The morning is sunny and cool. A strong breeze is rolling the leaves on the oak trees. The birds are loud. The dogs are enjoying their morning naps curled on the couch. The weather, though, will probably change as there is a 68% chance of thunder showers starting this afternoon and continuing into the evening. The winds could be as high as 28 mph. I am a fan of thunder showers.

This will be a quiet week. My dance card is empty until Saturday. Because I have plenty of time this whole week to loll, I’m thinking of giving my sloth a bit of a vacation today. My house creates dust. Somewhere a machine is hiding in the walls manufacturing dust balls and strewing them about. The machine is run by a maniacal dust monster. My upstairs is a domestic dust bowl and needs to be vacuumed. Dust flies when I walk down the stairs. The hall I vacuumed two days ago needs the vacuum again.

The house where I did most of my growing up was actually small, but to me, it was big enough. The living room was the biggest room. It held a couch, two soft chairs, a table in front of the picture window, a TV in the corner and a desk against the wall behind the front door. The closet beside the desk was where my father always hung his top coat and put his fedora on the shelf. The kitchen was really small. The table and chairs were jammed beside a window. The fridge dominated the kitchen. I remember my father defrosting that fridge. He used a hammer and a screw driver to knock the ice off the sides. My father and tools were always dangerous. I don’t specifically remember, but I suspect he probably cut his fingers. The back door was beside the fridge. It had a screen door which always slammed unless you held it to close. The upstairs hall was tiny. Crowded around it were three bedrooms and the bathroom. I remember lying on the threshold of one of the rooms, my brother lying on another and my father on the third. We had flashlights and sent each other messages by Morse code. My father has taught it to us. He had been a signalman in World War II. In my room, my double bed was against one wall, and the other end of it almost touched another wall. I usually crossed over the bed to get to the closet and the bureau. I loved that I had a window at the foot of my bed. I got so see the morning first hand.

The day is stunningly lovely. It is sunny. The leaves glint in the light. The birds are singing. It is 74°. It won’t get much warmer. The heat starts tomorrow when we may even finally get some rain.

My mother had a wringer washing machine. She didn’t have a dryer. The backyard had clothes lines for both sides of the duplex. My mother had three long lines. A cloth holder hung on one line. It held the wooden clothespins. I remember how she used to hang the clothes. To save on clothespins, shirts were connected at the bottoms while sheets and towels were connected at the tops. Pants were hung by their legs. Some of our neighbors had metal pant forms which hung the pants folded. I guess it made ironing easier. In the winter the clothes froze, sometimes straight out as if they were being blown by the wind. My mother couldn’t fold those clothes. She left them in the cellar until the ice melted. She’d hurry outside to take down the clothes if it started to rain then she would hang them in the cellar to finish drying. I remember the towels were always a bit rough, but the sheets smelled of outside, of fresh air and the wind.

I have a huge number of paper grocery bags. The grocery store double bags. I use the bags to hold my recyclables like dog food cans, newspapers and magazines. I like the ones with the paper strap holders. When I was a kid, we used them as book covers for our school loaned books. First you cut the bag apart then you lay the book on it to measure. You had to make sure you had enough paper to make the folds, the parts that slide onto the book ends. Sometimes we’d tape the folds at top. The finished covers had folds in the front. I didn’t know anyone who ever bought a book cover.

I have to vacuum today. The dust balls are beginning to come alive or maybe it is just my imagination because they move. They sort of skip up and down the hall when the wind blows. My outside uke concerts begin today on the Hyannis village green. I also have a concert on Saturday from 7 to 9. I have nothing in between, no practice or lesson this week. It will be a quiet week.