November 12, 2021 ~ Friday morning (gray/foggy/drippy, raining like crazy; day 15 of nasty virus/non-Covid)
It’s one of those perfectly perfect November days … if you like fog, rain and gloom that is.
It just so happens that I do. Not all the time, mind you, but on days (like today) when the universe presents a perfectly gloomy/wet day … it’s lovely.
I’m in my living room, a pretty cup of hot tea with honey within reach, at my desk facing out the big picture window to my neighbor’s property. Their home is empty (except for 2 weekends a year) but well maintained. The green metal roof glistens when wet and is a nice contrast again the rustic dark brown shake shingle siding and the stone driveway. Some bush is all aflower – big, white blossoms – and plenty of evergreens and grasses abound and make for a very pretty scene. Their yard also holds the most gorgeous burnt orange and deep raspberry colored leaved trees … there are two of them nestled amidst more evergreens and their graceful limbs reach out over the cedar fencing towards the road. It’s really very picturesque. I’m so lucky this is what I look onto. Beyond the house and extended (double lot) lawn to the left of my home, is another … tucked back in the forest amongst so many pines! I can only see their lights on … so, it’s like looking out towards a little gnome home. So cozy/so hygge! Further down is the darling red box house, also with metal roofing … which is surrounded by greens, huge pine trees (I cannot see their tops from here) and a tree of mustard leaves. I see all that out my other picture window to my left.
Behind my neighbor’s home (straight ahead) is an old barn of a house with a lovely cupola on top and a weather vane and turbine. The roof line has disappeared in the mist and it’s mystical in the fog. Closer to my window is my dinner plate maple whose branches are nearly bare sans the whirlybird pods that never dried or dropped – maybe still? The rusts and deep golds mingle with a few lime greens and the furry emerald moss and sage lichen on the branches … the brown seed pods cling tightly … the limbs are black-gray (where not fuzzy green). I have the window open a crack so I can hear the rain … steady as it goes … trickling away or giving the earth a good drink. The grass will be eight inches before I know it with all this rain … leaving me to think I’ll need one more pass with the mower before winter.
Whenever I leave here, I will miss my views.
I have ten (10) dogs here today – only one is a day-sit. All the others are over-nighters. What a fun pajama party we’ll have tonight! No one would ever know I have any dogs here as all of them are sleeping or lying about my feet/legs/desk. I am in good company. I have a golden, a standard (15 yr old/yesterday) poodle and Annie, my lab. Everyone else is old and small … chihuahuas, an Italian greyhound, a terrier, a schnauzer, and a cocker … my Bea being the oldest/smallest. I’ve got a candle lit and it smells like autumn. I’ve got my favorite gray sweater on and I don’t think I could get much cozier … unless I was tucked in bed under my fluffy comforter! I might have to do that later!
This all brings me to feeling nostalgic and a little melancholic … and perhaps a bit wistful.
For whatever reasons, today reminds me of when I was a kid and I’d go walking through the forest preserves with my Dad. We must have gone on Sundays as I remember coming home and mom would have a baked chicken dinner waiting. So yummy! Nothing better than coming in from the cold to the smell of roasting chicken and warmth. Nice! We must have had chicken on other nights – but this always reminds me of being a Sunday. The woods would be empty (except for us) and the usual dirt paths would be littered with fallen leaves … reds, pinks, yellows, rusts … I hardly looked up on those walks – eyes on the prize/the foliage at my feet.
It probably was a combination of their beauty and my poor eyesight that made me look 3 feet down rather than 30 feet up! I loved that time alone with my dad … walking in the woods – just us and the dachshunds. I miss those walks. I miss my dad.
I have three visitors in my yard …. a doe and her twins. The babies are getting almost as big as mama now. They are out munching away in the grass – nibbling on whatever is tasty. They hear something and all three tails go straight up – revealing their white underside. Alert! Alert!
Today also reminds me of one of my many sick days as a kid. I don’t know how I got through elementary school … I was never there! I was always home or in the hospital – sick with something or other. And not just your run of the mill virus or slight infection … I had textbook stuff. Osteomyelitis … gastroenteritis … ear infection after ear infection … mastoiditis/mastoidectomy … staph aureus … you name it, it was mine. I don’t know how my parents did it – all the worry – let alone the cost! I think back and I’d been in the hospital three times/one surgery by the time my parents were 35. Crazy. A lot of responsibility and worry to heap on young parents!
While home bound/bed bound I colored a LOT. Crayons (Crayola, of course) still bring me an inner peace – just opening up a box of them can bring me such bliss! They smell sooo good! (My neighbor invented the sharpener on the back of the box of 64!) I always had some sweet neighbor kid bring my homework home and I’d do that and I had extra workbooks (which I still love/wish there were some for adults/maybe that’ll be my next project!). I had a mess of coloring books and I’d color everything – even the backgrounds. My favorite was a one of the Flintstones … I loved coloring their fur dresses and the chunky jewelry that Wilma and Betty wore. Ha ha. I think back on that and wonder why that made such an impression on me?! I also read a ton … by the time I was in third grade I’d read and pretty much knew by heart all the Little House books. Ma, Pa, Laura, etc were my extended family! I was also the recipient of many get well cards from my classmates. I was always the reason for a good art project/quiet time for any teacher! And what did I do with them? I graded and edited them, of course! The guys that bugged me all flunked … big F– in red crayon on their cards … misspellings all circled three times! The girls who could draw well – usually troll dolls – got A+++. I still have those.
It’s probably also from this time that my love of rye toast came into play. I remember lying on our couch – under a ceramic elephant head-handled, red umbrella (it was raining outside) – watching Captain Kangaroo and being as pleased as any sick kid could be … munching on rye toast and being oh-so cozy!
I hope I thanked my parents for taking good care of me as a youngster. If not – thanks mom and dad!
One of the Christmases when I couldn’t go outside (due to whatever ailment had taken over my body at that time), I wasn’t allowed to go on a nighttime walk with the family to go see the neighborhood lights. But, that was okay by me … we had five in our family/I shared a room with my older sister … and rarely was there just ME (my mom was somewhere in the house/probably cleaning up something) – alone. I remember being in the living room with the tree all lit up and pretty and it was so quiet. So nice. There was snow outside and that absorbed all the outside noises – nature’s muffler. That year I got a Tressy doll … akin to Barbie but BETTER! I look back and think I should have gone into hair design as I was always fascinated by hair! I’ve mentioned this doll in another blog – she was just the best! She had a button on her stomach that when pushed in/you could pull her pony tail out of the top of her head and her pony tail would reach nearly her ankles! Rapture! My own Rapunzel! And there was a tiny T shaped key that you’d stick in her back and wind the hair back into the body cavity (seems gruesome and kind of Frankenstein-y now) to whatever length you wanted. It got as short as a shoulder-length flip. She looked ridiculous in a bikini with that button and key spot … but so elegant in an evening gown! Anyway – I sat in the living room and played for what seemed like hours – all by myself – putting her hair into tiny rollers and then taking them out again and changing her outfits. Best gift ever!
And speaking of best gifts … I knew I was a shopper-in-the-making even when I was young. I have and always will be a consumer. The Sears Christmas catalog would arrive and my family wouldn’t see me for days! I’d be holed up in the front hall closet (my secret hideaway) next to the vacuum cleaner/under the coats with my flashlight – reading that thing from cover to cover … oogling and drooling over all the toys (the beautician doll head – omg, fabulous) and dish sets (always my favorites) and circling one or two that I thought I’d just die without. Ah, the good ol’ days. What I wouldn’t give today for a Sears Christmas catalog. Sounds utterly delightful to sit and go through all those goodies!
Guess I’ll have to settle in and read one of my magazines, instead … Living … Yankee … Southern Living. I’m having a few friends for Thanksgiving … perhaps I’ll read up on how to make the best version of whatever I’m going to make. It’s still raining … still foggy … still a perfectly perfect November day.