Posted tagged ‘rain’

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“The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you.”

June 6, 2014

The rain stayed all day yesterday, got heavy at times then finally stopped in the late afternoon. Today is sunny and warm with a breeze that sways the leaves. The clouds, though, keep coming and going, but the sun seems to win each time. I have errands to do. On a day like today, I don’t mind.

My dad served in the navy during World War II. He enlisted the day he turned seventeen because he didn’t need his mother’s or father’s permission any more. His ship plied the North Atlantic ferrying supplies. It was sunk, but he was rescued. The cold water did great damage to his legs so my dad spent a long time at a hospital in England. He was eighteen and to him war was an adventure. He never even told his parents he was in the hospital. They had to contact the Red Cross to try and find him. One of his memories, one of the few he shared, was about gliding a bicycle down the hill from the hospital to a pub. His legs were in casts so he couldn’t pedal. Someone would drive him back up the hill. During the Battle of the Bulge he was still in the hospital. He told us huge numbers of wounded were coming in and saying they were getting overrun by the Germans. That’s one of the things he remembered most.

My parents and my sister and I traveled together one year to Belgium and the Netherlands. At one point we were in the Ardennes where there were still tank traps looking like concrete teeth rising from the forest floor. My dad was in awe at being in the places he had heard about from the soldiers he had met in the hospital. At Malmedy he told us about the massacre of American soldiers by the Germans. He sounded both sad and angry. In Belgium, my dad wanted to see Bastogne where we stayed at a hotel overlooking Gen. McAuliffe Square, named in tribute to the man who told the Germans, “Nuts,” when he was asked to surrender the town. We ate dinner one night at a restaurant in the hotel where American officers had been billeted. We walked around the Mardasson Memorial which honors American soldiers who were killed, wounded or captured in the Battle of the Bulge. We visited the World War II Museum. My father said very little. Though he had never fought here, he held all of it in great reverence.

Today is the 70th Anniversary of D-Day.

 

 

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“Rain clouds come floating in, not to muddy my days ahead, but to make me calm, happy and hopeful.”

June 5, 2014

I woke up at eight but stayed lolling in bed for 45 more minutes. I just didn’t want to move, and neither did the animals: both Gracie and Fern stayed with me on the bed while Maddie dropped by for some pats. You can blame it all on the rain. It is falling lightly, gently, the sort of rain which holds me thrall, and I stop often to sit and listen. I watch the drops fall from the overhang above the window. The house is in cozy darkness. I’m still wearing comfy bed-clothes, and I think I might just do that all day. I have nowhere to go and nothing to do.

We always walked to school. Almost everyone did. The weather didn’t matter. We walked on the coldest mornings and in the heaviest rain. The school was our refuge, and we hurried to get there. On rainy days we didn’t have to wait outside for the bell, the nuns or the lines. We could go right to the cloakrooms, get out of our wet coats and boots and then go into our classrooms. I remember how quiet everything in the classroom seemed on a rainy day. It was as if the rain had blanketed all sounds except its own. Each the classroom had long windows on two sides, and the raindrops tapped the windows. I was a reluctant learner on those rainy days. I wanted just to hear the rain.

When I arrived in Ghana for Peace Corps training, it was the rainy season. Our first stop was on the coast in a town called Winneba where we stayed for two weeks. I remember sitting on the top step of a classroom block watching the rain. I can still see it all so clearly even after all these years. The steps were concrete and they and the building behind me were painted white. The top step was out of the rain, under an overhang. The rain was steady but misty and blurred the buildings as if they were a painting maybe by Monet. I had my travel umbrella with me but I hadn’t opened it. When my left my step, I forgot the umbrella. When I went back, it was gone. I didn’t really care. Nobody in Ghana used umbrellas in the rain.

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“Seeing a murder on television… can help work off one’s antagonisms. And if you haven’t any antagonisms, the commercials will give you some.”

May 17, 2014

Finally we’ve had some rain. It was lightly falling when I woke up then it poured. Now it has stopped. The day is getting lighter. The sun is going to make an appearance. I was surprised at how warm the morning is when I went to get the papers. It’s a short sleeve day.

I remember when television was filled with commercials for cigarettes. Winston tastes good like a cigarette should. Dancing cigarette box girls wore Old Gold. Salem cigarettes gave us a wonderful world. Their tobacco was touted as smooth and rich with a deep taste, but those commercials disappeared prompted by the list of carcinogens in tobacco smoke. Alcohol commercials disappeared for a while too, but they’re back with the admonition to drink sensibly. TV is now filled with ads touting all sorts of different products. Nothing is taboo any longer. Car and prescription drug commercials seem to outnumber the rest. I get a chuckle out of the drug ads. They give the longest list of who shouldn’t take the drugs and, if you do take them, what might happen to you and how soon you should see a doctor if those symptoms arise. I watch a lot of cable.

I’ve learned a lot from TV. The spouse is always the first suspect in the murder of his/her other half. Home sleeping is the worst alibi. If you’re planning a huge event, something will go wrong. It is inevitable. Silky, rich hair is within reach. No one needs to have less than sparkling white teeth. Watch out when asked for a DNA swab. We are all being watched.

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“A flower blossoms for its own joy.”

May 1, 2014

Yesterday the rain started and last night it poured. I know this because I took Gracie to the front garden to eat the grass there. The rain was pelting my back, and I got soaked. Gracie had trash picked the garbage bag yesterday, and I caught her but not until after she had eaten something. Last night she started swallowing over and over as if she was going to be sick. She kept gagging as well. That was what made me think she must have eaten something or had something stuck in her throat. After the grass frenzy out front we went to bed. Within a half hour it started again, the swallowing. We got up, and I gave her spider plant fronds to eat. I turned on the TV and waited a while. She seemed better so we went back to bed. By this time, it was around 2 o’clock. She fell asleep but then it started again. We went back to the grass in the front. It wasn’t raining as hard. After a while, we came back in, and I decided to try to sleep with her on the couch. It was 4 o’clock when we fell asleep. I woke up around 7:30 because my legs were contorted to give Gracie room and they ached from the odd position. That’s when we went upstairs to bed. I slept until 11. Gracie seems okay. She is having her morning nap and ate two treats earlier. I’m exhausted.

Today is dump day which may perk Miss Gracie’s spirits. Rainy days make the both of us unenthusiastic about doing much. I love staying inside my cozy house with a good book and a fresh pot of coffee while I listen to the rain.

Today is May Day, a time for the May Pole strung with ribbons, a May queen with flowers in her hair and the Morris dancers. Today I will buy some flowers for the house to bring a bit of spring and to celebrate May Day.

I have taught the red spawn how to fly. It has moved to a smaller feeder and can’t see me because the deck rail hides its sight line. I slowly make my way stopping every few steps in case it hears me. I run the last few steps to the feeder, and the spawn has nowhere to go but down. It jumps off the feeder to the ground, almost a couple of stories down then runs up a tree, sits on a branch close to the deck and starts yapping at me with squeals and squeaks. Yesterday the spawn flew twice. I gave its landings an 8 and a 7.

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“A good cook is like a sorceress who dispenses happiness.”

April 26, 2014

It’s not winter even though my heater is going so I’m stuck calling this spring despite the cold and cloudiness. I suppose it could be sprinter, a new name for the shoulder season which isn’t one or the other. Rain is expected later, and I can already feel the dampness and the chill. I just put on some socks.

That weird trap caught another mouse yesterday. That’s two for the trap and one for the washing machine. I checked around 10:30 last night, and there it was inside the trap circling the small perimeter. I got Gracie and the two of us went for a ride. The mice are being freed at a different spot than last year’s just for novelty sake. This second freedom run went rather quickly because I had already figured out on the first run how to get the mouse out of the new trap. I watched it running toward the woods lit by my headlights and wished him well and hoped he’d find his friend, the mouse freed the other day. Today’s update: no mouse this morning.

When I run into weird words, I always wonder how I know their meanings. They’re not everyday words, were never vocabulary words and are used mostly by pompous people who scatter their conversations with archaic words so as to appear learned and intelligent. I chuckle. Pomposity does that to me.

My mother made great tapioca pudding. I liked it hot, scraping the pan hot, and I liked it cold. It was also one of my dad’s favorites. My mother made it more often than any other pudding, even more than chocolate. Sometimes I buy already made tapioca, and none of it ever compares to my mother’s.

I loved my mother’s pepper and egg combination. She made it for the beach and for road picnics when we were young. When we were older, it was often a side at barbecues at my parent’s house. My mother originally got the recipe from her sister which, I figure, gives it the stature of a family recipe. The squash dish always on our Thanksgiving tables came from another of my mother’s sister, but my mother unknowingly tweaked it. She switched butternut for zucchini. My uncle’s sausage cacciatore is one of legend. My sisters and I make it.

Food ties us to each other more than anything else.

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“The ache for home lives in all of us. The safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.”

April 25, 2014

The red spawn of Satan is driving me mad. I am Ingrid Bergman in Gaslight. I swear the spawn sits and stares at me then blatantly jumps onto the feeder with a swish of its tail. Today I am super- soaker shopping.

Around where I lived when I was a kid, there were woods, the all-season swamp, blueberry bushes and a huge field filled in the summer with grasshoppers by day and fireflies by night. On one exploration we, my brother and I, found a small box-like shack in the side woods. It was made up of odd boards and must have been newly constructed or we’d have seen it before then. When we looked inside, we saw magazines, girly magazines as we used to call them. We left them there and high-tailed it out of the shack. Later, when I was older, I figured the shack probably belonged to some teenage boys who were hiding the magazines, but I never saw anyone there. I never went back inside. I think I was afraid.

Some things stay with you. I remember the sound of the roller skates on the street and the different sound they made on the black top. I also remember how odd my feet felt once I’d stopped roller skating. They sort of tingled on the bottoms. It was different with ice skating. The sides of my feet hurt and walking felt strange. Downhill on a bike was the best feeling of all. It was speed, and I loved it when the wind whipped my hair. I never used the pedals. I let the incline do the work. While walking home from school in the rain, we’d stomp a big puddle over and over and watch the water fly. The puddle would get smaller and smaller until almost no water was left. We got soaked. My shoes were so squishy bubbles broke through at the laces. Once we got inside the house, my mother right away made us take our shoes off.

Every late afternoon we sat and watched television. We sat on the floor close to the set. My mother was always in the kitchen making dinner. My father wouldn’t be home until later. He’d come in the door wearing his topcoat and his fedora. He’d put the fedora on the top shelf of the closet by the door and he’d hang up his topcoat. He always wore a suit underneath.

When I was a kid, my life was filled with constants. They made me feel safe and comfortable.

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“If one mouse is a spark…then ten thousand are a conflagration.”

April 24, 2014

The morning has already been a busy one. I let Gracie out then heard a bang. I turned and saw the gate had flown open. I looked for Gracie hoping she hadn’t escaped and then I saw her still in the yard, close to the gate. I yelled stay as if that had any meaning for Gracie then ran down the stairs and shut the gate. Catastrophe was averted.

The second problem started last night when I went to do laundry. I was about to stuff the clothes in the washer when I noticed a baby mouse in the tub of the washing machine. I used my sweatshirt, captured the tiny thing and just threw him over the fence. I imagine he’ll be back. Figuring there were more, I went looking and found my have-a-heart trap. I tried to set it but one end wouldn’t work. The mouse would have eaten the goodies then left on the side which didn’t close. I decided to use the weird trap I’d bought a while back. It is small, a circular wire cage on a piece of wood. The top has a hole but when the mouse enters the hole it can’t get out because of wire prongs circling the bottom of that hole. In the front is a small escape hatch with a wire hook which I have to open to free the beast. I decided to give it try, threw in some bread and put it in the cellar in a spot I can see from the stairs. This morning I looked and lo and behold I had my first mouse. Gracie and I went for a ride. I stopped to free the beastie, but I couldn’t get it to leave the trap. He held on no matter what I did, including a bit of tail tugging. Finally I banged the wood with the trap door facing the ground and out the mouse fell. He was gone to his new neighborhood in a heartbeat. At least he’d been well fed before the trip.

I changed my bed, finished my book, emptied the litter boxes, cleaned out the fridge, did two loads of laundry, caught mice and watered the plants. I need a vacation.

Yesterday it rained all day. At times we had thunder and even some hail. Today is sunny but still a bit chilly. Gracie and I have a leftover errand postponed from yesterday, and that’s it for the day. I’m done in!

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“Nobody can hurt me without my permission.”

April 15, 2014

I saw the eclipse early this morning but not the red moon. I went on the deck, but the tree branches hid the moon so I watched from my upstairs bathroom window. Neither Fern nor Gracie who were sleeping on my bed cared. They just got more comfortable.

It was a rainy grey morning, but the sun is now struggling to come out and the day is brightening. The cold, though, will be back and the next few nights will be in the 30’s. I don’t care as long as it doesn’t snow.

The Boston Marathon bombings were one year ago today. All three local networks are dedicating their programming to the events of that day and the year since then. The most poignant event was earlier this morning when a wreath was hung at the site of the first bomb. Henry and Jane Richard hung the wreath. Their brother Martin died at that spot and Jane, who’s now an eight year old, lost her leg. A police honor guard now stands beside that wreath and another honor guard stands beside the other wreath at the site of the second bombing. Interviews of survivors show their amazing strength and resilience. Many lost limbs. One who did is dancing again. Many runners, some running for the first time, are dedicating next week’s marathon to raising funds in honor of the victims. What continues to amaze me about the event is the total lack of empty rhetoric. People never ranted for vengeance. They spoke of solace and hope, of being united and of putting their grief into something positive. Survivors spoke of their pain and proudly described their progress. I watched a woman who lost both legs run for the first time in rehab on her new running prosthetics. Next Monday just as they always have the runners will start from Hopkinton, they will struggle up heartbreak hill and almost sprint when the finish line comes into view. They will hear the cheering crowds who applaud and encourage every runner. This marathon is special in its sameness.

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“I love to talk about nothing. It’s the only thing I know anything about.”

March 30, 2014

The rain started yesterday afternoon. It rained all night and is still raining. At times the rain is heavy, noisy as it pelts the windows and falls on the roof. I find the noise comforting. It isn’t the silence of falling snow.

I have never liked Jello. Its gelatinous consistency has always been off-putting, even when I was a kid. The worst is Jello with fruit suspended in the jell. For some reason it reminds me of an alien attack and stun guns. Give me chocolate pudding and tapioca any time.

I don’t remember when I first started drinking coffee. I think it’s been a morning ritual the whole of my life. Nothing beats a good, hot cup of coffee, but I’ll even drink bad coffee rather than none at all. Ghana has bad coffee, but I still drank it for two years and two return trips. I always found coffee shops everywhere else in my travels. In Italy I drank cappuccino after dinner. It was my favorite way to end a meal.

I used to wear panty hose, nice shoes and dresses to work every day. I even changed my earrings to match my outfits. This summer will be the tenth anniversary of my retirement. I haven’t worn panty hose in all that time. No event is important enough to warrant panty hose.

I don’t eat tuna salad. When I was growing up, we couldn’t eat meat on Fridays so mostly my mother made tuna fish sandwiches for our lunch boxes. Once in a while it was egg salad but mostly tuna. Even if we got a sub on after pay-day Fridays, it was always tuna. I added pickles, onion and hot pepper to jazz up mine. They only helped a little. I figure during that time I ate enough tuna to last me a lifetime.

I love roast turkey. I buy one every now and then and eat it for about a week. I have it straight from the bird the first few days with all the trappings: mashed potatoes, stuffing, a vegetable or two, cranberry sauce and gravy. I then start having sandwiches with cut turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce. I use mayonnaise to hold it all together. I make turkey salad next and have it for a lunch for a few days. Finally I throw the carcass into a huge pan, boil it for a while, strip it of meat, add veggies and make turkey soup. I freeze some for later. A turkey is forever.

In a bit, Gracie and I will brave the elements to do a couple of errands. Sadly for her, I am forgoing the dump trip because of the rain. She’s asleep and won’t notice.

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“…I don’t just wish you rain, Beloved – I wish you the beauty of storms…”

March 23, 2014

More croci and snowdrops have bloomed in the front garden which gets the first sun in the morning. The purple crocus is the newest one. It sits among the many yellow croci. More snowdrops have bloomed beside the steps. Their white flowers are brilliant against the dark of last year’s mulch. Every morning the garden seems to have a new flower, a surprise for me.

A light grey cloudy sky hides the sun. When I look out the den window, the bare branches look stark. The sun usually softens the look of them. No buds have appeared yet, not even on my forsythia always the first to bloom.

When I was a really little kid, I didn’t notice the subtleties of the world around me. I noticed the changing leaves in fall, the trees full of green shading the sidewalk on my way to school and the snow and the rain. I didn’t notice the smell of summer rain or the strange color of the sky before a snow storm until I was a little older. I always wondered how I could have missed them, the wonderful pieces of the changing weather.

I remember how the sky would start to darken and the darkness would deepen and spread. I knew a storm was coming, a huge storm, and I got to watch it from the very beginning. My heart would beat a little faster as the clouds, dark, threatening and scary, moved above me. Sometimes I could even see the rain coming at me, and I’d run into the house. I’d sit by the window and watch it all unfold in front of me. The drops were heavy and there were so many the rain ran like a river in the gutters along the street. The houses near mine became indistinct, hidden by the rain.

I stayed and watched. Sometimes the rain stopped slowly small drop by small drop. Other times it just stopped, finished in its fury.

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