Posted tagged ‘windy’
January 2, 2016
Today is windy and chilly. It is winter cold. Gracie and I will be making a dump run later. The dump is all open land with no trees or buildings so when the wind blows like today, it is so cold I always think of the Russian steppes. I can never empty my trunk fast enough.
I don’t remember it being all that cold when I was a kid, but I do remember the wind. It blew across the field at the foot of my street and the strongest wind would sometimes almost blow us away. We’d laugh and even raise our arms like sails so the wind could catch us. Some days we’d walk backwards as protection from the wind. Our collars would be up. Our hats were pulled down to cover our ears and to save them from flying off, from being borne by the wind. We’d hold the bottom of our jacket sleeves to keep the wind from sneaking up inside. I’d arrive home almost breathless and with cheeks reddened by the wind.
I never counted days until vacations. I counted days until Christmas but that had to do with Santa and new toys. Going back to school in January was no big deal when I was young. That was my lot in life so I just took it all in stride. Later, when I was older, I was far less pleased at the end of vacation because it meant back to my routine, to long hours which left little time for fun, for enjoying even the smallest piece of the day.
I figure retirement is a gift, a recompense for all those days. I have a routine of sorts which involves coffee and the papers and KTCC but then that’s it for the rest of the day. I fill the hours handily and usually happily.
Categories: Musings
Tags: breathless, chilly, dump run, hats and wind, red cheeks, Russian steppes, walk backwards, windy
Comments: 12 Comments
December 20, 2015
Winter arrived yesterday. It was 35˚ last night, and I had to wear a jacket for the first time as the wind made it feel even colder. Today is also cold but not as cold as it was, but winter won’t staying long. The weird weather we’ve been having will be back by Christmas. It could reach 60˚ here.
The play was great fun. Christmas on the Air was about a radio station at Christmas in 1949. There was a bit of drama, a few laughs and some wonderful Christmas carols. Dinner afterwards, at Felicia’s, was delicious. We started with shrimp and then both had fettuccine Alfredo and I ordered a side of sausage. Frank Sinatra played in the background just as he should. The place was crowded, no empty tables. The festivities have begun.
My neighbor and his three boys delivered pumpkin bread this morning. They also have a baby girl born last July, but Tiffany found time to make bread for all the neighbors.
I find myself filled with feelings of nostalgia this year. Riding through the square of my old home town brought back a flood of memories. The store fronts mostly look the same, but the stores are different. I called out their names as I went by. Hank’s Bakery is now an extension of the restaurant next door to it. I don’t remember the name of the store the restaurant replaced as I never shopped there. It had fruits, vegetables and cold cuts. The Middlesex Drug is now a butcher shop. My sister said it is expensive. The Children’s Cornet is now an Indian restaurant. My sister and I ate them and it was good except for the green sauce which burned my mouth.
The square is all lit for Christmas. Each tree has white lights and the town green, a new spot to me, has a beautiful lit tree of colored bulbs and an ice skating rink not yet opened. The fire station had Santa on the old police station roof. He used to be on the siren tower.
So much in my old home town has changed but so much somehow stays the same.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Christmas on the Air, cold, Felicias, Fettuccine Alfredo, lights, my old home town, nostalgia, sausage, skating rink, windy, winter
Comments: 20 Comments
December 19, 2015
Today is as close to winter as we’ve gotten. I felt the cold when I went out front to get the papers. The wind is strong enough to blow the chimes in my backyard. It is jacket weather.
Every year my mother took my sister and me to a play at Christmas then out to dinner. One year it was Death of a Salesman with Brian Dennehy who had won a Tony for the role. We joked with my mother afterwards about such an uplifting Christmas play. I have kept the tradition. Today my sister and I have a play, Christmas on the Air, and a dinner reservation afterwards. We’ll exchange gifts but save them to open at Christmas. I made her favorite fudge last night. She doesn’t have to wait until Christmas to munch on that.
Yesterday would have been the last school day before Christmas. That was always cause for excitement, but Christmas Eve, five long days away, was the magical day for us. I never thought I’d survive the wait. Every day dragged on and on. I’d go outside to play if the weather was good. I’d ride my bike or take the sled if we had snow. I’d watch for the mailman who came twice a day at Christmas bringing all those cards. My mother would let me open a couple, and if I were really lucky, they’d be a card for me usually from my aunt.
At night I’d sit and look at the tree. All the lights and ornaments were mesmerizing. I’d watch whatever Christmas programs were on TV. On weekdays I’d watch Santa in his workshop. He was also in countdown mode until his big night.
My mother played her Christmas albums on the hifi when she’d cook or work around the house. My favorites were the albums with lots of singers. We had Guy Lombardo, Andy Williams and Bing, the album where he is wearing a Santa cap. We also had albums from Grants who put out a new one every year and one from Goodyear. I have no idea the history of the last one.
Okay, I’m starting the countdown: five days until Christmas Eve.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Brian Dennehy, Christmas Eve, Christmas on the Air, cold, Death of a Salesman, fudge, jacket weather, long wait, play and a dinner, windy
Comments: 22 Comments
November 19, 2015
In The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe it is, in the beginning, perpetually winter. We are in a similar state, less extreme but still perpetual. Every day is cloudy. The daytime temperature is always in the 50’s. When the days are windy, the trees lose more and more brown, crumpled leaves and become even barer. We’ve had our first frost. The few flowers which still brightened my garden are gone. Overnight the bird bath water acquired a thin layer of ice which slivered when I broken it with my hand. I, however, have stopped whining about the weather because whining seems to make it worse. I’ve adopted a ho-hum philosophy instead.
This morning has been productive. My bed is already made and the first wash is done. It happens that way. All of a sudden I get a blast of energy, and I do stuff around the house. I keep eyeing my low cabinet in the kitchen, but it would take more than a blast to get me to organize it. It would take a miracle. I know miracles happen because I finally organized my closet a while back. I’m thinking maybe it is better to start small. The cabinet under the bathroom sink would be a great first endeavor. I think I’ll give that one a try.
I love my house and did from the first moment I walked in the door. This was, of course, before HGTV so words like open concept, window treatment, bonus room and en suite master did not exist in the common vocabulary. I wanted lots of wood, a downstairs bedroom/den and a dining room. This house has them all. The floors are wide pine planks, now faded and scratched in the same way floors in historic houses are. The downstairs bedroom is the den I wanted so the TV didn’t have to be in the living room. I have a wonderful dining room. It is painted nutmeg, my favorite of all the colors in the house. It is open to the kitchen. The archway between the rooms is outlined in pine. The fireplace is on the left side of the large wall in the living room because the builder didn’t want to have two small corners. My yard is huge or rather Gracie’s yard is huge. I really love this house.
There are only two things I would add. The first is a screened front porch. That’s where you get to greet the neighbors. The second is a pantry. Everything I need would be right there, and I wouldn’t have to move stuff to find what I want. The cabinet I avoid scares me a bit. Moving one thing means several others will fall. I could be buried and not found for days. In a pantry order is easy.
I really have no intention of ever living somewhere else. I’m quite content with my back deck and my totally disorganized cabinet.
Categories: Musings
Tags: 50˚, clean cabinets, cloudy, dining room, extra bedroom, front porch, frost, HGTV jargon, made bed, my house, organize closets, pantry, productive, wash, wide plank pine floors, windy
Comments: 24 Comments
May 14, 2015
When the wind started yesterday afternoon, the warm temperature began to drop. After the sun set, it got cold enough so I had to shut the windows. Around 1am Gracie went out, and I decided to watch her from the deck. It was chilly like a fall night. I was glad for the sweatshirt and the comfy slippers I was wearing. Gracie went way back in the yard where I couldn’t see her, but I could hear the crunch of dead leaves wherever she walked. She went back and forth at the same place hunting, I guessed, for the chew bone she had buried during the day. After a while, I wanted into the warm house and called her. She came quickly, and we both went inside. It was one of those I wish I could get to sleep nights so I watched some TV. Gracie got on the couch, fell asleep and began to snore as Boxers are prone to do. I was jealous of the sleeping, not the snoring.
Today is lovely though still a little on the chilly side, the low 60’s. The sun is brilliant. It is a day of celebration. Skip, my factotum, is here to open the deck for the summer. He’s been here a few hours already and has cleared the vegetable garden and emptied the deck window boxes and the clay pots. He has cleaned off the chairs and the table. My outside shower is now ready for use. The spiders’ webs are gone. Yesterday I bought all the deck flowers and herbs. I tried to restrain myself at Agway knowing I’ll be making another trip next week for my vegetables, the herb garden plants and the front yard perennials. When I was driving home yesterday, the car smelled wonderful. It was the rosemary. Skip will be back tomorrow to finish. I have a couple of new projects for him.
This weekend will be the deck grand opening parade. There will be music and sparklers. The plastic pink flamingo and the Travelocity gnome will leave their winter quarters to take up their summer residences. The pink flamingo will be dressed in her finest Hawaiian outfit. The gnome will wear his traditional blue jacket and red conical hat. I will be resplendent in bright colors.
Categories: Musings
Tags: cold night, crunch of dead leaves, Deck cleaning day, deck flowers, deck herbs, like fall, opening deck parade, plastic pink flamingo, rosemary, shower cleaning day, Travelocity gnome, uplate, windy
Comments: 12 Comments
April 20, 2015
Cold, windy day today. The sky is a light grey. The high will be in the very low 50’s. I have no plans for the day so I’m staying home, cozy, warm and, best of all, comfortable. Huzzah, there are buds on my forsythia and on my wild rose bushes. I noticed them this morning. They are always the first to bloom.
Today is Patriot’s Day here in Massachusetts, a state holiday. It commemorates the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the start of the Revolutionary War. That day helped define the character of Massachusetts.
I remember in the sixth grade learning about the Revolutionary War. Miss Quilter told it like a story, and I was enthralled. She explained about Paul Revere’s ride and how he, William Dawes and other riders rode all night to get to Lexington. She told us why it was called the “shot heard round the world” in Emerson’s poem. There was a picture in my textbook of Patriots hiding behind rocks to shoot at the Redcoats. Miss Quilter explained the picture and guerrilla warfare. That word wasn’t in my textbook, and I thought it was the same as the big monkeys. Miss Quilter went on to tell us the Red Coats didn’t see the shooters or know where the bullets were coming from. The Patriots followed the British all the way back to Boston and shot from behind rocks and trees.
We did a family outing one Sunday to Lexington and Concord. It was history come to life. I remember walking across the Old North Bridge in Concord and I remember standing on the Lexington Green just imagining the battle. The statue of the Minute Man seemed to stand above all else. We went into the tavern where Adams and Hancock were before they fled. On the way home we traveled the same route Revere had. I was in awe that whole day.
Categories: Musings
Tags: cold, comfortable, Concord, grey day, guerilla warfare, Lexington, Minuteman, Patriots' Day, Redcoats, Revolutionary War, windy
Comments: 8 Comments
January 31, 2015
The morning is so cold it took my breath away when I went to get the paper. It snowed again last night and the couple of inches obliterated the path and hid the mounds of snow from the shoveling in the last storm. It was slow walking to the driveway. The back steps are also now covered in snow so poor Gracie did not want to go down, but she finally did. Even now the snow falls wildly in the wind. The trees too are blowing and bending. Today is winter at its worst.
I have to go out in a bit, and I am not all happy about it. I need dog food, then I have PT and finally I need to do a bit of shopping for tomorrow and the big game. I’m making some appetizers, and I need all the ingredients. I figure not many people will be crazy enough to go out so the shopping will be quick.
I know my mother would not have let us out on a day like today. Even her multi-layering would not be enough. I can remember freezing hands and purple lips. Instead, we’d be spending the morning in front of the TV. The house would be relatively quiet. Saturday was a festival of shows for kids, and we’d sitting on the rug close to the TV, too close for my mother. She was an adherent of all the old wives’ tales about kids including sitting too close to the TV could cause blindness.
In Ghana, this is getting into the hottest time of the year, the height of the dry season. I never missed winter so much. Every day was endless sun and heat and blowing sand. My lips were dry, and my feet calloused. There was no refuge: no fans or air-conditioning. Even my house, because of its metal roof, held the heat. I used to shower and not dry off so the air would feel cooling, and I could sleep. Right now I’d be happy for that, for at least a couple of days.
Time to face the elements.
Categories: Musings
Tags: a bit of shopping, dry season Ghana, freezing day, freezing hands, snowing, TV blindness, windy, winter at its worst
Comments: 12 Comments
January 5, 2015
The sun is shining, but it is cold, and the strong wind makes the day feel even colder. I need to fill the bird feeders, and that will be my only outside venture. I have plenty to keep me busy here as I have vowed to clear off the couch filled with Christmas decorations from all the other rooms. That will leave only the trees which will stay through tomorrow, a feast day with so many names: Little Christmas, the Feast of the Epiphany and Three King’s Day. It is the last official day of the Christmas season and the day to send,
“On the twelfth day of Christmas
my true love sent to me:
12 Drummers Drumming
Eleven Pipers Piping
Ten Lords a Leaping
Nine Ladies Dancing
Eight Maids a Milking
Seven Swans a Swimming
Six Geese a Laying
Five Golden Rings
Four Calling Birds
Three French Hens
Two Turtle Doves
and a Partridge in a Pear Tree
I never liked that song. I think of it as the 100 bottles of beer on the wall song of the Christmas season. I don’t how much all that costs now, but the paper seems to have the need to tell me year after year.
January is, after New Year’s, quite the boring month. I miss the hustle and bustle of the holidays. I was busy most of those days, but it was fun busy. Now I stay home because it is easier and warmer. I clump my errands into a single day so I’m not running around days at a time, but I find my errands are even boring. Buying bread and animal food just doesn’t give the day much pizzazz.
Well, I need another cup of coffee, and I need to close the back door. I can feel the cold coming in through the dog door. Gracie is asleep and probably doesn’t care. Besides she can always ring her door bells to go out. I think I’ll add some toast to that coffee.
What a day! Even my last paragraph is boring!
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Categories: Musings
Tags: boring errands, cold day, humdrum, January, last official day of the Christmas season, Little Christmas, On the twelfth day of Christmas, the Feast of the Epiphany and Three King's Day, windy
Comments: 14 Comments
November 21, 2014
Today is downright cold. The sun is shining but the light is weak and muted. The pine tree limbs in the backyard are swaying from the wind as are the dead leaves still hanging off the ends of branches. I had an early appointment and was out of the house before nine. It was 31˚. Now it is a lovely 34˚, basking weather, almost deck weather.
Yesterday I was a whirlwind of activity. Not only did I finish my four errands, but I also swept the kitchen floor, cleaned the top of the stove, dusted and polished a couple of tables and changed my bed. I was exhausted.
When I woke up this morning, Gracie was in a ball right beside my head and between the two pillows. I figured she must have gotten cold during the night, and I was warmth.
I remember well Thanksgivings when I was a kid. For some reason my mother was always up with the birds as she used to say. She’d get busy making the stuffing first. I can still see her using her hands to mix the bread chunks with the other ingredients including Bell’s seasoning. Even now, all these years later, one sniff of Bell’s brings back my mother and all the turkeys of her lifetime. She’d finish the stuffing then put it in the bird. My mother used a giant roasting pan which just fit into the oven. It was oval and blue with white specks. She’d put the turkey and the turkey neck into the pan then the pan went into the oven though sometimes my dad did the oven as the pan was too heavy for my mother. At nine we’d settle in to watch the Macy’s parade. My mother put out tangerines, mixed nuts and M&M’s for our watching pleasure.
It didn’t take long for the wonderful aroma of turkey to spread about the house. My mother, still in the kitchen, would start on the vegetables. Always we had mashed potatoes. I think it is against the law not to have them on Thanksgiving. Creamed onions, canned asparagus for my dad, green bean casserole and later the squash casserole, our all time favorite, would be prepared in no particular order. Before the big day my mother had made the pies: apple, lemon meringue and one more, usually pumpkin or custard. With the left over crust she’d make the turds as my dad called them which always made us laugh. They were rolled dough with cinnamon and sugar in the middle which had been baked in the oven.
I remember the kitchen windows covered with steam from all the cooking, the aromas of the different dishes and how special the whole day seemed.
I put out mixed nuts and buy tangerines. I watch the parade. I make a pie and this year I figure I’ll make some turds. My dad would be happy.
Categories: Musings
Tags: aroma of turkey, Bell's seasoning, cold, cold night, exhaustion, making Thanksgiving dinner, mashed potatos, muted sun, pies, squash casserole, steamed windows, Turkey, whirlwind of activity, windy
Comments: 18 Comments
November 18, 2014
Last night it poured and peals of thunder and bolts of lightning added drama. The thunder rumbled at first then kept getting closer until one cracked overhead and rattled the house, but that was the final act, thunder’s last hurrah. After that, the rain fell for a bit then it too disappeared. Today is colder than yesterday and will get colder still. Tonight will be in the low 20’s. It’s time to pull out the flannels.
Gracie is nine today. She is celebrating her birthday with a nap on the couch and some loud snoring. Tonight she’ll have a hamburger, no ketchup but maybe some cheese.
It is so quiet around here. No cars pass down the street, the kids are in school and for once no dogs are barking back and forth. The wind is strong but it is a quiet wind with no whooshing, no train sounds like the heavy winds bring. The trunks of the trees are steady and only their leaves are blowing.
I loved walking home from school and watching the wind blow the leaves on the sidewalk. Sometimes the leaves blew in a small whirling pool, an eddy of yellow. I’d always stop to watch. It was a bit of magic as if a magician had pointed his wand and told the leaves to dance.
The fall is passing so very quickly. Crisp days are turning cold. Not long ago the leaves were ablaze with color. Brown is now their only color. Yesterday I was sitting on the deck on a very cold wooden chair waiting for the red spawn to return. As I sat there, I saw single brown leaves falling slowly to the ground from one tree and another then another. The leaves fluttered the way snowflakes sometimes do. I watched a while until I got too cold. The spawn didn’t return, but I didn’t care. I got to watch the leaves.
Categories: Musings
Tags: browning leaves, cold days, crisp days, Gracie's birthday, rain storm, thunder and lightning, train sounds, whoosing, winds, windy
Comments: 21 Comments
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