Posted tagged ‘sun’
August 19, 2014
This morning was the library board’s annual brunch. I always bring the champagne for mimosas and serve as the bartender. Two members of the board are 90, and they love their mimosas. It was a great morning with sunny, lovely weather.
It was cold last night. The house was only 59˚ earlier this morning. When I opened the doors, the sun flooded the house. Fern ran right to the rug and sprawled in the sun. I wanted to join her. The whole week will have similar weather: 70’s during the day and low 60’s at night. I think this is perfect weather.
My dance card is filled or at least has something for every day this week. Despite all the time I have, I get miserly about giving it away. A day or two here or there is fine but not something to do every day. I’ll be exhausted. I’m thinking afternoon naps. Company is welcomed as that is unusual, but I seldom get overnight guests. That’s too bad as I am a wonderful hostess.
A while back I played songs popular when you all were born. It was fun. Now I have another brilliant idea. I am inviting each of you to be a guest writer for Coffee. Write what you want and send it, and I’ll post one each day, find a picture and look for music to go along with your posting unless your own music choice. This idea has been whirling around in my head for a while. I know the comment spot often becomes the forum, and I love that you do that, talk to each other, and those conversations have led me to this. You know each other pretty well by now, and you know Coffee so write away! Have some fun!
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Categories: Musings
Tags: brunch, cold nights, filled dance card, guest writer, mimosas, miserly with time, soap box forum, sun
Comments: 21 Comments
July 17, 2014
The rain was light but steady when I went to bed. During the day it had gotten heavy at times, and I had a flooded floor in the kitchen when I got back from my errands as I had left the back door open. It took a mop. By afternoon the humidity was thick and stifling so I put on the air. The house felt wonderful and I slept until 10, unusual for me. I turned the air off this morning as the day is cooler and less humid than it has been. The sun is even breaking through and the day is getting lighter. I didn’t begrudge the rain. We needed it.
Once I wanted to be Annie Oakley, a horse riding sharp shooting cowgirl who also happened to be the sheriff. I didn’t realize it at the time but she wasn’t stereotypical which is what I think drew me to her. Many of my favorite characters were girls and women who were smart, brave and daring. I loved Lois Lane though I hated those tiny hats, the suits she wore and the purse she always carried. She was dogged in her pursuit of a story and the identity of Superman, and she never let being a woman stand in her way though she did end up being saved time and time again by Superman. TV in the 50’s had few strong women characters. Most, like June Cleaver, wore dresses, pearls and aprons and had dinner ready when their husbands came home from work. Alice Kramden managed to break out a bit. She wore the apron but she was never cowered by Ralph.
As I was growing up, I knew I’d go to college. No one in my family had, but I just knew I would. It was part of the plan I had hatched when I was young, as young as ten or eleven. I’d go to college then I’d travel the world. There was neither doubt nor hesitation in my mind.
When I graduated from college, my mother told that she and my father had never envisioned that one of their kids would go to college. They were both thrilled and proud that I had. Earlier, though, they weren’t so thrilled and proud when I had announced the next part of my plan, traveling the world. My father forbade me to accept the Peace Corps invitation to go to Ghana. I mean really, here I was twenty-one, a few months from graduating, and my father actually thought he could stop me from doing what I wanted. If I hadn’t been so angry, I would have laughed at the absurdity. I ignored him, and he knew I was going with or without his support so he begrudgingly accepted my decision and gave his support.
My life has worked out even better than I had envisioned. It has been so much more.
Categories: Musings
Tags: absurdity, AC, Alice Kramden, Annie Oakley, college, Ghana, humidity, June Cleaver, life plans, Lois Lane, Peace Corps, rain, stereotypical women, stubbornness, sun, travel
Comments: 12 Comments
June 12, 2014
The morning is chilly, but the sun is shining which gives hope for a warmer day. Rain is coming maybe tonight but definitely tomorrow. I love this time of year when my world is wonderfully spring green.
This morning I realized I know too many useless facts. They are taking up space in my memory drawers, and they don’t seem to have much value beyond a bit of cocktail chatter. Who really cares that the Mona Lisa has no eyebrows or eyelashes? I didn’t even notice until I had read this somewhere. In the shower, most people wash starting head first. I know I do. It makes perfect sense to start at the top and work downward. We all have lyrics in our heads to songs we sang years ago when AM radio was it, was all we had. I even remember the singing commercials. They and the lyrics don’t ever disappear, but ask me state capitals, and I hesitate. Is Helena North or South Dakota? It’s neither. It’s Montana’s.
My descriptive powers are growing in leaps and bounds. Adjectives are my friends. I don’t remember names of famous people as much anymore, but I can tell you how tall they are, whether they have facial hair and sort of describe the movie they might have been in. I read an entire book and forget the title, but I can describe perfectly the plot. The names of authors disappeared long ago. I look to friends for help, and they are as perplexed as I. Every morning I wake up and figure out the day of the week.
I have always been a list maker. Long ago I learned that lists make life easier. Now I find them essential. I keep a grocery list and add to it as I run out of stuff. I have my to do list with items in no particular order or set for any specific day. That’s sort of an out in case I don’t feel like doing anything but lolling. My calendar is a tear off day by day desk calendar with, of all things, a trivia question each day. I put a reminder on my calendar the day before any event because I missed a couple of events by not tearing off the old day. Tomorrow is breakfast with friends.
I think my most important memories don’t ever disappear. They seem to stay around, vivid and almost alive. For the rest of them, there is always Google.
Categories: Musings
Tags: adjectives, cocktail chatter, forgetting, Helena, important memories, lists, memory drawers, rain, showering, state capitals, sun
Comments: 8 Comments
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.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Bastogne, Belgium, D-Day anniversary, Gen. McAuliffe Square, Mardasson Memorial, navy, rain, sun, World War II
Comments: 14 Comments
June 3, 2014
This morning, around 1 am, I was awoken by an odd sound, a repeating sound. At first I thought it was an animal screaming from being caught by a coyote, but it went on too long for that. Next I figured it was a goose, a large, walking through the neighborhood goose. The sound was right below my window at one point then was quite distant at another then it came closer again. Gracie got up and went downstairs, but I wasn’t going to let her out. Finally the sound faded then disappeared, and I went back to sleep. I asked my neighbor if she heard anything. She hadn’t. My other neighbor said she had seen around 12 or 13 turkeys wandering the neighborhood yesterday. I think that’s exactly what it was: a turkey looking for the rest of the turkeys.
The leaves on the big oak by the deck are mottled with sun. They wave in the breeze, a warm breeze. The air is sweet-smelling. Today is glorious, a short-sleeve day, a day to spend outside.
My lawn is green, spring green. It is soft on bare feet. In the mornings when I go to get the papers the grass is cool, but in the afternoons the grass is hot and means a speedier trip to pick up the mail.
The front walk is lined on both sides with potted plants. I bought flowers, herbs and veggies yesterday. I didn’t buy enough. I never do. Skip is now fencing in the vegetable garden. The old fence was flimsy and needed replacing. The new one will keep Gracie outside. She’ll have to dig somewhere else. Soon enough the tomatoes and cucumbers and two more vegetables yet to be decided will be planted and watered. I get to watch them grow, and I get to be amazed.
Categories: Musings
Tags: creature sounds, fence, flowers, glorious day, herbs, mottled leaves, sun, tomatoes, turkeys, veggies
Comments: 10 Comments
June 1, 2014
Today is a glorious spring day filled with warm sunshine and deep blue skies. I just came back from driving my friends to the bus stop in Barnstable, and the ride home was a joy. The trees along the highway are leafy and are so many different colors of green. Hawks were riding the thermals. No one was in a hurry. When I got off the highway close to home, I saw people walking their dogs, runners along the bike path and bike riders along the road. The warmth of the sun is like a magnet drawing us out of our cool, dark houses. The sun on the deck is waiting for me.
I have memories of Junes long past, of transitions and changes. It was always the month ushering in the freedom of summer days. It was the month of graduations, of moving from one place in my life to another. I left for Ghana in June on a journey which changed my life. I came home two years later in June with experiences to hold for a lifetime. June is when the cape finally wakes from winter, when the flowers all bloom and the air smells fragrant. It is no wonder I count June as my favorite month.
The laundry has made it down to this floor. It is by the cellar door. It may get done today or maybe not. It depends on how long I can stand seeing it lying there. Sometimes I need to do things right away, the laundry obviously not one of those things. This morning it was sweeping the kitchen floor. When I was making the coffee, I noticed dust in the corners and bits of dry dog food around Gracie’s bowl. I lasted only through one cup of coffee then took out the broom. I couldn’t take it any more.
I have decided how to spend my day. I will do nothing but sit in the sun, sip a cold drink and read. The laundry in the hall will just fine for another day or two.
Categories: Musings
Tags: bike riding, cleaning, dog walking, glorious day, hawks, June, Laundry, running, sun, sweeping, transitions
Comments: 13 Comments
April 14, 2014
The wind is whipping not only the top-most branches of the pine trees but also their thin tree trunks which sway back and forth and creak when they move. The sun was here earlier but has since disappeared. When I went to get the papers, I was surprised at how warm it is. The day will be a delight if the sun decides to stay around a while.
I’m in a funk. Nothing much is happening. I have to fill the bird feeders and renew my license, and I might just get to that laundry for want of something to do. I can’t believe how bored I am today, an unusual feeling for me. Maybe I’ll oil the old desk and the butcher block. I am really desperate for something demanding applause, balloons and noise makers.
You didn’t know it, but there was a huge pause between paragraphs. My friend picked me up, and I just got back from getting my driver’s license renewed. The picture could be worse but not much worse. The sun has since returned and looks as if it’s here to stay. The wind, however, is still terrific.
Tonight or rather early tomorrow there will be a total lunar eclipse. It is the first in a tetrad, four total lunar eclipses occurring in the next year and a half. The moon in total eclipse is called a blood-red moon because that’s the color it will look when it passes through the light from sunsets and sunrises glinting off the surface of the Earth. The eclipse will start around two which means I’m taking a nap today so I can see it. I’m hoping for clear skies.
I did some reading and found conspiracy theorists pages. One page suggested a link between the tetrad and a biblical prophecy of the apocalypse, “The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord come.” NASA, however, has assured us that tetrads are fairly common.
My favorite conspiracy page mentioned that the last blood moon occurred in 2004 on the night the Red Sox won the World Series. Given how badly their season has started, perhaps the new blood moon is just what they need to spark up those bats.
Categories: Musings
Tags: blood red moon, boring day, conspiracy theorists, driver's license, Laundry, lunar eclipse, sun, Wind
Comments: 16 Comments
April 3, 2014
The day is bright and sunny and framed by a clear blue sky. It is a bit chilly but I don’t care. It’s the sun that matters.
Today is a stay home day, a day for the mundane. The wash sits in the hall waiting to go down stairs, the watering can for the plants is on the counter, the litter is by the door where the litter boxes are and the clean sheets are by the bed. I’ll stay in my grubbies all day. It’s that sort of a day.
I forgot to switch from slippers to shoes when I went out the other day. My slippers are a bit worse for wear. Each one has a hole in the toe, the right slipper’s hole being much larger. They fit fine so I don’t know why the holes. I figured it is old lady syndrome though I really don’t think of myself as an old lady. I remember my grandmother wearing her house dress covered by an apron and wearing slippers with the backs down and stockings rolled around her ankles. My other grandmother would never have worn slippers or had stockings rolled around her ankles. She also wore a fancier dress usually flowered, never a house dress, and she smelled like lilacs. This grandmother was not my favorite. My other grandmother always had spaghetti on the stove and cheese you had to grate yourself on the table. She had eight kids and six of the eight were married, and we were all there every holiday to visit, cousins galore. My grandmother had chocolate bunnies for us each Easter and a present every Christmas. My grandfather hid in his bedroom from all the bedlam, but he used to give us dimes if we dropped into say hello. He kept a pile of them on the table beside his bed. My other grandfather was an imposing figure with whom we had little interaction. He was not a favorite either. It was the slippers which brought all this to mind.
Categories: Musings
Tags: blue sky, cousins, dimes, grandfathers, grandmothers, slippers, Spaghetti, sun
Comments: 26 Comments
February 9, 2014
The sun was shining while we were having a small snow shower earlier. It was kind of pretty. I stood at the door and watched as if I haven’t had enough snow already this winter. I think, though, it was the gentleness of this snow which drew me to watch. The flakes were wispy and tiny. The storm lasted but a heartbeat. Clouds took over, but the sun is breaking through them, and the day is brightening again. I’d like some sun.
I have decided that getting older has given me the right to even greater creature comfort. When I was younger, I tolerated extremes of heat and cold. Now I crank up the thermostat in winter and turn on the air-conditioner in summer. I stay in warm cozy clothes on the coldest of days and hunker down at home. My meals are a mishmash of whatever is in the house. Rice Krispies aren’t just for breakfast any more and adding a banana raises that cereal to new heights. Yesterday I had a messy grilled cheese sandwich, comfort food at its best. I added avocado and bacon. That sandwich was like manna from heaven. I don’t know what is on the menu for today, but I do have a couple of sweet potatoes and some pastrami so maybe a sort of hash.
I started reading the Stephen King. It is fine for downstairs reading, but because of its size, the book is unwieldy for reading in bed so I’ll have to choose a new upstairs book. When I worked and drove more, I also had a car book which doubled as my lunch time book. On long trips, I listened to an audio book. That always made the time go so much faster. I remember trips to Europe in the summer and trading books with other backpackers. I also remember trying to find the only English language bookstore in some cities; Quito was one of them. When I went to Ghana, I filled my iPad with e-books, and I read several of them while I was there. I do love the feel of a real book, but sometimes a real book is not practical and travel is one of those times. My iPad is right up there at the top of my packing list, and I doubt anything will unseat it as number one.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Air conditioner, avocado and bacon, cozy clothes, creature comfort, E-book, grilled cheese sandwich, hash, heat, Rice Krispies, snow shower, sun, upstairs book'downstairs book
Comments: 10 Comments
January 16, 2014
Yesterday was lovely with sun and unseasonable warmth. Gracie and I had some errands, but first I wanted a bit of fun shopping. The store, though, was closed as was the candy store beside it where I could have salved my disappointment with a bit of chocolate, my panacea for any ills or low spirits. Sadly I was left with utilitarian shopping for dog food, cat litter, bread and eggs. I did buy a cupcake, a chocolate cupcake, which raised my spirits.
Today is dark and damp, the air perfectly still. It is not the sort of weather which tempts me to go out or even to get dressed. I will make my bed and pay my bills and consider it a day well-spent, yup, well-spent.
I remember learning about money. The worksheet had drawings of pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters. I guess the 50 cent piece wasn’t important or the nuns thought we could figure it out by elimination and, if that didn’t work, by reading the coin. The worksheet was filled with math problems using money. What coins would you use to add up to 12 cents, 28 cents or 30 cents? I, who never liked math, enjoyed the coin problems. They were more like a puzzle. What coins would you give back if the person gave you a quarter for a purchase of 17 cents? Even though that was real math, subtraction, you still had the puzzle of which coins. For a long time after that I always counted out my coins one at a time from one hand to the other. I’d say ten cents for the dime then eleven cents, twelve cents and on and on when I added pennies. When I was older, I got an allowance of 50 cents a week, always a single coin.
Most birthdays I got a dollar in my cards from my aunt and my grandmother. That opened up a whole new can of worms. Counting money got just a bit more complicated
Categories: Musings
Tags: Chocolate, coins, cupcake, dark and damp, learning, learning coins, make bed, panacea, pay bills, penny'dime, quarter, slight breeze, sun, unseasonable warmth
Comments: 12 Comments
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