Posted tagged ‘sunny’
July 12, 2016
The weather is glorious this morning. It is sunny, still and warm. The street is quiet. Last night the street was filled with kids, noisy kids. Gracie went to the door to see what was going on. She found it boring so she went back to the couch and fell asleep.
Yesterday I finally planted the flowers which have been sitting on the brick walk for nearly two weeks. I filled the front step pot and three pots for the deck railing to replace the ones the spawns broke. By the time I was done, I wasn’t fit for social interaction. Sweat poured down each cheek and my hair was soaked, but I didn’t mind. I felt accomplished. I even swept the step and walkway. It was a productive afternoon.
Today will be nonproductive. I have to go to the library. It’s the big event of the day. I’ll take my shower later, the second big event. I never mind days like today. I figure most of my life before retirement was spent being busy every day so I have earned idle time. I have come to love an empty dance card.
All my animals, the two cats and the dog, are considered elderly by the vets. I’m thinking I might just be in the same category. Fern takes four medicines a day and the dog takes one. Maddie would also take one if she weren’t so feisty. I take more than all of them.
I don’t see many people, but my friends and I keep in touch by calling each other. The other day it was my friend Maria who called. She and I have been friends for almost sixty years. I saw her three or four months ago for the first time in a long time, but our connection has stayed so strong it is always as if we had been together a day or two before. We have so many stories starring each other, and we laugh every time we tell them. They never get old. When I taught, I used to spend just about every summer traveling, usually in Europe. I’d be gone four to six weeks. Those summers always went by in a flash. Traveling does that: makes the days short and quick.
My next trip is back to Ghana for my third visit. The two and a half weeks will be gone in the blink of an eye, but I’ll hold close everyone I see and every place I go. Ghana is also home for me.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Ghana, growing old, laughs, medicine, old friends, Peace Corps, pets, potting plants, productive day, Shower, still, stories, sunny, sweaty, warm
Comments: 10 Comments
May 20, 2016
Today is a perfect spring day on Cape Cod. It is a bit chilly but a long-sleeve shirt should do, the sun is sharing the sky with a few clouds and there is a slight breeze rippling the young leaves of the oak tree outside my window. It is a good day for a walk.
Monday is plant day, one of my favorite of all days. I bring my list and wander the aisles pushing my cart. I buy herbs for the small garden close to the house especially lots of basil for pesto. I buy perennials for the front gardens. This year my list includes native flowers like the butterfly milkweed, the common boneset and the spotted geranium. When I get into the garden shop, I have trouble controlling myself. I so love to shop for plants.
When I was a kid, it never occurred to me that every day was the same. I’d have cocoa and toast, sometimes an egg, for breakfast and then leave for school. The walk wasn’t long. We crossed railroad tracks, went by the junior high school, an old brick building which used to be the high school, crossed a sometimes busy road and walked just a bit more to the school. The convent was across the street, the rectory was beside the old school and the church was beside the rectory. We’d head for the school yard and talk or play until the bell rang. It was a hand bell which the nun would ring three or four times. I liked the sound of a hand bell, and sometimes I’d watch the nun stand by the door to ring the bell. She’d raise the bell high above her head and swing it down as far as her arm could reach. We all knew it was time to get into our lines. I remember watching Little House on the Prairie. The teacher pulled the rope connected to the hand bell. It was the same sound.
Categories: Musings
Tags: brick building, every day the same, nuns, railroad tracks, ringing the bell, school bell, school grounds, spring day, still air, sunny, walk to school
Comments: 8 Comments
May 17, 2016
Today is a bit chilly somewhere between a sweatshirt and a long sleeved-shirt. The sky is cloudy though the sun is close enough behind the clouds that the day is bright and the sun sometimes shows itself. Many flowers are starting to pop up or bloom in my front garden. Now I know where the bare spots are, and I’m excited to buy new flowers to fill in the blanks (sort of blanks). I know I need some tall ones. Before I shop, I’ll do a bit of searching on line to find different flowers than I have.
This is a busy medical week. Fern goes to the vets today to see if the medicine has helped her kidney remain stable without any further deterioration. I have two appointments of my own. My house is beginning to resemble a pharmacy. All of us are on some sort of medication.
Spring is a noisy season. The birds start singing early, a bit before dawn. The kids are outside in the morning screaming and playing while they wait for the bus. I can hear lawn mowers most mornings and today I heard hammering. Generally I prefer the quiet, but this time of year I’m happy for the noise. It means people are coming out of hibernation. They are no longer hunkered down in their warm houses but are outside in their gardens or just walking the neighborhood. People are especially friendly this time of year. We all survived the winter together so a wave or a hello is a reconnection.
Riding in the car this time of year has its danger. My eyes are attracted to colors, and I can’t help but look: along the sides of the roads. I have to be careful to take quick peeks as a couple of times I found myself heading toward the sidewalks-no people but plenty of trees.
I haven’t taken pictures in a long while, but my camera has plenty of pictures needing to be uploaded and posted. Most are from last year. I’ve got to put the camera on my to do list.
Right now the sun is out. It is quiet. The only sound is Gracie’s deep breathing while she sleeps. A bit of a breeze has appeared and the tops of the pine trees are swaying. It is a lovely day.
Categories: Musings
Tags: a bit chilly, colors, medications, noisy spring, singing birds, sunny
Comments: 6 Comments
May 10, 2016
Today is a gift. I’m thinking Mother Nature has decided to stop teasing us with winter and has embraced spring. Not a branch moves in the stillness of the morning. The sun is bright and is framed by a blue sky. The birds are singing, and I hear several different songs. My feeders are getting a lot of traffic. It is in the mid 50’s but will get warmer as the day grows older. Tonight will be in the mid 40’s. It is a Cape Cod spring day.
This is the time of year when I’d ride my bike to school. I remember speeding down the hills and feeling chilly from the wind. My jacket would fill with air. The ride was short, probably about ten minutes, all downhill going and uphill returning. It should have been the opposite.
The bike rack was old and wooden. It was under branches from the tree in a yard next to the school fence. It was painted a dark green and had layers of paint. You could see them all when the paint chipped. I never had a lock for my bike. I don’t think anyone did. The bikes weren’t fancy. They had the back pedal brakes. Most had wire baskets. The best part of riding my bike was getting home fast and having more time to play in the afternoon.
The streets all had sand from winter when the sand trucks would come by and spew their sand on the snow to give cars better traction, but this time of year it was the street cleaning trucks which would come by. They had brushes low to the ground and would sweep the sand to the curbside. A couple of times I skidded in the sand. Sometimes we did what came to be called wheelies. Our bikes would leave circular skid marks. Braking at the right time and place was the key.
The day hasn’t started well. I had an early morning meeting and nearly fell out of bed when the alarm went off. On the way to the bathroom I stepped in cat throw up. I have to go out but not for anything fun. I have to some x-rays done of my back. I’ve decided I deserve a good lunch, my favorite sandwich and a whoopie pie for dessert. I definitely earned it this morning.
Categories: Musings
Tags: bike rack, bike riding, bird feeders, birds, blue sky, cat vomit, morning meeting, no bike lock, pedal brakes, sand, spring, stillness, sunny, wheelies
Comments: 8 Comments
April 30, 2016
My house was chilly this morning. Even Fern’s fur felt cold. I finally remembered my thermostat has its own mind on the weekends so I checked and found the house was 64˚. I turned the thermostat to manual and cranked up that heat to a respectable 68˚. It is blowing now, and I can already feel the difference.
The color of the sky is so lovely it almost doesn’t look real. It is as if a painter mixed his blues until he found the perfect one. The sun is bright but hasn’t yet the strength to warm the air. It is sweatshirt weather so I suppose I shouldn’t complain as winter coat weather wasn’t that long ago.
My current funk continues. I figure a really warm day, a ride in the car with the windows down and a Dunkin’ Donut butternut donut would go a long way in brightening my weekend.
I can’t remember the last time I jumped from grumpy into a funk. Usually grumpy goes away quickly because I take a ride and sometimes find something entertaining or funny or I shop and happen upon exactly what I wanted or what I needed or, even better, a surprise I never expected. I think shopping at little stores will be what I’ll do today. I’d love a surprise.
If the weather changed enough and got much warmer, I could while away the hours on the deck and that would totally upend my mood. I always think of Cinderella and the blue birds. I loved the one in the kerchief.
That blue bird reminded me nobody wears kerchiefs any more. My mother would sometimes wear one to hide the bobby pins she used to curl her hair, but even bobby pins are gone. If I needed one, my mother would rummage through her purse and almost always found one at the bottom. She also used to find pennies and tobacco. I remember each curl was held by a bobby pin. It must have taken hours to do that.
I am the only one awake. I think I’ll have another cup of coffee and maybe some toast.
Categories: Musings
Tags: 64˚, blue birds, bobby pins, butternut donut, chilly house, Cinderella, cold fur, curls, Dunkin' Donut, funk, grumpy, heat, kerchiefs, sunny
Comments: 20 Comments
April 25, 2016
The day started grey but it is now sunny, not bright but sunny. It is also noisy with birds singing and calling. Monday always seems quiet to me. It’s the day to recuperate from the weekend and all the errands and chores and evenings with friends. I spent the morning with my neighbor. We chatted in English to improve her skills. The have/has problem is the one she can’t seem to shake. I explain it. She thinks about it, repeats it a few times, then a bit later says she have when telling me a story. I want to bang my head on the table. Maybe she’ll connect my head banging with has.
When I was a kid, it was easy to be happy. I had everything I wanted. I had a bike, ice skates, regular skates and a sled. The library was a good walk away but worth the walk. It was filled with books so I never wanted for something to read. I liked school so going every day was no big deal. I loved learning new things. My friends were neighborhood friends so we saw each other even day walking to and from school and on Saturdays for whatever we decided to do. I think it was when I was a teenager that I started to want more.
Clothes became important when I was older. We all wanted to look alike without looking alike. It was a strange conundrum. Transistor radios were a must, the smaller the better. Saddle shoes were in for a while, and I still have a pair of them. Maybe I ought to wear them. My Easter bonnet was a hit so maybe the shoes will be too. Back then only white sneakers would do. We wanted more. Discontentment replaced happiness. Envy was big.
I went through a few more transitions. One of my favorites was my overalls-flannel shirt phase. I wore them with high tops, pink high tops. Individuality had become more important.
I think the Peace Corps made me brave. I was living in a far different culture where I had to do most things on my own including traveling. I learned to be self-sufficient and a bit daring. When I told my family I was going to Morocco by myself, they chatted among themselves and were quite nervous. They even designated my brother-in-law Rod as the rescue person should I break a leg or need saving for some reason. They told me this when I got home. I thought it was pretty funny. I think, though, I should be thankful for a family with emergency back-ups plans for me when I travel. You never know!
Categories: Musings
Tags: bike, conversation, English language, envy, happy kid, has/have, head banging, learning new things, library, Peace Corps, roller skates, saddle shoes, singing birds, Sled, sunny, teenagers, transistor radio
Comments: 10 Comments
April 24, 2016
The sun is doing its best, but the air has a bit of a chill, usual weather for spring on Cape Cod. When I left the Cape yesterday afternoon, it was grey and cloudy. As I got closer to Boston, the sun was shining, the sky was bright blue and it was about 6 or 7 degrees warmer.
I am taking a short hiatus today. My body isn’t at all happy with all the driving yesterday, and I took a small spill last night. My foot got caught in the strap of a bag on the floor and I went down on my right knee. In trying to stop myself, I grabbed a storage box. I went forward more and fell while my arm stayed back. It is quite sore today.
On the cat front, I did manage to dose Maddie once last night. I didn’t see her the rest of the night, and she just showed up. She is supposed to have two. I need someone here she can dislike instead of me when it comes to medicine time
I’ll be back tomorrow. Don’t worry I am fine. It was one of my gentler falls, low on the pain scale!
Categories: Musings
Tags: chill in the air, grey and cloudy, sunny
Comments: 8 Comments
April 8, 2016
Today is sunny and beautiful. The ever-present wind is making the chimes play. The trees are swaying. More bird than I’ve seen for a long while have been at the feeders all morning. I’d label today hopeful.
At one I have a doctor’s appointment to discuss my MRI. I saw a line description of the results and it said: abnormal, referral to Doctor so and so. The doctor listed, aka so and so, was my surgeon on the last back operation. That didn’t make me too happy; however, I did see a bit of humor. I love the movie Young Frankenstein. When the doctor is putting together the parts of his creation, Igor is sent to get a brain. Something goes wrong and the doctor asks whose brain Igor chose. He says Abby Normal. That’s what ran through my head when I saw the one line results. I couldn’t help but chuckle.
When I was a kid, we never regularly saw dentists or doctors. My parents as kids hadn’t either so they just followed tradition. I did finally see an orthodontist for braces which were rare in those days. We even had to go to Boston by bus and subway to see him. I was seven or eight. The doctor’s name was Dr. Nice. I have a school picture of me in the third grade with my mouth closed, no smile. I was hiding my braces.
When I was about ten, I fell down the stairs which started my tradition of falling. We went to the doctor the next morning. He just cleaned it. I swear he used an SOS pad. All the way through high school I never saw a doctor. There wasn’t any need. Visits to doctors and dentists were based on pain.
Once when I was in the eighth grade I had a toothache and did go to a dentist, my father’s childhood dentist. I think his nickname was Butcher. He was about ninety, didn’t use novocaine, and I swear he pedaled to make his drill work. That was my last visit to the dentist until my senior year in college when I had to have my teeth checked for Peace Corps. I think I needed hundreds of fillings. That dentist didn’t hurt.
I saw the doctor once when I was in high school. It was for allergies. When I was getting ready for Peace Corps, I had to have a physical. I went to the same doctor as I had seen seven years earlier.
Now we’ll jump ahead. I have so many doctors I forget some of them. Other than check-ups I don’t see them more than once or twice a year except for my regular doctor. I see him when anything has gone awry. He’s the one I’m seeing today.
When I was in Ghana, if anything was wrong, I had to send a letter to the doctor in Accra to describe my symptoms. Luckily though I was healthy for the whole two years. I don’t think I even fell once. The closest I came was in the Sahara when a camel took off with me riding it. By the time I stopped the beast, I had just one leg thrown over the wooden saddle-like thing, and I was still holding the one rope rein. The camel and I were face to face. It spit at me. I am not a fan of camels.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Abby Normal, beautiful day, camel riding, dentists, doctors, falling, Igor, MRI, novocaine, sunny, warm, windy, Young Frankenstein
Comments: 14 Comments
March 19, 2016
The day is beautiful with lots of sun and a clear, deep blue sky. The only problem is the cold. It isn’t take your breath away cold, for which I am thankful, but it is wear a jacket or a vest cold. The prediction is for snow starting tomorrow night and continuing into Monday. We could get up to 8 inches, but the forecast is still filled with maybes. Sadly the snow isn’t a maybe but the amount is.
Even when I was young, I don’t think I’d have welcomed snow this time of year. It’s bicycle time. Sled time is over. I’d have already put my sled in the cellar and brought out my bike.
I was a pretty good roller skater on the sidewalks near my house. My skates were the key kind which attached to my shoes, always shoes, never sneakers. I’d sit on the front steps, loosen the sliders on the under part of the skates then put my feet in and move the slider up and down until the skates perfectly fit my feet. I’d then tighten the slider bolts. The next part needed my key which I always kept on a string around my neck when I skated. The string was a necessity because losing the key was about the worst thing to happen. That key loosened or tightened the clamps at the top of my skates, the clamps which held on to my shoes. Once the clamps were as tight as I could get them the last thing to do was to buckle the leather strap which went across my foot.
I loved how strange the bottoms of my feet felt as I skated. It was like a tingling sensation. Coupled with that was the great sound of skates rolling across the sidewalks. It was almost like the sound of a revving motor.
The skates never really glided and didn’t do well dealing with big bumps or cracks in the sidewalks. I didn’t care; however, I did sometimes fall after encountering a crack and often skinned my knees. Blood trails went down my legs. They were like badges of honor because I’d get right back up and skate again, blood or no blood.
We went to the skating rink occasionally and rented shoe skates. The rink was in Medford, the next town over, and was called The Bal-A-Roue. It looked a bit like a hockey rink. The skating part was oval and surrounded by a railing. The surface, though, was wooden. An organ played the music so easy even now to recognize as skating music. I love going there.
When I’d get home, my skirt or my pants were usually dirty from the number of times I fell on that wooden floor. I admit the railing and I were great friends.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Bal-A-Roue, bicycle, blue sky, clamps, cold, key, metal skates, roar of the wheels, roller skating, shoe skates, skate sliders, Snow, sunny, tingling, vest
Comments: 10 Comments
March 13, 2016
Today is another pretty day, warmer than it has been. I have feeders to fill so I’ll go out for a bit later.
I think I have a virus. It’s manifested by cleaning places not usually cleaned. Yesterday I took everything off my desk, which included snow globes and small wind-up toys from collecting phases. I could have written a short story in the dust. I cleaned the desk and washed all the globes and toys. I threw away papers from piles on the desk top. I organized everything. Next I lemon oiled the antique child’s desk in the bathroom. It holds all the guest towels. The den was next and I threw aways papers from a pile on the table. I had no idea why I saved what I did. There were phone numbers without names, old receipts and cards from different holidays. I threw away so much it can no longer be called a pile.
Today I am going to clean the cabinet under the bathroom sink. It serves a variety of purposes including being a liquor cabinet. I haven’t seen the back of that cabinet in years.
My sister diagnosed my virus as boredom. I think she is probably right. I think boredom is the whole reason for spring cleaning. I’ve been shut up in the house because of freezing days and snow. I have gotten tired of TV and have spent too many days just sitting around and reading. I need to be doing.
I saw a purple crocus this morning, and there are now three yellow ones. The dafs are close to blooming. The garden’s winter slumber is over. Every day I see something new. With morning papers in hand I walk around all the beds to make sure I haven’t missed anything. The purple crocus is hope springing to mind.
Categories: Musings
Tags: boredom, cleaning virus, Dusting, dusty, lemon oil, piles of papers, polishing, sunny
Comments: 17 Comments
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