I am behind my time this morning. Nala was crying so I got up, went downstairs and let her out. I decided I was still tired so I went back to bed. When I finally dragged myself out of bed, I took my time, finished all the puzzles in the paper, made a pot of coffee and read my e-mail. This is the only day of the week I have an empty dance card so the sloth in me is strong.

The weather is a delight. It rained early this morning, in the wee hours. Last night was perfect for sleeping. Right now it is 78°, breezy and alternatively sunny and cloudy. It might rain.

My mother would have been 99 today. I thought of her as soon as I woke up. She was amazing. She was thoughtful and she was funny. I can’t recall the exact number of Boggle games we played, but I swear it had to be in the thousands. We’d sit at her kitchen table for hours. She gave our lives her special touch. I still miss her every day.

I have this gift. When I close my eyes, I can see places, routes, even the number of stop lights. One trip I loved was to East Boston to visit my grandparents. There was so much to see, so much I still remember. Part of the trip was on Route 1 through Saugus. My head swiveled from side to side so I wouldn’t miss a thing. Just before we got on the highway, there was a private pond for fishing. I remember the trespass warnings on the gate. A store right at the exit sold wedding gowns. I always checked the store window. Another store sold German sausages. It sold other things, but I only remember the sign for the sausages. A giant dinosaur stood at the miniature golf course. Adventure Car Hop, the restaurant Woo Woo Ginsberg on WMEX on his Night Train Show touted, was at the rotary. I always wanted for us to stop but we never did. The St. Anthony of Padua church was the biggest church I had ever seen. Its back faced the road. I remember oil tankers tied up at piers. The smell of the oil permeated the air. The last thing was the hill. A project with brick buildings was below that hill. On top of it was where the giant statue of Madonna Queen of the Universe Shrine stood. My grandparent’s house was just a few streets beyond that hill. I remember cars filled the parking spaces along the roadsides. My father used to drop us off then he’d hunt for a place to park.

So many other routes stick in my memory drawers. One vibrant memory is the walk from my school in Bolga to town. I see it perfectly. That is the most wonderful gift of memory.

Last night we had a lovely breeze for the concert, and that cool air hung around for a while, but today is going to be hot and humid again. For a change, though, I’ll be happy to abide today’s temperature and grouse less as starting tomorrow it should stay in the 70’s for a bit.

I remember exactly how my dream, my hope, maybe even my expectation, of seeing the world started. I remember being eleven and thinking my geography book was a travel brochure. That was around the same time I caught Barrett’s disease. Its main symptom is travel envy. My classmate, whose last name was Barrett, used to go to England to visit family. I was jealous of him. It was then I vowed to travel far and wide.

On my first morning in Ghana, I saw palm trees. They were exotic and proof I was somewhere I had only imagined. I had jumped into my geography book. I had jumped into Africa.

My longest trip was through South America. I was gone all summer. I landed in Caracas and seven weeks later I left from Rio for home. I didn’t know anyone who had gone there. I just decided that’s where I would go. Maybe Juan Valdez had a piece of that. I planned the trip and traveled with a friend. We saw amazing things. We took a bus from Caracas and traveled all day with a stop for lunch in the mountains. I had mountain trout. We arrived at night to Mérida, Venezuela, one of the main cities of the Venezuelan Andes. The mountains would stay with us most of the trip.

I remember in Bogota we went to the Gold Museum. We were in a vault. The door was closed. The lights were out. When they turned on the lights, we were surrounded by glass cases filled with gold. I think every person Oohed at the same time.

One of my favorite memories is of when we were traveling in Ecuador on what was basically a school bus painted green. We were the only foreigners on it. No one spoke English. We were stopped before the border. The guards wanted our passports. We were in the back of the bus. The other passengers took our passports and hand over hand passed them to the front of the bus and back again. No one spoke to us. They pointed.

We traveled before South America became a destination. During that whole trip we met only one other American. Even at Machu Picchu there were no crowds. We took a three day boat trip down the Paraná River from Asuncion Paraguay to Buenos Aires. We booked the day the boat left. There was plenty of room. For the other passengers it was a round trip. Only one other person on the boat spoke English, and they courteously put us at her table for meals.

I have memories of that trip as big as the mountains and as small as cuy, the Ecuadorian Guinea pig.