Posted tagged ‘Winter storm’

« home page

“Between Ennui and Ecstasy unwinds our whole experience of time.”

December 29, 2012

Today is raw which was always my mother’s description for damp and cold. The sky is that grey-white color which means rain or snow or, in our case, a bit of both. The snow will start off-Cape tonight while we’ll get rain then the tail end of the snow storm will hit us and bring maybe an inch or two or even up to four.

I’m not going anywhere today. The outside world doesn’t look all that inviting. I do have to fill a couple of feeders, and I’ll put the new one out and maybe fold and bring up the clothes in the dryer but that last one is a long shot.

When I sit down to write Coffee, I am often at a loss as to what to say. Day-to-day, or at least my day-to-day, is so consistent it lends itself to ennui, to boredom. Didn’t she just write about that I imagine you’re thinking as you read about Gracie and the weather. Other days my mind is filled with all sorts of neat stuff. Some of it is imaginative, and it grows out of daydreaming or a TV program or a book I’m reading, and I share even though you might think it borders on the crazy, the very weird. Memories often fill my mind triggered by something I saw or even smelled. You have all been to Ghana with me so many times I wonder if you groan and say, “Not Ghana again!” On my sloth days you already know that I’ll be doing nothing except reading and eating the proverbial bon bons.

What brought all this on? Well, one of the blogs I have been reading for years, Letters from a Hill Farm, is closing down. Nan has decided, “To live my life without writing about my life.” That got me thinking. I have been writing Coffee since 2004, the year I retired. I wrote every day for several years then I started taking Wednesdays off, a sort of mid-week breather. After my coffee and papers every morning, I sit in front of the computer hoping I have something to say, something you’ll enjoy or remember or something you can relate to. Where am I going with this? Not away as I really like writing and I love my Coffee family. I just want to be reassured that on days like today when I have nothing to say you’ll still listen.

Categories: Musings
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: 27 Comments

“Snow falling soundlessly in the middle of the night will always fill my heart with sweet clarity”

November 24, 2012

Okay, I will not bore you with today’s weather report. Just think of the last several days. To add to the misery, it’s damp and chilly, and I just put my second load in the washing machine. Even I couldn’t take another day walking around the laundry bag by the cellar door.

When I was a kid, I didn’t really care much about the weather except when it snowed. The first one of us to notice falling flakes would yell “Snow!” and the rest of us would run and jostle each other for the center spot at the picture window, the best vantage point for snow watching. I can still remember the excitement a snow storm would bring and how at night the snow flakes glittered when they fell below the street light. We’d watch then keep going back to the window to keep track of the amount of snow as those flakes carried all our hopes of mounting inches and no school.

When I got older, snow was far less welcomed. It meant shoveling the walk and getting the car free of the mounds of snow left in front of it by the plow. I begrudged snow days as each one meant going deeper into June before school was out for the summer. Snow was an inconvenience.

Snow and I are on far better terms now that I’m retired. There is no hurry getting the car loose as I have nowhere to go. Let the school extend forever. It doesn’t affect me at all. Skip, my factotum, is also my plow guy. He comes and shovels the walk, gets my car loose and shovels the back steps for Gracie so she can get into the yard. Sometimes he doesn’t come until late as he also does the library and several other houses. I don’t care just as long as he comes.

Even in my anti-snow period, I loved watching the snow fall, still do. I always turn on my back light and leave the inside door open so I can stand there and watch the flakes as they glimmer and shine in the light. I figure there aren’t many things as beautiful as a snow flake.

Categories: Musings
Tags: , , , , , ,

Comments: 16 Comments

“The snow doesn’t give a soft white damn whom it touches.”

January 21, 2012

“In the lane, snow is glistening,” describes the view outside my window. The snowfall is heavy, and there must be a few of inches or more already on the ground. The weather report won’t pin down the total amount but throws around words like considerable and steady all day. I was going to go to the store but changed my mind. I’ll just stay inside. The postman’s truck has already been by, and I watched his rear wheels spin a bit before he moved on to the next mailbox. I keep looking out the window and have to admit the snow is really pretty right now.

This is our first snow storm and it has been long in coming. Much as I’d like to complain, I can’t. The winter has been kind to us so I’ll hold my complaints until the next storm then I’ll let loose and do lots of muttering.

Gracie went out a few minutes ago but not into the yard. I hope the snow caused the quick trip and she didn’t decide to do her business on the deck. I tried to watch but she was in a blind spot, and I’m not about to go out and check. The stairs are steep on both sides of the deck so maybe she was a bit afraid of sliding. When Skip comes to shovel and plow, I always have him do the stairs. I also use pet friendly de-icer on the stairs so they’ll dry faster.

Even the oak trees look lovely with their branches covered in snow. The world is quiet. No one ventures onto the roads. It’s too early for the sounds of snow blowers and shovels. I saw only one bird at the feeder, a flicker, so I’m guessing my regular visitors must be huddled somewhere away from the storm. The spawns of Satan are missing. Their nests are high up in the pine trees where I figure they’re lying together to keep warm and watching the snow much the same as I’m doing.

I’ll stay cozy and warm and watch from the window. This is really winter, and I’m not a willing participant.

Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , ,

Comments: 17 Comments

“In books lies the soul of the whole Past Time: the articulate audible voice of the Past, when the body and material substance of it has altogether vanished like a dream.”

January 12, 2011

Mind you, I’m not complaining, but the snow storm just nicked us on its way inland. It was even raining when I woke up, and my street was covered in slush and had two ruts running down it where some brave soul had driven his car. Right now we have a sprinkling of snow falling, and the sun has appeared a couple of times from behind the cloud where it has been hiding, but I doubt it will stay long. It’s really cold and a wind is blowing the branches and dead leaves. The birds are in abundance at the feeders. Goldfinches outnumber my faithful chickadees. They perch at the feeder and sway with the wind. The rain has pockmarked the snow leftover from the last storm. Today is winter at its ugliest.

Last night, most schools had already chosen to close today, and their names scrolled across the bottom of the TV screen. I used to love snow days, especially when I was a teacher. It always seemed a gift even though I knew I’d have to give it back in June. It was a day I could do anything I wanted. I’d stay in my comfy clothes, read, take a nap and eat junk food. Nothing enticed me to leave the warmth of hearth and home.

In Sunday’s crossword in the Boston Globe, one of the clues was a Bobbsey Twin. It was only three letters so I knew right away the answer was Nan, twin to Bert, but I wondered how many solvers had to work around it to fill in the answer. The Bobbsey Twins were a favorite read of mine when I was young. Freddie and Flossie, the other set of twins, were too young for me, but I easily identified with Nan.

You can still find The Bobbsey Twins. Amazon sells them, but they, like Nancy Drew, have been sanitized and modernized. The pony cart, which I envied, disappeared and was replaced by a car. Language was changed to reflect more of a frame of reference for today’s kids. The difficult to read and understand language spoken by Dinah, the cook, and Sam, her husband and the Bobbsey’s handy man, underwent the most changes, and I’m really sorry about that. Their language, rich in metaphors and colloquialisms, has become flat, the same as every other character in the book. They have lost their individuality.

I went through a few of my Bobbsey Twin books and found some Dinah speak. Maybe today’s kids would have trouble deciphering what she is saying, but I don’t remember ever having any problems understanding her. Maybe her language was too ethnic so it had to be rewritten to reflect today’s social standards. The Dinah and Sam I knew and loved are gone.

A sanitized version of Huck Finn will be released next month.

Categories: Musings
Tags: , , , ,

Comments: 24 Comments

%d