Rainy Day Friday Five

Sally at RevGalBlogPals, who lives in the UK, has a day off, but it’s raining.Instead of an outdoor activity she will be heading to an art gallery. So she asks:

What do you do on a rainy summer’s day?

1. At home?

We had a rainy day yesterday, and are in for some more this weekend as Hurricane Irene is expected to pay us a visit. I think we are all more likely to take naps on rainy days, and to put off outdoor projects and even indoor projects in favor of reading or watching a movie … or napping. But the dog still must be walked, rain or not – and he doesn’t seem to mind it, or any weather, much.

2. In your local area?

Here’s what I wouldn’t do: go shopping, at least not at Outlet Shopping Mecca in the next town. Because that’s what the summer people do when they encounter a rainy day during their Maine vacation. If we needed entertainment, we’d probably go to a community theater production or a public supper.

3. If you are away on holiday?

Mosrt of the things I would enjoy doing on a holiday are not weather-dependent; I’d put off the outdoor sight-seeing and enjoy being with people, reading, cooking if facilities were available, or visiting some kind of museum.

4. Name a rainy day read.

Well, yesterday I finished reading Gardens of Delight by Erica James. It’s a “women’s fiction” novel set partly in Cheshire and partly at Lake Como in Italy, and most of the characters are keen gardeners. So there are descriptions of both rain and sunshine, and lots of flowers, trees, and fruit, as well as the multiple human interactions. I rather like rain so reading about rain when it’s raining doesn’t depress me. Then in the evening Sisterfilms and I watched It Happened One Night, which has some great scenes with Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert getting thoroughly rain-drenched.

5. Is there a piece of music/ a poem/ story that cheers you up?

I have a long playlist of Rainy Day Songs. I’m thinking now of all our friends in Texas and other places who would love to see a rainy day, so here’s a song for them,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFNRglWwcKg&feature=related
Bonus: post a rainy day photo!

Had I but known, I could have taken one yesterday! Instead I’ll post one of Onkel Hankie Pants’ photos from a long-ago trip to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Our friends are looking at a rainbow, so the caption is Genesis

9:13-17.

Almost Wordless Weekend: Why I Live Here

On this grey November day, which turned into a very rainy November night, I need a few reminders of why we live here, so here are some pictorial ones.

We have some great parades! There are boat rides to be taken all summer long. Many days during the year, the sky is a beautiful bright blue. And pretty soon, instead of rain there will be snow. Sorry Blogger is not cooperating and I cannot arrange these photos better.

Skiving Off on a Slightly Snowy Day

I woke up with a bit of a headache today -- perhaps because I stayed up too late finishing a book -- and the real blogging today will take place at my other blog, Queuing Up, where I'm still trying to catch up on my movie reviews. But, for your looking pleasure, here is a picture of what I saw when I opened the blinds in my "office" this morning, and a little mood music:

Deep Thoughts, or maybe not so deep

1. Maine has a relatively low price for vanity license plates, so it seems a lot more people have them here. Just now walking Rusty we heard barking coming from a car. I knew what kind of dog was barking before we got abreast of the car, because the license plate said LAB NOIR.
2. That reminds me to give you a link to a hilarious YouTube video by one of my favorite humorous mystery writers, Jeff Cohen. On the DorothyL list, we're always talking about the different subgenres of mysteries -- Jeff lays it all out for you here.
3. We just came back from a benefit supper for my 2nd cousin's husband, who was in a car crash about 3 weeks ago. They are among the many, many un- and underinsured as far as health insurance (and probably carried the minimum legal car insurance too, to save money). I wish we didn't have to have this kind of thing, but at least it was heartening to see the large number of people who attended, worked on the supper, donated raffle prizes and bought raffle tickets. This is the third such supper we've attended since we've been here -- the others were for people we knew slightly. Long lines out the door are common at these events. Everyone knows it could be them or their loved ones another time.
4. Kind of a grey, gloomy day, but then again it's 38 degrees out at 7:30 pm, I was able to walk Rusty wearing just a fleece jacket over my Norwegian sweater, and no hat, mittens, or special footgear was needed. When I hear about blizzards in Colorado, the skies opening up in Florida and Georgia, and possible flooding in Fargo, I can't complain at all about our weather here today.
5. Now it's time to go watch the remaining two episodes of Planet Earth that are on the disc, so I can review it on my other blog. I hope there is less "Nature red in tooth and claw" on these two than on the first one.
   

Magic Mushrooms?

Today is a special day for me, and I'll report more on that later, but it's also a very rainy day here in Maine. We've had a fair amount of rain alternating with plain old humidity here in the last week or so (and we need the rain, so no complaints about that.) Our yard is prone to mushrooms anyway, but recently I've seen some that I hadn't seen before. I wonder if I'll find a field guide to mushrooms in the basement as I clean up the book room there? I did find a nice fossil guide, which will be quite useless here -- it says that New England has virtually no fossil-bearing rock. Anyway, here are some mushroom photos.



Click on the yellow one to see the raindrops on a spiderweb.
And for those of you who prefer mammals to fungi, here is a photo of Rusty in his summer cut -- he doesn't look like a perfect Springer Spaniel now, but it sure makes his trips to the Bowdoinham woods less messy!
And here is a goofy face:

in justspring

EEEE! Today was the first dogwalk with NO jacket or sweater, and the temperature got up to at least 60 degrees -- in fact it's still that now, according to the computer. Bulbs are growing apace -- our tulips and daffs just have green up, but lots of it, and the people who have crocuses are displaying purple and white beauty all over the place. Streetsweeping happened (about 4:30 am this morning, what's up with that?) so things look much tidier. Before you know it we will be seeing scenes like this:
This photo was actually taken at my parents' house about 28 years ago, probably by Brother #3. I really missed forsythia all the time I lived in Exile. Even though the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum people developed a more hardy variety in 1982, I seldom or never saw any in bloom -- perhaps because I lived in the city and people already had all their shrubbery. Now I enjoy bursts of gold around every corner in forsythia season.

The words titling this post are, of course, from e.e. cummings' poem. Look it up!

Phooey!

Yesterday afternoon I went out with Rusty to take some photos of signs of spring. (It's not easy to take a picture with one hand and hold the excited dog with the other!) Here's what I found:
To the left, a photo of our driveway about 4 pm. Not that exciting except that at 11:30 am the same day, none of the pavement was visible under a sheet of ice. You can also see the lamentable state of the pavement, which is much better than the state of the roads here -- it's a bad year for potholes.


To the right, in a sheltered location just down the
street, some brave bulbs are coming up. (Rusty pointed these out to me, as he has always been interested in the plastic cake container you can see behind the bulbs. He lives in hope that someday there will be cake inside it.)









We walked around the block and found some more signs of coming spring:
ground cover -- was it there all along under the snow?

I think these are buds! (Click on photo to make it bigger)
And I'm sure the red twigs in this photo are new growth:
But today, as I awakened I heard the snow plow (or maybe they were just sanding), and alas, it's light snow and 28 degrees. However, hope springs eternal, for Monday's prediction is 40 degrees, sunny and windy with only a 10% chance of precipitation. Meanwhile though, the lions are wearing their snow mantles again:
And that's why I say Phooey!

Coming in Like a Lion

Here we go again! The snow started, as predicted, about 10 pm last night. At the time, I was trudging around the house trying to corral the dog. Rusty "escaped" when I fell in the snow. Fortunately, he was so interested in smelling the snow around the house (it had been a sunny day and squirrels were out) and looking through the basement windows to see the cat, that I was eventually able to lure him with a treat and grab his leash again.

It's still coming down; somewhere between 4 and 8 inches are predicted, but on the actual coastline and offshore islands there may be rain instead. Onkel Hankie Pants' performance this evening in Twelve Angry Men and Women has already been cancelled. After years of living in a major metropolitan area, it's almost culture shock to live where winter weather cancellations are so common. In City of Lakes, snow days were a rare occurrence; a former Governor who was born in New Jersey got a lot of kidding when he cancelled school for the whole state twice in one season because of extreme cold. When the girls went to Rudy Perpich's Good Idea (aka High School for the Terminally Artistic), there were more cancellations because many of the metro-area students drove long distances to school. Our kids usually listened wistfully to the long list of school cancellations and "two hours late, no morning kindergarten" announcements from the more rural areas of Minnesota and western Wisconsin. Church was never, ever cancelled, although once we cancelled the Christmas caroling party. But here, where many people have to wait for their driveways to be plowed out before they can even think of getting on the road, cancellations and postponements are a way of life in winter. "Life in the slow lane" is one of our t-shirt slogans; the constant reminders that we are not fully in charge, that we must pay attention to the weather and that human plans must sometimes be cancelled because of it, may have something to do with that. It's humbling.

My daily email update from the Washington Post this morning mentioned that "meteorological winter" is officially over. That's not just in the DC area, but here as well. The ten-day forecast has a lot of temperatures in the low 40s and no further snowstorms, just some "wintry mix." There is the old saw about March coming in like a lion and going out like a lamb, and the record high for March 31 here is 73 degrees F. It could happen again! I hope so. We are all getting tired of this. Here are some more photos I took out the front door this morning:




Get out the brushes and scrapers! We are so fortunate to have a garage (with an automatic door opener! connected to the basement!), which we pretty much lived without for all the years in Minnesota. Our apartment-dwelling neighbors are not so lucky.








This photo is of a few branches from our Christmas tree that remained on the (unused) front steps. Those steps were almost clear yesterday, but here they are being covered with snow again. This was taken about 2 hours ago, and you can hardly see these now for the snow. I am sorry to say that the trees and the parts we cut off are also still in the yard -- bad weather and procrastination made us miss the town pickup. No matter, OHP will saw them up after the snow goes and take them back to our woods to make humus.

It's not a good day to drive to Orr's Island for the church breakfast, so I'd better start cooking if I want there to be any. OHP is busy sending out our Valentine letters, which replace the 2007 Christmas letters we didn't get done. What's your weather like today?

Enough, already!

Remember the other day I said we had had 76+ inches of snow this season? Well, it's probably closing in on 7 feet now. Of course, some of it melted during our January thaw. But here are some pictures of the scene that greeted us this morning, for those of you in snowless climes. The one on the right is the view from our front door at about 7:00 am. Yes, those are the lions, nearly covered in snow.


Here is a more expansive picture of the view from the
front door. If you click to enlarge it, it appears a snowblower is being used near the car in the parking lot of the apartment building across the street. (My sister checked into it and a 2 bedroom apartment goes for $850 a month; I'd guess maybe heat is included.) You can also see the many overhead power lines. Much has been made recently here of the 10th anniversary of the Great Ice Storm of 1998, when many people were without power for up to 9 days or more. Today we probably will not have quite such a disaster, but outages are being predicted because the heavy wet snow is to change to rain and then if it freezes later, branches will break and lines will go down. The tree-trimming schedule is better now, but I still wonder why some effort hasn't been made to put some of the lines underground. Just another infrastructure issue, I guess, where we defer maintenance to "save money." Then, like the I-35W bridge, more money, and lives, are lost.
And here's a little Shakespeare for you, the verse that
comes into my head whenever I look out the window
at this picture:

WINTER

When icicles hang by the wall,
And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,
And Tom bears logs into the hall,
And milk comes frozen home in pail;
When blood is nipt, and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl
Tu-whoo!
Tu-whit! Tu-whoo! A merry note!
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

When all around the wind doth blow,
And coughing drowns the parson's saw,
And birds sit brooding in the snow,
And Marian's nose looks red and raw;
When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl --
Then nightly sings the staring owl
Tu-whoo!
Tu-whit! Tu-whoo! A merry note!
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

Although there are precious few shepherds blowing "nails" here, milking is done mostly with milking machines, crab(apple) roasting is in decline, and most of us are fairly clean and keel (stir) our own pots now, it is surprising how much of the rest of the poem still fits our experience of winter.

And apropos of the owl, one last photo, of the truck with a snowplow attached (a common amenity here) which has just finished clearing the parking lot of the Snowy Owl Gallery next door. (They cast silver, mostly, jewelry for a number of local designers and sell some of it in the front room. They bring their dogs, Isabella, Truman, and Chester, to work, and Rusty enjoys visiting with them.) I am looking down over our front yard and our driveway, which is on the basement level; it's not really a miniature truck.

Slush Wednesday

Just back from my fourth walk of the day with Rusty. Earlier walks were quite wet and slushy; on this one, the slush was beginning to freeze but not, as yet, becoming too slippery. Anyway I have my Great Big Waterproof Boots to wear. They seem to weigh about 12 pounds apiece but that's probably not true.

No church for me today, I didn't want to walk all the way to Big Taupe Church, and I didn't want to trudge into the Episcopal Church in my clodhoppers. The only service at my church was at noontime, which suggests to me that the old New England Congregationalists here are not quite comfy with Ash Wednesday yet or at least don't think it's important for young families and children to participate.

I did read the readings for today from Bread and Wine, the book the RevGalBlogPals are reading for Lent. The general introduction talked about Lent as a time of joy, not the way many people think of it. The introduction for the first section was part of Oscar Wilde's The Ballad of Reading Gaol, where Wilde compares the heart broken by the consciousness of sin to the box of ointment that the woman in the Gospel uses to anoint Jesus. The reading for today was titled "Repentance" by Kathleen Norris, from her book Amazing Grace. She talks about reading the Psalms to parochial school students when she's being a poet-in-residence, and having them write their own psalms as not only an exercise in poetry, but a way to deal with their justifiable anger (for example, toward a sibling who mistreats them). Once they've got the anger out, they can begin the process of repentance. (And reconciliation?) If we think of the Psalms this way, it becomes a bit easier to take the parts where the Psalmist begs God to smite his enemies. I don't feel that we use the Psalms enough in church, and one of the reasons is probably a squeamishness about all that smiting! (Also there is almost an obsession in the mainline church with keeping the service to one hour in length. When this is used as a reason to truncate endless repetitious announcements, well and good; but I wouldn't mind staying a bit longer if we said or sang a Psalm every week, and maybe an extra hymn as well.)

Some years ago a friend told me this anecdote: An elderly man is asked whether he believes in infant baptism. His response: "Believe in it, hell! I've SEEN it!" I know people who say they don't believe in sin. And my response is, "Believe in it, hell! I've DONE it!" And it leads to a broken heart, or as the child in Kathleen Norris's piece puts it, a "messy house," but then it can also lead to the joy of repentance.

From Ugly to Pretty, Overnight

It's snowing again! Although I have somewhat mixed feelings about this (yesterday most of the sidewalks were finally dry and ice-free), I have to confess that I was wishing for the snow a bit. Yesterday, and indeed for several days now, all my views have been so ugly, in the way that only Northern urban winter landscapes can be. Grimy piles of snow and ice mixed with road sand. Last fall's unraked leaves and dead grass, revealed by the melting snow, damp and brown and depressing of aspect, and reminding us of tasks left undone. Bits of trash (cigarette butts and the like) which would be swept up at other seasons, lying frozen in place in puddles and gutters. Often a grey, oppressive sky. It was surely in just such a landscape that "California Dreamin'" was written.

Yesterday I had idly wondered whether we would get some more snow to cover this ugliness, but I must not have read the local forecast, because when a wet dog jumped on the bed this morning I assumed it was raining. It was a pleasant surprise to get up and see the trees (and our lions) covered once again in their lacy shawls of snow.

But, it's supposed to change to rain later -- and then in a day or two there is the dreaded prediction "Ice." But for now, my world is pretty again.

We have had 59 inches of snow this winter

and although some of it melted during our January thaw last week, quite a bit is still here. So in response to requests, here are more pictures of snow!

This first one is "Why do I have to wait?" which is what Rusty is thinking as I am taking the picture. The big mound in front of him represents partly fallen snow and partly shoveled snow from the walk. All the photos were taken about 3 pm so it is getting on for sunset already.



The second photo shows our "back yard" such as it is, and a bit of the Mansion House behind us. Our house stands on what was once the majestic front lawn of this house, which has now been added to and contains apartments -- all of which appear to be rented by very nice, quiet people. Our deed says that we may never build a house higher than 1 1/2 stories on our lot, to maintain the ascendancy or at least the view, of the Mansion House (it's called that in the deed). Most of our back yard is the slope up to where the trees are. I think the light is pretty on the snow.




Next, looking over our side and front yard -- the corner of our lot -- toward downtown.
Here is a picture of our house as seen coming back from a walk on Maine Street. You will note we have not shoveled the front steps and walk. This is because (a) it's Maine, no one uses the front door, in fact in the country houses often have front doors but no steps up to them; and (b) the walk is a bit steep and tends to get slippery very easily, so this is for the protection of UPS delivery people and such, who do try to use the front door because that's where the address is. (The mail carrier delivers to the side, where the mail slot is. No complaints from the USPS here.)

We like our big 50s picture windows because they let lots of light in, and on sunny days like today we get free heat, which is not to be sneezed at these days, when a gallon of heating oil costs as much as a gallon of gasoline. The white, non-snow thing visible at the lower right corner is the electric door to our garage, which opens into the basement. In all the years we lived in Exile (aka "40 below keeps the riffraff out"), we never had an attached garage, or a garage door opener, and indeed for the most part did not have a garage our car would fit into. So we think we are living in the lap of luxury now.

Too Much Snow!

At least it looks pretty, but I didn't take any pictures today. I think it has finally stopped snowing. The first time Rusty and I went out today I had hardly gone 20 feet when suddenly I was flat on my back. Fortunately for my head I had both a hat and a parka hood on, but I still have aches and pains all over my back. There will be a lot of shoveling for everyone tomorrow (some people are already working on it, and Rusty does not approve, or else wants to join the fun -- on our walk he jumped and jumped when he saw people shoveling.) Rusty also likes to dig in the snow for who-knows-what, even burying his whole head in it. This snow is more the light, powdery kind, but there's lots of it. Maybe tomorrow I can take a picture.

January Thaw and a Sick Brother

I haven't much to report today, just that we are having a January Thaw. Oh, there's still a lot of dirty snow piled up (which the dog loves to root in, he is absolutely filthy and no prospect of a bath till Saturday I suppose) but there's also a lot of water running in gutters. As I write it is nearly 9 pm and 43 degrees F. I've been getting warnings all day of howling winds but they never seemed to materialize, or at least, not down at the level where I am. Seriously -- Rusty and I went for a walk down Maine St. a couple of hours ago, I did not really feel any wind, but the flag over one of the stores (about second story level) was flapping madly back and forth. Tomorrow, we are even supposed to have sunshine.

Brother #1 is in the hospital here, waiting for a bed to open up in a neurological unit in Portland. It's a complicated medical situation which I don't fully understand. He's been in the local hospital, mostly in ICU, for over a week now (though the waiting for a bed is only the last couple of days). I humbly solicit your good wishes and prayers for him and his family. Here is a photo of one of his paintings:
It's called Rain in the Garden of Names, and is part of a series of paintings inspired by a book of the many names of Allah in beautiful Arabic calligraphy. We have hung it next to a contemporary Iraqi artist's painting that Onkel Hankie Pants brought back from his sojourn in Baghdad a few years ago (I think he has written about it a little on his own blog). The photo doesn't really do it justice but was the best I could do.

Good News, Bad News

Here's the good news: the sidewalk clearing machine shown above has now cleaned the sidewalks at the side of our house, so Rusty and I can again go on one of our habitual walks. It's been nice going downtown for walks, but encountering lots of people is a mixed blessing. He is a friendly dog, but still has a tendency to want to jump up on people, and when a lot of the people one meets are either elderly or young children, and the streets and sidewalks are icy, that's not such a great idea.
Here's the bad news: the weather report calls for more snow starting this afternoon and continuing all night. I think maybe it will not be quite as much this time, though. I have not finished Christmas shopping yet! I need to go to Big Outlet Town and City Whose Mayor Thinks It Should Secede (and oddly enough, said mayor looks a little like a younger version of Jesse Ventura....)! Or at least across the river to the Bullseye Store! Enough already! Sisterknits is pretty well assured of getting her White Christmas, though she would have had the same back in 10,000 Lakes.

Snow is here!

For those of you who don't live in snowy climes, here is what you are missing (whether you're happy about missing it or not is up to you!) Snow began late last night or early this morning; it doesn't appear to be too crippling yet, but forecasts are for up to 8" so we'll see. I haven't been out yet, but brave Onkel Hankie Pants has taken the dog for a walk, done a little shoveling, and driven off to spend the day tweaking maps on the computer. Here's what I've seen out the window. To the left, these are the lions that flank our front steps, nearly covered with snow. (As are the steps. The walk from there to the front door is rather steep, and we try to discourage people from using that door in the snowy, icy winter.)

Here is a photo of the arborvitae or whatever it is, next to
our front door. My attempt at artistic nature photography!
It is quite pretty. This is the first "real" snow we've had this season; there was one day when snow came out of the sky and stuck to leaves and grass, but melted on
the roadways and sidewalks and was soon gone entirely.

Next there will be a view of the parking lot across the street (apartment building) which I have entitled "Get out those brushes and scrapers!" You can also see the big overhead electric lines which ensure power outages whenever there is a big ice storm.



And finally, for anyone who wants to see a living being, here is a photo of Rusty, resting from his morning walk, sitting in his favorite chair in the living room. I think the snow had stopped for a while when he and OHP were out, as he wasn't wet at all when he jumped on the bed on his return. It's snowing again now, though. In this photo he was interested in what I was doing going to all the windows and using the camera, but often, he hangs his head over the arm of the chair -- this one has just the right proportions for him to do that comfortably.

Random thoughts

• The RevGalBlogPals Friday Five was about Christmas things they disliked. (I couldn't think of enough grumps to play this one). Pretty uniform distaste was shown for inflatable lawn figures. I must confess -- we had one for a few years. It was a snowman bought at a going-out-of-business sale, an ironic welcome home display the year both daughters were at school on the Right Coast. We got it because we knew it would embarrass them (a homemade sign was added.) When we moved, we left it with The Traveller for the cabin in America's Dairyland, where she will put it up for a day or two at most. I hope I won't be shunned for this confession!
  
• I made turkey soup on Thursday with the remnants of the Thanksgiving turkey. It was good. But, it took most of the day and dirtied a lot of dishware. OHP and Rusty had a slight altercation Friday morning when the trash bag containing the turkey bones was being removed. Nothing serious, but some growling was heard. Rusty doesn't understand the concept of "not good for dogs."
• My throat has been sore all week with almost no sign of a head cold. I have a little sniffle, but nothing like some family members have been struggling with. I don't know whether to be pleased or otherwise. What if it's sore for two weeks? Or three?
• They're expecting snow in City of Lakes today. A "heavy wintry mix" is forecast here for Monday. It would be nice to see snow, but not so nice for walking the dog.
• We'd like to go to the Methodist Church public breakfast this morning, but last month there was some doubt whether it might be postponed to next Sunday. They aren't listed in any of our three phone books (and don't get me started on that!) and the number listed in the local paper was wrong. It's a long way to go with nothing at the end, although we'd be able to find a restaurant fairly close by. Decisions, decisions! And doesn't the Book of Discipline say you have to have a website, or is it just email, or just in Minnesota?
• If you're wondering how we're doing here with heating oil so high -- not too badly, as long as the sun shines a little. We keep the thermostat at 58-60 degrees overnight (otherwise I get a headache, who knows why). But in the morning, if it's clear, I don't turn it up -- just raise the blinds on our south- and east-facing picture windows. I usually don't touch the thermostat till the sun goes down. Bless Mr. Bernier, who built this house in 1951, and let perpetual light shine upon him!