Posted tagged ‘sun’
November 7, 2017
The sun is hiding. It was here earlier but it’s gone now. Today is chillier than it has been, but not chilly enough for the heat to be triggered. The clouds are white, and there is barely a breeze, but I’ll take the clouds rather than the usual cold of November.
When I was a kid, I rode my bike all year. Only the snow stopped me. The roads were seldom plowed all the way down to street so it was too slippery for bike wheels. It was sort of the same when I was walking to and from school. The sidewalks were shoveled by the people who lived beside them, not the town, so we’d hit parts which had never seen a shovel. Rather than get all snowy and wet, we’d move to the road and walk in the ruts. Sometimes we’d have to walk toe to heel because the ruts were so narrow. Sometimes we’d fall into the snow. We always laughed.
I really didn’t mind school all that much in the winter, but I really minded it in late spring and fall when the days were still warm and bright. All I could think of was I should be outside playing or riding my bike; instead, the best weather was being wasted, and a taste of the day at recess only made it worse. All I could do each school day was watch through my classroom windows as warm days withered away. We played when we got home from school but darkness came early, and the street lights were on by four. My mother didn’t care what time it was. She went with the street light curfew.
My town had so many trees bordering the streets and sidewalks that fallen leaves were everywhere. The ones on lawns were cleared and burned, but the rest sat in gutters or around tree trunks. Yellow and orange are the colors of fall to me.
Sometimes I still think of all the other seasons in colors. Spring is green, all different, varied greens. Summer is all colors especially reds and yellows, pinks and purples as the gardens come to life. Winter is white when it snows, and red and green at Christmas, but the rest of winter is mostly brown and grey. We’re almost there now.
Categories: Musings
Tags: bike, chilly, Clouds, colors of the seasons, curfew, early darkness, falling in the snow, narrow ruts, no wind, recess, ruts, school, snowstorm, street lights, sun
Comments: 10 Comments
October 27, 2017
Some mornings I’m Cinderella with singing bluebirds flying around bringing me a ribbon for my hair, tying on my apron and helping me do chores. Today was not one of those days. The house was cold as it was down to the 40’s last night. I put my sweatshirt on, took Gracie outside, picked up the papers and went back into the house. I noticed the middle cushion on the couch looked wet. I checked and saw Gracie had gotten sick during the night. I slept right through it. I cleaned it up off the floor and washed the pillow which bore the brunt of Gracie’s discomfort. I hadn’t even had my coffee yet.
The best find of the day was seeing that the second season of Stranger Things has been released on Netflix so I am watching the first episode. This makes up a bit for the morning even though I’m not seeing bluebirds.
I have a new coffee maker so I had to read the instructions before I could make my coffee. They were easy to read and accomplish, but I do have a complaint. According to the measurements on the side of the carafe, I was making 12 cups. After filling my first cup, I was down to a little lower than 10 and with the second cup down to below 8 cups. The only thing I can figure is I should be using demitasse cups. Who drinks coffee from tiny cups?
One white flower is left in the garden. The cold nights are taking their toll. Winter is getting closer. My sister in Colorado had 80˚ weather a few days ago. Last night was supposed to be around 18˚. She had some snow flurries in the afternoon.
The sun is bright today and is framed in a deep blue sky. It’s a pretty day with a breeze strong enough to sway a few branches and knock off more leaves. The oak tree leaves are the first to succumb to the breeze. Many are brown and dead. I figure they are Mother Nature’s metaphors for the changing season.
Categories: Musings
Tags: 12 cups, 18˚, blue birds, breeze, Cinderella, coffee maker, cold house, cold nights, dead oak leaves, demitasse cups, mess, Singing, Stranger Things, sun, throw up, white flower
Comments: 4 Comments
October 17, 2017
Last night was seasonably cold. When I woke up, the house was down to 64˚, too cold for me. I grabbed my sweatshirt and turned on the heat to warm the house. Coffee helped to warm me.
The day is beautiful with a bright, squint your eyes sort of sun and deep blue skies. A few thin branches high in the oak trees are swaying. Dead leaves are falling, some slowly, some far more quickly to the ground. The bird feeders need my attention. I also need to fill the suet feeders.
I took my time this morning. Usually I am quick to get my papers and to take Miss Gracie out to the back yard. Instead, I sat inside for while finishing a book. When I finally did go out, I met my friend Tony walking Darcie, his westie. We chatted, and he helped me empty my trunk of seeds and canned animal food. I saw a dead rabbit in the space between my house and my neighbor’s house. Sadly, I think it is rabbit I came to know. It visited my yard all summer. Tony offered to bag the rabbit so I could take it to the dump, but I knew I’d have trouble doing that so I thanked him and said I’d bury it or have my neighbor bury it. I’m going to miss my rabbit.
YouTube is on. I’ve been watching those black and white science fiction movies from the 50’s all morning. The Giant Claw is my favorite so far. It was awful, even laughable, but that’s its best feature. The giant claw belongs to a giant bird with eyes which never move. It eats planes, trains, cars and people. It scooped parachutists from the sky with its mouth. The movie has all the best elements: a hero, his new found love, a scientist of sorts, city crowd scenes where men wearing overcoats and fedoras run along side women wearing dresses, hats and heels, all trying to escape the falling buildings destroyed by the bird. I loved this movie.
I have nothing planned for today, and that’s just fine with me.
Categories: Musings
Tags: blue sky, breeze, cold night, crowd, dead leaves, dead rabbit, destroyed buildings, feeders, heat, rabbit, seeds, sun, swaying branches, The Giant Claw, YouTube
Comments: 9 Comments
September 29, 2017
Today is a lovely fall day. The air is clear. The sun is sharp and bright. It is in the low 60’s and will stay that way until tonight when it will drop into the 50’s. Last night was downright cold. I took Gracie out around eleven and wished I had worn a sweatshirt. I kept urging her to hurry. She didn’t. She sniffed all over until she found her right spot.
I love my mornings. Lately I have been waking up late, but I still take the time to enjoy the start of my day. The pattern never changes. Gracie and I go out to get the papers then I take her to the backyard. She is quick to finish so we go inside. I put the coffee on then tend to Gracie and Maddie. The cat is loud and demanding. I fill her dry food dish then give her a can of cat food, always meat, never fish. Gracie is next. I fill her dry food, ready her medications then give her a can of dog food with the meds hidden beneath. It is then I can grab a cup of coffee and start reading the papers. I never hurry despite Maddie’s exhortations.
I wish I were handy, but I have inherited my father’s ineptitude when it comes to working with my hands. He was the man who sawed himself out of a tree. My mother and I watched from the window. We could have warned him but he wasn’t all that far off the ground. He so destroyed the toilet when he was fixing it, though fixing is loosely used here, that the plumber was amazed and wanted to know who did the destruction. He cut all of his fingers when fixing a fan. My father never gave up trying to be a Mr. Fixit. My mother kept a list of repairmen and their numbers. She knew she’d need it.
My laundry is done. It was quite the task. The first load didn’t spin. I had to wring out the wettest clothes, but the dryer did its job. I put in the second load anyway. I wanted no dirty laundry left. When I went to move the second load to the dryer, I was surprised to find them spun. I figured the first load had to have been uneven, and I didn’t hear the warning. I was thrilled.
I think it is a sad commentary that I can find laundry thrilling. Ho Hum!
Categories: Musings
Tags: 50˚, 60˚, clear air, cold, crisp, dryer, feed cat, feed dog, Gracie and Maddie, Laundry, mornings, papers, peeing dog, sun, washer
Comments: 8 Comments
September 24, 2017
We have sun and a blue sky, both among the missing for the last five days. I was surprised by how warm it is when I went out to get the papers. My lawn and deck are a mess. Leaves and branches cover both. The leaves are so wet they are pasted to the lawn and driveway. The deck is slick. I had to take mincing steps to keep my balance. I hope the leaves are quick drying in the sun.
Breakfast is my favorite go out to eat meal. I like my bacon crisp and my eggs over easy. My toast is usually rye. I love to use it to sop up the yoke. Sometimes I get French toast. I slop on maple syrup, the real stuff. I also get crisp bacon with my French toast. Some places offer home fries, but I only like them seasoned so most times I just pass.
In Ghana, my breakfast was the same every day. I had two eggs fried in peanut oil, toast and coffee. Butter was expensive so I used margarine from a tin. The coffee was instant with tinned milk. The eggs and the bread were fresh. Sometimes the eggs came from my own chickens. The rest of the time I bought them in the market. The bread was fresh and sweet. Cooking the eggs in peanut oil added a wonderful taste. I always had two giant cups of coffee, one with breakfast and the other sitting out on the steps in the front of my house. I’d watch the little kids walk to schools close to my school fences.
Every place I’ve stayed on return trips to Ghana serves a complimentary breakfast. It is generally two eggs, toast and coffee, and yes, the milk is still tinned.
I don’t often cook breakfast for myself. Usually I just have coffee and, of late, toast or an English muffin. I don’t ever use margarine, and I use light cream in my coffee. I like to indulge myself. My favorite coffee is called African blend, but I like to try different coffees. I just bought some Ugandan coffee. It was expensive partly because it came in a red striped cloth bag with beadwork. I admit I was drawn by the bag.
Peapod has come and gone. The driver was nice enough to leave freezer and refrigerator items in bags near the fridge so I’ve already put them away. When I finish here, I’ll put the rest of the groceries away. I had to be inventive to fit everything in the freezer, and my fridge is hardly ever this filled. My kitchen has become a land of plenty.
Categories: Musings
Tags: African blend, blue sky, branches, breakfast, French toast, Ghana, leaves, over easy eggs, Peapod, rye, sun, tinned butter, tinned milk, Toast, Ugandan coffee, warmth, ]
Comments: 13 Comments
September 17, 2017
I apologize for yesterday, and I thank you for worrying as I know I usually let you know. I slept later than I intended and had time for getting dressed, a quick cup of coffee, feeding the animals and taking Gracie out. It was International Festival Day at the local college, and I was at the Peace Corps table all day. Luckily I had packed what I wanted to use to decorate the table so I just grabbed the stuff and left. When I got home, I napped.
A couple of people who stopped at the PC table were surprised to find Peace Corps still existed. I guess we don’t do a great job advocating for ourselves. One man stopped and asked me if I knew who he was. I did, just by his question. Twice before I had met him, asked his name and country of service. Each time he answered a bit testily that he was with me in Ghana. I still didn’t recognize him this time either but said, “Gary?” and he smiled. I had guessed right.
It is a bright, beautiful day now, but it started out foggy, a fog which hovered around the lower limbs of the trees and atop the roads, covered the bridge and hung just above the ocean. When I was a kid, that was the scariest fog. It hid the sidewalks. Noises were amplified and footsteps echoed. We’d run if we heard someone behind us. We never knew who or, even worse, what was behind us. It could have been the man with the hook or some mass murderer looking for another victim so we ran as fast as we could. It never occurred to us the footsteps might be from something benign. In the fog it could only have been something scary and evil.
The paper today had a page devoted to Marshmallow Fluff which is celebrating its 100th anniversary. About 7 million pounds of Fluff is sold each year which is mind boggling given how light Fluff is. Fluff has only 4 ingredients: corn syrup, sugar, dried egg white and vanilla. When I was growing up, we always had Fluff in the cabinet because a fluffernutter was a quick snack: thin on the peanut butter, thick on the Fluff. The only problem was being careful not to tear the soft bread when slathering the Fluff. 50% of all Fluff is sold in New England and Upstate New York. I still keep Fluff in the cabinet. I never know when I might just want a quick snack.
Categories: Musings
Tags: 7 million pounds, eerie, fog, footsteps, ghosts, International; Festival, Marshmallow Fluff, noises, Peace Corps, running homr, serial killer, sun, the hook
Comments: 14 Comments
August 20, 2017
The morning is just so beautiful with a bright, bright sun, the bluest of skies and a slight breeze, deck weather for sure. It is already getting hot, an August heat, but the deck has branches hanging over it and an umbrella to keep the sun at bay. Tonight is movie night.
My next door neighbors barbecue every Sunday. He cooks, and it is always chicken wings, just plain chicken wings, no sauce, no sides. I can usually smell the wings cooking so I go outside to yell hello from my deck to theirs. They always invite me over.
As soon as I wake up, I look forward to my first sip of coffee. I can hear it dripping into the carafe, and the house fills with the aroma of that coffee brewing. My sense of smell works overtime. I impatiently wait and sometimes even stand in the kitchen to watch. I could take it mid-brew, but I choose to wait, to heighten the expectation.
Recently I’ve been drinking African blend which is a bit funny as I never had real coffee in Ghana, only instant. I got used to it but was never a fan. On my last trip, my friends brought coffee bags, and they tasted far better than the instant, but we had had real coffee at Zania Lodge which spoiled me a bit; however, I adjusted to the instant though my taste buds were severely disappointed.
My house is a full cape which means it has two front windows on each side of the door. In the back, there is a dormer which gives my house three floors in the back but only one floor in the front. My deck is off the second floor in the back. I like being suspended above the ground.
I have to go out to get the fixings for tonight’s movie food. We’re having a jalapeño dip with blue corn chips and maybe a Stromboli. I have the ingredients for that on my shopping list, but oftentimes my trip to the store means seeing something already made which looks delicious so I change the menu right then and there. I’m nothing if not flexible.
Categories: Musings
Tags: African blend, blue, breeze, chicken wings, coffee, deck, first sip, instant coffee, invitation, movie night, sun, suspended above the ground, third floor
Comments: 8 Comments
August 13, 2017
The rain fell most of the day yesterday. Sometimes it was heavy and other times just misty. When I first woke up this morning, it was cloudy. When I woke up a second time, it was still cloudy but the sun poked through a couple of times giving me some hope for a nice day. It will be warm, low 80’s, but less humid.
Gracie and I did a couple of errands yesterday. We took 6A, but it too was filled with traffic, tourists looking to while away the rainy day.I learned in Ghana to see the bugs as protein I stopped at the candy store to get some peanut butter cups and chocolate peppermints for movie night. That shop was filled with more people than I’ve ever seen in there. I guess there is no better cure for a rainy day than chocolate. Actually, chocolates are a panacea for whatever ails us.
The other evening I was having a bowl of cereal, Rice Krispies, when I noticed a small bug swimming on top of the cereal. I flicked it out of the bowl and kept eating. I learned in Ghana to see bugs in my food, especially flour, as added protein. It is one of the strange things I learned.
I like Life Savers, but my favorites are made by Reed’s, root beer closely followed by cinnamon. Wintergreen is my favorite flavor of Life Savers. In a package I got in Ghana from my mother were a few rolls of Life Saver’s tropical fruits. I guess she figured they were a fun choice. The colors were the same as the fruit colors, even that green of honeydew melons and the light orange of cantaloup. The coconut was my favorite. We sat one night guessing all the fruits. It was our evening’s entertainment. It didn’t take much to amuse us.
My friends and I play games once a week. In the winter it is on Sunday night then we watch The Amazing Race which was DVR’d on Friday. We didn’t like it on Friday so we continued with Sunday. Creatures of habit I guess. Now it is Saturday night, movie night. We have some appetizers then play Phase 10 before the movie. If we have time, mostly in the winter, we also play Sorry. We never seem to tire of either game. We even keep a list of winners from each week. There is usually a bit of gloating. I was the gloater last week.
Categories: Musings
Tags: 6A, bug, cereal, Chocolate, chocolate shop, games, gloating, It seems, Life Savers, mist, peanut butter cups, Phase 10, protein, rain, Reed's root beer, Sorry, sun, traffic, Tropical Fruit Life Savers
Comments: 14 Comments
August 11, 2017
The early morning was cool. Gracie wanted out before six so out we went. It was quiet. My newspapers hadn’t yet been delivered. Gracie finished her business, and when we came back inside, both of us fell back to sleep.
The sky is gray for a while then the sun breaks though for a short time, but the grey clouds never quite disappear. The sun does. The humidity is returning today.
Next door is still noisy but not as much as yesterday. The digging has stopped. The rest of the neighborhood is quiet. Even the birds aren’t singing. I figure they feel as oppressed by the clouds as I do. It seems to be getting darker though rain is not in the forecast.
I haven’t anything to do today. My house is clean, the laundry isn’t worth washing, too few clothes, and I don’t need any groceries. I suppose I could clean things like the bookcases filled with stuff, but I figure that’s over the top and good for a winter’s day. The downstairs plants do need watering so I guess I’ve found something to do. Hurrah!
I’m seeing commercials for survival food good for 25 years. I’m going to pass.
Many of the commercials are aimed at my generation because we, the baby boomers, are a bulge on the population chart and are so much older now. Today I watched one for the stair climber. Reverse mortgage is Tom Selleck’s ad. Another one is for insurance to pay off all the bills left when you die. Local Cape ads tout retirement communities with all the amenities including a doctor on call. AARP is all over the dial, okay not the dial but the remote though it doesn’t matter, you get the idea. I chuckle at the commercials for Consumer Cellular. Every actor is older, my age older, as in the older woman who reminds us we had to go to the library to look up stuff. She uses her cell phone for a walk in a field with her friends, a GPS app I figure, and says we can learn new technology. I’m so glad to hear that!
Categories: Musings
Tags: 'remote, ads, baby boomers, birds, cloudy, cool, dial, digging noise, early morning, humid, older people, plants, quiet, sun, survival food, to do list
Comments: 19 Comments
May 27, 2017
We have some blue sky and a sun which can’t quite make up its mind about coming or going. It is also chilly, not a morning chill: it’s just cold.
My dance card is empty today. I do have some Gracie stuff to wash but nothing else. Yesterday’s amazing spurt of industry has left me with nothing needing doing except to put my banners and flags on the fence.
The lawns are green and lush from the rain. Even the leaves seem to glint in the sun which seems to have made up its mind and is staying for the duration. I’ll go on the deck later and empty the water from the furniture covers hoping they’ll dry so they can be put away for the season. Next week is buy my flowers and open the deck week.
My neighborhood is eerily quiet for a Saturday. Once in a while the dogs across the street bark but usually at Grace and me walking to my backyard. I don’t know where all the kids are, but I’m glad they’re missing. I’m happy for the peaceful morning.
My around the house cozy pants have permanent creases from sitting down when I wear them. One crease has given way. I didn’t figure sewing it would work as it wasn’t torn so I did the next best thing. I duct taped the worn area.
Some of the best things I learned in Ghana were to make-do, throw nothing away and repurpose. Tires became soles of shoes and sandals. Beer bottles were filled with palm oil or groundnut oil for sale in the market. Cones made from newspapers held rice for sale. In the butcher’s market, newspapers were used to wrap meat being sold. That mightn’t sound all that healthy, but the butcher’s market was filthy anyway. Newspapers might have been a step up. I always think it’s amazing what I learned to ignore or tolerate during my time in Ghana. Water with floaties (our word for whatever was in the water sold in beer bottles ), food from the street vendors or from the tables of aunties (older women) who were selling along the sides of the roads and, my favorite, eating in a chop bar ( usually a hole in the wall with a few wobbly tables and mismatched chairs serving local food) never gave me pause after my first few months of Peace Corps training. I even shooed flies off my food before I ate it and sifted my flour for as many weevils (small worms) as I could get. The rest just became protein. All of that became a part of life in Ghana and didn’t merit second thoughts.
The tolerance and forbearance I learned are forever a part of me. I admit my standards are definitely higher now, but I’m not squeamish about most things. I still flick flies.
Categories: Musings
Tags: banners, blue sky, chily, chop bar, creases, deck, duct tape, empty dance card, flags, flies, flowers, lawns, lush lawn, make-do, newspapers, Peace Corps training, quiet, repurpose, sun, weevils
Comments: 8 Comments
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