Posted tagged ‘warm’
December 17, 2016
It was nearly 4 when I fell asleep. Gracie, however, had no problem as she was snoring away as soon as she hit the mattress. It snowed a bit last night, but I missed the best of it. I woke to rain. The snow is now slush, the sort where you leave deep footprints when you walk through it. Both today and tomorrow will be warm which is a good thing as the slush won’t turn to ice. I’m staying home. I’m going to turn on all the Christmas lights, watch Hallmark movies and enjoy a lazy Saturday.
My friends came to dinner last night. It was a wonderful evening. The meal was great says the cook. The conversation was funny. We just sat at the table a while after dinner. I love to do that, just sit and talk. My friend did all the clean-up which I completely appreciated as it takes a while to make the dinner, clean up as you go along then clean everything. Her doing the dishes was a gift. We then played a word game and sat in the living room so we could enjoy the tree. I had a come from behind victory. We also exchanged gifts. Usually we don’t get together for presents until after Christmas so we figured early was due. I was thrilled with my present, an Amazon Echo and a speaker. I’ll play with Alexa today. My friends too loved their presents, and my friend Claire, the dishwasher, especially loved her present from Ghana.
Woolworth’s and the annual parish Christmas fair were my go to places to buy gifts for my parents then my sisters and brother if I had any money left. My mother was the consummate actress. When she opened my gift, she always looked so excited and happy. I was thrilled that I’d found just the right gift at such a bargain, usually about 50¢. My father loved his handkerchiefs, white ones, Woolworth’s best.
My favorite of all the Christmas movies is A Christmas Carol starring Alastair Sims. It hasn’t been on yet so I keep looking. I watched the old Miracle on 34th Street the other night. The book is dated 1947 the same as I am so that makes it special. The old Bishop’s Wife is another favorite. Come to think of it, even the worst of Christmas movies are favorites of mine.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Christmas lights, Christmas tree, Clouds, Echo, exchange gifts, games, great meal, lazy Saturday, pork, slush, snoring dog, Snow, warm, word games
Comments: 2 Comments
November 13, 2016
Today is a glorious fall day, sunny and warm. Gracie has been outside most of the morning. She knows a good thing when she sees it. Well, I never did get to that laundry. It is still sitting in front of the cellar door, maybe today, maybe not. I do have to make that dump run as the dump is closed the next two days, and my trunk is filled with trash.
Today I am going to grocery shop from the convenience of my home. My refrigerator is pretty empty. I’m down to having eggs for supper.
When I was in Ghana, the Peace Corps sent us the insert The Week in Review from the Sunday New York Times. I didn’t have a radio to listen to the Voice of America and the Ghanaian papers had mostly local news so that insert was the only current news I ever got about the United States. I did get the whole New York Sunday Times as a gift but the issues came months later in groups of four or five. Usually, I didn’t read the news but devoured the rest of the paper. Though so much was happening at home, I was disconnected. My life revolved around Ghana: teaching my classes, shopping in the market, greeting people and continuing to learn Hausa, traveling on vacations and developing friendships with Ghanaians and my fellow volunteers. The United States was just too far away.
On this last trip to Ghana, I did check the news each morning on my iPad. I kept track of the election but little else. That feeling of disconnection returned, and I didn’t mind. I was back to being involved with Ghana: with the heat, with my former students, with my favorite Ghanaian foods, with my bathroom runs (sort of a pun) and with my friends. I was glad for the respite.
Categories: Musings
Tags: bathroom runs, current news, Ghana, Ghanaian food, glorious fall day, IPad, markets, New York Times, Peace Corps, sunny, the heat, United States, warm
Comments: 6 Comments
October 17, 2016
Summer has dropped back to visit for a few days. Today will be in the 70’s, and it is already warm. I haven’t anything to do, but I think I’ll go out and about to enjoy the day. It ought not to be missed.
I am now sleeping to a respectable hour. Today it was 7:30. I am surprised how long it took to sleep later than 4:30 as the rule of thumb is one day for each hour. Ghana is 4 hours ahead, but it took well over a week for my system to adjust. I figure it probably had to do with the day I came home when I didn’t get to sleep until 2 in the morning, 6 in the morning for my body. A day with little or no sleep wreaks havoc on any schedule.
My oak tree’s leaves are yellow. White flowers have recently bloomed in my front garden. I have no idea what those flowers are. I know they are perennials, late bloomers and white.
Gracie loves the open front door. She sees any interlopers who dare walk on her street and barks to let them know they are unwelcome. She runs outside to bark even more loudly should a dog walk by the house. The hair on her back stands up. She looks and sounds fierce. People walk faster to get pass the house. I chuckle. Gracie isn’t going anywhere. She is stuck in the yard. Her bark is her only weapon.
I bought Christmas presents in Ghana. When I travel, I always try to bring presents back, unique gifts. This trip I was especially lucky in shopping at two great places. One was Hakim’s, a jewelry store specializing in silver. The other was an artisan gallery. Both were in Accra. The gallery had every sort of Ghanaian craft. It was a fun place to shop despite the musty smell and the heat.
I actually came home with money. It was because I used a credit card at a couple of places including the lodge. Usually, my American Express is useless in Africa. I wouldn’t even have brought it except I had to show the card I charged the flights on at the airport. I’m glad for that. Having money left over made me feel parsimonious, not an adjective ever applied to me.
The animals are sleeping. The house is quiet. It is a typical morning.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Accra, barking dog, Christmas presents, fierce, Hakim's, lovely day, out and about, perennials, sleeping, warm, white flowers, yellow leaves
Comments: 6 Comments
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 31, 2016
Today is warm and humid and still damp from the rain of the last two days. Only the middle of the street is beginning to dry. Much of the pollen has been washed away. My car is red again. Today I’m getting what I need to open the deck for summer. That would be paint for the planters, more clay pots, flowers and herbs. With my pad and pen in hand, I have to go on the deck and make a list of what I need then it’s off to Agway.
This morning I watched The Lone Ranger. Much of it was filmed outside on dusty roads among hills lined with rocks. It wasn’t really all that bad for being 59 years old. Tonto may have butchered the English language, but he was an equal partner to Kemosabe. Adam 12 was next. It hasn’t aged as well as The Lone Ranger filled as it is with 1970. After that, I was done with classic television.
When I was a kid, we had only a few channels to watch. Saturday mornings were filled with cartoons and half hour shows like Rin Tin Tin, Buffalo Bill, Annie Oakley and Captain Midnight. I really liked Annie Oakley. She was a female sheriff, and that was a big deal to me. She wore what would later be called cullottes but the legs on hers were so wide they looked almost like a dress. Everything she wore was fringed. Captain Midnight was another favorite. I wanted my mother to buy me Ovaltine because that’s what Captain Midnight drank. She didn’t.
I remember well one of our TV’s, the one in the console, a huge cabinet for a small screen. It was against the wall near the window on the back wall of the living room. We’d sit close and watch until my mother made us move back to save our eyes. I know we had a color TV on the cape but the colors weren’t very bright. My father blamed cable, but it was just the TV getting old.
The TV I have now was the first HD set in the neighborhood. It caused quite the stir. Now everyone has HD. Mine is getting on in age as it is around 12, but it seems fine and the colors are still bright.
I like watching television, mostly at night. I have to be really bored to watch it in the daytime. Today I was bored.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Adam 12, Annie Oakley, clay pots, damp, deck, flowers, HD, herbs, humid, Kemosabe, old TV console, The Lone Ranger, Tonto, warm
Comments: 15 Comments
May 12, 2016
I’ve had three days of bliss thanks to warm weather, a bright sun and the stirrings of spring. The days have been in the mid 60’s while the nights are still warmish in the mid-40’s. I had my windows opened yesterday and left my bedroom window open all night. The air smelled new and chased away the winter. I left my sweatshirt at home when I did my errands yesterday.
Today will be a short entry. Gracie and I are heading north to New Hampshire to see my friends Bill and Peg. They date back to Peace Corps days, and we were neighbors our second year in Ghana. We had all sorts of adventures and traveled together on school holidays. I knew they were kindred spirits the first day we met. They were also fellow truants when we started to skip lectures to see Philadelphia.
They come down here in the fall, but this year will be different as the three of us are going back to Ghana together. Their Cape visit will have to be either earlier or later than usual. I play the tour guide when they come down. Bill had never been to Cape Cod before his visit to me.
Gracie will be with me. She loves visiting them. Bill takes her on long walks and Peg feeds her. The dog makes herself at home climbing and sleeping on the couch near Peg.
I won’t be writing again until Monday except for an update or two. Enjoy the spring weather!
Categories: Musings
Tags: cape cod, New Hampshire, springlike, warm
Comments: 21 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 22, 2016
A lovely day with lots of sun, a deep blue sky and a little breeze greeted me this morning. Most of the snow has disappeared. The only bits left are in shaded areas. I’m being hopeful and putting my primroses on the front step. They’ve been in the house keeping warm since I bought them, but I think it is warm enough to introduce them to the world.
Today I have lists, but I’m quite behind my time because I spoke to both of my sisters this morning. One sister is sick so it was a short conversation, but my other sister, in Colorado, and I spoke close to an hour. Yes, we did find plenty to talk about for all that time. Lulls are generally not part of our conversations.
I still keep in touch with a few of my childhood friends. We talk every couple of months and get together about twice a year. My college friends and I lost track of each other while I was in Ghana. We wrote for a while but the time between letters got longer and longer and then the letters stopped. We were living far different lives a long way from each other. I still have Peace Corps friends that I met in 1969, and I feel as close to them now as I did when we worked and lived together. We shared an experience few are fortunate to have and built a bond which has stayed strong. We have stories which make us laugh every time we tell them. I think it is the same with just about every volunteer no matter the country of service. We all have a bathroom story, but I use bathroom loosely here. Outhouse, hole in the ground or a quick run into the bushes would be better choices. I know I’ve tried them all. We have great stories about medical problems and try to top each other in the telling. The conversations usually include worms, boils, tropical skin diseases, infections, cracked lips and feet and diarrhea, the bane of most volunteers. We graphically describe the symptoms and are never offended or grossed out by what we hear. Sometimes we even applaud the story, the grosser the story the longer the applause.
My closest friends live down the street. We are an odd family of three. We celebrate major and rare holidays together, rare holidays like Cowboy Day. We decorate and wear special clothes to help celebrate. I still have my cowboy hat and my sombrero from Cinco de Mayo. We greeted the sunrise together at the beach on the first day of spring. I’m working on their Easter baskets. They are fun friends. My life is enriched by knowing them.
I have no idea how I got where I did. I guess mentioning childhood friends set me on my way. I’ll just end here with how lucky I am with my friends.
Categories: Musings
Tags: bathroom stories, boils, childhood friends, college friends, diarrhea, melting snow, Peace Corps friends, phone calls, primroses, sisters, sunny day, warm, worms
Comments: 6 Comments
February 16, 2016
Last night I fell asleep to the wonderful sound of the rain on the roof. Since then the rain has come and gone and come again. The snow is pock-marked and ugly. I can see part of my deck and all of the deck stairs. Yesterday it was freezing. Today it is already nearly 50˚ and should get as high as 55˚. Tonight will be windy and the rain will return, torrential rain.
George is campaigning for Jeb. I saw a bit of one speech, and George used one of my favorite Bushisms,”People have long misunderestimated me.”The Republican race is entertaining me.
When I was a little kid, I never did many girly things though most of my friends did. I wasn’t into wearing dresses though I had to because of school dress codes. During my sophomore year in college the winter was so cold the school allowed women to wear pants. We never had to wear dresses or skirts again. In Ghana I had to wear dresses every day. It was the custom. I didn’t really mind. My dresses were sewn by my seamstress for about $3 or $4, and they were made from beautiful and colorful African cloth I had bought in the market. It was also so hot in Ghana that a dress was cooling. I can’t remember the last time I wore a dress, but I know the next wear a dress event will be Easter.
This is February school vacation week. When I was growing up, we never went anywhere during this week. No one I knew ever did. Mostly we all just hung around the neighborhood, went to each others’ houses to play or we rode bikes if it was warm enough. If it was cold, we skated or went sledding. The joy of the week was having no school. That was plenty enough for us.
I never felt deprived of anything when I was growing up. That we didn’t have much money never occurred to me. I had what I needed. I got my fifty cents allowance every Friday and felt rich. I got my movie and candy money on Saturday. I got a dime on Sunday to put in the basket at mass. I was a happy kid. Life was good, still is come to think of it.
Categories: Musings
Tags: dress codes, February vacation, girly stuff, Jeb and his brother, misunderestimated me, rain on the roof, seamstresses in Ghana, warm, wearing skirts and dresses, women and pants
Comments: 10 Comments
February 1, 2016
My neighbor is taking her citizenship test tomorrow. She is a bundle of nerves even though she knows all the book answers and speaks good English. Her only speaking problem is the agreement of subject and verb, especially has and have, which throws her off every time. Nicee had only one question for me today which was how to pronoun Eisenhower. After a couple of run throughs I told Nicee no more studying: take the day off today and enjoy yourself. I know she won’t.
February is usually our snowiest month so I’m in a wait and see holding pattern. Today’s 51˚ could be a smokescreen for a blizzard. I am skeptical of a warm winter’s day. Something has to be afoot.
February is a month of expectations. Valentine’s Day is close and February vacation is not long after. When I was a teacher, I just hung around the cape or took day trips over the bridge. The joy of the week was in not using an alarm clock, staying up late and having no papers to correct or plans to make. During vacation when I was a kid our daytime plans depended upon the weather. A day like today meant bike riding all over town which gave us such a sense of freedom. We could ride anywhere we wanted, and bulky clothes were gone for the day. I could freely move my arms and legs, and my clothes didn’t make a swishing noise. If we had snow, we sledded until our lips turned blue. The actual bed time was arbitrary but mostly later than usual. Lunch was catch as catch can. Mostly it was a sandwich grabbed on the run. The week always went quickly.
There are a slew of things I never saw my mother do. She cleaned and did washing when I was in school though I do remember her taking dry clothes off the outside lines. When I left for school, my bed was messy. When I came home, it was neatly made. I figure my mother must have taken a bath at some point but I never saw her take one. The only task I was around to see was my mother making dinner. She was always peeling potatoes, endless bags of potatoes, or so it seemed to to me.
Categories: Musings
Tags: 51˚, bike riding, citizenship, Eisenhower, February vacation, have and has, Sledding, Valentines Day, warm
Comments: 12 Comments
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