October

Autumn Leaves (Photo credit: oddsock)

Awk! October,

Slaps us sober,

Summer must lie down and die.

His fallen leaves her golden shroud

All things green are disallowed

With harsh cold breath he howls good-bye.

Then he begins his brilliant reign

Red and orange fire his domain

Bright harvest moon

The dark too soon

We gather up, we stay inside.

Watch him weaken growing older

Winter perched upon his shoulder

Gaunt and cold and hollow eyed.

 

About Hummingbirds and Summer

This is a close up picture of a Papyrus greeting card that I was given.  I was thinking I should use it for my submission to the weekly photo challenge (this week the theme is Summer), even though I’ve never been part of that challenge before except as a spectator in awe of other people’s photographs.  Perhaps this particular photo choice will give you a clue as to why I’ve been reluctant to take the challenge.  I might not be taken seriously.  Because the word ”summer” probably  doesn’t normally conjure up visions of paper flowers covered in glitter and little glass beads.

However, hummingbirds should make you think of summer, and the Papyrus people appear to be obsessed by them.  So if you take that into account, maybe my summer greeting card makes perfect sense.  And if not perfect, at least a miniscule amount of it.  Here is what they have to say about hummingbirds.

Hummingbird (Photo credit: Marie Carter)

Legends say that hummingbirds float free of time, carrying our hopes for love, joy and celebration. Hummingbirds open our eyes to the wonder of the world and inspire us to open our hearts to loved ones and friends. Like a hummingbird, we aspire to hover and to savor each moment as it passes, embrace all that life has to offer and to celebrate the joy of everyday. The hummingbird’s delicate grace reminds us that life is rich, beauty is everywhere, every personal connection has meaning and that laughter is life’s sweetest creation.

Now seriously, did you know all that about these little birds?  I’ll bet even THEY don’t know the half of it.  Still, the sentiments are lovely, and that’s really what greeting cards are all about.  They inspire us to say stuff like “Wow, this flower reminds me of the beach” or “good gawd there’s glitter everywhere!”   

I actually love this card – I don’t know why I’m making fun of it.  Even the envelope is gorgeous.  And I have nothing against hummingbirds as long as I don’t have to wash out those annoying feeders that people hang up to attract them.  E-cards are fun, but there’s something solid and comforting about holding a real one in your hand, seeing an actual signature, stashing it away in your sock drawer, taking it out and smiling over it at some future date.  And snapping a close up picture of it, if you have no real life to speak of.  That’s a definite plus for the real thing.

 

Compositions Circa 1928 (Part One)

I have a scribbler that belonged to my mother in 1928 in which she wrote stories for English Composition.  She would have been eleven years old.  They are done with a fountain pen, or with a pencil, or sometimes with a combination of both.  The pencil lead broke, the inkwell went dry – who knows.  The penmanship is sometimes exquisite, and sometimes a hurriedly scrawled mess with a careless spelling mistake or two.  I think these must have been assigned subjects, because some of them are less enthusiastically done than others.  No matter.   I’m just thrilled to be able to get a small glimpse of the child my mother used to be.

A Tramp In The Woods

“This is a very good year for nuts, isn’t it Marguerite?”  I asked one fine October morning.  “Let’s go to the bush after Saturday’s work is done.”  This was agreed to at once.

The Saturday’s work was done in a few hours.  And away we went after making up a small lunch.

The leaves were very pretty.  “If we would stand still or even sit here for awhile we would be covered in leaves,” I happened to say.  “Indeed we would”, said Marguerite.

We saw very many small animals and at last caught a small white rabiit that was lame.  It was a very nice pet.  After lunch we visited the Maple Syrup Camp, an old cave, and an owl’s home.

At last we were on our way home with the rabbit.  We were all as hungry as bears.  But as happy as larks.

*****

A Tramp Coming To Our Home

One fine summer afternoon mother asked me to stay at home while she went to town.  I said I would.  As my favourite pastime was reading, I sat behind the table and read a very interesting book called “Edna’s Escape”.  In a little while I heard a rap at the door.  It made me shiver for I had been reading about the awful time Edna had been having.  All I could do was to go to the door and this I dreaded.  But at last I gained courage and went.

There in front of me was an ugly tramp.  Mother often said that tramps are dangerous.  I made up my mind to take no chances.  “Well my girl, you are a regular housekeeper.  What are you going to do when you are big?” the tramp began.

“Well I don’t think that’s for me to tell”  I said.  The tramp frowned at me.  “But what do you want?” I said.

“A match, a piece of bread, and any other things you have”, said the tramp.  “What do you want with all these things?”  said I.  “I want the match to light my pipe, and the bread to eat, of course”  “But where is your pipe?” I said.  The tramp turned and walked to the other side of the door and then he said “Get me the bread.  Then I will tell.”  I went and got a loaf of bread.  He smacked his lips and said “Give it to me.”  I gave it to him.  He turned around very quickly and said as he went away “I’ve got the bread now.  I’ll come back for the matches another day.”  He then disappeared down the lane.

I thought he had played a good trick on me.  I never saw him again, nor he never came back for his matches.

Margaret Elaine Scott, 1928.

 

Moody Weather

How much does the weather influence my mood?

Well, first off, this is a great question to ask any Canadian, because we wouldn’t even have moods if it wasn’t for changes in the weather. We would have nothing to talk about and nothing really to do. We are a nation of people who have evolved with the seasons.

We all complain bitterly about winter because it’s cold and white and bleak and makes our cars run funny. (Well except for those insane winter sports enthusiasts who pretend to love the ice and the snow and skiing in the mountains and who go trotting off to hockey games all the time.) (There’s also the ones who go flying off to Mexico for six months every year and no longer care, although once there I’m pretty sure they will complain about the heat instead.)

In the spring we either get far too much rain or not nearly enough. The snow goes away too fast, or it refuses to go fast enough. This puts all farmers and gardeners and lawn enthusiasts into foul humor, one way or the other. The rest of us either pity them or remain thoroughly confused as to why it makes any difference.

In the summer the weather is either unseasonably cool or ridiculously hot. It is too humid or it is too dry. There are too many bugs and there’s not enough sunshine, or there’s way too much sunshine, and all those harmful rays can’t possibly be good for us. Perfect weather would stun us speechless. Most of us are confined to windowless workplaces and temperature controlled buildings and we miss it all anyway.

In the fall it gets much too windy, much too soon, and we get burried in leaves before we’re ready for it. Everyone decides to get everything winterized all at once and we’re all surprised and miffed when the people who do these things are very busy and we have to wait our turn. We live in constant dread of that first snowfall and fret for weeks about whether or not it’s the right time to put the snow tires on.

I’m a little embarrassed to admit that about 90% of my time is spent indoors quite happily disconnected from whatever impact the weather would like to have on my life. Of course this doesn’t stop me from being bored and irritated because I’m cooped up inside, or annoyed with whatever is going on out there, even if I haven’t experienced it yet today first hand.

There’s always somebody wandering around from building to building who is happy to drop by and let the people inside know what kind of hell they’re being put through weather-wise. The rest of us adjust our moods accordingly.

 

Table Talk and Some Questionable Lyrics

It’s been another long summer, living alone, trying to entertain myself.  Not that W. is that great an entertainer, but at least when he’s around I have a reason for talking out loud.  Unlike now.  I sometimes talk to my fish, but who knows if he hears anything from under water.  Maybe he reads lips. And I sometimes make disparaging remarks to my computers, which up to this point in time refuse to converse with each other.  They both want their own home groups, and neither will include the other.  Obviously, there’s some little thing I’m missing and they don’t read lips either.

Chapters, how do I love thee?  You reward me with little gems just for showing up and wandering around.  “Table Topics” is an all plexiglass lidded cube full of square cards.  Each card has a topic on it.  In a sane household the family would sit down for dinner, a card would be drawn, the topic read, and the various answers discussed in a lively and delightful manner.  Is ‘sane household’ an oxymoron?  Probably.

Here’s my plan.  On the days when Plinky “plonks” (i.e. asks something infuriatingly stupid) I’m going to draw a card from the box and blog about that!  My computer is on a table, so it should all work out.

what’s

the most beautiful

drive you’ve

ever taken

This is how the cards throw a topic at you.  They’re not big on capital letters or punctuation, so I find myself  imagining a monotone robot type voice getting the idea out there but not caring in the least what your answer is or even if you have one.  ….next…..card……please…..

Nope, I promised myself I’d answer whatever came up, no matter what.  So the most beautiful drive I’ve ever taken has to be the one through the Atlantic provinces last fall with my sister, her husband, and W.  And all the stops along the way, of course.  The rocks, the sand, the fierce winds, the ocean’s roar, beautifully offset by the flaming fall colors.

I think it was when we were leaving Hopewell Rocks that we put one of our new cd’s on and were listening to Paddy Lay Back, and other pieces of uniquely maritime music;  ballads and reels about drunken sailors and phantom ships and rolling home and sailing away.

‘Twas a cold and dreary morning in December (December)
All of me money, it was spent, (Spent, spent)
Where it went to, Lord, I can’t remember (Remember)
So down to the shipping office I went (Went, went!)

Paddy lay back, (Paddy lay back!)
Take in the slack,  (Take in the slack)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           Take a turn around the capstan, Heave a pawl! (Heave a pawl)
About ship’s stations, boys, be handy (Be handy!)
We’re bound for Valipariso ’round the Horn!

That day there was a great demand for sailors,
For the colonies, for ‘Frisco and for France.
So I shipped aboard a limey barque, the Hotspur,
An’ got paralytic drunk on my advance.

Now I joined her on a cold December mornin’,
A-frappin’ o’ me flippers to keep me warm,
With the south cone a-hoisted as a warnin’,
To stand by the comin’ of a storm.

Now some of our fellers had been drinkin’,
An’ I meself was heavy on the booze.
An’ I was on me ol’ sea-chest a’ thinkin’
I’d turn into me bunk an’ have a snooze.

I woke up in the mornin’ sick an’ sore,
I knew I was outward bound again;
I hears a voice a-bawlin’ at the door,
“Lay aft, ye sods, an’ answer to yer names.”

‘Twas on the quarterdeck where I first saw ‘em.
Such an ugly bunch I never seen before,
For there was a bum and stiff from every quarter,
(For the captain had shipped a shanghai crew of Dutchmen)
An’ it made me poor ol’ heart feel sick and sore.

There was Spaniards an’ Dutchmen an’ Rooshians,
An’ Johnny Crapoos jist acrost from France.
An’ most of them could speak no word of English,
But answered to the name of `Month’s Advance!’

I wisht I was in the “Jolly Sailor,”
Along with Irish Kate a-drinkin’ beer,
An’ then I thought what jolly chaps were sailors,
An’ with me flipper I wiped away a tear.

I knew that in me box I had a bottle,
By the boardin’-master ’twas put there;
An’ I wanted something for to wet me throttle,
Somethin’ for to drive away dull care.

So down upon me knees I went like thunder,
Put me hand into the bottom o’ the box,
An’ what wuz me great surprise an’ wonder,
Found only a bottle o’ medicine for the pox.

I felt that I should skip an’ join another,
‘Twas plain that I had joined a lousy bitch;
But the chances wuz that I might join a worser,
An’ we might git through the voyage without a hitch.

I axed the mate a-which a-watch was mine-O,
Says he, “I’ll soon pick out a-which is which,”
An’ he blowed me down an’ kicked me hard a stern-O,
Callin’ me a lousy, dirty son o’ a bitch.

Now we singled up an’ got the tugs alongside,
They towed us through the locks an’ out to sea;
With half the crew a-pukin’ o’er the ship’s side,
An’ the bloody fun that started sickened me.

Although me poor ol’ head wuz all a-jumpin’,
We had to loose her rags the followin’ morn;
I dream the boardin’-master I was thumpin’,
When I found out he’d sent me around the Horn.

I swore I would become a beachie-comber,
An’ niver go to sea no ruddy more;
For niver did I want to be a roamer,
I’d shanghai the boardin’-master an’ stay ashore.

But when we got to bully ol’ Vallaparaiser,
In the Bay we dropped our mudhook far from shore;
The Ol’ Man he refused ter let us raise ‘er,
An’ he stopped the boardin’-masters comin’ aboard.

I quickly made me mind up that I’d jump ‘er,
I’d leave the beggar an’ git a job ashore;
I swum across the Bay an’ went an’ left ‘er,
An’ in the English Bar I found a whore.

But Jimmy the Wop he knew a thing or two, sir,
An’ soon he’d shipped me outward bound again;
On a Limey to the Chinchas for guanner,
An’ soon wuz I a-roarin’ this refrain.

So there was I once more again at sea, boys,
The same ol’ ruddy business o’er again.
Oh, stamp the caps’n round an’ make some noise, boys,
An’ sing again this dear ol’ sweet refrain.

The beauty of these songs is that they go on forever and you can sing along to the refrain between every silly verse,  to the delight of youself and your sister and the dismay of your spouses who are trying to drive and navigate in the front seat.  Awesome drive.  Wish that IT could have gone on forever too.

 

Name Game

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet.”

Doesn’t everybody go through a stage in their lives where they think that having a different name would somehow make everything better?

Thankfully that passes. Because a sixty year old named “Summer Moonbeam” is somehow just not right.

My mother named me Linda Mae. Born in May, maternal grandmother always known as Mae; aunt who raised my father and his brothers after his mother died – you guessed it – May. Three strikes and you’re out.

Linda was only the most popular name on the face of the earth in the decade in which I was born. I went from grade one through grade seven with another Linda May, and countless other Lynns and Lindas all through school. My husband is the one who started calling me Lin, so I suppose that’s why I like it. It’s simple and easy to remember, and doesn’t necessarily make you think immediately of Daisy Mae and Elly Mae and Sadie Hawkins day and ceee-ment ponds.

Okay, I’m really dating myself, never mind that my name does that for me without any extra help. I tried to give my daughter a name that she wouldn’t hate. And even if she did I prayed she’d realize her mother gave it to her with the best intentions and no shortage of love.

My mother named me, and I loved my mother. So the name stays.

 

Sounds and Smells and Buttons

She is awake, but not yet ready to open her eyes. She hears the magpies on the back lawn where they often choose to have their morning arguments; complaining, scolding, squawking, and then flapping off in mad little bird snits.

She takes a deep breath of the fresh fall air, and detects just the smallest hint of wood smoke, all that remains of last night’s fire pit party next door. No echoes this morning of the teenage shouts and laughter. She imagines all of them blissfully sleeping in.

The clock radio buzzes and blasts out a bar or two of some inane music she can’t identify because her hand is so quick to reach up and silence it. There are more buttons to push, so she rolls out of bed. Computer button, coffee pot button, light switches, button to pull out to turn the shower on.

The shampoo smells like apples, the body wash like cranberries and the bar of soap like peaches. Then she spritzes the tub and tiles with something that smells like oranges. Thank God the coffee still smells like coffee.

There are still more morning buttons to push – the one on her electric toothbrush, the one on her blow dryer, the button on the garage door opener, and the one she can press to start her car if the mood strikes her.

Her hand soap has some kind of yogurt name and comes out foamy from a pump. It smells like summer. Her perfume smells like spider webs when she first puts it on. She knows this is a ridiculous thing to think, but there the thought is anyway. The scent mellows in a minute or two to something like a red door in the sunshine.

Her life is a strange parade of sounds and smells and buttons, she thinks. From habit she has been relatively quiet getting ready, although her husband is out of town for several more days, and she could have been singing at the top of her lungs and dancing on the table if she wanted to. Best not to get into that habit she supposes. Time to leave for work. No button to beam her there and back. But it’s Saturday, and there won’t be much traffic. She can breathe in the vanilla scent of her car deodorizer and push the buttons on the radio. Woot. And all day long she will have in the back of her mind that the next three days she is off.

She thinks it would have been really funny if the Plinky prompt for today had asked her to describe her life using nothing but sounds and smells and buttons. Of course it doesn’t do that, but she decides she will write about those weird things anyway.

 

Wishes For My 16-Year-Old Self

My sixteen year old self would not have paid the slightest bit of attention to this spaced out old lady spewing her well-meaning but scatter-brained advice. So I know there’s really no point in saying anything to her at all.

There are wishes I’d like to make for her though, if I were able to fling them back in time and spin them around her so-serious little self and somehow make them come true for her, even for one glorious day .

She is a waitress at the Bluewater Tea Room on the shores of Lake Huron, wistfully gazing through the screened windows at her little yellow Valiant parked in the sand and baking in the sun.

Wishing she could be somewhere out there on the beach herself, instead of in here serving foot long hotdogs and home cut fries to skimpily clad tourists who keep tracking in the sand. Wishing they would just get back on their stupid boats and sail off into the sunset and take their gawky teenaged boys with them. (Not to mention all those cute little blue-eyed blondes with their long bronzed limbs – it makes her sad that she isn’t one of them.)

She is wishing it wasn’t so hot, and that ‘el groucho’ in the back sweating over the grill could think of something nice to say for a change. And that she could smack the leering face of the next smirking moron who asks her what time she gets off work today. Because after her shift she is almost always too tired to do anything except drive home and kick off her stinking sneakers and shower the smell of the deep fryer grease off her skin and out of her hair.

If I could, I would grant this sixteen year old self a little more empathy for the guy in the kitchen who works all those long hot hours trying to keep his little business going. In a few more years he will have to give it up and the tea room will be torn down, and she will never learn what becomes of him and his food splattered apron and dangling cigarettes and snarly old face.

I would grant her a moment of amazement, of unbiased objectivity, just the very briefest of epiphanies when she looks in a mirror so that she can realize the great worth and the special beauty of that brown-eyed girl looking back at her.

I would let her feel the power she possesses to bruise an ego and to break a heart because she has no idea she is capable of doing either one of those things.

I’d let her know it wouldn’t kill her to be a little more pleasant and less uptight, and that it’s perfectly okay to smile more and to laugh out loud and to tease people back, even if they’re scary strangers. It’s okay to have fun.

I would grant her a greater appreciation of the warm breezes off the lake, the smell of the water and the scent of suntan oil, the sound of the gulls and the sight of them circling in the sky and swooping down to squabble over some scrap of food. I would make her really look at those famous lake sunsets that she always takes for granted.

I would draw out more laughter, more sparkle, more joy – because they were always there, deep inside her, trying so very hard to get out.

 

The One Who Got Away

I assume we’re not talking about fish here. So where do I begin – there have been so many. (Insert little sarcastic eye rolling face here)

That phrase conjures up some nasty images. Devious women furtively scheming to bag one of those unsuspecting men who are wandering around loose out there and incarcerate him for life. Well, maybe that’s a little too forceful. Keep him in protective custody? Never letting him GET AWAY, at any rate.

When my sister brought home her future husband our mother told her she should try really hard not to let this one get away. We thought that was hilarious. I’d like to point out that she never gave ME that advice about W. Who knows what her reasons were. I don’t want to think too hard about it because one of us is sure to have our feelings hurt if we ever get it figured out. Whatever. He’s now been around for close to forever, so if he gets away at this point I suppose I can safely say I did my best.

Okay. The ones that got away, in chronological order:

Harvey in grade three. Because it’s hard for nine-year olds to make any kind of long-term committment.

John in highschool. Because he was so intense it terrified me and I ran away screaming. Well not literally, but that’s close enough to the truth.

Chris one summer. Because summer flings aren’t meant to last past labour day weekend.

Cecil in college. Because we were both very drunk the night we met and unable to recognize each other the next day.

Bruce. Because he was just too besotted and I wasn’t really into having my own personal slave.

Larry. Because he wasn’t besotted at all, except maybe with himself and his devastatingly handsome mirror image.

Want to know the advice my mother DID give to me? No matter, I’m telling you anyway. She said “Good marriages don’t just happen, you have to work at them.” So either she knew W. needed a lot of work, or she knew how incredibly lazy I can be putting any kind of effort into anything, including my own life.

I still let things get away from me. Brilliant ideas that never make it on to paper, people who might have been excellent friends but one of us moved away and we lost touch, possessions that know how to go missing with no help from me I swear; whole days with nothing much accomplished.

And what does that picture of Johnny Depp have to do with all of this you might ask? Well, nothing really. I just like looking at him.

 

When the Lights Flicker and Die

Candles in the Dark

How do I occupy my time when there’s a power outage? Funny you should ask – this has been the summer of the thunderstorm here. We’re trying to remember how many days we’ve had without any rain at all – maybe three in July? Not that there haven’t been beautiful hot sunny days because there have been lots of those. The thunderstorms just roll on in, boom away, pour the rain down in buckets, and then roll on out again. Daily. Sometimes twice a day. It’s getting so old, trying to remember where you put that umbrella from eight hours ago. Haven’t had to wash my car at ALL – nature’s been doing all these great power washes, so that’s a big plus. But I digress. Back to the point, because I’m sure there’s one in here somewhere.

When the lights go out I’ve found it’s a good idea to have the following things handy:

1. A fully charged lap top.

2. Lots of candles. Although I’ve noticed they’re not all that useful if you’ve forgotten where you put the matches.

3. A good book and a good flashlight.

4. A big window and a comfy chair. Watching lightning can be a breathtaking experience.

5. A non-electric can opener. You can prop up a wire rack and put a pan on top of it and a candle underneath to warm something up – but you gotta get that something out of the can first.

6. A list of all the clocks in your house, and some kind of mathematical plan on how to run around resetting them so that they’re all the same. And when you get that figured out could you please share it with me, because every clock in my house says something different.

7. And MOST IMPORTANT: somebody to freak out with when it’s all over. OMG, we were without power for almost 45 minutes!! It was just so unbelievably AWFUL, you have no IDEA!!! They’re going to try to up your story, so make it a good one.