Posted tagged ‘Wind’
January 9, 2015
I should be out on the deck replenishing my vitamin D except I can’t. The sun has gone. One day here, the next day gone. It is, however, warm, 32˚. That may sound cold, but it was minus 1 yesterday morning. Today is almost tropical.
Late again I suppose you’re thinking. Well, I had PT this morning then did a couple of errands. I figured I was out anyway so why not. Yesterday I got the tree down and outside by myself. Only a few needles fell on the floor when I dropped the tree. Using one hand on the trunk and the other to move the base to get at the plastic bag was like juggling. I have been productive this week in stark contrast to being a sloth the whole of last week.
One of today’s errands was really self-serving. I bought my all time favorite sandwich for lunch: a panini with avocado, cheddar, tomato, bacon and spicy mayo. It was a reward of sorts.
Last night I thought I heard a noise coming from the living room so I muted the TV to listen. I heard it again. Neither Gracie nor Fern the cat stirred from sleeping beside me on the couch, but I went to investigate anyway. The sound came from the chimney and sounded like an attack on the flue. A raccoon one time tried to get in by pulling at the flue but the chimney has since been capped so I couldn’t imagine it was anything but the wind. Just in case, though, I banged the fireplace screen a few times. When I went out today, I checked and the chimney was still capped.
I have no weekend plans. I’m perfectly happy being comfy in the warmth of my house. My friend Peg sent me a tin of cookies and an ornament of Elvis singing Winter Wonderland. I’m all set. I have food and entertainment!
Categories: Musings
Tags: 32˚, chimney noises, cleaning living room, empty dance card, errands, favorite sandwich, panini, PT, putting tree outside, sloth, Wind
Comments: 8 Comments
December 9, 2014
The wind is howling and the rain is falling sideways. My backyard trees are again dancing in the wind, back and forth and back and forth. The rain has flooded roads and is falling so heavily that even a quick dash means getting cold and wet. This morning I made four stops. First was the library board meeting, then the post office, then PT and finally the store for life’s essentials: bread, cat food, chicken and a chocolate bar.
I am so happy to be back inside my warm, dry house. When I finish writing, I’m going upstairs and put on my cozies. I bought some clam chowder for dinner. It seemed perfect for a day like today.
Yesterday I brought up a few Christmas decorations from the cellar and later today I hope to decorate some more. The tree in the dining room is lit. I like to go the long way around to the stairs so I get to see the tree. I can hardly wait for the big tree, but now I have to hope for a couple of dry days.
The gold finches have braved the rain and are at the feeder though it swaying in the wind. The red spawn doesn’t seem to like the rain. He is probably in a cozy nest snacking on my sunflower seeds. If he were a character in The Wind in the Willows, his nest would have comfy furniture, a fireplace and a filled pantry. He’d be sitting by the fire with his feet on an ottoman as he drinks afternoon tea from a dainty China cup.
The last wind storm took down several of my outside decorations. I had to go down the side hill which is covered with brush, thorns and branches. Getting down is never the problem. Getting back up always is as I have nothing to hold on to help pull myself up. The other day I threw the ornaments I had retrieved onto the grass above the hill so I could have both hands free. I made it safely up the hill, a major accomplishment for me.
Now to my slippers and my cozies and maybe, just maybe, a nap.
Categories: Musings
Tags: chilly day, Christmas decorations, clam chowder, cozies, cozy, dancing trees, errands, getting soaked, rain, red spawn, Tree, warm nest, Wind, Wind in the Willows
Comments: 12 Comments
November 22, 2014
It might as well be spring. Okay, a slight exaggeration here but today will be 47˚ and Monday may hit 60˚. Right now it is sunny and a strong wind is whipping the trunks and leaves of the pine trees in the backyard. I had a really late start this morning as it was a mirror test morning. I didn’t even go upstairs to bed until three and slept fitfully. When I woke up, Fern and Gracie were deep asleep, each on one side of me. They seemed to have slept well.
My delay was further complicated when my computer went wanky, and I could only open Safari with that looping message about a security issue and could go no further. Luckily my iPad was handy, and I found the fix, a simple one.
Staying inside in the winter when I was a kid was usually make your own fun. The TV didn’t have programming until the early evening and then when I was a bit older the late afternoon so sitting and watching was not even a choice. One of our favorite ways to while away the time was playing board games. We’d set the game up on the living room rug and sit around it to play. Sorry was our favorite. Vengeance made the game more exciting, and we yapped back and forth after sending our opponent’s man back to start. That yapping would now be called trash talk. Often the game ended because one of us would get mad and start yelling then the other one would yell back so my mother would yell from the kitchen and tell us to put the game away. That was another argument. Who was going to put the game away?
Boy and girl roles were quite definite when I was a little. Coloring was for girls. I remember afternoons spent sitting at the kitchen table with all my crayons arrayed in front of me so I could choose the exact color to fill in the drawing. The crayons were all sizes, some whole, some mere stubs. The paper had been torn off each crayon as it got smaller so we never remembered the name of the color. We all wanted to color like my mother who shaded the colors like an artist might.
Spending the afternoon reading was always a joy for me. I was a library devotee. I’d take out as many books as I was allowed. I think it was three or four. Quiet spots were hard to come by in my house, but I’d manage. Getting lost in a book was about my favorite thing.
Today I am going nowhere. I think I might not even get dressed. On my table are some catalogues and a book. I’ll do Christmas shopping while watching some Christmas movie then I’ll get comfy and read. I’m thinking that sounds like the best way to spend an afternoon.
Categories: Musings
Tags: board games, coloring, computer wanky, crayons, library, reading, Sorry, warmer weather, Wind, winter afternoons
Comments: 13 Comments
September 1, 2014
Last night around midnight I was in bed watching a movie on my iPad when all of a sudden the room lit up. That was the beginning of the thunder and lightning and the torrential rain. The thunder was loud and long-lasting. The rain was so heavy I could hear the drops plunking my air conditioner in a constant rat-a-tat. I got out of bed to look out the window at the storm. I watched for a long while. The wind was whipping the oak branches back and forth and the backlash from the rain hitting the overhang came in the window. I didn’t mind. The storm was exhilarating.
Today is humid and ugly. It is an August day, the sort we usually suffer through each summer but not this year when August days, weather defined, have been noticeably missing. The sun managed to break through for a short time earlier but disappeared and left behind a cloudy, darkish day. It is very still and quiet.
Labor Day was always the last day of summer vacation when I was a kid. It meant a week day bath, setting out my new clothes and arranging the supplies in my school bag. The arranging took the most time as I would put the supplies in then take them out to look at them then put them back in a different arrangement. My mother would put our new lunch boxes on the counter and have them open and ready for packing in the morning. She made us go to bed earlier than we had all summer, but we didn’t fall asleep any earlier. I remember lying in bed thinking about the next day. I was excited about school starting.
My mother woke us up, and we were grumpy because of the early hour. She made us eat breakfast first then we got dressed, grabbed our book bags and lunch boxes and left for school. My friend Michelle and I always walked together. We were a little anxious getting to school on that first morning, but the nervousness wore off quickly because every day after that was always the same. The only thing that changed was my sandwich and the dessert.
Categories: Musings
Tags: baths, humid and ugly, last day of summer, lunch box, lunch boxes, rain in the windows, rat-a-tat rain drops, sandwich and dessert, school, school bags, school supplies, thunder and lightning, Wind
Comments: 12 Comments
July 15, 2014
Every day is dark and humid, but we don’t get rain. We just get sweaty. Thunder showers are predicted for the third day in a row. The difference today, though, is a strong breeze, strong enough to sway the chimes, bend branches and swish the leaves. The birds are unusually quiet. The rental next door has people this week, and I can hear them talking and laughing. They interrupt the usual quiet of the morning.
When I was in the fifth grade, we were bussed to school in the next town over while they finished building our new school. That was the year I got Little Women for Christmas, and I remember reading it on the bus. I loved the March girls and how they called their mother Marmee. Beth’s death made me cry. I hadn’t ever read a book before where someone dies. Jo was my favorite character. I wanted to be Jo. As I read the book and got closer and closer to the last page, I remember feeling sad, feeling a sense of loss, but then I found Little Men and Jo’s Boys, a sequel to Little Men. I could stay with the March family even longer. That was the year of Alcott for me.
I still hate reaching the end of a good novel. If I had more self-control, I’d slow down and make it all last longer, but I can’t. It is as if I am possessed. Sometimes I’ll read all day and well into the night, even to the early morning and first light. One Christmas my mother gave me Alive, and I started reading it Christmas afternoon. I was in a reading frenzy, the zone where there is nothing else. There are no sounds and no people, just the pages of my book. My mother broke in and thought I should put the book down as I had just opened it that morning and wouldn’t it be a shame to finish it so quickly. I didn’t know how to answer. My mother was a reader and should have understood. A good book is savored. It trumps everything. It’s a world unto itself which draws us in so we are lucky enough to become a part of that world.
It’s still happens to me.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Beth's death, humidity, Jo, last page of a good book, Little Women, rain, reading, reading frenzy, savoring books, Wind
Comments: 14 Comments
July 10, 2014
Yesterday was a sweat producing day, a day for the air-conditioner which was on all afternoon and night, but I turned it off this morning though it is still a bit warm. It’s just that the mornings are so lovely I hate to miss them sitting behind closed doors and windows. Right now there is a little breeze from the window behind me, the birds are singing and the neighborhood is gloriously quiet as if I’m alone in the world. I like that feeling sometimes. Last night it rained, but I didn’t hear it. Today might reach 80˚ but it will drop to the 60’s tonight. Tomorrow’s forecast has the nighttime temperature at 59˚. That sounds delightful.
My energy comes in spurts sometimes dictated by my back. Yesterday my sole accomplishments were to re-set the flag holder and screw in the hook off the deck which holds a bird feeder. Both were victims of the wind. The bird feeder had been filled but it fell to the ground and was emptied. I’m thinking the spawns had a picnic. Now that the hook is fixed I’ll go and retrieve the items which fell off the deck and refill the feeder. I am already on my second load of laundry, and I have to go buy Gracie food and drop a few things off at the dump. That, for me, is quite the busy day.
My sisters used to give my mother dandelion bouquets. She’d act thrilled as if she had been given the rarest flowers. She’d put the bouquet in a jelly glass and then in the middle of the table. The dandelions were brilliant yellow and didn’t seem at all like a weed should be.
My father always got two weeks’ vacation, and he took them in the summer. Most of the time we didn’t go away as it was too expensive though I do remember the trip to the island in Maine and the Niagara falls trip, but that’s it; instead, we’d go places close to home. I remember going to the beach on weekdays when the traffic was light, and there were parking spaces near the water. We’d stay most of the day. A couple of nights we’d go to the drive-in. Sometimes we’d go to Maine for a weekend and stay at my father’s friend’s cottage. I always found that boring. The water was too cold, and there was little to do. The museum trips were my favorite. I remember standing in the Egyptian section at the MFA and marveling at how tall the sarcophagi were. I still get that feeling when I visit the MFA even now. Once during the two weeks we’d go out to dinner, a rare occasion for us. We’d go to Kitty’s where the food was cheap and plentiful. It never occurred to me that we didn’t have enough money to go away. I never felt deprived, and I loved being surprised by every day.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Air conditioner, bird feeders, bird song, breeze, dandelion, dandelions, Laundry, mornings, Niagara Falls, stay at home vacations, sweat, the dump, Wind
Comments: 11 Comments
June 13, 2014
The rain this morning was heavy for a while. The wind is still blowing. All my windows are closed to keep out the damp cold air. I’m even wearing socks.
I went out for breakfast and brought Gracie. I left her in the car with a couple of windows open. That’s when it started to pour. I had to run outside and shut the windows. Gracie was in the middle of the seat away from both windows. No dumb animal is my Gracie.
I used to love Bonomos turkish taffy. My favorite was vanilla. Banana was my second favorite. Finishing a whole bar was a huge investment in time and effort. To make it easier, I’d crack the bar so they’d be smaller pieces to chew because larger ones took forever. My jaw always got tired.
Fire balls were a challenge. The contest was for who could keep it in the mouth the longest without having to take it out for a breather. I used to move the fire-ball from one cheek to the other hoping it wouldn’t burn as much. My sister put it in a bowl of water so the red would wash off. In actual time, the burning didn’t last long, and the red disappeared, replaced by white. I liked it when the fire-ball finally got small enough to crack with my teeth.
When it came to penny candy, I always wanted the best buy for my penny. I’d look up and down the rows behind the glass counter trying to find the candy which lasted the longest. Even pennies were hard to come by so my candy choice had to be a wise one. Mint Juleps were a safe choice. They took a long time to chew and they had a great flavor. Banana splits were also a great choice. Like Mint Juleps, they took a while to chew. Root beer barrels, Squirrels and Mary Janes were also wise purchases. The only soft candy I usually bought was Bull’s Eyes. I always ate the outside caramel first and saved the middle for last. It was like having two different pieces of candy.
I wouldn’t dare eat most of those candies now, with the exception of Bull’s Eyes. Teeth are hard to come by.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Banana Splits, Bonomo's turkish taffy, Bull's Eyes, fire balls, Mint Juleps, out to breakfast, penny candy, rain, vanilla taffy, Wind
Comments: 14 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
January 19, 2014
The sun is just arriving after being away a few days. I can even see blue sky. But if the weatherman is correct, neither will last long. The temperature is only 31˚ and snow flurries are predicted. I’m not sure if it’s a breeze or a wind. All the dead leaves and the smaller branches are blowing. Even with the sunlight, the day isn’t inviting.
This afternoon I’ll be watching the Pats and the Broncos. It will be 62˚ in Colorado at game time. That doesn’t seem right somehow. Football is a cold weather sport. There should be snow and breath you can see. You know I will be cheering for my Pats. I don’t mind the Broncos, but I don’t like Peyton Manning and never have. Something about him grates on me. My Colorado family didn’t like him either when he quarterbacked the Colts. Now he is their poster boy. Wishy washy!
Sometimes I get a bit nostalgic and watch black and white television programs on Cozi, a fairly recent channel to the line-up. The other day I watched The Lone Ranger and Robin Hood with Richard Greene. The opening 0f Robin Hood with the music and the arrow flying through the air with a whooshing sound is still a great opening. I even watched a little of The Real McCoys, but I could take only a little. Grandpappy Amos just didn’t make it for me.
Today is change the litter and do laundry day. I can’t think of two worse chores around the house.
I just made a new pot of coffee. While I was waiting, I took a gander out the kitchen window. It is finch day at the feeders. Both gold finches and house finches vie for space on three different feeders. All of the feeders are swaying. It is a wind, not a breeze.
Categories: Musings
Tags: B&W TV, coffee, finches, football, Manning, Patriots, snow flurries, sun and blue sky, Wind
Comments: 33 Comments
January 11, 2014
The only snow not yet melted by today’s warmth is in piles left by the plows from last week’s storm. The rain hasn’t started yet but is on its way. It will rain here most of the day, sometimes heavily. The wind is strong. My feeders are spinning like a carnival ride, the swings maybe, the sort of rides which always make me sick. The birds, though, don’t seem to mind and hold on when the feeders are being thrown about by the wind, by the strong wind. That dump run I didn’t make yesterday is on the dance card for today if the rain holds off long enough.
Gracie woke me up this morning by ringing her doggie bells. Yesterday she had an upset stomach so I figured she was going out to graze. Eating grass or my spider plants make her feel better. When she came inside, Gracie wanted a treat, and I obliged. She, however, turned her nose up at everything I offered until I gave her a piece of chicken meat from the deli. Once that was finished she ate all the rest of the treats: the cheese slice, the beef tidbit and the dog biscuit. I figure she was holding out for the best she could get. She knows the treats escalate in quality because I worry when she doesn’t want her usual.
Winter is a lazy time for me. I am content to stay inside. Hanging around the house doesn’t usually get boring as I have books and movies and the occasional dusting chore to keep me busy. I venture out only when I have a list of errands or I need animal food, coffee or cream, essentials in this house. I avoid main roads, supermarkets and parking lots. Rainy days are the best days for errands as people choose to stay home. I don’t care if I get wet. It is easy to get dry.
My house is quiet. I can hear only Gracie’s deep breathing as she sleeps beside me on the couch and Fern’s quiet snores from the pillow behind me where she sleeps. The lamp here is lit staving off the gloom of the morning. I like today.
Categories: Musings
Tags: deep breathing, dog treats, doggie bells, Dusting, errands, gloomy day, lazy winter, melting snow, quiet house, warm day, Wind
Comments: 4 Comments
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