and the little kids played together.
Olly olly oxen free meant we could get out of hiding as somebody else had been found and was now it. The seeker was always called it. I have no idea why. Both were just parts of the game of hide and seek. I did look it up this morning out of curiosity and I found the all call possibly originates from the German phrase “alle alle auch sind frei,” which loosely translated means “everyone is also free.” Mispronunciation by non-German children probably became “olly olly oxen free.” It doesn’t make sense but we never noticed. Olly olly oxen free was just what you said.
We also played red rover. The key was in picking the right team. The stronger the team, the better the chances. We’d stand in a line holding hands or even arm to arm and call the other team, “Red rover, red rover send Kat right over.” My job would be to break through the line. If I didn’t, they got me for their team. If I got through, my team got someone from theirs. I always looked for the weakest link, the smallest kid. We all did.
We also played stair ball or stoop ball if you lived in the city. Your team was spread into the street. The batter, loosely used here to designate a position, threw the rubber ball against the steps. He was out if it was caught but got bases if it went over the fielders’ heads. The problem was deciding how many bases the hit was worth. We used the stairs at the end of our walkway. They led to the street. They were perfect for stair ball.
Blind man’s bluff was another game we played. The person who was it got blindfolded. The game was really tag with a twist. It was never easy though we were limited about moving. We sometimes talked, and that gave away our position.
It’s amazing that the games are played just like their names, other than red rover and maybe Simon says. Dodgeball and kickball are other games whose names tells you right away the object of the games, the same with follow the leader.
I noticed that rock-paper-scissors has been used lately on TV. It was our favorite way to make decisions when I was a kid. I remember if I lost I always wanted two out of three. Big surprise, the winner always said no.
Categories: Musings
Tags: hide and seeker's rover, Olly olly oxen free, playing outside, rain, red rover red rover, rock-paper-scissors, stoop ball, warm day, you're it
Comments: 8 Comments
April 14, 2015
Lazy mornings are the best way to start the day. I read my two papers, drank a fresh cup of coffee with each paper and ate a couple of pieces of Scali bread toast. The coffee, from Uganda, a new roast for me, was delicious.
I didn’t wake to eye-blinding sunshine this morning. The day is dark, a turn on your light to see in the daytime dark, and rain is predicted. I guess this is what we get after a beautiful, warm spring day like yesterday. It was 63˚. I’m okay with this on again-off again weather switch. Give me some more days like yesterday, and I’ll abide the rain.
My dad was a yeller, but by the time we were four or five we had perfected the art of ignoring him while looking interested and concerned at the same time. He didn’t expect anything, just us nodding our heads. We could do that. He’d warn us not to repeat the infraction whatever it was, and we were then free to leave or were send to our rooms depending upon the seriousness of what had irked my father. I always liked being sent to my room. It gave me some privacy and some peace. I’d nap or read, two of my favorites ways to while away the time.
I never learned to keep quiet, a surprise I’m sure. When I got older, into my teens, I always had an answer. To me the answers were funny and clever. To my dad they were me talking back, being sassy and questioning his authority. He was actually right. I figured I was in trouble anyway and there was a limit on what he could do so why not keep going, get a bit of satisfaction by driving my dad crazy. My brother and I used to have a friendly competition on which of us could drive my father the craziest.
When we were older, we were usually grounded, the ultimate teenage punishment, a forced imprisonment in our own homes, but mine never lasted long. My father always relented after a couple of hours. I knew he would as my mother had taught me to accept my punishment quietly without my characteristic witty retort. She told me just to let him rant and soon enough he’d be done, and I’d be freed. She was right. I always sat in my room waiting for him to come to give me the lecture. I always looked chagrined. I was good at that.
Categories: Musings
Tags: 63˚, coffee from Uganda, grounded, lazy mornings, newspapers, rain, sass, scali toast, sent to my room, talking back, yelling
Comments: 10 Comments
April 10, 2015
This morning I noticed webbing between my toes. It appears I am beginning to adapt to a wet world where it rains every day. The sun is supposed to return, but I have become a skeptic worn down by snow and cold and rain.
In elementary school my day was chock full of subjects, some every day and some once a week. Many of them have since disappeared.
Back then no school room was complete without those green writing alphabet cards running atop the blackboards. On each was a single letter in both small and capital cursive forms. I always liked the capital Z and the capital Q. They were odd-looking and uncommon to use. We had penmanship a couple of times a week when we practiced the Palmer method. I remember the circles and the lines. I also remember mine were usually messy and didn’t resemble the examples we were following. The nun always stopped at my desk to show me how my hand should be moving up and down as I practiced. Many schools don’t teach writing any more. Cursive is disappearing.
Geography was always one of my favorite subjects. I wasn’t all that enthusiastic about knowing that Columbia produced coffee or that Costa Rica led the world in bananas, but I loved the pictures and the articles. I used to dream about visiting some of the countries in my book, but I never really believed I would see so many of them. When I was sixteen, we went to Niagara Falls and saw the falls from the Canadian side. I was visiting my first foreign country, and I was thrilled. They don’t teach stand alone geography any more either.
We had music a couple of times a week. We learned the fundamentals. I still remember every good boy does fine and face: the mnemonics for the names of the scale’s lines and spaces. We sang songs. I remember every nun had a mouth tuner like a round harmonica. She’d blow the note, and we were supposed to start singing the song on that note. I doubt we ever did. I was in the rhythm band in the first and second grades. I remember first year I did sticks and second year I did triangle. I always wanted tambourine.
Reading was a subject unto its self. We had reading books with stories then questions and new vocabulary at the end of each story. I always liked those books. Each year the stories shared a theme. My favorite was American folk heroes. I loved Pecos Bill and his riding the tornado. It was the only time he was “throwed” in his whole career as a cowboy. I learned about Paul Bunyan and Babe the blue ox, John Henry and Sally Ann Thunder who helped Davy Crockett and wore a real beehive as a hat and wrestled alligators in her spare time. There was even a sketch of her and the alligator. I got my love of reading from those books and those stories.
I was never bored in school. We went from one lesson to another quickly enough to stave off ennui. I looked forward to most of them but only tolerated the rest. I still don’t like arithmetic no matter what you call it.
Categories: Musings
Tags: alphabet letters, Amercian folk heroes, Columbia and coffee, Cursive, EGBDF, Elementary school, FACE, geography, math, music., Pecos Bill, penmanship, rain, reading, rhythm band, Sally Ann Thunder, skeptic, sticks and triangle, sun, webbing between the toes
Comments: 12 Comments
April 4, 2015
We had more rain this morning then the sun came out for a while then it disappeared behind the clouds and the sky got darker. The sun made an attempt to reappeared but in a poof was gone again but only for a bit. The sun is now brightly shining in all its glory. The sky is blue and the clouds are gone. The sun has won the day in a spectacular fashion. It is even warm outside. My heat hasn’t come on all morning. Today I’m doing Easter things. I have a few eggs I’m going to color and a couple of baskets to fill.
At Christmas time we had Santa Claus to keep us on the straight and narrow. We didn’t dare cross the line for fear of getting coal in our stockings. The days before Christmas always felt interminable. Christmas Eve was really three days long. Falling asleep on Christmas Eve took forever, but then we woke to Christmas morning, the best morning of the year.
Easter didn’t have the giddy anticipation we gave to Christmas. We had nothing to lose being bad because Easter didn’t have the watchful eyes of Santa Claus or the dire consequences of being bad. The Easter Bunny didn’t seem to care so my mother had no threats to hold over us. We fought like usual and got yelled at the same as we always did.
Easter egg hunts were one of the fun parts of Easter. I remember a giant egg hunt in the field below our houses. All the kids in the neighborhood took part. We carried little baskets to hold our eggs. I remember finding a few here and there and one golden egg, but I gave it no mind and kept looking. At the end of the hunt I found out it was the prize egg. Inside was a dollar bill. This was when a penny had value and a nickel or a dime was wealth. A dollar was a king’s ransom.
The night before Easter was for egg coloring. My mother hard-boiled them, put newspapers on the table and filled paper cups with colored water from packets of dye. We used spoons to put the eggs in the colors and we’d roll the eggs all around so they’d get darker. My mother would display them on the table during Easter dinner. The week after Easter we’d always get colored eggs in our lunch boxes.
My mother would lay out our new Easter clothes on Saturday night. I loved getting new shoes for Easter because usually I only got new ones when the old ones gave up the ghost. We took baths, it was after all Saturday night, watched a little TV, went to bed and fell asleep. In the morning the baskets were on the kitchen table or on our bureaus or even in the living room. We’d eat some chocolate as we’d look through our baskets. That was always our Easter morning breakfast.
We’d go to church where every kid was dressed in new Easter clothes. The colors were light like a spring morning. I swear every Easter was warm and lovely. In the afternoon, after dinner, we’d go to my grandparents’ house in the city. My million or so cousins were also there. My grandmother had chocolate rabbits for us all.
On the way home, I always fell asleep.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Christmas, coloring eggs, dark sky, Easter, Easter clothes, Easter egg hunts, new shoes, rain, Santa Claus, sun, warm day
Comments: 10 Comments
March 26, 2015
I apologize for not writing today. It was way out of my control. I could not get on-line this morning around 10:30. I was on-line earlier so I was perplexed as to what had happened. I waited as sometimes Comcast does a bit of maintenance and shuts down for a while. By 1, I knew it was a problem for me; of course, I called Comcast and spoke to a variety of people. It was person number 4 who gave me a way to check to see if it was the router or the modem. I was rooting for the router (good alliteration) as they would have had to send me a modem. It was the router.
To make an entire afternoon a short story, I went to Radio Shack and bought a router. My MAC would not recognize the start-up disc but I was able to click something to chat with a Linksys tech. He and I chatted and he \gave me two pages of instructions as I had to reconfigure the router. The first time didn’t work, my mistake. The second time did. IT was 4:30.
I was patient and barely cursed during the whole afternoon.
Today has been a foggy day. It was warm, and there is still snow so the fog swirled around the trees and, when coupled with the gray sky, seemed to surround us. It rained in the afternoon, a bit of rain then heavy rain then back to a bit. After the rain the fog returned. Gracie and I were out doing some errands. My company, Francisca, was gone the whole day selling her Bolga baskets and missed a ride by the ocean in the fog, one of the best of all reasons to live on the cape.
Sorry about the rant today and the short post. I promise I’ll do better tomorrow.
Categories: Musings
Tags: a million steps, Comcast, fog, interact access, rain, Router
Comments: 14 Comments
March 15, 2015
Yesterday it rained all day and into the evening. Much of the snow is gone and whatever is left is sad-looking, beaten down and dirty. A whole section of my backyard has reappeared, and in the front I can even see sections of my lawn on both sides of the house. The first things I saw when I went to get the papers were the white buds of the snowdrops by the steps. That made me glad. I know now the green shoots survived winter’s onslaught. Now they can thrive with the coming of spring.
I would have said today is cold, but it is actually 40˚. The chill is from the dampness. Nothing seems to dry. The rain has left the streets still wet and the above freezing temperature is melting the snow. Water is everywhere. The giant mounds on the sides of my street are shrinking, and the water from the melting snow is rolling downhill. There are no sewers so the water rolls until the hill ends and then it puddles.
My house seems coziest in the daytime darkness. I am warm and comfortable. I have plugged in the different strands of lights so the house is gently lit. The kitchen has a red glow from pepper lights. The living room has lights on branches standing in tall stoneware bottles in the corners. Small wooden houses in the dining room are lit and the light shines from their windows. The bathroom has a nightlight, a snowflake, whose season has finally passed. This room, my den, where I spend the most time has a lit lamp on the table and no other lights. It shines on the pages of my book, and that’s all I need.
At night I still like looking at the colored lights left on the deck rail and on trees in the backyard. When Gracie goes outside in the dark, she triggers her yard sensor lights. The shadows of the trees are beautiful. They stretch the width of the yard. I like to see the lights so I stand on the deck and Gracie, when she’s finished, usually joins me. We stay until the light finally goes out then we go inside the house.
Categories: Musings
Tags: 40˚, aboce freezing, colored lights, cozy house, green shoots, lawns reappearing, lit trees, melting snow, no sewers, pepper lights, rain, reading lamp, seashell lights, small houses with lights, snowdrop flowers
Comments: 8 Comments
January 30, 2015
We just got back from 3 errands including the dump. The side roads are horrible and still snow covered. Such big piles were plowed to the corners you can’t see on-coming traffic without getting way out into the street. I slid my way everywhere. The rain is steady so I needed full wipers. This is when they should be plowing again as the rain is making the side streets nearly impassable.
The day is getting even more miserable.
Categories: Musings
Tags: rain, slipping
Comments: 4 Comments
January 30, 2015
Drab is about the best description for today. The sky is grey, and it is very damp outside. At times it is spitting rain as my mother would say. I’m okay with that as my sister outside of Boston is getting snow again: 4 to 6 inches. I’d be screaming.
Gracie can get outside through the dog door and has a patch of driveway at the end so she can do her business. The only problem is she likes to go into the backyard for her more substantial business and she can’t get there. After I let her out this morning, I saw her squat then I went to get my coffee. When I got back to the door, I saw she was gone which is surprising as there is nowhere to go then I noticed her head and one paw poking out between two back steps from behind. She had gone under the farmer’s deck. I ran and switched from slippers to shoes and then ran to the door to go help her. Well, she had already figured out to follow her way under to get out and was walking up the steps.
Water is dripping from the roof and icicles are forming at the edges. The beauty of the snow is disappearing because the day is above freezing and the rain slowly pits and erodes the snow. Nothing about today is pretty.
It’s a short post today mostly because my inactivity has made life a bit boring. I read, picked appetizers to make for Super Bowl watching, play backgammon against the computer and caught up with Grantchester, a wonderful series on PBS. I even napped in the afternoons. I suppose I could clean but that is the last desperate measure.
It’s time to get moving. Gracie and I are going to the dump for one of our errands. She’ll be thrilled: as for me, not so much.
Categories: Musings
Tags: backyard business, beauty of the snow, drab day, dump, errands, Gracie squatting, grey sky, icicles, rain
Comments: 6 Comments
January 24, 2015
The road was covered in slush when I went to get the paper. I left deep footprints and could see the track of the car which had been driven down the street some time this morning. Gracie was hesitant to go down the back steps. They were covered in slush like the road. It was raining, but there had been a sprinkling of snow first. After Gracie came in, I threw de-icer on the steps. I don’t want the steps freezing. Off-Cape is getting the snow.
Today lends itself to laziness. It is an I won’t get dressed day or do any chores day. I will most decidedly take a nap later. That is not in question. I may have a pizza delivered. I don’t know. That sounds too much like a plan, and today is not a day to plan. It is a whatever happens day. Fern and Gracie are asleep on the couch beside me. They are my role models.
I cut out recipes and have a gigantic folder filled with them. Periodically I go through the gigantic folder and put the recipes I’d most like to make in a smaller folder. I have yet to make any. Most times I fall back on the familiar: my curry recipe, my brother-in-law’s chili and my uncle’s sausage cacciatore. This week I am going to make Peg’s corn chowder. She brought it down when she and Bill last visited, and I loved it. It is a perfect winter recipe, one to warm the innards.
When I was young, my mother sometimes gave us Campbell’s tomato soup and her grilled cheese sandwiches especially on cold days. I still love grilled cheese sandwiches, especially gooey ones, but mine have become a bit more sophisticated than using yellow cheese unwrapped on Wonder bread. My aunt was the first to give me one with tomato, and I still like tomato as a basic addition to the sandwich. I also like bacon, jalapeño or avocado with pepper jack. I think grilled cheese is the best sandwich to personalize. A BLT is just that. Bologna is about as unsophisticated as a cold cut can get.
A couple of Christmases ago I got a panini maker from my sister. It elevates sandwiches from a simple lunch to something far greater, far tastier. Avocado is the best addition of late to grilled cheeses and regular sandwiches. I now have an addiction to them. When I was a kid, I would have thought avocados too squishy and far too green. The rule of thumb back then was to avoid anything green. The only exceptions were green beans and unripe bananas as they had a yellow future.
Categories: Musings
Tags: avocardo, BLT, bologna, Campbell's tomato soup, Cheese, Cooking, de-icer, deep footprints, favorite recipes, grilled cheese sandwich, lazy day, mush, nap day, panini maker, rain, recipes, sleeping animals, slush, wet and mushy, Wonder bread
Comments: 14 Comments
December 28, 2014
The rain is back, but it’s a light rain, a tolerable rain. The day is warmer than expected. Gracie and I are going to the dump later. I also need to hit the store for a few essentials like cream for my coffee and bread. Gracie has only one can of dog food left so I’ll stop at Agway. I am not in an errand mood.
Decorating the house for Christmas is fun, filled with anticipation and memories of Christmases past. Cherished ornaments take their places in the front of the tree, and I move them around until they are just right. The tree is most beautiful at night with its lights brightening the room and reflecting in window panes. Soon enough, though, it will be time to take down Christmas. I usually do it all in one day as I don’t want remnants of Christmas hanging around, too much regret at its passing. Once I’m finished and Christmas is back in the cellar the rooms look bland. The only lights which stay all year are in the windows and in the kitchen where the shell lights and the pepper bunch light up the whole corner. After New Year’s is take down day.
I love the syfy channel, and I love comically bad movies, but sometimes my suspension of disbelief just can’t fight the absurdity. Cars chase running people who stay in the middle of the road. Veering toward a sidewalk between parked cars is never given a thought. Standing and watching a car flying right at you in a storm is common. The next shot is always the car and a body underneath it. Storms and strange prehistoric creatures bring out the silliness more than most plot details. A creature appears. Some idiot standing in a field stays there and the next thing is he is being flown away with his legs dangling from the creature’s mouth, sort of a take-out dinner. As for me, I admit I watch anyway. I really do love the absurdity.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Accra, boring house, errands, rain, silly people, Suspension of disbelief, syfy movies, taking down decorations, warm day
Comments: 10 Comments
keepthecoffeecoming.blog 