Posted tagged ‘rain’

“For after all the best thing one can do when it is raining, is to let it rain.”

January 12, 2012

Miserable is the first adjective which comes to mind in describing today. The rain is constant, and the wind is strong enough to blow the bird feeders back and forth, even the heaviest, the squirrel buster feeder, is swaying. Gracie hasn’t been outside since last night. She never even bothered to stick her head out the door as the rain is loud enough for her to know it’s pouring. Just in case she needs to rush, I’ve left the back door open.

My den is dark. I had the light on earlier when I was reading the papers but I turned if off when I finished. I like the darkness and the sense of being surrounded by rain. Fern and Gracie are with me but both are asleep. Fern is on the back pillow of the couch and Gracie is stretch across it. Every now and then I hear Gracie sigh, but mostly I just hear the rain.

Even when I was a little kid, I loved the sound of the rain. I remember one vacation in Maine when we were all stuck inside on a rainy day. We played games and listened to the radio, but I could take all that closeness only so long so I grabbed my book and headed to the car. Lying on my stomach and reading, I was comfy and dry and could hear the rain on the metal roof and against the windows. I don’t remember how long I stayed there, but I do remember it was one of the best afternoons.

Summer rain is my favorite. When it gently falls, I sit outside on the deck under the umbrella and read. All around me is rain, but I stay dry, and I listen as the rain make its music. I hear it on the deck, and I hear it when it drips off the umbrella.

“I think we are drawn to dogs because they are the uninhibited creatures we might be if we weren’t certain we knew better.”

December 10, 2011

When I woke up, I heard the raindrops from the eaves. The day is filled with gray clouds and looks dismal. Since I was little, I’ve always believed that around Christmas time rain should be banned. The sun should shine or it should snow. I prefer the sun, but I don’t mind the snow. There is something about a White Christmas which touches us all. Today, though, has a silver lining. My tree with all its lights looks bright in the darkness of the rain and the clouds.

My errands took three hours yesterday. On the Cape, “You can’t there from here,” would be the answer when asked how to get from some towns to another. I couldn’t get directly from 6A in Dennis to Harwich so I had to go a roundabout way and then went another roundabout way to get from Harwich to Orleans. I had to stop at one place twice because it was so busy the first time, and I added a stop at Dunkin’ Donuts, a total necessity.

When I got home, I loaded my arms with packages as only one was heavy so I could bring them all in at once. The dog’s leash was wrapped around my hand so I wouldn’t drop it. As I was going up the walk I thought the dog’s collar sounded especially noisy. When I turned around to let Gracie in, I had a leash and a collar, no dog. The noise was her license bouncing on the brick walk. I saw Gracie down the street, ran in and called my friends so Tony went outside to herd the beastie. Gracie avoids me but loves Tony. She went right to him, and he put her Christmas present around her neck: a beautiful red collar which has a small Christmas tree and says Merry Christmas. Gracie got her present early so maybe it wasn’t really an escape but a ruse. I wish I had a picture of the look on my face when I turned around and saw the leash and the collar.

“In the morning I woke like a sloth in the fog.”

November 21, 2011

Today just couldn’t shake off the damp of last night’s rain, and it’s cloudy and dismal. The birds aren’t even here to distract me as the feeders are all empty. Only a snoring Gracie is giving the day any life.

I have chosen today as a not to get dressed day. I’m going to fill the feeders, make my shopping list for Thursday’s desserts, go on-line and order some Christmas presents and then organize some photos on my Mac, the original ones from my Peace Corps days. On Saturday I hauled into the house 30 pounds of dog food so my back hurts a bit, another perfect excuse for staying home and taking it easy. Did I mention the headache?

If you’re thinking today’s musings lack any inspiration, you’d be correct. My memory drawers seem to be stuck closed, and I have no ambition. Moving my fingers on the computer is about all I can muster. I think a little sun would help and maybe a chocolate chip cookie or two. I took something for my headache but chocolate has a far more miraculous effect.

On Saturday I called Ghana and talked to Florence, one of my former students. I have been calling a different student every couple of weeks so we can stay in touch now that we have found each other. Florence wanted to know when I was returning. I wished I could say in a month or two, but I think it will be at least another year before I can fill my coffers with enough money. When I give them the date, I’m hoping more students will arrive from other parts of the country so we can have a giant party. Let the beer and the pito flow! Bring out the kelewele and the Guinea Fowl.

“In the morning I woke like a sloth in the fog.”

November 21, 2011

Today just couldn’t shake off the damp of last night’s rain, and it’s cloudy and dismal. The birds aren’t even here to distract me as the feeders are all empty. Only a snoring Gracie is giving the day any life.

I have chosen today as a not to get dressed day. I’m going to fill the feeders, make my shopping list for Thursday’s desserts, go on-line and order some Christmas presents and then organize some photos on my Mac, the original ones from my Peace Corps days. On Saturday I hauled into the house 30 pounds of dog food so my back hurts a bit, another perfect excuse for staying home and taking it easy. Did I mention the headache?

If you’re thinking today’s musings lack any inspiration, you’d be correct. My memory drawers seem to be stuck closed, and I have no ambition. Moving my fingers on the computer is about all I can muster. I think a little sun would help and maybe a chocolate chip cookie or two. I took something for my headache but chocolate has a far more miraculous effect.

On Saturday I called Ghana and talked to Florence, one of my former students. I have been calling a different student every couple of weeks so we can stay in touch now that we have found each other. Florence wanted to know when I was returning. I wished I could say in a month or two, but I think it will be at least another year before I can fill my coffers with enough money. When I give them the date, I’m hoping more students will arrive from other parts of the country so we can have a giant party. Let the beer and the pito flow! Bring out the kelewele and the Guinea Fowl.

“They may forget what you said but they will never forget how you made them feel.”

October 28, 2011

Yesterday we had a torrential rainstorm most of the day and night, and with the rain came a cold to the bone chill. The sun is shining now, but it does little to dispel that chill. The sun has the look of winter about it when its sole purpose is to light the day. Some parts of the state have already had snow. Winter has its foot in the door.

Francisca is here. I picked her up yesterday. We hugged for the longest time then we talked all the way down to the cape. She looks forty years different, but her laugh is the same. We are both amazed that we have finally found each other again. She told me she speaks of me often, and when she and my other students get together, I am always mentioned in their conversations.

It is seldom that a teacher finds out the impact she had on her students. You stand there in front of class after class and hope that your words have taken hold and found a home. It isn’t just the teaching of English that happens in the classroom. It is helping your students realize that there are no boundaries. I learned way back when never to underestimate a single student, even the slowest of learners, and I learned that encouragement and faith are far more important than a simple sentence or the uses of adverbs. Francisca was among my brightest students and she went far, even to a master’s degree and becoming, for a time, a government minister. She is filled with energy and enthusiam even though she keeps telling me she is old. Francisca is, as she said, only six years my junior, but I am her mother.

Today we are taking a cape ride so I can show how beautiful it is here where I live. I already know how beautiful it is where Francisca lives.

“A consistent soul believes in destiny, a capricious one in chance.”

October 27, 2011

Today is an ugly day. It’s been raining all night and it’s dark, four in the afternoon dark. Gracie poked her head out the door earlier and didn’t like what she saw so she turned around and went back into the kitchen. I didn’t blame her, but I did suggest she try again so Gracie finally braved the elements, performed admirably then ran right back inside the house. The ordeal was so horrific she is now sleeping on the couch and snoring quite loudly.

My sister has about eight inches of snow. They showed the streets of Denver on the local news last night, and it looked like a winter wonderland, but this is only October (okay nearly November), but it is far too early for sleigh bells ring, are you listening.

My student Francisca Issaka just texted me to say she was at the gate ready to board her flight to Reagan and from there she’ll fly to Logan. I’m going to pick her up at 2:45. She has been in the US visiting her daughter so we missed each other when I was in Bolga. Francisca was one of the youngest students in T2, the second of four years of training college. She was sixteen. My students my first year ranged in age from sixteen to thirty two. It’s difficult to believe that Francisca is 58. I still picture her as the tall, thin student she was when last I saw her. I’m beyond excited to see her.

Francisca believes that everything happens for a reason, that there are no coincidences. She said I had faith I would find my students in Bolga, and she’s right. That Shetu Mahama would go have a beer in a place she hadn’t been for two years and that I would have dinner there at the same time and meet her was destiny, not mere coincidence. I don’t doubt it at all.

“Faith is a passionate intuition.”

October 20, 2011

For the last two days it rained. Sometimes it poured so much I wished for a tin roof. At night, with my bedroom window open, I could hear the rain flowing off the roof and pelting the deck. My house has no gutters so I was surrounded by rain. It was a delight.

Today is summer. It’s already 71°. The sun is streaming through windows, and Fern and Gracie have a short truce so they can share the warm mat by the front door. I was out on the deck earlier just looking at the world. I always feel lucky to be alive on days like today.

Today I am the featured speaker at the South Dennis Library’s Thursday at 2 series. I am talking about my return to Ghana. I hope the people brought dinner!

One of my students is coming to visit. She has been in Cincinnati with her daughter so she wasn’t there when I was in Bolga. We called her while my students and I were at our last dinner together, and she said she had been looking for me, and now she is missing me (which is Ghanaian English for she didn’t get to see me ). How strange, she said, that I am there and she is in the US. When we spoke last week about her coming to visit and our reconnecting, Franciska said it was God’s work. She said I went to Bolga with faith knowing I would find some students, and I did. It was God’s work that Shetu went to have a beer at my hotel for the first time in one or two years, and that I would speak to them in Hausa and that she would recognize me. Franciska decided it was God’s will that we reunite, and who am I to contradict God’s will.

“If you’ve seen one redwood tree, you’ve seen them all.”

October 17, 2011

It’s raining slightly, but still it’s raining. The paper got it wrong. The prediction is for rain tomorrow so I don’t know if that means two more days of rain despite all the rain we had last week. I swear this is Mother Nature’s way of erasing all the memories of summer. She gives us nothing but dreary days, and we start to expect them. Fall becomes winter far too quickly.

Today I have to go to Boston where I haven’t been in a while, other than the airport. I used to go all the time, but I’ve become a country bumpkin. Now I gripe and complain when I have to drive to Hyannis, a trip taking about 15 minutes. I don’t know if it’s age, retirement or just being comfortable here at home and on the Cape. Once I get on the road, I’m okay with the travel, but it’s getting the incentive to move that takes time. Today I have a doctor’s appointment, just a regular one so I have no choice.

When I was a kid, any car trip of great length was pure agony. Three of us were crammed in the backseat of a car which had that big hump in the middle of the floor. The windows never let in enough air, and I was prone to car sickness. We elbowed each other and whined about space and who was violating our space. I couldn’t read in the car and we had nothing but looking at the scenery to keep our attention. We’d play state license bingo, twenty questions, and I spy with my little eye but interest was difficult to maintain. How much can you spy in the same car for hours? We seldom stopped. My dad believed that any trip anywhere could be made in a single day. He groaned about bathroom stops and lunch never took much time, always at a picnic bench with the lunch my mother had made.

The only trip I remember with sightseeing was the one to the White Mountains. We saw the Old Man of the Mountain, now a memory since his collapse, went up Mount Washington and toward the end of the day stopped to the Flume. It was late in the afternoon and we got the last bus of the day to the Flume which meant we had to walk back to the car. I remember how cold it felt on the top of Mount Washington and how the road seemed far too close to the edge. The old man did look like a face, but he didn’t impress us all that much. We were kids, and he was a rock. All I remember about the flume is a bunch of walkways and some waterfalls. I can still see the tarred road we dragged ourselves on to get back to the car.  And, yup, we did all of that in one day.

“Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.”

October 14, 2011

The day is still, one of those damp days which seems to smother movement. It’s warm, not even a sweatshirt day. I heard the rain earlier this morning, but I just nestled and went back to sleep. I swear it got light for a bit, but I think the sun felt overwhelmed by all the clouds and went back inside to mull over its future.

You know I love the rain, but a succession of rainy days tends to get dreary, to make me a bit lethargic. Yesterday we did errands, including Gracie’s favorite spot, the dump, but today only the laundry awaits. Nothing exciting there. Maybe I should add dusting. Nope, that doesn’t do it either. I do have a book, but that seems too easy: lying on the couch and reading. I guess Gracie and I will venture out to see what awaits us in the world today. You never know what you’ll find.

If I were a character in a Stephen King novel, I’d find something during the venture which I, in retrospect, would wish I’d never found. It might be the store with the strange man behind the counter, a man dressed in a black suit and wearing a fedora who might even have an unlit cigar hanging out of the side of his mouth. His store is filled with what looks commonplace, but he’s really offering time or place or a wish he’d grant which I’d come to rue later, too late I might add. Festivals are common on the Cape this time of year. This weekend  I can attend a scallop festival, an apple festival or harvest day at Bray Farm. It’s that last one which has the potential of Stephen King about it. A hay ride is always part of the day, and I’m thinking of scarecrows with hellish grins who move when you’re not looking or a trail leading to a place none of us recognize. There are chickens on the farm. I mean, really, what farm doesn’t have chickens. Chickens have beaks, and when a brood of hens join forces and attacks, none of us are safe. Oops, now I’m straying into Alfred Hitchcock territory. It’s the rain. It has my brain astir. My imagination is running amok. Where is my book? Gracie, the couch is mine!

“Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.”

September 29, 2011

This was a put a mirror under her nose to see if she’s breathing sort of morning. I stayed up until close to three and didn’t wake up until nearly 11. I think it was the, “No joy in Mudville,” which kept me awake watching really bad movies. The Sox are done for the season, no more baseball. Summer is officially over. Oh the pain! Oh the agony!

Today is cloudy and will probably rain some more. It rained some time last night, and the day is too damp for anything to dry. Cold air is on its way, possibly down to the 40’s at night.

Gracie has fleas. She is the first dog I have ever owned who has picked up riders. She has been scratching, and her fur was sensitive to the touch so off to the vets we went yesterday. She’s now on an anti-itch medication, more anti-flea medication and I bought some for the cats as well. The bill was over $300.00. I am still in shock.

We always had pets when I was growing up. I think my mother’s family once had a dog, but I know my father never had pets when he was a kid. His parents were not pet people. We got Duke when I was five. The first cat didn’t arrive until I was 16 because my father didn’t like cats, but that changed quickly once he met that first kitten. After that, he and my mother always had two cats. They had Beebe, a dog who was found as a puppy at the dump, and she was their last dog. My father doted on Shauna, my Boxer. He’d get a bowl of ice cream for himself and Shauna after dinner. On St. Patrick’s day she had a boiled dinner, compliments of my Dad. When he passed away, Shauna roamed the house, the yard and the garage looking for him, and she’d stand the foot of the stairs whenever she heard footsteps from upstairs. She’d wait to see if it was my dad then walk away slowly when it wasn’t. It was as sad as anything to watch Shauna miss my Dad.

We all have pets, my sisters and I. One sister has 3 cats; she did have a dog, but he passed away and they were heart-broken and decided not to get another. My other sister has 2 cats. My nephews have a dog and one cat though at times they have had multiples of each. Another nephew has two dogs. He always has rescues, and he always chooses the ugliest dogs. Now he has Jack and Elvis. My niece has a dog and either two or three cats I forget which. Her roommate moved out and just left the cats. Sarah adopted them. Our family has a tendency to do that. One of my sister’s cats used to be her father-in-law’s. After he passed away, she adopted Tommy. My sister’s dog came from golden rescue, and both my cats were 5 when I got them from the MSPCA.

I think my family being pet people says a lot about their capacity to love.